5 Ways Sin is Serious

[Chad]

In Psalm 51, as he laments and repents of his adultery with Bathsheba and his murder of Uriah, David confesses at least five ways that his sin is extremely serious.

1. He says that he can’t get the sin out of his mind.

It is blazoned on his conscience. Verse 3:

For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
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Ever before him. The tape keeps playing. And he can’t stop it.

2. He says that his exceeding sinfulness is only against God.

Nathan had said David despised God and scorned his word. So David says in verse 4,

Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.


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This doesn’t mean Bathsheba and Uriah and the baby weren’t hurt. It means that what makes sin sin is that it is against God. Hurting man is bad. It is horribly bad. But that’s not the horror of sin. Sin is an attack on God—a belittling of God. David admits this in striking terms: “Against you, you only, have I sinned.”

3. He doesn't justify himself.

David vindicates God, not himself. There is no self-justification. No defense. No escape. Verse 4:

…so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.
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God is justified. God is blameless. If God casts David into hell, God will be innocent.

This is radical God-centered repentance. This is the way saved people think and feel. God would be just to damn me. And that I am still breathing is sheer mercy. And that I am forgiven is sheer blood-bought mercy. David vindicates the righteousness of God, not himself.

4. He intensifies his guilt by drawing attention to his inborn corruption.

Verse 5:

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.
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Some people use their inborn corruption to diminish their personal guilt. David does the opposite. For him the fact that he committed adultery and murdered and lied are expressions of something worse: He is by nature that way.
If God does not rescue him, he will do more and more evil.

5. He admits that he sinned not just against external law but against God’s merciful light in his heart.

Verse 6:

Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
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God had been his teacher. God had made him wise. David had done so many wise things. And then sin got the upper hand. For David, this made it all the worse. “I have been blessed with so much knowledge and so much wisdom. O how deep must be my depravity that it could sin against so much light.”

So in those five ways at least David joins the prophet Nathan and God in condemning his sin and confessing the depths of his corruption.

Excerpted and adapted from the sermon "A Broken and Contrite Heart God Will Not Despise."

5 Ways Sin is Serious | Desiring God

 

[Spear]

Hi Chad,

I came across a post about our hearts hardening and the dangerous position one is in. I enjoy your post above. I think it was you who replied to the post about hardness of heart, but be that as it may I did enjoy it.

Let me introduce myself first and lay a foundation for what I want to discuss if I may? I am a 37 year old male and I was saved by the Lord when 20 years old after a suicide attempt. I immediately pursued Him seeking my destiny and I was filled with the Spirit. This is a real event as I had an inner presence of peace, power, love and Light. I found myself not committing sin by virtue of the new strength that was within me, however more specifically for a 'new love' I had for the Lord. Oh sure I would sin every now and again but the challenge was to STAY IN HIS PRESENCE and 'deny self' from doing what I wanted to do by the flesh. As time went on I slowly returned to terrible sin (drinking, drugs, sex) and I have been in a constant battle ever since with ups and downs. For a season I will be up and praying, resisting and seeking His Love, His Truth and Presence. Other times I will be down sinning, far from the Lord's presence. It is easy just to say, "one day in the Spirit, the next day in the flesh", but it seems a little more like that. I WAS in the Spirit at one point and fell back into the flesh BY NOT ALLOWING MY SPIRIT TO BE MAINTAINED by the Spirit of Grace.... so the struggle of up/down is simply a struggle in the flesh using my own strength or resources. This may include certain mental attitudes or 'beating self', or whatever.... even reading testimonies from others of how they saw hell. IT DOES NOT WORK!

This struggle led me to realise a lot in terms of the influence of sin, the deceitfulness of it and the effect it has on our faith. I have learned to focus on His Agape' Love and the Cross because 'Perfect Love casts out all fear'. What happens in our walks is something very different to what we expect. First, we receive the Spirit by faith in His completed work. We receive Him as a gift and we focus on His Love for us. We look to Him. As we go along, and we fall to sin we drop our heads to look at our resources to resolve that sin because we become so focused on the guilt, the wound, the problem. In that state we lose contact with Him because we let go of Grace and we turn to law (right/wrong mind set). The iniquity (practiced sin), the guilt associated with it and the way we estrange ourselves from Him by not confessing our sin, all acts as one massive open door to bring an attack of condemnation. The FEAR acts as a seat to demons who take that seat and manipulate our souls.

