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The Seriousness of Sin - Part 1 - The Stakes of Sin
Episode 222 – Seriousness of Sin – Part 1 – The Stakes of Sin
Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God.
Script:
The wages of sin is death …
Romans, Chapter 6, verse 23, New King James Version
********
VK: Hello! I’m Victoria K. Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. We’re very happy to be with you again. And we pray that you are having a year filled with joy and blessings, especially the joy of having a closer fellowship with our Lord Christ Jesus. Today on Anchored by Truth we’re going to start another new series. We are calling this series “The Seriousness of Sin.” And this is going to be one of the most important series that we have ever done because, frankly, the one of the biggest challenges being brought against the Christian faith today is the attempt to eradicate sin. In recent decades unbelievers and even some purported believers have begun trying to pretend that there is no such thing as sin. Now, of course, anyone who spends just a moment will quickly realize how silly it is to pretend that sin doesn’t exist but that has not stopped people from trying. So, we are going to spend several episodes of Anchored by Truth reaffirming that not only does the Bible firmly teach about the reality of sin, but also that our ordinary life experiences ratify that sin is a continuing plague and problem. Today in the studio as we begin this series we have RD Fierro who is an author and the founder of Crystal Sea Books. RD, why do you think we need to spend so much time talking about sin?
RD: Well, as you just mentioned there are many people today who vehemently disagree that sin even exists. And I think that is true for several reasons. First, our broader culture wants to do away with the idea of sin because the concept of sin always entails, and affirms, the existence of God. Without God sin is a meaningless concept. Sin is rebellion against God. If God didn’t exist then there would be no One to rebel against. Do away with God and you do away with the idea of sin.
VK: And people have been trying to do away with the knowledge that God exists ever since Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden. Three thousand years ago King David wrote in Psalm 14, verse 1 that, “The [spiritually ignorant] fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.” That’s from the Amplified Bible. For thousands of years people have been trying to do away with God. It just doesn’t work. And it will never work because the Christian faith is true. The Christian faith is the only way to frame a consistently coherent world view. As Jesus promised in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 16, verse 18, the Christian faith will survive all the challenges brought against it. And it will survive those of today. Why? Because not only is the Christian faith true but also because God will always help His people as they carry that truth in an unbelieving world.
RD: Right. So, people today, as they have been doing for thousands of years would like to do away with the idea of sin because the existence of sin points directly to the existence of God. But ever further, the idea of sin points to the existence of standards by which we will all be measured and commands which we are all expected to obey. And it goes without saying that modern man, especially in the west, finds the idea of obligatory standards and commands one of the most objectionable ideas possible.
VK: And in that sense we have never really moved past what happened in the Garden of Eden that resulted in Adam and Eve’s expulsion. In the garden Satan tempted Eve to think that if she ignored God’s command not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil that she would become like God. Genesis, chapter 3, verses 4 through 6 report that Satan told Eve, “You won’t die! … God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God …” and “the woman was convinced.” Being like God meant that Eve would no longer be subject to God’s demands. She found the idea appealing enough that she ate from the forbidden tree and people have been following suit ever since.
RD: Sadly, yes. People object to the idea of sin because sin points not only to the existence of God but also to the existence of God’s commands and standards. And a third concept that is inextricable woven into the concept of sin is that of failure – and not just failure but willful failure, willful disobedience. And people today in our participation-trophy, no-assigned-grades culture hate the idea that there might be Somebody somewhere who has decided that they have failed. So, those three elements, at a minimum, all make the notion of sin a very unpopular notion. A large portion of the 21st century population does not want to acknowledge that God exists, that God has standards and commands that He has imposed on the creature He created, and that He might one day determined that they have failed to comply with those standards and commands. When you think about it, it’s pretty easy to see why sin has declined in popularity.
VK: People today, even many Christians, like to view God as a sort of kindly grandfather. As you put in your book on prayer, Purposeful Prayers, “It is popular today to view God as sort of a kindly grandfather watching the activities of His children, applauding them when they do good, shaking His head ruefully when they mess up, always ready with a chocolate chip cookie and a hug to let them know He loves them. As appealing as this image is, it is not a faithful depiction of the God of the Bible.”
