The Problem of Sin

The Lord has laid this heavy on my heart to illustrate to you the problem of sin.

Here is an extreme example: imagine a robber points at your head with a gun and says he'll let you live if you recant your faith in Christ. What is more important to you, choosing Christ and everlasting life or choosing a faithless life on earth? I assume many of you would be horrified and outraged at the thought of someone suggesting you to recant your faith in Christ. I doubt any of you would think, "Well, if I recant Christ now, He'll always take me back when I ask for forgiveness before I go to bed." or even "If I deny Christ now and live, then I can save more people for God's glory -- I won't be of any use up in Heaven anyway."

How absolutely absurd! The thought of such betrayal sickens me, and hopefully you.

But isn't that what Satan does on a small scale every day? Doesn't he point the threat of sin at your head and say "I'll satisfy your temptations if you disobey Christ"? Aren't you making a choice between sin and God every time (assuming as I do that sin is a willful disobedience against God's known Law, or the refusal to do what you know to be right)? If you choose to sin against God, it is normally accompanied with a twinge of guilt and an excuse such as "I can always ask for forgiveness" or "there's no point in looking weird -- no one will listen to me if I follow God on this one. Wouldn't He rather I bring souls to Him?" or worse yet, "the temptation is too great to bear."

You know what I say to this? How absolutely absurd. The modern Christian mindset is sickening. Many of us have been brought up to believe that sin is normal, and we try as we like, we will never be rid of it. Some are even encouraged to find disobedience necessary because it proves how very reliant we are on Christ, and portrays His grace. It is not some secret within Christianity that we, as children of a Holy God, are supposed to despise sin and love righteousness. Yet why is the modern message, "Don't judge me; I'm a sinner too!" The modern message promotes that Christians are no holier than the typical sinner in an attempt to neutralize their self-imposed inadequacy. Ironically, most non-Christians are turned off by the fact that the church preaches overcoming sin and then turns around and commits fraud or adultery. All of the failures of the modern church further prove to non-Christians that God is not worth following, because He can't even control His own people.

God is not weak! God does not say "I don't mind if you sin because I will just overlook it", or "it's okay if you sin because I can't completely cleanse you anyway". On the contrary, God commands us to be holy, to commit ourselves to Him and trust that He will perfect us in obedience, so that we may live our lives as holy and blameless children, walking in the righteousness of Him who makes us pure. We do not hide behind Christ and hope God overlooks our sin; we allow Christ to take a sledgehammer to our sin! Christ will not take a sledgehammer to it until you fully commit it to Him. There is no "return policy" on sin. You can't just say, "okay God, I will get rid of this sin for now, but I can't promise anything for later." You either commit it to God or you don't. You either genuinely repent of your sin, or you are just saying words in vain. God is not fooled by hypocrisy, and He does not accept evil. Christians cannot be both darkness and light; we cannot serve both God and sin. It is a horrible injustice and blasphemy to God's name to suggest that we are allowed to sin against Him.

Jeremiah 7:8-11
⁸ “Behold, you trust in lying words that cannot profit. ⁹ Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods whom you do not know, ¹⁰ and then come and stand before Me in this house which is called by My name, and say, ‘We are delivered to do all these abominations’? ¹¹ Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of thieves in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it,” says the LORD.

1 John 3:4-10
⁴ Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. ⁵ And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin. ⁶ Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him. ⁷ Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. ⁸ He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. ^{9 10} In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother. Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.

Hebrews 10:26-27
²⁶ For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, ²⁷ but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries.

James 3:10-12
¹⁰ Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so. ¹¹ Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening? ¹² Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Thus no spring yields both salt water and fresh

Romans 6:15-18
¹⁵ What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not! ¹⁶ Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin instruments of righteousness to God. leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? ¹⁷ But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. ¹⁸ And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.


Just as surely as God hates sin, He keeps His promises. Jesus does not leave us to deal with Satan all by ourselves; on the contrary, the power to defeat sin is made in Christ alone. By recognizing our complete reliance on Jesus to make us pure, we are empowered to withstand temptation and choose God over sin every time. The only time it is ever hard to choose Jesus over Satan is if you love Satan more than God.

1 Corinthians 10:13
¹³ No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.

James 4:7-8
⁷Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. ⁸Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

John 14:21
²¹ He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.”

1 John 2:3-6
³ Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. ⁴ He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. ⁵ But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. ⁶ He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.

Romans 6:5-7
⁵ For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, ⁶ knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. ⁷ For he who has died has been freed from sin.

Romans 6:11-14
¹¹ Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
¹² Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. ¹³ And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as¹⁴ For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.


If you consider sin to be unacceptable, but unavoidable, I urge you to study the above passages. God's Word says we are freed from sin when we accept and obey Him. It says that we are either slaves to sin or slaves to righteousness. There is none of this "you're still holy if you sin" or even "Christians aren't holy" that the modern church is spewing. There is a way out for every temptation, there is a choice to be made every time between sin and God. Which will you choose when the gun is pointed at your head? Do you love God enough to allow Him to completely free you from sin, or do you love your sin so much you cannot imagine a life without it?

The gun will always be pointing, so choose wisely.