Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share The Seriousness of Sin - Part 9 – Sin, Out of Bounds
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
The Seriousness of Sin - Part 9 – Sin, Out of Bounds
Episode 230 – Seriousness of Sin – Part 9 – Sin, Out of Bounds
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:
All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.
Romans, Chapter 2, verses 12 and 13, New International Version
********
VK: Hi! Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. I’m Victoria K. We’re glad to be with you today on Anchored by Truth. This is the 9th episode in a series we are calling “The Seriousness of Sin.” As the name implies we are taking a detailed look at sin and we have covered a lot of important ground. We have talked about the consequences of sin both in this world and in eternity to come. We’ve discussed the reality and nature of hell. And a few episodes ago we began talking about how seriously God treats sin. For instance, have you ever realized that man lost paradise and introduced death into creation just by committing one sin in the Garden of Eden? Moreover, God destroyed almost all life on earth in a flood that encompassed the whole world because of sin. All that sounds pretty serious to me. So, in today’s episode we’re going to begin our wrap up. To do that, we have RD Fierro in the studio. RD is an author and the founder of Crystal Sea Books. RD, you said that today you want to talk about sin as being “out-of-bounds.” What do you mean by that?
RD: Well, I was having an email exchange with Doug Apple who is the manager of the WAVE 94 radio station in Tallahassee. Doug is a very thoughtful and mature Christian and I’m always impressed with the quality of his insight and observations. Doug said this to me in an email. “Once you throw out the notion of God the Creator, who created creation with a certain way of working, you are in trouble. He told us what works and what doesn't. He set up boundaries for us, and things outside the boundaries are called sin... and things outside the boundaries don't work right. If we are paying attention and connect the dots, we can see that things outside the boundaries are problematic.”
VK: Hmmmm. That is an interesting insight. Doug is making a very important point. God set the boundaries for all of creation when he made everything. I’m reminded of Job, chapter 38, verses 8 through 11 when God said to Job, “Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, …, when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’?” That’s from the New International Version. Doug is noting that, just as God set boundaries for the physical forces of nature, God also set boundaries for human behavior.
RD: Yes. Doug’s point is not only insightful but powerful. Our nation, and much of the world today, is obsessed with sports. I don’t think I can think of a single sport that does not have boundaries of some sort that must be respected by the competitors. Go “out of bounds,” – beyond the prescribed limits – and there is some kind of negative consequence including an outright loss of the game or contest. Football, baseball, and soccer fields have sidelines and you have to stay within the sidelines for the play to be legal. Golf courses have penalties if you hit a ball out of bounds. Even sports that don’t have sidelines or spatial boundaries will have time limits for getting the shot off or making a move. I’d go so far as to say there is no sport that doesn’t have boundaries of one kind or another.
VK: And players who violate those boundaries get penalized in some way. They lose the ball, have points taken away, lose a turn, etc. Something negative happens when they violate the boundaries. The creator of the sport is the one who set the original boundaries. Now, the boundaries may change from time to time, but even when they do the players are obligated to stay within the boundaries or they will lose.
RD: Right. And I think that that’s one of the great points that we see from Doug’s observation. As we have been saying since the beginning of this series sin is dangerous. It is so dangerous that we need to not flirt with it or pretend that somehow we are exempt from the perils of sin. When we tamper with sin, we lose. And, as with our sports metaphor, if one player flouts the boundaries it may cost the whole team the game. In life we are hardly ever playing just for ourselves. We are almost always part of a team – a family, a company, a church, a community, or a nation. If we routinely and impenitently sin, we’re not the only one who is going to lose. Many others are going to lose – sometimes a great many others. So, as we begin our wrap up I think Doug’s observation helps us summarize many of the points we have wanted to make in this series.
VK: Where do you want to start?
RD: Well, let’s return briefly to the story we discussed on our last episode of Anchored by Truth – to one of the most serious examples in the Bible of how seriously God treats sin.
