We have been thinking about things that we can and ought to meditate on as Christians. One of the subjects we've yet to look at is what is called the sinfulness of sin. A number of Puritans wrote on this subject. They saw, as we need to see, that if we fail to see how sinful sin is we will be tempted the more to indulge in it and tell ourselves it is not such a bad thing after all.
Now whenever we think of sin we need to be very careful. We are like very dry wood that can catch fire in a moment. If we are not careful, thoughts of sin will quickly turn to sins and that will be no advantage to us at all. You know that in certain laboratories they keep strains of different diseases like anthrax and smallpox and so on. You can imagine that they are always very careful indeed when they handle such material. We must proceed in a similar way.
To help us then what I want to do is to lean on the work of Jeremiah Burroughs and his work the evil of evils. His book is in four parts but I am just going to pick out three particular lines of thought from Part One in order to give you an idea of how to think about the sinfulness of sin.
Burroughs starts in a surprising place perhaps. He begins with Job 36:1 where the young man Elihu says to Job Beware of turning to evil, which you seem to prefer to affliction. He is very unfair to say what he says we know but he does point up a clear danger - a person may well feel he would rather sin than suffer. However, as, Burroughs points out and goes on to demonstrate, we should take the very opposite view. As he puts it "It is a very evil choice for any soul under heaven, to choose the least sin, rather than the greatest affliction." So here is a good way to think about the sinfulness of sin. Begin by thinking of sin and suffering and see that - let's put it this way - it is better to suffer than to sin. With that we want to demonstrate that sin is always opposed to God and so must always be resisted and then we want to add some further conclusions, all drawn from Burroughs.
1. It is better to suffer than to sin
We can argue the case by the means of four further propositions
1. It is an evil choice to choose sin over suffering. This must be so as the wages of sin is death and The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning (1 John 3:8)
2. God's servants have chosen the worst suffering over the smallest sin. Isn't that what the story of the martyrs down the ages teaches us? These men and women chose to suffer death rather than to sin against God.
Think of that list towards the end of Hebrews 11, the chapter about faith where (35b-38) the writer speaks of others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated - the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground.
Think of Paul and his sufferings (2 Corinthians 11:23-29) Comparing himself to the so called super-apostles he says he has worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely,and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. I have laboured and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.
Is this not the example of Christ himself? Anything rather than to give in to temptation?
3. There is some good in suffering but none in sin. We are not saying that suffering is a good thing but whereas some good can come from suffering we all recognise, no good can come from sin. About suffering David says (Psalm 119:71) It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees. As for sin we have already said it leads to death and is of the devil. Paul says in Romans 7 that nothing good dwells in him, in his unregenerate flesh - for all that is there is sin.
There is nothing good in sin in and of itself. It cannot lead to good. Any good that comes is in spite of sin not because of it. It contains no good principle from which good can come. The Bible never tells us that sin will lead to some good in the way that it does with suffering. In Isaiah 42:3 God says When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. There is no parallel promise about sin. Hebrews 12:8 says If you are not disciplined - and everyone undergoes discipline - then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. Suffering can be a proof that God is your Father - sin is not like that. Jesus says blessed are those who mourn and are persecuted but he does not bless those who sin.
If you suffer, you can cry out to God but if you sin it's not the same - sin is a barrier to prayer. You can accept suffering complacently - you must not do so with sin. You can even rejoice and thank God that you suffer by God's grace but there's no joy in sin, nothing to be thankful for.
Burroughs says of sin "... it is so evil that it is not capable of any good at all; the air though it be dark, yet it is capable of light; that were a dismal darkness that were not capable of light to come to it: and that which is bitter, though never so bitter, yet it is capable of receiving that which will sweeten it: that which is never so venomous, yet is capable of such things as will make it wholesome; but sin is so dark that it is incapable of light; so bitter, as there is no way to make it sweet; so venomous as it is no way capable of any wholesomeness."
Sin remains even if you add all the good to it there has ever been. I know people have this idea that they can balance out their sin with good deeds but no amount of good can make sin good. Isn't that something the case of Jimmy Savile demonstrates well. Who cares about all the good he did when you think of the evil he also did?
Even when a sin is committed for a good reason, the evil still remains. You know how people sometimes convince themselves they can sin for a good reason - steal to feed my family, tell a lie to save someone from trouble, kill someone so that God's cause is advanced. But sin is still sin. A thing does not become good just because you did it with a good motive in mind. Would it be right to kill yourself to stop yourself committing a sin? Of course not.
We cannot make any sin good and nor can God. How could he ever declare a sin good? His eyes are too pure to look on evil. he cannot tolerate wrong (Habakkuk 1:13).
It is true that some sins are worse than others - it is worse to do something wrong than to think it - but no sin is good in itself. There is never a situation where it is good to sin. If you ever think like that, the thought is from the devil.