I have struggled for ages but this is how demons draw a person back into the flesh and when I say flesh I mean 'self' and not necessarily a 'sinful state'. We get drawn back into a space where we worry 'what must I do to be saved, and what can I do to fix this'. The Truth is that there is NOTHING we can do to fix it and instead of fighting and kicking in fear the Lord wants us to relax and be still, and focus on Him as a physician. This is not to say that we must not repent and wait for Him to repent for us, so to say. No. This is to say that first, there is nothing we can do without Him, and we must 'mortify the deeds of the flesh through the Spirit'. I am saying that the Spirit Himself sanctifies the sacrifice, just as much as the priest laid his hand on the sacrifice and sanctified it, cut it up and burned it. So too, we must rely on the Spirit to turn a person into a Living Sacrifice because one can only be a True Selfless Living sacrifice by His Spirit of Agape'. Beyond His Agape' one is not able to love, forgive, obey and die to self.

I have learned that is one is in the Spirit, and is made able to make all sacrifices, deny self and walk in His Ways effortlessly, that one can be drawn back into the flesh by iniquity not because of the iniquity itself, but rather because of the GUILT in the soul (mind + emotions). The GUILT causes us to estrange ourselves from Him. If left in this state, more weight is added to us by demons who manipulate that guilt. In essence, if a child is going to hang onto something bats like that child will be covered in bats. This is why we are told by Paul to cast away every weight that ensnares us.

When a person is back in the flesh and not walking in the Spirit they are (1) not focusing on His Completed Work (2) are not mindful of the personal benefits we have through the Cross (3) not thankful but rather fearful (4) fearful of rejection from the Lord, fearful of hell, fearful of making mistakes, fearful of condemnation. Sin, or rather iniquity has a very serious effect on us. It literally works as a 'spiritual cancer' against our faith. Perfect Love casts out all fear and replaces that fear with FAITH as Love gives birth to faith. What many do not understand is that FAITH has to be maintained by virtue of continued exposure to His Love in His Presence DAILY. If we do not do this and allow sin to invite a spirit of fear to take its seat within our guilt, we allow FEAR to overcome FAITH and the result is that we learn to deny the Lord.

Hence, to deny self and take up our Cross daily and follow Him, we are pretty much 'staying alive' but the second we move away from that we allow death to take hold of us.

The Lord's salvation is never withheld, BUT we can remove our hand from His Right Hand.... a person CAN lose their salvation.

The 'first-saved-always-saved' doctrine is dangerous. The Lord will always try to bring us back, however if we ignore His Call, we can find ourselves getting dry, sick and eventually demonically oppressed. Left alone, that can lead us to denying the Lord and that CAN lead to possession.

Christians underestimate things. We do not really understand the dynamics of the Spirit. One can only truly be saved, sanctified and glorified through His Finished Work and His Spirit because after all He is the Saviour, the Healer, the Physician and the Sanctifier. He is the High Priest who SANCTIFIES the sacrifice. However, if we resist Him, we die.

The 'deceitfulness of sin' and the 'mystery of iniquity' is VERY real. Some feel that they need to expose themselves to His Goodness all the time so that they can find the power to overcome sin, but in our state we ARE NOT ABLE to overcome sin apart from Him the Sanctifier. yes we can resist sin, but where we are demonically oppressed, where iniquity has taken hold, where we find ourselves chained to a will apart from His, we are in serious danger.

It is a Truth that those who do not take up their crosses, deny self and follow Him, will land up falling away under the deceitfulness of sin, and the fear, the bitterness, the attack of condemnation will serve as a heavy weight that will drag us down into the flesh, and where we do not repent we can find ourselves denying Him, and losing the faith.

There is no such thing as 'Once-saved-always-saved'. It starts by His Grace and ends with His Grace, but we have a "reasonable service" to present our members and to live holy lives BY THE SPIRIT.

