The “Where” of Sin
"But each one is tempted when, by his
own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has
conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth
to death" (James 1:14-15, Holy Bible, New International Version).
As we saw last time, sin is part of our
nature as fallen human beings. We sin
because we're sinners; it is the natural thing to do. The obvious response to this is then, how can
God find fault with me if I'm only doing what is natural? As it says elsewhere in the Bible, "but where sin increased, grace increased all
the more." In other words, each
time we sin, God's grace abounds to cover that sin. So if sin comes naturally to us, and grace
increases as a result of sin, then we should just keep doing what comes
naturally to us because it increases God's grace; our sin actually makes God
look better, right?
Wrong!
This is a classic "shift the blame" argument. A natural propensity to sin, does not excuse
the act of sinning. We are always trying
to make excuses for our sins and shortcomings; we do everything in our power to
create the illusion that we were somehow justified in what we did, or that
circumstances were such that we couldn't help do what we did. Why do we go to such lengths to exonerate
ourselves in these situations? Because
somewhere deep down inside our hearts, we know what we do is wrong. The Apostle Paul wrote, "Indeed, when [unbelievers], who do not have
the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for
themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the
requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also
bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them." In other words, just because we're not
Christian, or just because we don't know the Ten Commandments or anything in
the Bible, doesn't excuse us from a
guilty verdict before God. As Paul
wrote, the law of God is written on our hearts.
This is our conscience, and as Paul said, it either accuses us or
defends us. Whatever we do, our
conscience will either affirm or condemn what we do.
Now it is possible to ignore and desensitize
our consciences so that they no longer work as God intended them to. That is the thrust of today's verse. This verse describes the progression of sin
from a nascent desire in our hearts all the way through to a deadly habit. The first thing to note from the verse is
that the temptation to sin comes from within. God doesn't make you sin, neither does the
devil "make us do it." Our
naturally sinful desires allow the temptations in our lives to entice us into
sin. Repeated sin leads into a lifestyle
of habitual sin, and eventually this habitual lifestyle will lead to
death. So the progression is this:
temptation leads to desire, desire leads to sin, sin leads to a lifestyle, and
a lifestyle leads to death. As the old
saying goes, we have no one to blame but ourselves. We allow
temptation to lead to desire, we
allow desire to lead into action, we allow
action to lead into habit, and we
allow habits to lead into death. If you
think this sounds awfully depressing, you're right; which is why most people
don't want to talk about it, but this only delays the inevitable. Just so you know, there is a light at the end
of the tunnel; that'll be for next time.