VK: In our last episode of Anchored by Truth we discussed the story we find in the book of Genesis about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. And we focused on the central human figure of the story, the patriarch Abraham’s nephew, Lot. Lot lived in Sodom until the day before the destruction of the cities. He only survived because God sent two angels to Lot to warn Lot to get his family out of the city. Most of Lot’s family members ignored the warning and died in the destruction. Even Lot’s wife looked back as she was leaving the city with Lot and two of her daughters and she turned into a pillar of salt. Lot and his two youngest daughters could have returned to Abraham’s camp because his camp was not that far away. Genesis, chapter 19, verses 27 and 28 tells us, “Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the Lord. He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace.” That’s from the New International Version also.
RD: Right. Lot could have taken his two young daughters and asked for refuge from his uncle, Abraham. Throughout that part of Genesis we see that Abraham had great fondness for Lot and would gladly have taken him in. If Lot had gone to Abraham he could have settled in Abraham’s camp and when the time came it’s quite likely his daughters would have found future husbands from either relatives or friends. But Lot didn’t. He tried to settle in another one of the cities near the Jordan River but that didn’t work. It’s likely the residents of the nearby cities thought of Lot and his daughters as being cursed since they came from cities who had so obviously been destroyed by God. So, Lot and his daughters wound up living in a cave where his daughters became desperate they would never have families of their own. Their desperation led them to get their father drunk and commit incest with him.
VK: We hear from Genesis, chapter 19, verses 36 through 38 that, “So both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their father. The older daughter had a son, and she named him Moab; he is the father of the Moabites of today. The younger daughter also had a son, and she named him Ben-Ammi; he is the father of the Ammonites of today.”
RD: And the Moabites and Ammonites would both become competitors and enemies of Israel in the coming decades and centuries. One of the points that we made in our last episode was that sin induces people to make bad decisions.
VK: And, more often than not, one bad decision leads to others. Lot’s original decision to seek the easy life down by the Jordan River led him to the point of losing everything he owned and just about everyone that he loved. But, even worse, his poor decision making lead to his daughters making sinful decisions of their own. If Lot had at least fled to Abraham perhaps his daughters would not have crafted their own desperately sinful plan.
RD: Right. Part of the reason that sin is so dangerous is that a sinful decision often seems to lead us to some form of pleasure. The first time a young person takes a drink they get the “buzz.” They enjoy feeling less inhibited; more relaxed, and seem able to enjoy things. But if they drink enough they lose the good feelings and go straight to being drunk and out of control. And then they experience pain and anguish when they’re not drinking. Living in sin, as Lot lived in Sodom, makes you available for destruction. In sports, the players who make their plays closet to the lines give us the most thrills. But if the game is on the line one inch outside the line may mean the difference in the game, the season, or a career. A good golfer doesn’t try to see how close to the out of bounds marker he or she can hit a drive. They try to keep their shots in the middle of the fairway.
VK: Engaging in sin often brings an initial sense of pleasure. The pain comes later and it always comes. The thrill of gambling a little can turn into financial ruin. The first drug use makes people high. But continued use will destroy their bodies, relationships, careers, and even result in death. Drinking leads to drunk driving and potentially prison. The early pleasure is replaced by the lasting pain. And, as Doug observed, God built us and the system that way. The pain sin brings tells us that we are going over the boundary of where God wants us to be. If we live life in the middle of the fairway, we will not only score well we will be safe.
RD: Yes. Once man committed the first sin in the Garden of Eden, God began to do at least two things simultaneously. He initiated a plan for the redemption of those of Adam and Eve’s descendants that would trust in God and not in themselves for salvation. And God set into place consequences for sin that would restrain man’s new longing for sin.