Romans 8:1 in context actually speaks MUCH. One can be in the Spirit putting all faith in Him and His Atonement and be saved, but can also allow the deceitfulness of sin to take hold, allow the cancer of fear of condemnation to settle in, and be brought down where we suffer a fall from Grace, into the flesh where we experience Romans 7. We do what we don't want to do.... chained again in those things that we repented from just because we are not doing those things that we should.

(1) Seek the First Love
(2) Seek His Grace
(3) Seek His Face
(4) Deny self
(5) Focus on His Cross and Atoning Work
(6) Keep HIM the Sanctifier and the Deliverer, not you.
(7) Live selflessly
(8) Flee sin
(9) Keep the TEACHER the Teacher, and NOT YOU.
(9) Be balanced between Scripture and Spirit
(10) Be balanced between His Kindness and Severity
(11) Be thankful and not 'demon'strative
(12) UNDERSTAND TH BREADTH, THE HEIGHT AND WIDTH OF HIS LOVE
(13) RECEIVE HIS LOVE.

I understand that our sin, is actually a barometer as to how much we love Him or not. He said, "If you LOVE ME you WILL obey Me". That's the key. We are to LOVE HIM, however nobody can love Him if we do not know how much He loves us. So having a divine revelation of His Love for us is pertinent and pivotal. Nobody can escape their fleshly soul desires if they do not tap into the Power of the Cross.

The Power of the Blood dealt with the sin. Now the Power of the Cross deals with the sinner.

Too many are stuck in that state where they once had the Spirit and by the Spirit they were able to 'mortify the deeds of the flesh' without effort, but they fell temptation, fell into sin and are stuck there. They feel rejected, they feel abandoned and forgotten, They 'feel' (notice feelings) that they are condemned and that they have much to 'do' to get where they once were. They 'have to' pray. They 'have to' praise. They 'have to' resist. The truth is THAT DON'T HAVE TO DO A THING except focus on His Person and His Love, His Role as Saviour and His Role and Sanctifier and the Deliverer. Speak to Him. Be open, be honest, but DO NOT FOCUS on the failure. Do not focus on the wound. Do not focus on the guilt. Open your arms and legs in the quicksand, RELAX AND REST IN FAITH and Trust that the Saviour can pull us out. In this way we do not allow our eyes to fall to 'self' and trusting 'self' to get out of the quicksand of sin and guilt. We look to Him.

Many will not realise this way of escape and they will allow a spirit of religion and condemnation to frustrate them in that place. They will be frustrated into apostasy. Why? Because whole the Lord is there to lift us out, these people will put their trust in self-resource to get out, and in trying they will frustrate themselves. In beating self they will solicit demonic attack because by beating self we really say we are our own Saviour. When we do that we kick the Lord away and invite demons. This is how we make a satanic sacrifice of ourselves by spiritually killing ourselves. In turn, the demons will condemn, frighten, hurt and rip us apart.... the end result is that the person gives up and loses the faith and allow the demons to drag that person into apostasy. MANY WILL DIE THIS WAY! The Lord told me there is more satanic sacrifice IN THE CHURCH than what there is in the occult. This is because the TRUE GOSPEL is not being peached in CONTEXT with the entire Mandate. The Gospel includes the TRUTH that He is the Deliverer, the Sanctifier and the Physician. It is by Him, through Him and for Him, and there are too many leaders putting focus on WHAT YOU MUST DO TO BE SAVED AND STAY SAVED instead of putting focus ON HIS PERSON AND HIS ROLE IN THIS SALVATION PROCESS.

I trust this forms a basis of any conversation we can have, and if you can lead me to mature spiritual people on this site I will deeply appreciate that.

In Him,

Spear

 

[RJ]

I often think about sin and how it relates to our position with God. Thanks be to God and his perfect plan for Jesus to die once for all and for all sin.
I often see that people want to talk about the "nasty five" or the "dirty dozen" of sins. Many just look at the "Ten Comandments", don't sin against any of those 10 and you are alright.

It's come to my understanding that sin is much deeper and complex than that. For lack of better words, I prefer to think in terms that sin is anything that God is not; any of these things separate us, if it were not for Jesus, that is the finality of his work on the cross.
Because of Jesus and having him inside us, there is no condemnation for even the "little" things like the sins of negativity, doubt for example, and even the times when we sin and don't even realize it.

