THE AWFULNESS OF SIN

I remember reading years ago of an event that took place in Glacier National Park in Montana. Glacier National Park is considered one of the most beautiful of all the national parks with its mountainous, rugged scenery. For years visitors to that park shared the scenery with a population of about 100 grizzly bears without incident. The grizzlies seemed to pose no threat to anything or anybody, with the exception of the overturned garbage cans and any food left out overnight. However, in one single night the grizzlies killed two young girls who were camping in the park in two separate tragedies 20 miles part. 

Because of these incidents, overnight camping was banned and the Department of the Interior started considering new rules for camping in our National Parks system. In all of the aftermath of these terrible events, one man made the following statement that is so true. He said, "Campers need to remember that bears are always bears and that even in a park a grizzly bear is not the clumsy, eat-the-food- you give-him type creature he may seem to be, but a beast whose nature it is to kill or maim if the mood moves him." Most people won't mess with a grizzly bear! 

I want us to consider this, grizzly bears are mere "teddy bears" when compared to the danger multitudes involve themselves in with little caution whatsoever. What am I talking about? I an talking about SIN! Sin is more dangerous than any grizzly bear, more deadly than the venomous bite of a rattlesnake, more destructive than any enraged animal that we fear and take precautions against. 

Most people don't believe that. We have become accustomed to the face of sin. It is no longer abhorrent and we do not recoil from its ugliness. Sin is embraced and petted, taken lightly by the sinner as though it held no consequences. But the truth is, sin is no pet. It is not to be taken lightly and sooner or later, it will bring the most awful of consequences---eternal damnation. There is no kind of sin that will not ruin this life and bring damnation in the one to come. All who flirt with sin, in any of its forms, are flirting with the oldest and most deadly obstacle and peril in the history of the world. 

In this brief tract I would like to mention certain truths about sin in an effort to impress upon our minds just how awful it really is. 

My friends, sin is awful because of who it is against. Back in Numbers 32, the people of the tribes of Reuben and Gad were requesting the land of their inheritance before the Conquest of the Promised Land had even really begun. They wanted land on the eastern side of the River Jordan as their own. Moses consented to their request on the condition that the men of those tribes join their fellow Israelites in the Conquest of Canaan, and only after its completion they would return to the land they had received. In verses 20-23, we read, "And Moses said unto them, If ye will do this thing, If ye will go armed before the Lord to war, and will go all of you armed over Jordan before the Lord, until he hath driven out his enemies from before him, and the land be subdued before the Lord: then afterward ye shall return, and be guiltless before the Lord, and before Israel; and this land shall be your possession before the Lord. But if you will not do so, behold, ye have sinned against the Lord: and be sure your sin will find you out." 

Did you notice in that passage the words, "ye have sinned against the Lord"? When the Israelites sinned they sinned against the very God who in love and compassion had delivered them from the terrible bondage of Egypt. When Adam and Eve sinned they sinned against God who had done nothing but create them and provide for their every need in a beautiful garden. In great remorse David wrote in Psalm 51:4, "Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight. " Against whom had David sinned? Against God who anointed him in youth as the future king, who sustained him in the fight against Goliath and protected him from Saul in his attempts to take his life. Sin is awful because of who it is against. 

The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 3:23, "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. " Whose glory did Paul say? "The glory of God". I'd like to ask this question, "What has God done to merit the breaking of His laws and the rejecting of His love?" I can understand why a man would disobey and go contrary to the desires of the devil, because the devil has not done one thing good to or for the human race. But for a man to disobey the God of heaven, from whom "all good and perfect gifts come ", the God who "commended His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8), just proves how awful sin is. It is the epitome of selfishness and ingratitude. 

Do you remember what the Prodigal Son said when he came home to his father, the father being representative of God in heaven? He said, "Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. " (Luke 15:21) This young man of the parable had brought heartache and grief to the very one responsible for his rearing and all that he had, to the very one who loved him most! How awful and ungrateful and wicked it was of him to squander such love for the time that he did. That is what sin is and that is what we do against our Father in heaven when we engage in it.

Additional proof of the awfulness of sin is the fact that, for the most part, people have to be begged to be saved from it. After all that God has done for man, just from the daily blessings of life all the way to the giving of His only begotten Son, Jesus, to die on the cross, it is incredible that people have to be begged and pleaded with to be saved. 

My friends, sin is awful because it is against other people. Sin is not committed in a vacuum. Take the sin of adultery for example. Think of the broken homes and shattered lives that are so often its   aftermath. Think of the children involved with their future in the hands of a judge. There is frustration, hatred, despair, and loneliness that often marks the children. Who dares to say that the sin of adultery doesn't affect the lives of others? The same can be said for stealing, taking that which belongs to someone else. A person works hard to pay for something, only to have a thief come along and take it. What sin doesn't affect someone else? Consider drinking. If a person gets drunk, they endanger everybody else on the road. Someone says, "I only drink at home". So what? Do they have children? Do the children know they drink?     Have they found the bottle or the cans? How does a person know that their children will not do what mom and dad did only to end up an alcoholic? Sin affects other people! 