RD: The God of the Bible is a perfectly sovereign, holy, and just God. And He has set standards and given commands to the creature He created in His image. And that’s what this series is going to be all about. We are going to speak frankly about what happens when we fail to obey those commands or meet those standards. In other words we are going to talk about the seriousness of sin. And sin is serious. The commission of the first sin by man resulted in man losing Paradise. That first sin of man was followed by a succession of sins – lying, evasion, and cowardice - and that was followed by the first recorded death in the Bible. An animal had to be killed to provide a durable covering for Adam and Eve. And then, not long afterward, another succession of sins resulted in the first recorded murder in the Bible when Cain killed his brother Abel without any provocation. The first sin led to a tragic sequence of events that escalated in the dreadfulness of the consequences. Eventually, sin would proliferate so much it would result in the destruction of all life on the earth except for the people and animals God preserved in the ark of Noah.
VK: And that’s what we want to focus on today – what you are calling the “stakes of sin.” Now, when you say “stake” that’s S-T-A-K-E not S-T-E-A-K. We’re talking about the kind of stake that is at risk in a business or investment decision or the kind of decisions doctors have to make when confronted with severe diseases or injuries. We’re not concerned with a dinner option. We’re concerned with what the hazard that arises for lives and futures when people engage in sinful behavior – not with what happens to their waistline. Right?
RD: Right. As I was just mentioning there was a lot at stake – in fact an immeasurable amount – when Eve started staring longingly at the fruit on the tree. Before Eve’s hand reached for the fruit she and Adam lived in paradise. Not only was their every need met but all of their wants were satisfied. They had unblemished health, all the food they wanted, meaningful work, and unbroken communion with God. After Eve put the fruit in her mouth and gave some to Adam, who also ate, all of that was gone. The stakes that were at risk in that seemingly simple transaction were enormous. Not only did they lose paradise they condemned themselves to experience physical death. It didn’t happen right away, of course, but it became a certainty. And they brought that reality to their descendants since the father and mother of all who would be born according to the flesh.
VK: And the Bible tells that Adam and Eve’s decision to sin didn’t just affect people. Their sin didn’t just affect them and their descendants – it affected the entirety of the created order. When God pronounced a curse on them because of their rebellion, part of the curse was that nature itself would turn against them. In Genesis, chapter 3, verse 17 God said to Adam, “Since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat, the ground is cursed because of you. All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it.” And in the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Roman church Paul noted that “Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” That’s Romans, chapter 8, verses 20 through 22. Both of those quotes are from the New Living Translation.
RD: And that’s one of the big things that we want to get into during this series on the seriousness of sin. Sin doesn’t just affect the individual sinner who commits a specific act, a specific sin. The effects of sin ripple outward like ripples in a pond when a rock falls in it. We often say to ourselves about some sin or another “who’s it going to hurt?” What we are saying is that we want to believe that our sin will only affect us. But that is rarely, if ever, true. Sin doesn’t just hurt the sinner. It hurts people far beyond the sinner. Often it hurts people the sinner never even knew. And, sadly, all too often the effects of the sin are irreversible on this side of glory.
VK: Someone who drives drunk doesn’t just put their own life at risk. They risk the lives of everyone on the road in their vicinity. The person who takes illegal narcotics doesn’t just affect their health. When they destroy their health they affect everyone who loves them – often costing others enormous amounts of time, money, and even their loved one’s health. An unfaithful spouse doesn’t just affect their wife or husband. Infidelity affects children and even parents and grandparents. The effects of a single sin can change the course of not just one person’s life but that of dozens or even hundreds of others. Sin is indeed serious business.
RD: Exactly. And we rarely think about that. We are so surrounded by sin that we rarely stop to consider the larger implications of sin. And the stakes of sin are enormous because they can affect not only lives in this world but eternal destinies. As in the garden when people begin to sin they are turning away from God. They are separating themselves from God and from the life, love, and freedom that only God can provide. And too often the choices that they make will affect many other people. When a parent turns away from Jesus and His Father they make a decision that will certainly have an impact on their children – and that impact will be felt regardless of whether the child is still living at home or not. How horrible will it be for someone in hell to learn that their refusal to accept Christ also resulted in others rejecting Jesus. And that is the point that I really want to make today. Sin is serious in the effects that in can have in this world. But sin’s consequences aren’t limited to this world or the life we live here. Sin ultimately is what will affect everyone’s eternal destiny. We need to recognize that. There is a God and the Bible makes it clear that we all know that there is a God. As hard as we may try to hide from that knowledge it never leaves us.
