Video Transcript: Sin and Its Consequences

A second major thematic focus of the Old Testament concerns rebellion against  the divine order. The rebellion that is against God's sovereignty and the worship  do him by the assertion of human independence. First up in this discussion is  the nature of sin and its consequences. Scriptures first mention of the word sin  is in Genesis 4:7 and God's warning to Cain. When he tells him if you do not do  what is right, sin is crouching at your door. It desires to have you but you must  rule over it. God had previously rejected Cain's offering to him while he accepted the offering of his brother Abel. The problem the Bible implies is that while Cain  knew what God required, he decided to try to get by with less than his best,  whereas Abel brought God the best offering he could muster. God told Cain that  if he did what he knew to be right, his offering would be accepted, as well. And  then God went on to portray sin as a sort of crouching monster that threatened  to destroy Cain if he did not deal with it appropriately. Cain's sin involves the  decision to disregard or disobey what God had commanded regarding offerings  made to him. And this concept of sin is reinforced in the rest of Scripture. Sin  always disregards or disobeys what God wants. This tendency became the  major plague of the human race already before Cain starting with the  disobedience of his parents in the Garden of Eden. Right from the beginning,  God made clear that Adam and Eve could live and flourish in the world, he had  been so generous as to give them vast authority over only as they lived in  continuing dependence on their Creator. God's prohibition against eating of the  Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil reinforces truth. Adam and Eve could  enjoy life and freedom only within the boundaries that God had established. That is, they were not designed to be autonomous, but to be dependent, and image  bearing servants of the one and only God. Their mandate and authority  regarding the development and oversight of all created things demanded close  attention to God's interests. Adam and Eve's subsequent disobedience of God's  command was therefore a denial of their God given role in the world, in a play  for independence from God. And their disobedience became the model for  Cain's decision to give God less than he demanded, and for that matter, a model for every other sin of the human race. For every sin is an expression of the all  too familiar human impulse not to submit to what God wants, but to have our  own way, and strive to become what the serpent told Adam and Eve they could  become, like God. Sin can be expressed in many different ways, each part of  God's creation can become an object of inordinate and even addictive desire,  the material gifts of God we love to possess, as well as the talents, abilities and  opportunities, he gets all of these we can misuse to increase our own fame or  power in preference to giving God the honor he deserves. Indeed, it seems that  by nature, people have more of an appetite for the gifts of God than we do for  the God who gives them to help us serve Him. And we can be very creative in  finding ways to transgress the guidelines and boundaries God has established,  we are fully as adept at rationalizing our sinful desires and actions as children 

are in making excuses for their disobedience. We may focus on the letter of the  law rather than the spirit of it, or simply seek to justify our sin by comparing our  own actions to those of others who've done worse, in our opinion, at least one  way or another in the face of scriptures consistent warnings about the dangers  and consequences associated with sin. The prevailing human tendency is to  minimize or normalize sin. We can see this in the ignorance or outright rejection  of God's instructions about how he wants people to relate to him and to each  other. The best known of God's instructions about this are his 10  commandments. I say best known but knowledge of them eludes more and  more people in the wake of the continuing decrease in biblical literacy. Jesus  summarized these commandments as love The Lord your God with all your  heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. obeying these is the key to any true and lasting success in life. People know something of this  truth even apart from the 10 commandments or Jesus summary of what God  wants, by what we call conscience. We know before we get too used to ignoring  conscience, at least something of the difference between right and wrong. But  some individuals in some cultures habitually suppress their consciences and go  their own way. That's what Paul is speaking of in Romans 1:18-20. When he  says, The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all godlessness  and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since  what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain  to them. For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, he's talking here about his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being  understood from what has been made so that people are without excuse. Today, for example, in the homosexual community, and for that matter, also, in the  minds of more and more heterosexual is a mantra that since homosexuals  cannot choose their orientation, they are not under the obligation to shun  homosexual behavior. But of course, this way of thinking can extend to any sin.  There's no one who has never experienced the sinful impulses to pride, lust,  envy, greed, and so on. That's our common orientation. But that does not mean  we are free to act on these impulses. Jesus himself was tempted to sin, but  successfully resisted each time. The sin is not in the temptation, but in the self  indulgent and disobedient thought or action in response to that temptation. For  example, there was no sin attributed to Adam and Eve before they actually ate  the fruit of the forbidden tree. By blurring the distinction between temptation and  response to it, sinful actions become normalized and trivialized and consciences become dulled. This dulling of conscience happens in other ways, too, for  example, by action, or even by simple neglect. We may become so accustomed  to oppressing the poor, or stealing from the company that we don't even realize  what we're doing anymore. Or we excuse it, why shouldn't I spend all my money on myself and ignore the poor? Or the church, etc? Everyone else does? Why  shouldn't I take some my company stuff home for myself? Everybody else does. 

