Message topic: What is sin?
Scripture text: Numbers 14: 37-43
It matters not what is your background, your origin, or your religious background, one of the most lacking qualities of our lives is understanding.
The wisest man who ever lived, left these words concerning understanding for us as recorded in (Proverbs 4: 5-7) get wisdom, get understanding, forget it not: neither decline from the words of my mouth.
Forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee: love her, and she shall keep thee, wisdom is the principal thing; there-fore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.
Our topic for sharing today is asking a question, Do you believe you have a valid answer to the question what is sin? Sin is the only hinderance today that is separating unison with God and man, if sin is the only barrier between God and man, but, what is sin? and where does it come from?
Sin is transgression: which is the breaking of religious law or a moral principle through a willful act, a state of habitual violation of such principles.
Where does this attitude come from? and what effect does it have on mankind, are there any remedies for sin? God did not create sin, he created beings with free will who have the ability to sin, this includes Satan, fallen angels (demons) and humans.
To be clear, sin is a falling short of God’s standards, sin is not an entity or a thing that exist, it has no independent being, rather, sin is a lack of something, a failure to fully obey God’s law and live up to his glory (Romans 3:23).
When God created the universe and our world, God saw all that he had made, and it was very good: (Genesis 1: 31) (1 Timothy 4:4) this very good creation included humanity and the angel that would later become known as Satan. At this point, no human or angels rebelled against God in heaven and become sinful.
Satan’s fall from heaven is symbolically described in Isaiah 14:12-14 and Ezekiel 28: 12-19. An angel named Lucifer wanted to ascend to the heavens’ and be above the stars of God” (Isaiah 14:13) verse 15 adds he desired to make himself like the Most High” God judged Lucifer by removing him from God’s ongoing presence (Isaiah 14: 15. That fallen angel became to be known as Satan (adversary)or the devil (slanderer).
In Ezekiel we find Satan was created as perfect, wise, and a beautiful angel (Ezekiel 28: 14) but then Satan rebelled: you were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you (verse 15) That’s when the situation changed. Scripture hints that this is the reason Satan chose to sin.
Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor (1 Timothy3:6) Satan’s fall took place at some point before he became as a serpent to tempt Eve in the Garden of Eden as recorded in Genesis.
After being thrown to the earth (Ezekiel 28:17) Satan tempted humanity to sin, and he has continued that practice ever since.
Since Adam’s sin, human have inherited Adam’s spiritual corruption and have been born with a sin nature. We are naturally inclined to sin, (Romans 6-7) but in Christ Jesus we can be forgiven of our sins. God made Jesus who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
We receive forgiveness from the eternal penalty of sin when we put our faith in Jesus. We also receive freedom from slavery to sin and can learn, by yielding to the Holy Spirit, to live righteously. This process of acting less like Adam and more like Christ is called sanctification.
Some have wondered why God created beings who could sin, why didn’t He created angels and humans without the ability to sin? This alternative would be to create beings unable to choose right and wrong: in that case, angels and humans would be like robots, un able to truly show love and affection to the Lord.
God could either make sin impossible, or He could make beings free to choose, but He could not logically do both. Without an ability to choose, no being can have a meaningful relationship with God. There would never be a meaningful experience of His mercy and love, His justice and righteousness. The fullness of God’s nature and glory would not be on display.
In searching for the answer to the question what is sin, we find these words in Genesis 6: 5-8; and God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually, and it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repented me that I have made them, but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
The question is yet to be answered, what is sin and what are the components of sin? Mankind have a body that consist of arms, feet, head, eyes, which we can see with our natural eyes, but is that all that a human body consist of? The answer is no, there are more internal organs of a body that we cannot see by just looking at a human body.
With this in mind, does it gives us any ideas of what is sin and how does it function: we already know that sin is the transgressions of the laws of God, so what is the law of God, and when was it given?
We find these words in (Genesis 16 -17) the Lord God commanded the man, saying, of every tree of the garden thou may freely eat, but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shall not eat of it: for in the day that thou eat thereof you shall surely die.
The man disobeyed the command of God, and brought sin into the world through his act of disobedience causing separation of man.
What would we find if we should dissect sin? We would that it is made up of disobedience, lying, cheating, deceptive, envying, steeling, murder, hateful, covetous, and all the things which are opposite the true and loving nature of God.
We have come to learn that the beginning of sin starts with the disobedience of God’s command to man, and when we open the bag of disobedience to God, we are not able to contain the evil that pours out and causes separation of God and man.
The loves of God for man who he created in his own image and brought to life by putting his own breath in him, made it possible that mankind could be redeemed and brought back to have fellowship with him through the redemption process.
Today with joy in our hearts, many can sing, redeemed how I love to proclaim it, redeemed by the blood of the lamb; redeemed through his infinite mercy, his child, and forever I am.
It is sad to know that today as it was in the days of Noah, although God sent forth his warning of pending destruction, men did not pay heed and was ultimately destroyed: the same is pending the world today as mankind has chosen to continue in their disobedience which causes sin and ultimately eternal destruction.
We trust that God in his mercy will see us who hear his call and turn to him, will be speared as he did to Noah and his family as we accept Christ Jesus as our redeemer.