Today, as we write these words, some of the headlines in the local newspaper read:
• North and South Korea Fight at Sea
• Bombing Kills 24
• Cities Blacked Out
• Sniper Executed
• Ex-astronaut Guilty
• Bomb Scare at RTA
• County Engineer Dies at 491
The problem of sin in the world isn’t a sociological, economic, or intellectual problem; it is a spiritual or heart problem.
Every newspaper and every online news source around the globe today is full of headlines and stories like these, telling of the earth’s population caught up in greed, distrust, robberies, conflict, killings, war, destruction, and death.
Could this really be the result of self-centered humans choosing to disregard God and his ways? Marxists blame capitalism and the unequal distribution of wealth for much of the evil of the world. Secular humanists blame religion. And certain forms of Buddhism say all evil in the world is simply an illusion. But Jesus said it’s not outside circumstances that causes evil in the world, he said that “from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all other sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander” (Matthew 15:19).
The problem of sin in the world isn’t a sociological, economic, or intellectual problem; it is a spiritual or heart problem. All of us have hearts that are naturally in rebellion against God and his purposes for the world.
You may need no further evidence other than your life’s observations and the daily news to confirm that sin results in negative consequences. But if that isn’t enough, thousands of years of recorded history of a particular family of people serves as a living testimony to the consequences of original sin. This accurate historic record is documented in the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament. God has given us the accurate stories of his people, the children of Israel, that demonstrate how living in relationship with him brings blessing, and choosing a self-centered path (sin) brings negative consequences. Following are but a small sampling of headlines drawn from the pages of Scripture.
From Genesis 4
Cain was the first child of Adam and Eve. He became a farmer. Abel was the couple’s second son. He became a sheepherder.
As the boys grew to manhood, both brought offerings before God. Cain brought produce and Abel brought choice lambs. God accepted the offerings of Abel, but not of Cain. And Cain was furious.
“‘Why are you so angry?’ the LORD asked him. ‘Why do you look so dejected? You will be accepted if you respond in the right way. But if you refuse to respond correctly, then watch out! Sin is waiting to attack and destroy you, and you must subdue it’” (Genesis 4:6-7).
If Adam and Eve learned anything from their own sin they would have surely shared it with their boys. You would think they must have stressed to their sons that a Godlike relationship is based on an unselfish focus for another and a trust that God is good—his ways are always best for them. But Cain obviously didn’t get it. Because when God said, in effect, “Believe that my ways are right and follow them, and they will work for you because I have your best interest at heart,” Cain responded in anger.
Cain rejected God’s warning that sin was waiting to attack and destroy him. When he refused to lovingly relate to God, his resentment and jealousy drove him to murder his brother, Abel. This historically documented story illustrates that sin results in negative consequences.
From Genesis 34
Jacob was the son of Isaac, the grandson of Abraham. He, along with his large family, settled outside to the town of Shechem in Canaan. The town was named after its prince, Shechem.
One day Dinah, Jacob’s daughter, was visiting some friends in the area. Prince Shechem saw Dinah and just had to have her. To the horror of Dinah, he forced himself on her and raped her.
The prince decided he wanted Dinah for his wife and started negotiations with Jacob through his own father. In fact, the proposal was that the men of Shechem take all of Jacob’s daughters for marriage and Jacob’s sons take all daughters of Shechem for marriage.
Jacob’s sons counteroffered. They proposed that if the men of Shechem got circumcised, the exchange deal would be acceptable. Shechem agreed and the entire male population of the town got circumcised. But this was nothing but a ploy by the sons of Jacob. They had revenge in mind.
Three days after the circumcisions, when the men were still sore and less than agile, Jacob’s sons slaughtered every man in town. Then they “seized all the flocks and herds and donkeys—everything they could lay their hands on, both inside the town and outside in the fields. They also took all the women and children and wealth of every kind” (Genesis 34:28-29). But after the mass killings, Jacob was so fearful of retaliation from the neighboring cities that he moved his entire family out of the area.