So by way application let's remind ourselves of some things
1 Sin is not the work of God. He made only what is good and there is no good in sin.
2 Sin's promises are all delusions. Sin offers pleasure, praise, profit. It's a lie. There's no good in sin.
3 Never venture anything good for sin. it cannot work.
4 Never make use of anything good to sin - not another person, your own body or anything else.
5 To make something sinful your chief aim is the height of wickedness.
6 All time spent in sinning is time wasted
7 Those who spend most of their time doing what is wicked are useless members of society.
8 You need never debate for a moment over any sin whether you should do it or not. Don't!
4. There is more evil in the least sin, than in the greatest suffering. Just one more thing here. Sin is evil because it is the thing that most opposes God, who is the chief good. To quote Burroughs again
Perhaps I might scare you in preaching of Hell and damnation, but discovering this I now speak of, the opposition sin has unto God; it has more in it to humble the Soul in a saving manner, and to cause the Soul to feel sin to be most evil where it is most evil; to be the greatest burden where it is most weighty. ... That sin is most opposite to God the chief good.
Burroughs spells it out - sin most opposes God's nature; it is opposite in the way it works against God; it wrongs God more than anything else; it strikes at the very being of God.
2. Sin is always opposed to God and so always must be resisted
Three things here
1. Sin is in itself opposite to God.
1 There is nothing directly contrary to God except sin. That is the very definition of sin - it is against God. 1 John 3:4 Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. It is against God's law.
2 God would not be God, if there was even one drop of sin found in him or even if he caused there to be sin in another or it he only approve of it in another or if he did not hate sin as much as he does.
It is like what would happen if just one drop of deadly poison should get into a glass of water.
God hates evil - Psalm 5:4 For you are not a God who is pleased with wickedness; with you, evil people are not welcome. 11:5 The Lord examines the righteous, but the wicked, those who love violence, he hates with a passion. If he did not hate sin as much as he does then he would no longer be the holy God he is and if he were not that God he would not be God at all.
2. The way sin works is always against God. It is important that we grasp this.
The Bible tells us sin is hostile to God Romans 8:7 The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so.)
It is hostile to God and promotes hostility from him (Leviticus 26:27, 29 If in spite of this you still do not listen to me but continue to be hostile toward me, then in my anger I will be hostile toward you, and I myself will punish you for your sins seven times over.)
It is an attempt to resist God (Acts 7:51 You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit!)
It is to quarrel with your maker (Isaiah 45:9)
3. Sin resists God and strikes against him.
To sin is to show that you hate God because sin is always against his law. Sin is rebellion against God. We often don't think it is but it is. Remember when King Saul disobeyed God and he thought it was no great sin but Samuel says to him (1 Samuel 15:22, 23) Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. To sin is to despise God and his Word. Remember those words to David (2 Samuel 12:9) Why did you despise the word of the LORD by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.
More, sin is a striking out against God. When you sin you show you wish that God was not so holy, that he was not as he is. It is impossible for us to harm God but sin is really an attempt to destroy him.
To sin is certainly to wrong God. To sin is to say there is not enough good in God for me - I need something else. It is to pretend that he cannot see us - he is not present or he does not know what I am doing. It is to deny the wisdom of God and to besmirch his holiness as if it was nothing. You are pretending that God is without power and is unjust. Worse than that it is to fly in the face of his mercy and grace. What? asks Paul shall we sin so that his grace can abound. No way!
To sin is to oppose the Father who made you, the Son who laid down his life for you and the Holy Spirit in you whose one purpose is to make you holy.
It is to ignore all that is written in God's Word and to oppose the very end for which God gave you life and all that he ever intended.
3. Some conclusions about sin
Just a few conclusions and we are finished
1. Only a few people really grasp what they are doing when they sin against God.
2. How we need a Mediator who is both God and man and that is what we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. He understands our state but he is also God and so is able to save us completely.
3. Few of us are as humbled as we ought to be for sin. We will only humbled as we should be if we remember that it is against God and against him alone that we have sinned. Otherwise God's Name will not be sanctified, there will be no lasting humiliation and our souls will continue to hanker after sin.
4. Admire the patience of God. How much sin there is in the world and yet he bears and forebears
5. Here is a way to break your hearts for sin and to keep you from temptation. Meditate on the sinfulness of sin.
6. If sin be this sinful, it should teach us not only to be troubled about our own sins but also about the sins of others.
7. If sin has done so much against God, then shouldn't all of us who are converted be up and doing for God?
8. If sin is so much opposed to God, we can see why God is so very opposed to it.
No wonder he dealt with the angels who fell as he did, no wonder he has dealt with Adam's children as he has. It comes out in his Law, in the way he will punish even sins that seem small to us. Think of the flood and the massive deluge that was. And think too of hell and how he is going to judge this world one day.
Above everything else we can see how much God hates sin when we consider the cross. Think for example of Gethsemane and what we learn there - how he began to be sorrowful and troubled. He says My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.
Think of him falling with his face to the ground and praying, and how his sweat his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. Think of his cries to God. My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.
There are many other things we could say about sin in light of the cross and Christ's sufferings there nut our time is gone.
So the sinfulness of sin what a sobering thing to meditate on. It is good to do it neverhtheless.