When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:19-23 (NIV)
All sin carries with it a death sentence. Death to something - be it relationship, trust, love, reputation or whatever. Just as righteousness leads to eternal life so sin leads to death. It not only brings evil, it is itself evil. It not only works bitterness, it is itself bitterness - no matter what it may be whispering to you. It not only has the bitter root of Satan but it always produces his bitter fruit. It’s author is Satan and its end is death. Sin is not your friend, Jesus is. Sin keeps us from God and turns us to the world and its ways. And it is a broken cistern that will not hold Living Water. Indeed, it leaks out as fast as it is poured into as the Prophet Jeremiah writes when he tells us: “‘Has a nation ever changed its gods? (Yet they are not gods at all.) But my people have exchanged their Glory for worthless idols. Be appalled at this, O heavens, and shudder with great horror,’ declares the LORD. ‘My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.’” Jeremiah 2:11-13 (NIV).
Sin is a twisted, multiplied evil and a departure from the Living God – the ever flowing fountain of Living Water and glory. And it is exceedingly sinful as it is against God Himself. King David writes in his brokenness in Psalm 51:4 (NIV): “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge.” Further, David realized he was morally impotent from birth – since the fall of mankind, we are all born broken. Every.single.one.of.us. We are all in need a Savior and praise God we have One in Jesus Christ – He has taken away all our sins for those who believe in Him. Believers are made whiter than snow. Amazing.
So often the noises and distractions of this world deafens and blinds us to Truth and we see so unclearly. God desires to teach His children the great evil of sin and His choice tool is often afflictions. We rarely learn when things are going swimmingly well, Amen? He shows us our need. His desire is for us to flee sin as we would a poisonous serpent as it is just as harmful – and even more so. Sooner or later the soul grasps the fact that sinfulness is a greater evil than affliction. It is certainly most difficult to rest soundly with a guilty conscience. And sin lies heavier than our sufferings when day and night His hand remains heavy upon us. His desire is for us to turn, and run back to the One Who can forgive us all our sins. “Turn, turn” is God’s mantra for He is willing to receive us as dirty as we have become. He is looking for a willing heart who He will in no way despise. Remember as well, sin rejects His help and our happiness.
“So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.” Romans 7:21-8:4 (NIV)