Sin is against God and other people, but what about the sinner himself No one is made better by sin. It always does personal damage to the sinner, always. Solomon wrote in Proverbs 6:27 & 28, "Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned?" Sin is like a boomerang; sooner or later it is coming back. There is a basic biblical principle, a principle of life, stated in Galatians 6:7 & 8, "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. " Nobody can change that.    We will reap what we sow. Remember, "be sure your sin will find you out. " 

Consider the Egyptians. Pharaoh and his armies pursued Moses and the children of Israel, intending to recapture them. They thought they had the Israelites hemmed in, but God intervened. Via a mighty miracle the Israelites marched through the Red Sea on dry ground. When the Egyptians pursued them, the enemies of God's people were drowned. The oppression and the cruelties of the Egyptians found them out in a watery grave. 

Remember Haaman and his plot to hang Mordecai? Haaman found out that his wicked plot was foiled and he was hanged on the very gallows he had prepared for Mordecai. This is found in the book of Esther. Haaman's arrogance and hatred found him out at the end of the noose. 

What about Kind Adonibezek in Judges I? This sadistic king delighted in torturing the kings that he captured in battle. He would cut off their thumbs and their big toes and make them crawl on the floor under his table eating scraps that fell. But his sin found him out, and in time he got his paycheck. He was captured by his enemies and they did the same thing to him. What did he say? "As I have done, so God hath requited me. " (Judges 1:7) 

Consider Jezebel. She despised Elijah and determined to have him killed, as she had other prophets of God. However, much to her surprise, things did not work out like she planned. Elijah was translated to heaven and Jezebel's body became food for the dogs of Jezreel and her name doomed to infamy forever more. 

The point is that to continue in sin, refusing to repent, is to commit spiritual suicide.    The effect that sin has on a person's physical body is bad enough in many instances, but it is a thousand times worse to inflict eternal damage to the soul. Yes, the drunkard destroys brain cells, may end up with the shakes and the D.T.'s, and perhaps will find himself in the gutter; but far worse is the fact that his sin is keeping him from the Lord and Savior. Yes, those involved in sexual sins (fornication, homosexuality, and so on) may be inflicted with venereal disease or worse. They may destroy their families here on earth, but even worse is the fact that their conduct is damning their soul to an eternal hell. Yes, the person who uses vulgar, filthy language demonstrates his ignorance almost every time he opens this mouth, but worse than that is the fact that in so doing, he brings upon his head the condemnation and wrath of the just and holy God whose name he is profaning. Why continue in sin when it has such an expensive price tag: the cost of the sinner's life and soul? You see, sin is awful! 

Do you know what sin is? It is a choice that we make. It is a conscious decision on our part to transgress or fail to conform to God's revealed will. We can choose to positively violate it, or fail to do what we know is right. Either way, it is sin and either way it is a choice. It is a continual exercise of self-will, a deliberate departure from God, and only a rational being with intellect and will can commit it. 

Friends, do not be deceived. Sin promises satisfaction and happiness, but it does not deliver. The Bible tells us in Hebrews 3:13, "But exhort one another daily, while it is called today; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. " Don't be deceived into thinking that the punishment for sin will never come just because great bolts of lightning do not come down from heaven and strike us at the very moment of sin. Do not make the mistake of misreading God's patience and longsuffering, thinking that He has tolerated your sin.    Don't "despise the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance. " (Romans 2:4) 

Listen to the words of Solomon from Ecclesiastes 8:11-13. He wrote, "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil Though a sinner do evil an hundred times, and his days be prolonged, yet surely I know that it shall be Well with them that fear God, which fear before him: but it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he prolong his d4ays, which are as a shadow: because he feareth not before God. " 

Let me close with a little story about an ungodly farmer. He was an exceedingly sinful man and proud of it, like so many are today. But he was more prosperous than his neighbor, who happened to be a Christian. He wrote to the editor of one of the religious periodicals that his neighbor paid to have sent to him and he said, "I planted my grain on Sunday; I cultivated it on Sunday; I harvested it on Sunday, threshed it one Sunday; looked over it on Wednesday evenings and never have worshipped God. Now it is October; my barns are full of grain; I have more money in the bank than any of my neighbors who are Christians. I am more prosperous than any of them. How do you account for that?" The editor simply wrote back, "God does not make full settlement in October." 

    Do not be mistaken. Sin is awful and its wages are death. (Rom. 6:23)