 

[Spear]

I often think about sin and how it relates to our position with God. Thanks be to God and his perfect plan for Jesus to die once for all and for all sin.
I often see that people want to talk about the "nasty five" or the "dirty dozen" of sins. Many just look at the "Ten Comandments", don't sin against any of those 10 and you are alright.

It's come to my understanding that sin is much deeper and complex than that. For lack of better words, I prefer to think in terms that sin is anything that God is not; any of these things separate us, if it were not for Jesus, that is the finality of his work on the cross.
Because of Jesus and having him inside us, there is no condemnation for even the "little" things like the sins of negativity, doubt for example, and even the times when we sin and don't even realize it.

"....any of these things separate us, if it were not for Jesus, that is the finality of his work on the cross."

Hi RJ

I enjoy your response. Thank you.

Yes, He became our sin, directly. I was thinking this morning, He hanged on the Cross for 6 hours. He suffered in the flesh realm with real physical pain. He suffered in the soul realm within His Mind and Emotions. He suffered in the Spirit, as He was poured out like a drink. He became a curse so that we can be blessed. His hands became our sinful works, our iniquity. His feet nailed because we run to sin. Our hands and feet are freed. He was crucified outside of the City, so that we can live, walk and be free in His City.

He is the Saviour, the Sanctifier. Sanctification though, takes co-operation. We co-operate with the Spirit. The aim is deliverance and sanctification.

There is a very fine line here.

What I understand the crucifixion to be in context with Genesis and the Garden of Eden is a simple one. Man fell from His Creator simply because he chose the counterfeit of ..... "AGAPE'", which is "selfless spiritual unconditional charity". In Eden there was one law. Do not eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. They did not understand evil, law, sin... they were totally saturated in..... "Agape". There was no "religion". They would be confused by that word.

They fell to eros, desire, emotional passion and lust which is soulish and selfish and conditional.

"Christ", or "Moshiah" is the Light of YHWH, which means He is the very Life and Image and Cornerstone of YHWH Himself. "Christ" is the Light of "Agape". The Scripture says Yahweh is Agape, and Yeshua is the Light of Agape, the EXPRESS IMAGE.

His Image is called "Yeshua" which means YHWH The Saviour.

So..... His Light of Love WILL SAVE. However get this. "Joshua" who took the ranks from Moses has a name equivalent to "Yeshua" and the difference is that Joshua in the Hebrew says "YHWH "will save" and "Yeshua" means "YHWH 'has' saved"

He had to take the penalty because there was no other way.

In context with the garden of Eden the Crucifixion, or rather the Body of Christ in Flesh Soul and Spirit stands as a 'vacuum' for man's sins, past present past. He is the launder's soap, the Refiner, the Sanctifier, Saviour and Deliverer, a King of Kings who goes ahead of us as the Lion of Judah. Think about that in Spirit.

He is the gateway, and it can only be by Him, who is Righteousness to be imparted as a YHWH-given gift, a gift of the very core of His Heart, which is the Light of Him inside, His "Selfless Light", His "Moshiah", His "Christ", His "Son".

The Lamb....

The Power of the Sacrifice is that our sin was placed upon the Lamb by His Right Hand. It's powerful to think about it. The High Priest lays his hand upon the head of the sacrifice and the sins are transferred upon it. In this case, it "pleased the Lord to bruise Him". The Father put His Right Hand upon the Lamb.

I understand this, and this is my point. We received an exchange. We received righteousness and we received gifts and numerous blessings. We also received authority and power, to bruise the head of the devil with the right heel of the Lord. However I focus on how we received "salvation" as a free gift, and as you know from the scriptures whom He saves He sanctifies, whom He sanctifies He glorifies. It is all Him, in Him, though Him and for Him.

The Sanctification part, the process of deliverance from the hold of sin and things of darkness is not always immediate. In fact, with some deliverance from sin can take a long time because of the existence of soul wounds, or even spiritual wounds. Even although we are saved by the blood, we have died and been crucified with Christ. We have died to the Law and we have died to self, at the Cross, 2000 years ago. We were saved, sanctified and glorified. But now comes the life of regeneration and that involves deliverance from sin in action. The actual presenting of our members for pleasing sweet smelling sacrifices to the Lord.