A woman was sexually abused because a man wanted what he wanted. Lust is about selfishly taking, not giving. Shechem’s lust was a self-centered, brutal act of aggression that resulted in a tragic domino effect, breeding retaliatory sins in its wake and leaving a trail of tragedy. Lies and deception, death and destruction, women becoming widows, children becoming orphans, families being ripped apart and displaced. This historically documented story illustrates that sin results in negative consequences.
From Exodus 1
Soon after the debacle in Shechem, God changed Jacob’s name to Israel. And eventually Israel moved his family to Egypt. In a few generations the children of Israel populated much of the land. This explosive growth concerned the new king of Egypt. “He told his people, ‘These Israelites are becoming a threat to us because there are so many of them. We must find a way to put an end to this. If we don’t and if war breaks out, they will join our enemies and fight against us’” (Exodus 1:9-10).
The lust for power and keeping it drove the Egyptian king to a brutal solution: slavery. This lustful thirst for power forced free men and women into chains and bondage. But even during their captivity the children of Israel continued to multiply. Afraid of an uprising by the masses, the king had an idea to keep the Israelites to a manageable minimum. He called for the murdering of all the newborn male population of the Israelites. But it didn’t work. God’s people continued to multiply.
Eventually, a baby would miraculously be saved from the male killings and grow to become the deliverer of Israel. Moses would lead his people out of slavery in Egypt and march them toward God’s Promised Land.
A total disregard for others and a rejection of God’s way of respecting and honoring his creation is self-centered and sinful. A lust for power caused an entire nation of people to suffer the brutality of enslavement. This sinful appetite for dominance resulted in physical pain, emotional suffering, and the loss of human dignity. This historically documented story illustrates that sin results in negative consequences.
God had given his words to Moses on Mount Sinai, and Moses relayed them to the children of Israel.
Now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you? He requires you to fear him, to live according to his will, to love and worship him with all your heart and soul, and to obey the LORD’s commands and laws that I am giving you today for your own good (Deuteronomy 10:12-13).
So there are definite benefits in living in relationship with God. But as we’ve seen in the illustrations above, there are negative consequences to sin. In fact, God warned the children of Israel repeatedly.
If you refuse to listen to the LORD your God and do not obey all the commands and laws I am giving you today…[you will experience] curses, confusion, and disillusionment in everything you do, until at last you are completely destroyed for doing evil and forsaking me (Deuteronomy 28:15-20).
The price of sin is high. The Old Testament has this common theme woven throughout. Scripture tells of a people who at times walk in the ways of God. They live out godly relationships and reap the benefits of joy and happiness. Then we learn that they sin—they act self-centered and fail to trust in God and his ways. Throughout the history of the nation, this turning away from God accelerates, and in spite of the warnings of several prophets, the people do not repent, and they refuse to turn back to God. Consequently “disaster came upon the nation of Israel because the people worshiped other gods, sinning against the LORD their God, who had brought them safely out of their slavery in Egypt” (2 Kings 17:7). The result is always the same: pain and suffering, heartache and ruin, destruction and death. Death ultimately is the wages of sin, just as God proclaimed to Adam and Eve. History records it; we see it all around us; we even experience some of it in our own lives.
We implied earlier that we need go no further than the mirror to see the effects of original sin. The apostle Paul made the case “that all people, whether Jews or Gentiles, are under the power of sin” (Romans 3:9). He then went on to quote from the Old Testament, saying, “No one is good—not even one. No one has real understanding; no one is seeking God. All have turned away from God; all have gone wrong. No one does good, not even one” (Romans 3:10-12).
The McDowell family, your family, and each of us personally suffer the fallout of our own sins. The Old Testament stories may give us clear examples, but each of us has personal examples of the negative consequences of sin in our lives. The sins of a sharp tongue, an explosive temper, lust, jealousy, greed, family neglect, are the sins that bring us and those around us heartache and pain. Big or small, committed in secret or in the open, we all must admit that we struggle with the issue of sin.
But we do have a choice. Just as Adam and Eve were free to choose God’s way or their own way, we too can make moral choices that affect our everyday lives. God has not left us without instructions in making these choices. He has provided us with a formula for turning our back on sin, choosing him, and making right choices in life. The question is how we make those right choices.