VK: That’s Romans, chapter 1, verses 18 through 20. “But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.” That’s also from the New Living Translation.
RD: Yes. We all know that there is a God. But, as that verse from Romans says, our sin and wickedness induce us to try to suppress that knowledge. The Greek word that is often translated as suppress is the same word that would be used to try and compress a strong spring. Suppressing the knowledge of God takes effort. Doing that – suppressing the knowledge of God – is sinful itself. So, one thing we must all reckon with is that there is a God but along with that recognition comes the awareness is that we have all failed that God in some way.
VK: Romans, chapter 3, verse 10 puts it this way: “As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one.’” That verse from Romans may be quoting Psalm 14, verse 1 which expresses a very similar sentiment.
RD: Right. So, we call our failures to meet God’s standards or comply with the obligations that God had established “sin.” In RC Sproul’s famous words, “Sin is cosmic rebellion.” Well, like all rebellion sin causes separation. In this case sin separates us from God. And there are consequences to that separation. Sin is a sort of cosmic bet between the sinner and the lawgiver. But sin is always a losing bet. The sinner always loses because in this case the Lawgiver is omnipotent and omniscient. The Lawgiver is infinite. So whether they thought about it or not there were some very high stakes in play when Adam and Eve listened to Satan and decided they wanted to be like God. So, one of the stakes that was in play was life itself. The first sin the garden produced a physical separation of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. And, ultimately, that first sin resulted in the separation of Adam and Even’s spirits and souls from their physical bodies.
VK: Philosophers sometimes note that there is a difference between distinguishing between two things and separating those things. Man possesses both material and immaterial attributes. We refer to the material aspect of people as our bodies and we refer to our immaterial aspect as a soul or spirit. Some Christians believe there is a difference between the soul and spirit whereas other Christians see those terms as being synonymous. We can distinguish between man’s immaterial and material aspects and we don’t affect the person. We can distinguish between a person’s soul and spirit and their body and we haven’t done that person any harm. But if we were to separate that person’s soul and spirit from their body we would call that “death.”
RD: Right. So, in a way known only to God that first sin made it certain that there would come a time when the immaterial part of Adam and Eve’s bodies would be separated from the material portion of their bodies. Adam and Eve weren’t the first people to experience physical death. That was likely Abel. But eventually they did as all of their descendants have experienced physical death.
VK: Well, except for Elijah and Enoch. The Bible tells us that God took Elijah to heaven in a chariot of fire and the Bible tells us that “When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked faithfully with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Enoch lived a total of 365 years. Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.”
RD: Duly noted – but there are some commentators who believe that 2 witnesses mentioned in chapter 11 of the book of Revelation will be Elijah and Enoch and that they will experience physical death then. But aside from Elijah and Enoch all other people have experienced a physical death including Jesus. But the larger stake, the higher stake is whether or not our physical death will be followed by what is sometimes referred to as the “2nd death.” The Second Death is not death in the sense of a departure from one phase of life to another. It is rather being consigned to hell for all eternity – eternally separated from God’s goodness and benevolence.
VK: So, for people the stakes – the stakes of sin - really don’t get any higher than that. Strictly speaking nothing can separate us from God’s presence. God is omnipresent. He is present at all times and all places including hell. But hell is where God’s wrath is eternally present not His goodness, His kindness. Sin separates us from God’s favor and blessing and that is the danger that we must all consider. That’s the bad news. The good news – and it is really good news – that’s what the word “gospel” means: the good news – the good news is that our sin does not have to result in our eternal separation from God’s goodness and mercy. Jesus has paid the debt for our sin. So, when we place our trust in Him we change our eternal destination from hell to heaven.
RD: Praise the Lord. The New Testament writers note this blessed opportunity continually. They all recognize that sin has separated us from God’s love and good but in their next breath they praise God that Jesus died an atoning death on the cross to make our redemption and salvation possible.
