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Why Sin Is Really A
4-Letter Word |
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One thing almost everyone can agree on today is that we live in a
"messed up" world. The Industrial Revolution and the Age of
Science have failed to fulfill the basic needs of the human race.
Even a biased observer can see that modern technology has failed to
raise the moral standards of men and women. War, crime,
exploitation, graft, and prejudice march on at an accelerated pace,
and still mankind invests more in amusements and pleasures than in
helping one another.
Perhaps the remarkable thing is that with all the suffering and
misery recorded on the pages of human history, men and women still
seem unable to figure out where it all comes from. Doesn't it seem
strange that someone could see and hear countless reports of
killings, beatings, theft, rape, rioting, and other acts of
violence on the news, and not recognize that there is something
about human nature that is sick? The mere fact that the ugliest
crimes are so often re-enacted for "public entertainment" should be
enough to reveal that mankind is not just a prisoner in a web of
evil: we are actually fascinated by it!
Still many are reluctant to find fault with the basic nature of
mankind. Sin continues to be ridiculed and scorned as nonsense by
the world in general. It is portrayed as part of the "religious
fantasy", a device invented to inspire guilt in weak and
superstitious people. The idea of being "sinners" is an insult to
a "liberated and enlightened" generation. For them, sin is really
a "four-letter word."
Why are people so willing to recognize the evil in the world and
yet reject the concept of sin? The answer is simple/ The concept
of sin connects evil to a source, and identifies that source as the
heart and mind of mankind. Even more, it implies responsibility,
and it is this responsibility that most people will not admit to.
So they invent all kinds of ways to put the responsibility
somewhere else, and ridicule the idea of sin. Three teenage boys
knife an old man to death on a park bench. They are sent to an
institution, but it is determined that they are not really to
blame. It was the neighborhood they grew up in. Their environment
was to blame. A child starves to death in a world capable of
sustaining its life while others waste vast resources on
amusements. Who is to blame? The environment? A drunk driver
crosses the center line and kills a family of four. Who is to
blame? The driver? Or is it the society that condones the use of
alcohol for their own pleasure even at the expense of thousands of
lives a year? Now do you see why "sin" has become a "four-letter
word"? When men and women are forced to choose between their
pleasures and their responsibilities, they most often choose the
pleasure and blame the results on something else. That is what SIN
is all about.
The truth is, WE ARE RESPONSIBLE! Either we actively contribute to
the injustices that plague the world, or we fail to use available
resources to combat those injustices. We put our own privacy,
pleasures, and comforts before the needs of those around us. Like
the man who runs his car without oil and blames the manufacturer
when the engine burns out, we blame the misery of the world on God
and go our own merry way. That is SIN. To call it by its right
name puts the responsibility where it belongs.
While God does not claim responsibility for the existence of sin,
He has taken the responsibility for dealing with it. There is hope
for the future. That hope does not lie in ignoring or denying the
existence of sin, but in recognizing it and discovering God's plan
for eliminating it from the universe. The entire Bible is the
story of sin; how it got here, what it's like, and how God is
counteracting it. Understanding sin is an important part of
understanding God's plan. This lesson focuses on a few selected
Bible passages that give us some basic information about sin.
1. |
What does the Bible say the world was like after God
finished His
work of creation?
Genesis 1:31
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2. |
(Thought Question) What power did God give Adam and Eve when
He told them not to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of
good and evil?
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Helps and hints: God gave them the power to turn
against Him, to disobey Him, to reject Him. God did not create
mankind as robots. Instead He gave them a precious but dangerous
gift, the freedom of choice. It was precious because it allowed
God to communicate with mankind on a vastly higher level. It was
dangerous because it enabled mankind to separate themselves from
their only source of life and bring misery upon themselves and all
around them.
3. |
Did God warn mankind of the consequences of disobedience?
Genesis 3:2,3
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4. |
What did Adam and Eve stand to gain by eating the forbidden
fruit?
Genesis 3:4,5
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Helps and hints: The serpent said they would be
"AS GODS, knowing good and evil." Actually, they were entirely
surrounded by the good gifts of God. They only had not experienced
evil, the result of sin. Had they chosen not to break their
relationship with their Creator, they would never have had to
experience death, guilt, greed, hatred, jealousy, pain, and the
other unpleasant experiences common to the human condition.
5. |
What was the effect of sin on the rest of the human race?
Psalm 51:5
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Helps and hints: David does not mean that his
mother was a "loose" woman and therefore conceived him out of
wedlock. He means that sin is transmitted from generation to
generation, and that he has inherited a sinful nature. He has a
natural inclination to indulge in sinful behavior.
Helps and hints: Paul says it is when we want to
do right that we discover what is really inside us. There are many
who never care to do what it right; and by doing what comes
naturally, they are always at peace with their sinful natures, or,
we could say, their selfish dispositions.
7. |
Does the fact that I was born in sin and have a sinful
nature mean that I am not really responsible for my sins?
James 1:13-15
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Helps and hints: First of all, no sin is "petty."
Sin is a degenerative disease. If is the cancer of the soul. The
nature of cancer is to grow almost imperceptibly and then grow at
an over accelerating pace until it has claimed the life of its
victim. Secondly, we do not inherit our parents' sins, only their
sinful nature. We commit our own sins, by our own thoughts and
actions, and it is these for which we are held accountable.
9. |
How did God reveal the principle of personal responsibility
to the prophet Ezekiel?
Ezekiel 18:19,20
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Helps and hints: Nowhere in the Bible is the
principle stated more clearly than in this passage. This principle
of personal responsibility is not limited to the Old Testament. It
will apply till the day when "we must all appear before the
judgement seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things
done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be
good or bad."
2 Corinthians 5:10.
10. |
What does the Bible say about the "wages of sin?"
Romans 6:23
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Helps and hints: The concept of a horned red
devil with a pointed tail, using a pitchfork to poke little naked
sinners as they roast in the fires of an eternally burning hell is
a hoax. Some have reacted to it by creating their own fantasy of
hell as a place where the popular and enlightened people of the
world will eventually end up. They will drink martinis, gamble,
indulge in unrestricted promiscuity, dance to their favorite music,
and generally live it up in the manner to which they were
accustomed (or would like to have been) while on earth. Others
reject these and other common views as ridiculous. But they
nevertheless assume that the Bible teaches at least one, if not all
of them. They therefore reject the Bible, never knowing what it
does in fact teach. What the Bible does teach regarding "hell" and
"death" comes as a surprise to many, and will be studied in later
lessons.
11. |
What choice did God give the children of Israel as they
were about to enter the "Promised Land?"
Deuteronomy 30:15-20
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Helps and hints: Life (eternal life) and death
are the choices that God has always offered to mankind. It is
these that He will continue to offer until He returns to establish
His everlasting kingdom.
12. |
What is the choice that God Himself wants us to make?
2 Peter 3:9
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Helps and hints: God never forces His way into
our lives. The freedom of choice given to Adam and Eve in the
Garden of Eden will be ours to exercise for all eternity.
14. |
If we will always have the freedom of choice, when God
cleanses the universe, won't sin just return again?
Nahum 1:9
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Helps and hints: Sin will not rise up a second
time. We are seeing in this world a demonstration of its effects.
When it is over, there will be no more doubts about sin and no one
will ever choose it again. The demonstration is almost over.
Though it seems to have lasted a long time, in the light of
eternity the time will seem short.
15. |
What has been the effect of sin over the entire earth?
Romans 8:22
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"All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the LORD
weighs the spirit."
Proverbs 16:2
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