VK: We talked about that in the 6th episode in this series. After the first sin God cursed the ground so now Adam and Eve had to struggle to get enough food for themselves and their family. Part of the reason God made Adam have to spend more time supplying their food was because that reduced the amount of time and energy he would have on mischief. And now that death was a possibility for them they needed a routine that would help them stay in good physical condition. Working to grow food would certainly be better for them physically than if they were able to get all they needed without doing anything. We tend to think of hard physical labor as being a curse but the need to work for their food probably established some beneficial habit in Adam and Eve and their family
RD: Exactly. Engaging in sin means that we are leaving the boundaries established for us just as he established the limits for the sea. In the book of Job God said that and “set [the sea’s] doors and bars in place.” God said to the sea, “This far you may come and no farther.” God says that to us in many different ways. He said that to us verbally in the Ten Commandments. He says that to us emotionally in our guilt and experiences of remorse and regret. He even says that to us physically when we drink to excess and get a hangover or we take illegal drugs and we see our bodies wasting away. God has prescribed boundaries for human behavior and he has ways of telling us that we are going out of bounds.
VK: C.S. Lewis famously said, “We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world. We are most keenly aware of God's character in our suffering. It is when our self-sufficiency is peeled away that we see how weak we really are.”
RD: Just as all sports have boundaries, so does life. We can go so far as to say that without boundaries there can be no game. At best there might be some sort of play, but there would certainly be no possibility for meaningful sports contests. And another point that we can see in Doug’s observation is that when we sin we are, in effect, attempting to cheat. We are not only cheating God but we are also cheating ourselves.
VK: I like that. When we sin we are engaging in a form of cheating. There’s an old story that a minister once asked a young boy what he thought God was like. The boy replied “I think he’s the kind of fellow who tries to go about and see if anyone is having fun, and if they are, he stops them.” A lot of people think God is like that. Far too many people in our day and age think of sin as being fun and pleasurable while being obedient to God is dull and boring.
RD: And, again, that is a good illustration of how dangerous sin is. I would never say that sin and Satan aren’t good at marketing. They are. But, as with all things that oppose God, the marketing is deceptive and deceitful. Sin and Satan promise pleasure but, in the end, always deliver only pain and misery. The married person who engages in a little flirting and then proceeds to adultery will initially find the adultery exciting and thrilling. But adultery will destroy marriages, terrify children, and decimate lives and careers. Contrary to what we see on TV and in movies adultery is never a good solution to people’s unhappiness. At first, it’s exciting. Sin always wants us to think short term. But God always wants us to build for eternity.
VK: Sin is a way of trying to cheat to get a better life. Someone wants more money to buy better things but rather than work for it and wait for it, they steal from their employer. They might steal a little at first but as time goes by they steal more and more because they will find their hunger for the so-called “better things” is never fully satisfied. They try to cheat their way to prosperity. Someone wants to feel better after they’ve had a bad day at work. So, they stop at the bar and have “a few drinks” to relax. But one night turns into many and that turns into a habit that steals their money and time from taking care of their home and their family. They’re trying to find an easy way to find peace and joy so they cheat using alcohol. We could go on and on with examples but I don’t think we need to. Sinning is trying to cheat at life just as a player may try to cheat to get a better score or unfair advantage.
RD: And, again, our consciences will clearly tell us that the sin, just like cheating, is wrong. But there is a problem. After the fall our consciences have been seared and they no longer operate the way they should. So, while our consciences are helpful to alerting us to sin they are not infallible.
VK: But the Bible is infallible, isn’t it? That’s how we start every episode of Anchored by Truth – with the declaration that the Bible is inspired, inerrant, and infallible. That means that when we inform our conscience with the truth present in the Bible we can place more trust in our conscience to be a reliable guide to alerting us that we are sinning. Our conscience will still not be perfect but, by regular and consistent exposure to God’s truth we can train our consciences. And such training will help us be more sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit to help us notice and combat the sin that ensnares us so easily.
RD: Well, before we close today there is one more point that I think we can glean from Doug’s insight. We have been talking about the importance of boundaries in sports and how it’s impossible to win without staying within those boundaries. But sports is not the only place we find boundaries. When people buy houses or other real property they often have a survey of the property done so they know what the boundaries of the property are.
VK: People want to know the boundaries of their property because that tells them where they may safely and legally build. And they want to find out whether anyone has violated those boundaries so they can seek compensation or remediation.