On the subject of our particular sin, we may even tell ourselves, it's just a little  problem. I can change anytime. We may repeat that so often, we come to  believe that sin is not that big a deal. In the Garden of Eden, Satan made it  sound as if eating from the forbidden tree was not that big a deal after all, and  that God was making a big fuss over something of no consequence. In fact, that  remains one of Satan's favorite techniques in his war against humanity. In effect, he says God is making a big deal about nothing. Indeed, this is so often the  rationale we use when we proceed to do the things we know God disapproves  of, we say or at least think, what's the big fuss all about? The rules are just silly.  Maybe we wouldn't actually say that to God, we're far too dutiful and polite. But  that's really what we may think. Yes, we may still struggle to obey, we may still  wish we were more more obedient and disciplined. We'd like to please. But sin  feels to us like violating some silly rules in the classroom of life. What's more,  keeping the rules feels dull and boring. While sin is fun and exciting. Maybe  even like a carnival is freedom and it's self expression, no curfew, nobody  looking over your shoulder to judge you. This idea of sin is captured in the  expression. What happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas. Or better yet in the  spirit of Mardi Gras, the festival for which New Orleans is famous. Marty is  French for Tuesday and draws French for fat. So Mardi Gras is Fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. Lent is historically a time of  preparation for Easter and traditionally a time of fasting and sell sacrifice  considered to be proper for encouraging our thoughts about the suffering Jesus  underwent and his crucifixion and the events leading up to it. So I guess I can  understand the rationale that some people use. Get your partying done before  Lent begins. But this last day before Lent, Mardi Gras, is often marked by  excessive eating and drinking and wild partying behind such behavior is a  pernicious idea that sin is the delightful stuff of life that we have to cut back on  for a while. And righteousness is all seriousness and quietness and self denial.  Yet another view of sin is that it's a myth, something that people used to believe  in, but don't anymore. It's one of those things that parents sometimes use to try  to keep their children in line. If you're not good. Santa Claus won't bring you  what you want for Christmas. One of those things that used to work but doesn't  anymore now that we're grown. So here are three false views of sin to choose  from. Sin is breaking the rules, no matter how arbitrary or silly they are, or were  sin is a fun things in life that God and self righteous people don't want us to  enjoy. Or sin is like the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus mythical beliefs that people ought to outgrow. We could probably think of other views of sin too, but I'll  mention just one more. It's perhaps the most popular one in our culture. If you  do an internet search for something like the most important rules of life, you'll  find that most pundants forget about loving God above all, and while promoting  some variation of loving your neighbor as yourself. Focus more on the loving  yourself part of that. One post I read lists as two of the five most important rules.

define for yourself what success means, and play by your own rules. And this  idea of sin is letting someone else define for you what's important. It's failing to  honor your own desires. Well, that's essentially what the serpent in the Garden  of Eden got Adam and Eve to believe. But of course, the truth is that sin is  whatever separates us from God, who is the source of life and enduring  happiness. A God created us to experience a lot of freedom. He doesn't like  meaningless restrictions anymore than parents get a kick out of telling their  children no all the time. But look what happens when people fail to see their  bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit. Look what happens when we pursue the  complete freedom to indulge in any and all appetites. In individuals you see  meaningless lives, broken marriages, shallow relationships, wasted bodies and  spirits that alternate between rage and depression. In science in society, you  see violence, distrust, and racism that destroys communities. Everyone  assumes corruption in politics, our streets are not safe after dark anymore. The  new morality kills families and violates children. And historically, you see  civilizations that die from internal rot. Many problems in our world could illustrate the downward spiral of sin. One is heroin addiction, a problem that the TV  program 48 hours took on some time ago. This particular broadcast began with  a police surveillance video showing a contact between two people on an inner  city street and one of them stuffing something into his jeans as he walked away.  Next, the police moved in and forced the man to hang on hand over his little bag of heroin. He begged them, let me go. And I promise you'll never see me around here again. I'm starting treatment tomorrow morning. I've got to get clean. This  stuff is killing me. Please let me go. As it turned out, that guy did go into a heroin addiction treatment program. And although we don't know the long term results,  he was still clean. A couple of weeks later. This guy was trying to get his  girlfriend off the stuff too. He had. She had spoken about heroin in much the  same way he did. She started on it because she'd seen other people using it.  And she thought she was missing out on something. And first she found it a  good high but it wasn't long before she was hooked. Soon it didn't get her high  anymore, but she needed it just to survive. I thought how relevant for  understanding sin. Drug addiction is not only one of many Results have sin, it  also gives some insight into the nature of sin. The high producing substance  always looks so attractive at first anyhow, it promises in the easy way out of  difficulty, forgetfulness, or a thrill with no bad side effects. Sin has the face of an  angel. It did to Adam and Eve in paradise. They were offered a chance to  expand their freedom and knowledge without cost, and that seemed an  unreasonable self denial to avoid or reject the offer. But the thing that struck me  about this guy's story was the way he spoke of his addiction as a person rather  than the thing. He called it the devil. He says, Harrow, he said heroin gets you  and controls you and won't let you go. It drags you down and sucks you dry and  leaves you empty. It's the devil. Like heroin, sin is not a big deal just because 