VK: The Apostle Paul put it this way in Romans, chapter 5, verse 20, “God’s law was given so that all people could see how sinful they were. But as people sinned more and more, God’s wonderful grace became more abundant.” That’s from the New Living Translation. Paul well understood the stakes of sin – that sin left unresolved would result in the worst outcome possible. But Paul never ended his message with the recognition of sin. Paul saw that grace made sin serve a useful purpose. Sin separated from God’s goodness but grace – the unmerited favor of God – made restoration available.
RD: So, all of this points out why we need to soberly and honestly discuss the seriousness of sin. Sin is an unpopular idea in our day and age. Sin forces us to recognize that there is a God who has established standards and obligations for us and that we have failed in our obligations and violated God’s standards. And the consequence of that failure even in this world may very well not be limited to our own lives – to the life of the sinner. Sin’s effects ripple and sometimes those ripples will echo down through the years and down through a great many lives.
VK: The answer to the question “who is this going to hurt” may be dozens, hundreds, or thousands.
RD: It’s the exception rather than the rule that the only person hurt by sin is the sinner. And all too often the ones who suffer are the ones the sinner professes to love most. Sin’s effects ripple and as we have been discussing those ripples are necessarily confined to this life or this world. The highest stakes at risk as a result of sin are the eternal stakes. And that is why, despite the fact that talking about sin isn’t very popular these days, we must talk about it.
VK: But like the Apostle Paul and the other New Testament writers we should always connect our discussions of sin with the availability of grace. Adam and Eve started a sad and tragic sequence in the Garden of Eden but as soon as they sinned God began His plan of redemption. I love how you put it in our epic poem The Genesis Saga.
Yet with love God still thought of man.
God determined to thwart evil’s scheme.
God’s grace now rose to fore,
God’s mercy now entered the scene.
In due time God’s only son
Would crush Satan’s schemes and dreams.
God’s son would die for the lost,
A beloved people to cleanse and redeem.
In Eden Satan tempted man
But in the wilderness he met defeat.
A Savior sent from heaven above
Brought salvation full and complete
RD: That’s the big reason we do projects like The Genesis Saga which we hope to release shortly. Sin is serious. Sin’s consequences are catastrophic. They are terrible in this world and they can be eternal. But they don’t have to be. God has made salvation available to anyone who will simply acknowledge their sin.
VK: You’re alluding to 1 (First) John, chapter 1, verses 8 & 9 where the Apostle John wrote: “If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.” That’s so counterintuitive to the way the world thinks and wants to work. The world and the people of the world want to hide their sin and to pretend that it doesn’t exist. But God tells us that when we confess our sins to Him He will forgive us. We rightfully hate the fact that we sin but it is a further sin to resist the provision that God has made to save us from ourselves.
RD: Yes. People today will mock the idea that sin exists at all. Unwittingly, when they do that, they only reinforce the certainty of their eternal destruction – just as Adam and Eve’s first sin made it certain that they would experience physical death. But if we will simply abandon our belief in our own goodness and acknowledge that we are sinners and do sin then God will – God has – made provision to save us from our sins. The stakes of sin are high, enormous, and potentially eternal. But our omnipotent God is bigger than our sin. As the old hymn says, “grace that is greater than all our sin.”
VK: So, the big idea that we wanted to introduce today is that sin is seriousness. But the best way to deal with its seriousness is by looking to the provisions that God has made to change the consequence of our sin from eternal damnation to eternal blessing. The stakes of sin have been addressed by Jesus. The question for us is whether we will accept the provisions that He made for us or stubbornly continue to insist that sin is just an outdated concept with no relevance to our modern world. This sounds like a great time to pray. Since we have just been talking about the fact that God will forgive us when we confess our sins, today let’s listen to a prayer of corporate confession. John has assured us that when we confess our sins God is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins. That fact alone should make us ready and willing to acknowledge our sins to our Holy God.
---- PRAYER OF CORPORATE CONFESSION (MARCUS)
VK: We’d like to remind our audience that a lot of our radio episodes are linked together in series of topics so if they missed any episodes or if they just want to hear one again, all of these episodes are available on your favorite podcast app. To find them just search on “Anchored by Truth by Crystal Sea Books.”
If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not perfect but our Boss is!”