RD: And before a fixed-wing or helicopter pilot ever sits behind a control stick or wheel in a cockpit they spend hours in class studying things that don’t seem very glamorous. The study oil pressure, hydraulic pressure, bank and turn rates, the revolutions per minute of engines, etc. The reason they do that is a pilot needs to know the safe operating limits and levels of their aircraft.
VK: Because a pilot who does not understand the performance “envelope” of their aircraft is a danger to their passengers, crew, the aircraft and themselves.
RD: Exactly. So, we can see that there is another very valuable purpose that is served by people understanding that sinful behavior is “out of bounds.” Sinful behavior is unsafe. Remember Doug’s observation. “[God] created creation with a certain way of working, ... He told us what works and what doesn't. He set up boundaries for us, and things outside the boundaries are called sin.” A pilot studies the acceptable performance parameters of their aircraft so they will know how to operate that aircraft safely. A property owner needs to know the boundaries of their property so they don’t run the risk of loss by building something that might have to be moved or torn down. And the property owner studies the boundaries to be sure their own property rights haven’t been violated.
VK: I see where you are going with this thought. Boundaries not only make legitimate sports possible they also keep us safe in other areas of life. As we age we learn that our bodies have their own boundaries. We need to keep our weight below certain levels. We need to get adequate rest. We need to be careful lifting heavy objects or working outside when it is too hot or too cold. When we start to exceed the natural boundaries of our bodies we jeopardize our health and longevity. When you think about it, boundaries are present just about everywhere we turn. Our bank accounts only have so much money in them and the range of our cars is limited by how much gas the tank holds and how many miles they get per gallon.
RD: We live in a physical creation and boundaries, limits, are an integral part of that creation. As Doug observed when God designed creation He designed the boundaries for all the parts of creation, including the boundaries of our planet’s features …
VK: As God reminded Job in the quote we heard earlier...
RD: And as the Apostle Paul reminded the church at Rome which we heard in our opening scripture. The law that was given to Israel contained a detailed description of what was permissible and what was not permissible for their behavior. When God gave the ancient Israelites the law God was simply drawing specific boundaries for them just as he had long ago drawn the boundaries for the physical structure of the heavens and the earth.
VK: What you are saying is that despite our science fiction and fantasy movies we human beings do not and cannot control the reality in which we live. Boundaries are a simple fact of the created order. They are in the physical creation. And they are for the creature that God created in His own image. And we disregard those boundaries at our own peril.
RD: And that’s the point. The Apostle Paul told the Roman church that regardless of whether they were Jews or Gentiles – whether they had grown up knowing the specific content of the Hebrew law – the law, the limits still governed their behavior. Those who chose to sin were outside God’s designated boundaries and being beyond those boundaries meant that they became unrighteous. And God designed the whole system to warn us about the consequences of such unrighteousness. The ultimate consequence of remaining unrighteous is, of course, to spend an eternity in hell. But God has given us a lot of warnings in our present world to avoid that fate.
VK: As C.S. Lewis said, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: [pain] is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” Sin is fundamentally wrong because it is rebellion against God. But it is also wrong because it a form of cheating in this life and it puts us and our families in danger. Doug has made such an important point. God didn’t design His creation to curtail our fun. That’s the lie the devil propagates. God put boundaries in creation to show us how to live safe, joyful, and fulfilling lives. We can either believe that God loves us and respect those boundaries. Or, we can fall for the devil’s lies and try to cheat our way to a life that will promise pleasure but only deliver pain. We have the free will to choose to do it God’s way or the devil’s way. There is no middle ground when it comes to sin. And, as we saw in our episode on Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot’s road to loss and devastation began with one sinful choice. It has been said that “most people learn from experience but wise people learn from the experience of others.” This sounds like a great time to pray. In our last episode we listened to a prayer for our school age children who are face challenges with taking tests. We certainly hope they don’t cheat – ever. Today, let’s listen to a prayer for the school boards who oversee the education of children. Their duty is extremely important. Let’s pray they don’t cheat by trying to impart sinful ideas into schools and curricula.