We receive the Light of Agape. We are crucified with Him, we die, we rise and walk the new life as a new creation not living for self, not seeking to save self or my own life, but giving my life for the sake of Him and the Gospel. It is not about Law. We have died to Law. It is now about having Him live in and through us.

Putting sin away has nothing to do with salvation. It has everything to do with closing doors to demons, and while we walk in this temple we are not allowed to bring in bats as friends.

We can not drink from the cup of demons and the Lord.

The healing or sanctification process involves deliverance from sin, iniquity and associated demons, through the Blood and this is inline with the mandate of Christ which is (1) Preach good tidings to the poor (2) Proclaim liberty to those who are enslaved (3) Heal the broken hearted (4) proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord

The issue is this. Sin is a very real danger, but more specifically INIQUITY. Practiced sin, especially sin that leads to death such as fornication, being a drunkard, etc. There are things, or doors that major sins do. They open doors to demonic attack and that attack brings a person into spiritual chains.

Left unchecked, the "mystery of iniquity" breaks out and a person becomes "desensitized" to the Cross, to the Lord and to the Spirit. Soul desire takes over and while the level of lust increases so does the guilt and anger, and self-hatred. This spreads. Faith turns to doubt and weakness settles in. Then paralysis of analysis settles in and people fall into despair and depression.

Many Christians have lost the faith just because of the iniquity we held onto, when we were given opportunity. Yes the Lord knocks and knocks when we keep Him out of the way and choose our iniquity instead but during that time, faith can be cultivated instead by exposure to the Spirit. Instead we expose that plant of faith to iniquity and we damage our faith by the guilt we invite through our iniquity.

We are under charge to protect our hearts. To guard our hearts. The bottom line is, sin is very damaging to the heart, because it makes it hard and bitter. If we are hard and bitter, depressed and angry, we are not able to deny self and follow Him. When we do that, we deny Him. What happens to someone who denies Him?

Sin has nothing to do with salvation because we are saved by His Blood. We however have the responsibility to live and walk in Him which means He is who He is with all His Roles within us. He does His side. We are to co-operate and present our members sacrificially, being a Living Sacrifice offering sweet smelling sacrifices to Him. That comes by offering our body, our lives, our thoughts, our time, our careers, everything, but mainly the hands are equipped to do the work of the Lord living holy lives. We are equipped for holy work (hands) and ministry (feet). Total selfless life. We are dead. We died at the Cross. We no longer live for self, we live for Him. He is the Light of Agape' so we live with Him within and He lives for His Mandate.

Sin in action has no place, and the challenge is to "mortify the deeds of the flesh through the Spirit", because He is the Sanctifier. Sanctification is a process of deliverance.

Demons get a foothold onto iniquity and soon it becomes a stronghold. When demons cover a soul, the eat away to get to the mind and to the heart. Once there, they eat the hope out of you and they regurgitate and urinate. Through the sin, they vomit bitterness into us. We open the doors, and an oppressed soul CAN become a possessed soul.

I believe the mature will agree. There is no such thing as sinless perfection but at the same time there is no such thing as once-saved-always-saved scripture. The just shall live by faith, and faith is evident by works. The works itself can only be possible by the presence of the Light of Agape. If one really believes the Gospel they will live for it, without hypocrisy.

I came to the conclusion that those who say they are saved, who go to Church, who always pray for what they want, who always live their own lives, who never preach the Gospel to another soul..... how can they prove that they really believed, loved and lived for the Gospel? Knowing that, and knowing that faith without works is dead, how can they say that they are justified having dead faith, because only those who walk by faith shall be justified. How can we be walking in faith if we follow a life of sin and not a blameless life following the Lord, denying self, taking up our Cross and preaching the Gospel.

The difference is, we are now made able through the Spirit to live relatively sinless lives, however to the degree of deliverance from sin that we should be seeking in our healing beds as the Physician heals us so that we can 'mortify the deeds' or 'cut the right hand' or 'pluck the eye' THROUGH THE SPIRIT.

Sin is a very relevant topic.