(Opening Bible Quote from the New King James Version)
Romans, Chapter 6, verse 23, New King James Version
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By R.D.Fierro
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Episode 222 – Seriousness of Sin – Part 1 – The Stakes of Sin
Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God.
Script:
The wages of sin is death …
Romans, Chapter 6, verse 23, New King James Version
********
VK: Hello! I’m Victoria K. Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. We’re very happy to be with you again. And we pray that you are having a year filled with joy and blessings, especially the joy of having a closer fellowship with our Lord Christ Jesus. Today on Anchored by Truth we’re going to start another new series. We are calling this series “The Seriousness of Sin.” And this is going to be one of the most important series that we have ever done because, frankly, the one of the biggest challenges being brought against the Christian faith today is the attempt to eradicate sin. In recent decades unbelievers and even some purported believers have begun trying to pretend that there is no such thing as sin. Now, of course, anyone who spends just a moment will quickly realize how silly it is to pretend that sin doesn’t exist but that has not stopped people from trying. So, we are going to spend several episodes of Anchored by Truth reaffirming that not only does the Bible firmly teach about the reality of sin, but also that our ordinary life experiences ratify that sin is a continuing plague and problem. Today in the studio as we begin this series we have RD Fierro who is an author and the founder of Crystal Sea Books. RD, why do you think we need to spend so much time talking about sin?
RD: Well, as you just mentioned there are many people today who vehemently disagree that sin even exists. And I think that is true for several reasons. First, our broader culture wants to do away with the idea of sin because the concept of sin always entails, and affirms, the existence of God. Without God sin is a meaningless concept. Sin is rebellion against God. If God didn’t exist then there would be no One to rebel against. Do away with God and you do away with the idea of sin.
VK: And people have been trying to do away with the knowledge that God exists ever since Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden. Three thousand years ago King David wrote in Psalm 14, verse 1 that, “The [spiritually ignorant] fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.” That’s from the Amplified Bible. For thousands of years people have been trying to do away with God. It just doesn’t work. And it will never work because the Christian faith is true. The Christian faith is the only way to frame a consistently coherent world view. As Jesus promised in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 16, verse 18, the Christian faith will survive all the challenges brought against it. And it will survive those of today. Why? Because not only is the Christian faith true but also because God will always help His people as they carry that truth in an unbelieving world.
RD: Right. So, people today, as they have been doing for thousands of years would like to do away with the idea of sin because the existence of sin points directly to the existence of God. But ever further, the idea of sin points to the existence of standards by which we will all be measured and commands which we are all expected to obey. And it goes without saying that modern man, especially in the west, finds the idea of obligatory standards and commands one of the most objectionable ideas possible.
VK: And in that sense we have never really moved past what happened in the Garden of Eden that resulted in Adam and Eve’s expulsion. In the garden Satan tempted Eve to think that if she ignored God’s command not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil that she would become like God. Genesis, chapter 3, verses 4 through 6 report that Satan told Eve, “You won’t die! … God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God …” and “the woman was convinced.” Being like God meant that Eve would no longer be subject to God’s demands. She found the idea appealing enough that she ate from the forbidden tree and people have been following suit ever since.
RD: Sadly, yes. People object to the idea of sin because sin points not only to the existence of God but also to the existence of God’s commands and standards. And a third concept that is inextricable woven into the concept of sin is that of failure – and not just failure but willful failure, willful disobedience. And people today in our participation-trophy, no-assigned-grades culture hate the idea that there might be Somebody somewhere who has decided that they have failed. So, those three elements, at a minimum, all make the notion of sin a very unpopular notion. A large portion of the 21st century population does not want to acknowledge that God exists, that God has standards and commands that He has imposed on the creature He created, and that He might one day determined that they have failed to comply with those standards and commands. When you think about it, it’s pretty easy to see why sin has declined in popularity.
VK: People today, even many Christians, like to view God as a sort of kindly grandfather. As you put in your book on prayer, Purposeful Prayers, “It is popular today to view God as sort of a kindly grandfather watching the activities of His children, applauding them when they do good, shaking His head ruefully when they mess up, always ready with a chocolate chip cookie and a hug to let them know He loves them. As appealing as this image is, it is not a faithful depiction of the God of the Bible.”