---- PRAYER FOR SCHOOL BOARDS (RANNI)
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 International Version)
Romans, Chapter 2, verses 12 and 13, New International Version
View all episodes
By R.D.Fierro
5
11 ratings
Episode 230 – Seriousness of Sin – Part 9 – Sin, Out of Bounds
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:
All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.
Romans, Chapter 2, verses 12 and 13, New International Version
********
VK: Hi! Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. I’m Victoria K. We’re glad to be with you today on Anchored by Truth. This is the 9th episode in a series we are calling “The Seriousness of Sin.” As the name implies we are taking a detailed look at sin and we have covered a lot of important ground. We have talked about the consequences of sin both in this world and in eternity to come. We’ve discussed the reality and nature of hell. And a few episodes ago we began talking about how seriously God treats sin. For instance, have you ever realized that man lost paradise and introduced death into creation just by committing one sin in the Garden of Eden? Moreover, God destroyed almost all life on earth in a flood that encompassed the whole world because of sin. All that sounds pretty serious to me. So, in today’s episode we’re going to begin our wrap up. To do that, we have RD Fierro in the studio. RD is an author and the founder of Crystal Sea Books. RD, you said that today you want to talk about sin as being “out-of-bounds.” What do you mean by that?
RD: Well, I was having an email exchange with Doug Apple who is the manager of the WAVE 94 radio station in Tallahassee. Doug is a very thoughtful and mature Christian and I’m always impressed with the quality of his insight and observations. Doug said this to me in an email. “Once you throw out the notion of God the Creator, who created creation with a certain way of working, you are in trouble. He told us what works and what doesn't. He set up boundaries for us, and things outside the boundaries are called sin... and things outside the boundaries don't work right. If we are paying attention and connect the dots, we can see that things outside the boundaries are problematic.”
VK: Hmmmm. That is an interesting insight. Doug is making a very important point. God set the boundaries for all of creation when he made everything. I’m reminded of Job, chapter 38, verses 8 through 11 when God said to Job, “Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, …, when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’?” That’s from the New International Version. Doug is noting that, just as God set boundaries for the physical forces of nature, God also set boundaries for human behavior.
RD: Yes. Doug’s point is not only insightful but powerful. Our nation, and much of the world today, is obsessed with sports. I don’t think I can think of a single sport that does not have boundaries of some sort that must be respected by the competitors. Go “out of bounds,” – beyond the prescribed limits – and there is some kind of negative consequence including an outright loss of the game or contest. Football, baseball, and soccer fields have sidelines and you have to stay within the sidelines for the play to be legal. Golf courses have penalties if you hit a ball out of bounds. Even sports that don’t have sidelines or spatial boundaries will have time limits for getting the shot off or making a move. I’d go so far as to say there is no sport that doesn’t have boundaries of one kind or another.
VK: And players who violate those boundaries get penalized in some way. They lose the ball, have points taken away, lose a turn, etc. Something negative happens when they violate the boundaries. The creator of the sport is the one who set the original boundaries. Now, the boundaries may change from time to time, but even when they do the players are obligated to stay within the boundaries or they will lose.
RD: Right. And I think that that’s one of the great points that we see from Doug’s observation. As we have been saying since the beginning of this series sin is dangerous. It is so dangerous that we need to not flirt with it or pretend that somehow we are exempt from the perils of sin. When we tamper with sin, we lose. And, as with our sports metaphor, if one player flouts the boundaries it may cost the whole team the game. In life we are hardly ever playing just for ourselves. We are almost always part of a team – a family, a company, a church, a community, or a nation. If we routinely and impenitently sin, we’re not the only one who is going to lose. Many others are going to lose – sometimes a great many others. So, as we begin our wrap up I think Doug’s observation helps us summarize many of the points we have wanted to make in this series.
VK: Where do you want to start?
RD: Well, let’s return briefly to the story we discussed on our last episode of Anchored by Truth – to one of the most serious examples in the Bible of how seriously God treats sin.
