Many people in the church claim to be Christians yet they like to do things that contradict the will of God.
Today, we want to look at “UNDERSTANDING SIN?”
What is Sin?
1. Sin is anything you think, say, or do, that goes against what God wants.
2. Sin is the transgression of the law of God (1 Jn. 3:4).
What is transgression? Transgression is an act that goes against a law. For instance, the Bible commands, “Thou shall not steal” (Ex. 20:15; Matt. 19:18). If you then go and take anything that belongs to someone else without the express permission of the owner, you have transgressed the law.
3. Sin is rebellion against God. “…ye have been rebellious against the Lord” (Deut. 9:7).
4. Sin is falling short of the standards of a holy God (Rom. 3:23).
5. Sin is a power that seeks to influence, enslave, and destroy (Rom. 6:12-13; Eph. 2:1-4).
6. Sin, in its most basic element, is disobedience to God or obedience to Satan.
What are the major consequences of sin?
1. Sin will stain your garment of righteousness and make you unworthy of Heaven (2 Cor. 5:21; Rev. 21:27).
2. Sin leads to the loss of God’s Presence in your life. Because God can’t behold iniquity as He’s holy and righteous (Hab. 1:13).
For instance, When Adam and Eve sinned by eating the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden, God drove them out of Eden (Gen. 3:23-24).
When a Christian sins, the loss of God’s presence is felt immediately but the good news is that you can still restore that presence of the Lord in your Christian life by repenting and vowing never to go back to sin.
3. Sin leads to captivity. When you sin, you become a captive of the devil.
The bible says that a person who sins is a slave of sin. For instance, in the Old Testament, especially in the book of Judges, the children of Israel always went into captivity when they sinned against God by disobeying His commandments. This is why When you want to stop sinning, it’s hard to do so because sin enslaves you (Rom. 7:15-25) and makes you a slave of Satan who wants you to be his captive and suffer under his captivity until he finally takes you to hellfire.
4. Sin will separate you from God. This is by far the biggest consequence of sin. “But your iniquities (sin) have made a separation between you and your God” (Isa. 59:2a).
In this lifetime, sin separates you from God and this is why God can’t hear your prayers except that of genuine repentance (Isa. 59:1,2).
God has pronounced that the penalty of sin is spiritual death and separation from God in a place of judgment called hell: “For the wages of sin is death…” (Rom. 6:23).
If you choose to keep committing the same sins without repentance, you will stop feeling His Presence in your life. The Holy Spirit will stop speaking to you if you refuse to repent. “Do not quench the Holy Spirit” (1 Thess. 5:19).
How do you quench the Holy Spirit? “Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast to what is good. Abstain from every form of evil” (1 Thess. 5:20-22).
5. Sin leads to eternal damnation. Eternal damnation (condemnation to hell) is one of the consequences that sin brings upon any Born-Again believer who refused to repent and obtain forgiveness of his/her sin while on earth.
If you don’t want to go to hellfire and spend eternity with the devil and his demons, now is the time to receive salvation, mercy, and God’s forgiveness of your sins by repenting immediately because tomorrow may be too late.
6. Sin brings eternal death to any Born-Again believer who doesn’t repent and forsake his sins.
In Ezekiel 18:20 the Bible says, “The soul that sinneth shall surely die, referring to both physical and spiritual death.”
Eternal death here refers to spiritual death in the lake of fire which is also known as the second death (Rev. 21:8).
7. God withdraws His favor as a consequence of sin. Once you step out of God’s Presence, you step out of His favour (blessings) (Ps. 16:11). The case of Adam and Eve is a good example.
8. Your sin will affect your children and even the people in your community (Ex. 20:4-5).
9. Sin makes you an enemy of God. Since God hates sin, it therefore, follows that if you do evil, you instantly make yourself an enemy of God. If you are an enemy of God, you will be destroyed together with the devil without mercy in hellfire if you don’t repent of your sins.
10. Sin will bring curses upon your life. Curses are among the natural consequences of sin on one’s life or a nation. God’s Word says that if you embrace sin in your life, you will attract curses to your life.
And these curses can be in the form of diseases, lack of financial breakthrough in your life, calamities, misfortunes, and much more. This can be seen in the children of Israel and the curses that came upon them when they sinned against God.
God said, “But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee” (Deut. 28:15).
11. Sin will bring disease to your life. All the major diseases we see around the world today are a direct consequence of sin and evil and the Lord says that where sin is, diseases and illnesses will be there, too. This is why we have so many incurable STDs today because sexual immorality in our generation is very rampant and the punishment for these evil acts is diseases.
In Exodus 15:26, the Lord warned the Israelites that if they sin against Him, all the diseases of the Egyptians will be upon them, and if they didn’t sin, none of those diseases of the Egyptians would touch or get near them.
This is true: This is so because when you sin, your hedge of protection is broken (Eccl. 10:8) and this allows Satan to come in and introduce any manner of sickness into your life (Matt. 15:18-19).
Remember that once you are defiled, you cannot enter heaven (Rev. 21:27).
12. Sin brings God’s punishment because it is a violation of God’s laws and holiness. In Exodus 34:7 God said, “…Even so I do not leave sin unpunished.” In Proverbs 11:21 God said, “You can be sure that evil people will be punished.”
13. Our sins come back on us. What you plant is what you will harvest (Num. 32:23).
14. Sin will bring misery to your life. Misery both in this world and in the world to come in eternity is among the consequences that sin brings upon people who love their sin and evil ways and are unwilling to repent of them.
It’s just the nature of sin to bring misery and death wherever it finds its self in and if you die in your sins, eternal misery with no end awaits you when you close your eyes in death. And if you love your soul, you certainly don’t want to spend your eternity in hellfire where your misery and suffering will have no end.
15. Sin will make you to lose all your boldness (Prov. 28:1).
16. Death is the penalty for your sins -physical death, and eternal judgment by God.
Luke 23:41 says, “We deserve to die for our evil deeds.” Romans 6:23 says, “The wages of sin is death.”
Romans 2:9 says, “There will be trouble and calamity for everyone who keeps on sinning - for the Jew first and also for the Gentile.”
Watch out for the next edition of the Good News from the pulpit.
- Your friend: I. I. MADUBUNYI (Senior Pastor)
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