RD: The God of the Bible is a perfectly sovereign, holy, and just God. And He has set standards and given commands to the creature He created in His image. And that’s what this series is going to be all about. We are going to speak frankly about what happens when we fail to obey those commands or meet those standards. In other words we are going to talk about the seriousness of sin. And sin is serious. The commission of the first sin by man resulted in man losing Paradise. That first sin of man was followed by a succession of sins – lying, evasion, and cowardice - and that was followed by the first recorded death in the Bible. An animal had to be killed to provide a durable covering for Adam and Eve. And then, not long afterward, another succession of sins resulted in the first recorded murder in the Bible when Cain killed his brother Abel without any provocation. The first sin led to a tragic sequence of events that escalated in the dreadfulness of the consequences. Eventually, sin would proliferate so much it would result in the destruction of all life on the earth except for the people and animals God preserved in the ark of Noah.
VK: And that’s what we want to focus on today – what you are calling the “stakes of sin.” Now, when you say “stake” that’s S-T-A-K-E not S-T-E-A-K. We’re talking about the kind of stake that is at risk in a business or investment decision or the kind of decisions doctors have to make when confronted with severe diseases or injuries. We’re not concerned with a dinner option. We’re concerned with what the hazard that arises for lives and futures when people engage in sinful behavior – not with what happens to their waistline. Right?
RD: Right. As I was just mentioning there was a lot at stake – in fact an immeasurable amount – when Eve started staring longingly at the fruit on the tree. Before Eve’s hand reached for the fruit she and Adam lived in paradise. Not only was their every need met but all of their wants were satisfied. They had unblemished health, all the food they wanted, meaningful work, and unbroken communion with God. After Eve put the fruit in her mouth and gave some to Adam, who also ate, all of that was gone. The stakes that were at risk in that seemingly simple transaction were enormous. Not only did they lose paradise they condemned themselves to experience physical death. It didn’t happen right away, of course, but it became a certainty. And they brought that reality to their descendants since the father and mother of all who would be born according to the flesh.
VK: And the Bible tells that Adam and Eve’s decision to sin didn’t just affect people. Their sin didn’t just affect them and their descendants – it affected the entirety of the created order. When God pronounced a curse on them because of their rebellion, part of the curse was that nature itself would turn against them. In Genesis, chapter 3, verse 17 God said to Adam, “Since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat, the ground is cursed because of you. All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it.” And in the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Roman church Paul noted that “Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” That’s Romans, chapter 8, verses 20 through 22. Both of those quotes are from the New Living Translation.
RD: And that’s one of the big things that we want to get into during this series on the seriousness of sin. Sin doesn’t just affect the individual sinner who commits a specific act, a specific sin. The effects of sin ripple outward like ripples in a pond when a rock falls in it. We often say to ourselves about some sin or another “who’s it going to hurt?” What we are saying is that we want to believe that our sin will only affect us. But that is rarely, if ever, true. Sin doesn’t just hurt the sinner. It hurts people far beyond the sinner. Often it hurts people the sinner never even knew. And, sadly, all too often the effects of the sin are irreversible on this side of glory.
VK: Someone who drives drunk doesn’t just put their own life at risk. They risk the lives of everyone on the road in their vicinity. The person who takes illegal narcotics doesn’t just affect their health. When they destroy their health they affect everyone who loves them – often costing others enormous amounts of time, money, and even their loved one’s health. An unfaithful spouse doesn’t just affect their wife or husband. Infidelity affects children and even parents and grandparents. The effects of a single sin can change the course of not just one person’s life but that of dozens or even hundreds of others. Sin is indeed serious business.
RD: Exactly. And we rarely think about that. We are so surrounded by sin that we rarely stop to consider the larger implications of sin. And the stakes of sin are enormous because they can affect not only lives in this world but eternal destinies. As in the garden when people begin to sin they are turning away from God. They are separating themselves from God and from the life, love, and freedom that only God can provide. And too often the choices that they make will affect many other people. When a parent turns away from Jesus and His Father they make a decision that will certainly have an impact on their children – and that impact will be felt regardless of whether the child is still living at home or not. How horrible will it be for someone in hell to learn that their refusal to accept Christ also resulted in others rejecting Jesus. And that is the point that I really want to make today. Sin is serious in the effects that in can have in this world. But sin’s consequences aren’t limited to this world or the life we live here. Sin ultimately is what will affect everyone’s eternal destiny. We need to recognize that. There is a God and the Bible makes it clear that we all know that there is a God. As hard as we may try to hide from that knowledge it never leaves us.