VK: In our last episode of Anchored by Truth we discussed the story we find in the book of Genesis about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. And we focused on the central human figure of the story, the patriarch Abraham’s nephew, Lot. Lot lived in Sodom until the day before the destruction of the cities. He only survived because God sent two angels to Lot to warn Lot to get his family out of the city. Most of Lot’s family members ignored the warning and died in the destruction. Even Lot’s wife looked back as she was leaving the city with Lot and two of her daughters and she turned into a pillar of salt. Lot and his two youngest daughters could have returned to Abraham’s camp because his camp was not that far away. Genesis, chapter 19, verses 27 and 28 tells us, “Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the Lord. He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace.” That’s from the New International Version also.
RD: Right. Lot could have taken his two young daughters and asked for refuge from his uncle, Abraham. Throughout that part of Genesis we see that Abraham had great fondness for Lot and would gladly have taken him in. If Lot had gone to Abraham he could have settled in Abraham’s camp and when the time came it’s quite likely his daughters would have found future husbands from either relatives or friends. But Lot didn’t. He tried to settle in another one of the cities near the Jordan River but that didn’t work. It’s likely the residents of the nearby cities thought of Lot and his daughters as being cursed since they came from cities who had so obviously been destroyed by God. So, Lot and his daughters wound up living in a cave where his daughters became desperate they would never have families of their own. Their desperation led them to get their father drunk and commit incest with him.
VK: We hear from Genesis, chapter 19, verses 36 through 38 that, “So both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their father. The older daughter had a son, and she named him Moab; he is the father of the Moabites of today. The younger daughter also had a son, and she named him Ben-Ammi; he is the father of the Ammonites of today.”
RD: And the Moabites and Ammonites would both become competitors and enemies of Israel in the coming decades and centuries. One of the points that we made in our last episode was that sin induces people to make bad decisions.
VK: And, more often than not, one bad decision leads to others. Lot’s original decision to seek the easy life down by the Jordan River led him to the point of losing everything he owned and just about everyone that he loved. But, even worse, his poor decision making lead to his daughters making sinful decisions of their own. If Lot had at least fled to Abraham perhaps his daughters would not have crafted their own desperately sinful plan.
RD: Right. Part of the reason that sin is so dangerous is that a sinful decision often seems to lead us to some form of pleasure. The first time a young person takes a drink they get the “buzz.” They enjoy feeling less inhibited; more relaxed, and seem able to enjoy things. But if they drink enough they lose the good feelings and go straight to being drunk and out of control. And then they experience pain and anguish when they’re not drinking. Living in sin, as Lot lived in Sodom, makes you available for destruction. In sports, the players who make their plays closet to the lines give us the most thrills. But if the game is on the line one inch outside the line may mean the difference in the game, the season, or a career. A good golfer doesn’t try to see how close to the out of bounds marker he or she can hit a drive. They try to keep their shots in the middle of the fairway.
VK: Engaging in sin often brings an initial sense of pleasure. The pain comes later and it always comes. The thrill of gambling a little can turn into financial ruin. The first drug use makes people high. But continued use will destroy their bodies, relationships, careers, and even result in death. Drinking leads to drunk driving and potentially prison. The early pleasure is replaced by the lasting pain. And, as Doug observed, God built us and the system that way. The pain sin brings tells us that we are going over the boundary of where God wants us to be. If we live life in the middle of the fairway, we will not only score well we will be safe.
RD: Yes. Once man committed the first sin in the Garden of Eden, God began to do at least two things simultaneously. He initiated a plan for the redemption of those of Adam and Eve’s descendants that would trust in God and not in themselves for salvation. And God set into place consequences for sin that would restrain man’s new longing for sin.