some killjoy said it was but because it undermines the character and saps the  strength and violates the very nature and purpose of humankind. It's the devil.  And sin must be dealt with before we can hope to recapture the glory of the  Creator's intention for us. This is not something we can do by ourselves, but  only with God's help. Thankfully, God usually permits us to experience less  severe consequences of sin so that we might be persuaded to abandon it before it kills us. It just one of many biblical examples of this is found in I Kings 16-21,  which describe the interactions between the Lord's prophet Elijah and Israel's  King Ahab. Ahab certainly had access to the truth, expressed among other  places in the book of Deuteronomy, which deals extensively with the blessings  that follow obedience and the curses that followed disobedience to God's  commands. The blessings for obedience, in Deuteronomy include health and  well being for children, livestock and crops, as well as prosperity, success in life  and protection from enemies. The curses were just the opposite. They spell  disaster for children, livestock and crops and resulted in exposure to enemies  poverty, failure, disease, slavery, sorrow, pain, scorn, and so on. The curses that would result from disobedience to God's covenant commands promised to leave people terrorized in dispair. Israel under Ahab's leadership had forgotten or  ignored this message of Deuteronomy. Contrary to what God wanted, Ahab  wanted to have as many gods and whatever gods he chose. And so God sent  His faithful prophet Elijah whose very name means my god is Yahweh. to  dispute with Ahab over the direction in which he was leading the country, and to  press his claim in a way that would force Ahab and all Israel to listen by the  authority of the Lord God, Elijah told Ahab that the whole land would suffer  drought. He said, there will be no rain until I say, so. I'm going to make it so dry  that you won't have any choice but to listen to me. In this, the Lord God struck  right at the heart of Israel's false worship by cutting off the possibility of life and  growth that their idol gods were supposed to produce. Without Rain, there could  be no growth, no vegetation. A God determined to show Israel how fruitless and  not fruitful was a worship of their false gods. Scripture doesn't say very much  directly about the next few years without rain, except to say that the famine was  severe. And so the nation staggered under the Lord's judgment brought upon his covenant people for their covenant breaking actions. And then finally, after three  long years, God sent Elijah to summon Ahab and his false prophets, to a show  down on Mount Carmel, there with Israel's leaders as an audience, the false  prophets, and Elijah took turns, preparing sacrifices and then praying to their  respective gods and God, for a miraculous fire from heaven to light the sacrifice. Of course only Elijah's prayer was successful, because only his God was real.  And after the people's repentance, Elijah offered more prayers for the Lord to  remove the curses and restore the blessing. God did just that and sent rain  again to make the crops grow. God's curses for sinful disobeyed Instant  blessings for obedience are not always as graphic as drought or rain, nor do 

they always require what appears to be supernatural intervention. Many  blessings and curses that people experience are simply natural consequences  of obedience and disobedience. Of course not every hardship is evidence of  God's judgment, nor is every blessing an evidence of godly living, but in  subsequent generations, if not in our own lives, there is no escaping the bitter  consequences of sin. Sin always leads to various forms of dysfunction and pain, which could in part be avoided if we live life as God intends. But even the  dysfunction and pain can be beneficial if it leads us to repentance, and living the life to which God calls us. Our invitation to such a life remains open as long as  we live. But since no one knows how long that will be, we are wise to respond to God's call as soon as possible and certainly before death failing which our  separation from God becomes final and irrevocable. That's the end for which  Satan has been working since his original encounter with our first parents in  paradise.