VK: That’s Romans, chapter 1, verses 18 through 20. “But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.” That’s also from the New Living Translation.
RD: Yes. We all know that there is a God. But, as that verse from Romans says, our sin and wickedness induce us to try to suppress that knowledge. The Greek word that is often translated as suppress is the same word that would be used to try and compress a strong spring. Suppressing the knowledge of God takes effort. Doing that – suppressing the knowledge of God – is sinful itself. So, one thing we must all reckon with is that there is a God but along with that recognition comes the awareness is that we have all failed that God in some way.
VK: Romans, chapter 3, verse 10 puts it this way: “As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one.’” That verse from Romans may be quoting Psalm 14, verse 1 which expresses a very similar sentiment.
RD: Right. So, we call our failures to meet God’s standards or comply with the obligations that God had established “sin.” In RC Sproul’s famous words, “Sin is cosmic rebellion.” Well, like all rebellion sin causes separation. In this case sin separates us from God. And there are consequences to that separation. Sin is a sort of cosmic bet between the sinner and the lawgiver. But sin is always a losing bet. The sinner always loses because in this case the Lawgiver is omnipotent and omniscient. The Lawgiver is infinite. So whether they thought about it or not there were some very high stakes in play when Adam and Eve listened to Satan and decided they wanted to be like God. So, one of the stakes that was in play was life itself. The first sin the garden produced a physical separation of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. And, ultimately, that first sin resulted in the separation of Adam and Even’s spirits and souls from their physical bodies.
VK: Philosophers sometimes note that there is a difference between distinguishing between two things and separating those things. Man possesses both material and immaterial attributes. We refer to the material aspect of people as our bodies and we refer to our immaterial aspect as a soul or spirit. Some Christians believe there is a difference between the soul and spirit whereas other Christians see those terms as being synonymous. We can distinguish between man’s immaterial and material aspects and we don’t affect the person. We can distinguish between a person’s soul and spirit and their body and we haven’t done that person any harm. But if we were to separate that person’s soul and spirit from their body we would call that “death.”
RD: Right. So, in a way known only to God that first sin made it certain that there would come a time when the immaterial part of Adam and Eve’s bodies would be separated from the material portion of their bodies. Adam and Eve weren’t the first people to experience physical death. That was likely Abel. But eventually they did as all of their descendants have experienced physical death.
VK: Well, except for Elijah and Enoch. The Bible tells us that God took Elijah to heaven in a chariot of fire and the Bible tells us that “When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked faithfully with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Enoch lived a total of 365 years. Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.”
RD: Duly noted – but there are some commentators who believe that 2 witnesses mentioned in chapter 11 of the book of Revelation will be Elijah and Enoch and that they will experience physical death then. But aside from Elijah and Enoch all other people have experienced a physical death including Jesus. But the larger stake, the higher stake is whether or not our physical death will be followed by what is sometimes referred to as the “2nd death.” The Second Death is not death in the sense of a departure from one phase of life to another. It is rather being consigned to hell for all eternity – eternally separated from God’s goodness and benevolence.
VK: So, for people the stakes – the stakes of sin - really don’t get any higher than that. Strictly speaking nothing can separate us from God’s presence. God is omnipresent. He is present at all times and all places including hell. But hell is where God’s wrath is eternally present not His goodness, His kindness. Sin separates us from God’s favor and blessing and that is the danger that we must all consider. That’s the bad news. The good news – and it is really good news – that’s what the word “gospel” means: the good news – the good news is that our sin does not have to result in our eternal separation from God’s goodness and mercy. Jesus has paid the debt for our sin. So, when we place our trust in Him we change our eternal destination from hell to heaven.
RD: Praise the Lord. The New Testament writers note this blessed opportunity continually. They all recognize that sin has separated us from God’s love and good but in their next breath they praise God that Jesus died an atoning death on the cross to make our redemption and salvation possible.