VK: We talked about that in the 6th episode in this series. After the first sin God cursed the ground so now Adam and Eve had to struggle to get enough food for themselves and their family. Part of the reason God made Adam have to spend more time supplying their food was because that reduced the amount of time and energy he would have on mischief. And now that death was a possibility for them they needed a routine that would help them stay in good physical condition. Working to grow food would certainly be better for them physically than if they were able to get all they needed without doing anything. We tend to think of hard physical labor as being a curse but the need to work for their food probably established some beneficial habit in Adam and Eve and their family
RD: Exactly. Engaging in sin means that we are leaving the boundaries established for us just as he established the limits for the sea. In the book of Job God said that and “set [the sea’s] doors and bars in place.” God said to the sea, “This far you may come and no farther.” God says that to us in many different ways. He said that to us verbally in the Ten Commandments. He says that to us emotionally in our guilt and experiences of remorse and regret. He even says that to us physically when we drink to excess and get a hangover or we take illegal drugs and we see our bodies wasting away. God has prescribed boundaries for human behavior and he has ways of telling us that we are going out of bounds.
VK: C.S. Lewis famously said, “We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world. We are most keenly aware of God's character in our suffering. It is when our self-sufficiency is peeled away that we see how weak we really are.”
RD: Just as all sports have boundaries, so does life. We can go so far as to say that without boundaries there can be no game. At best there might be some sort of play, but there would certainly be no possibility for meaningful sports contests. And another point that we can see in Doug’s observation is that when we sin we are, in effect, attempting to cheat. We are not only cheating God but we are also cheating ourselves.
VK: I like that. When we sin we are engaging in a form of cheating. There’s an old story that a minister once asked a young boy what he thought God was like. The boy replied “I think he’s the kind of fellow who tries to go about and see if anyone is having fun, and if they are, he stops them.” A lot of people think God is like that. Far too many people in our day and age think of sin as being fun and pleasurable while being obedient to God is dull and boring.
RD: And, again, that is a good illustration of how dangerous sin is. I would never say that sin and Satan aren’t good at marketing. They are. But, as with all things that oppose God, the marketing is deceptive and deceitful. Sin and Satan promise pleasure but, in the end, always deliver only pain and misery. The married person who engages in a little flirting and then proceeds to adultery will initially find the adultery exciting and thrilling. But adultery will destroy marriages, terrify children, and decimate lives and careers. Contrary to what we see on TV and in movies adultery is never a good solution to people’s unhappiness. At first, it’s exciting. Sin always wants us to think short term. But God always wants us to build for eternity.
VK: Sin is a way of trying to cheat to get a better life. Someone wants more money to buy better things but rather than work for it and wait for it, they steal from their employer. They might steal a little at first but as time goes by they steal more and more because they will find their hunger for the so-called “better things” is never fully satisfied. They try to cheat their way to prosperity. Someone wants to feel better after they’ve had a bad day at work. So, they stop at the bar and have “a few drinks” to relax. But one night turns into many and that turns into a habit that steals their money and time from taking care of their home and their family. They’re trying to find an easy way to find peace and joy so they cheat using alcohol. We could go on and on with examples but I don’t think we need to. Sinning is trying to cheat at life just as a player may try to cheat to get a better score or unfair advantage.
RD: And, again, our consciences will clearly tell us that the sin, just like cheating, is wrong. But there is a problem. After the fall our consciences have been seared and they no longer operate the way they should. So, while our consciences are helpful to alerting us to sin they are not infallible.
VK: But the Bible is infallible, isn’t it? That’s how we start every episode of Anchored by Truth – with the declaration that the Bible is inspired, inerrant, and infallible. That means that when we inform our conscience with the truth present in the Bible we can place more trust in our conscience to be a reliable guide to alerting us that we are sinning. Our conscience will still not be perfect but, by regular and consistent exposure to God’s truth we can train our consciences. And such training will help us be more sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit to help us notice and combat the sin that ensnares us so easily.
RD: Well, before we close today there is one more point that I think we can glean from Doug’s insight. We have been talking about the importance of boundaries in sports and how it’s impossible to win without staying within those boundaries. But sports is not the only place we find boundaries. When people buy houses or other real property they often have a survey of the property done so they know what the boundaries of the property are.
VK: People want to know the boundaries of their property because that tells them where they may safely and legally build. And they want to find out whether anyone has violated those boundaries so they can seek compensation or remediation.
RD: And before a fixed-wing or helicopter pilot ever sits behind a control stick or wheel in a cockpit they spend hours in class studying things that don’t seem very glamorous. The study oil pressure, hydraulic pressure, bank and turn rates, the revolutions per minute of engines, etc. The reason they do that is a pilot needs to know the safe operating limits and levels of their aircraft.
VK: Because a pilot who does not understand the performance “envelope” of their aircraft is a danger to their passengers, crew, the aircraft and themselves.
RD: Exactly. So, we can see that there is another very valuable purpose that is served by people understanding that sinful behavior is “out of bounds.” Sinful behavior is unsafe. Remember Doug’s observation. “[God] created creation with a certain way of working, ... He told us what works and what doesn't. He set up boundaries for us, and things outside the boundaries are called sin.” A pilot studies the acceptable performance parameters of their aircraft so they will know how to operate that aircraft safely. A property owner needs to know the boundaries of their property so they don’t run the risk of loss by building something that might have to be moved or torn down. And the property owner studies the boundaries to be sure their own property rights haven’t been violated.
VK: I see where you are going with this thought. Boundaries not only make legitimate sports possible they also keep us safe in other areas of life. As we age we learn that our bodies have their own boundaries. We need to keep our weight below certain levels. We need to get adequate rest. We need to be careful lifting heavy objects or working outside when it is too hot or too cold. When we start to exceed the natural boundaries of our bodies we jeopardize our health and longevity. When you think about it, boundaries are present just about everywhere we turn. Our bank accounts only have so much money in them and the range of our cars is limited by how much gas the tank holds and how many miles they get per gallon.
RD: We live in a physical creation and boundaries, limits, are an integral part of that creation. As Doug observed when God designed creation He designed the boundaries for all the parts of creation, including the boundaries of our planet’s features …
VK: As God reminded Job in the quote we heard earlier...
RD: And as the Apostle Paul reminded the church at Rome which we heard in our opening scripture. The law that was given to Israel contained a detailed description of what was permissible and what was not permissible for their behavior. When God gave the ancient Israelites the law God was simply drawing specific boundaries for them just as he had long ago drawn the boundaries for the physical structure of the heavens and the earth.
VK: What you are saying is that despite our science fiction and fantasy movies we human beings do not and cannot control the reality in which we live. Boundaries are a simple fact of the created order. They are in the physical creation. And they are for the creature that God created in His own image. And we disregard those boundaries at our own peril.
RD: And that’s the point. The Apostle Paul told the Roman church that regardless of whether they were Jews or Gentiles – whether they had grown up knowing the specific content of the Hebrew law – the law, the limits still governed their behavior. Those who chose to sin were outside God’s designated boundaries and being beyond those boundaries meant that they became unrighteous. And God designed the whole system to warn us about the consequences of such unrighteousness. The ultimate consequence of remaining unrighteous is, of course, to spend an eternity in hell. But God has given us a lot of warnings in our present world to avoid that fate.
VK: As C.S. Lewis said, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: [pain] is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” Sin is fundamentally wrong because it is rebellion against God. But it is also wrong because it a form of cheating in this life and it puts us and our families in danger. Doug has made such an important point. God didn’t design His creation to curtail our fun. That’s the lie the devil propagates. God put boundaries in creation to show us how to live safe, joyful, and fulfilling lives. We can either believe that God loves us and respect those boundaries. Or, we can fall for the devil’s lies and try to cheat our way to a life that will promise pleasure but only deliver pain. We have the free will to choose to do it God’s way or the devil’s way. There is no middle ground when it comes to sin. And, as we saw in our episode on Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot’s road to loss and devastation began with one sinful choice. It has been said that “most people learn from experience but wise people learn from the experience of others.” This sounds like a great time to pray. In our last episode we listened to a prayer for our school age children who are face challenges with taking tests. We certainly hope they don’t cheat – ever. Today, let’s listen to a prayer for the school boards who oversee the education of children. Their duty is extremely important. Let’s pray they don’t cheat by trying to impart sinful ideas into schools and curricula.
---- PRAYER FOR SCHOOL BOARDS (RANNI)
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 International Version)
Romans, Chapter 2, verses 12 and 13, New International Version