VK: The Apostle Paul put it this way in Romans, chapter 5, verse 20, “God’s law was given so that all people could see how sinful they were. But as people sinned more and more, God’s wonderful grace became more abundant.” That’s from the New Living Translation. Paul well understood the stakes of sin – that sin left unresolved would result in the worst outcome possible. But Paul never ended his message with the recognition of sin. Paul saw that grace made sin serve a useful purpose. Sin separated from God’s goodness but grace – the unmerited favor of God – made restoration available.
RD: So, all of this points out why we need to soberly and honestly discuss the seriousness of sin. Sin is an unpopular idea in our day and age. Sin forces us to recognize that there is a God who has established standards and obligations for us and that we have failed in our obligations and violated God’s standards. And the consequence of that failure even in this world may very well not be limited to our own lives – to the life of the sinner. Sin’s effects ripple and sometimes those ripples will echo down through the years and down through a great many lives.
VK: The answer to the question “who is this going to hurt” may be dozens, hundreds, or thousands.
RD: It’s the exception rather than the rule that the only person hurt by sin is the sinner. And all too often the ones who suffer are the ones the sinner professes to love most. Sin’s effects ripple and as we have been discussing those ripples are necessarily confined to this life or this world. The highest stakes at risk as a result of sin are the eternal stakes. And that is why, despite the fact that talking about sin isn’t very popular these days, we must talk about it.
VK: But like the Apostle Paul and the other New Testament writers we should always connect our discussions of sin with the availability of grace. Adam and Eve started a sad and tragic sequence in the Garden of Eden but as soon as they sinned God began His plan of redemption. I love how you put it in our epic poem The Genesis Saga.
Yet with love God still thought of man.
God determined to thwart evil’s scheme.
God’s grace now rose to fore,
God’s mercy now entered the scene.
In due time God’s only son
Would crush Satan’s schemes and dreams.
God’s son would die for the lost,
A beloved people to cleanse and redeem.
In Eden Satan tempted man
But in the wilderness he met defeat.
A Savior sent from heaven above
Brought salvation full and complete
RD: That’s the big reason we do projects like The Genesis Saga which we hope to release shortly. Sin is serious. Sin’s consequences are catastrophic. They are terrible in this world and they can be eternal. But they don’t have to be. God has made salvation available to anyone who will simply acknowledge their sin.
VK: You’re alluding to 1 (First) John, chapter 1, verses 8 & 9 where the Apostle John wrote: “If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.” That’s so counterintuitive to the way the world thinks and wants to work. The world and the people of the world want to hide their sin and to pretend that it doesn’t exist. But God tells us that when we confess our sins to Him He will forgive us. We rightfully hate the fact that we sin but it is a further sin to resist the provision that God has made to save us from ourselves.
RD: Yes. People today will mock the idea that sin exists at all. Unwittingly, when they do that, they only reinforce the certainty of their eternal destruction – just as Adam and Eve’s first sin made it certain that they would experience physical death. But if we will simply abandon our belief in our own goodness and acknowledge that we are sinners and do sin then God will – God has – made provision to save us from our sins. The stakes of sin are high, enormous, and potentially eternal. But our omnipotent God is bigger than our sin. As the old hymn says, “grace that is greater than all our sin.”
VK: So, the big idea that we wanted to introduce today is that sin is seriousness. But the best way to deal with its seriousness is by looking to the provisions that God has made to change the consequence of our sin from eternal damnation to eternal blessing. The stakes of sin have been addressed by Jesus. The question for us is whether we will accept the provisions that He made for us or stubbornly continue to insist that sin is just an outdated concept with no relevance to our modern world. This sounds like a great time to pray. Since we have just been talking about the fact that God will forgive us when we confess our sins, today let’s listen to a prayer of corporate confession. John has assured us that when we confess our sins God is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins. That fact alone should make us ready and willing to acknowledge our sins to our Holy God.
---- PRAYER OF CORPORATE CONFESSION (MARCUS)
VK: We’d like to remind our audience that a lot of our radio episodes are linked together in series of topics so if they missed any episodes or if they just want to hear one again, all of these episodes are available on your favorite podcast app. To find them just search on “Anchored by Truth by Crystal Sea Books.”
If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not perfect but our Boss is!”
(Opening Bible Quote from the New King James Version)
Romans, Chapter 6, verse 23, New King James Version