Totally Unfamiliar With My Own Sin

"So she took of it's fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate."
-Genesis 3:8



"Wretched man that I am! Who will save me from this body of death?"
-The Apostle Paul

I remember talking about it.

Before I believed it.

I talked about it.

But mostly I talked about things like the old "age of accountability" and "how much sin is too much sin?" and "if a Christian commits suicide does he go straight to hell?"

You ever ask that one?

You ever hear about someone making it to heaven "by the skin of their teeth"?

I mean, you know, just barely. Like, if that guy had committed one more sin he would've been toast.

So inevitably, the conversation becomes a discussion of "how far is too far?" Once I'm a Christian, when does God say, "That's enough. Too much sinning. You've back-slidden too far. Repent once more or be doomed. Rededicate your life or lose your salvation. You choose."

You would think if anybody needed to rededicate their life, it would have been King David. Humble beginnings but God raised him up, blessed him and made him king. Then while David is enjoying the high life, he has sex with Uriah's wife. Then he sends Uriah into battle to die. And Uriah died. Do you think if David had slipped on a banana peel and died at the moment he had murdered another man after sleeping with that man's wife, do you think he would have died with sin in his heart and gone to hell?

If you had asked me that 10 years ago, I honestly do not know exactly what I would've told you. I would have certainly said something about it being "a tricky situation" or spouted something about not judging another man's heart in an effort to not have to answer.

But let's talk about sin itself.

David himself said something about sin that completely changed my view of sin. He said,

"For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." (psalm 51:3&5)

It seems to me that David had an idea about the fall of man that I didn't have. That idea was about the curse of sin itself.

I had previously thought people were born basically pretty good. We pop out cooing and being cute till one day...boom...we become accountable for our actions. And overnight our lives change. Sin is corrupting us. Tempting us. Now, if we hit our brother and then lie to our parents about it, God is mad at us. And we are held accountable. That's where we get the idea of an "age of accountability". It's just a terrible way to say, "at this age, God begins to judge you".

I don't think this is what David was talking about. David understood that he was sinful from birth. He said so. "Behold, I was born in iniquity. In sin I was conceived." This did not mean he was born out of wedlock or that he was the bastard son of a man on the move. It means he was born with sin in his heart.

He was sinful from conception.

This was his condition.

Let’s go to the Garden of Eden.

When God created Adam and Eve He gave Adam the job of tending the garden. Eve had the job of Adam’s companion and help-mate. This was a good job. I imagine it was quite a satisfying vocation.

Adam and Eve had one rule. Do not eat the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden. He said as soon as you eat of it you shall surely die. God didn't mean "instant death from the poison apple", but that physically they were going to grow old and die. Also, their soul's suffered a kind of instant spiritual death.

For the first time, a human felt shame.

Regret.

The garden didn’t feel the same way after that.

What God meant was that through this sinful act, sin would enter the world. When Adam and Eve committed that sin, sin's curse distorted everything. The world became warped. Ever wonder why work isn't tending, it's toiling? Sin. Ever wonder why it hurts to bear children? Sin.

The societal decline was instant. After eating that fruit, Adam and Eve were driven out of the garden. They went to toil the ground and bear children. The effect of sin entering the world was so fierce that the first family was extremely dysfunctional. Their first child killed his little brother.

Not too many steps between taking fruit, and taking someone's life.

Cain wasn't taught to murder. He didn't watch violent movies or play Grand Theft Auto on his PlayStation 2. He was born under the curse of sin.

It was his condition.

Fast forward to David.

David was "a man after God's own heart." Yet David was born cursed and sinful.

The effect of this curse is the same today. I see it in myself.

I was born sinful...

So were you...

So were all of us. Every person starting with Cain (minus Jesus), has been born with sin corrupting his heart. So how bad is this corruption?

This corruption is best characterized with one word.

Inability.

We can't do it. We try to do good. But we can't. Even the things that seem good. Those things are tainted by sinful desire. Why is it that what we want to do is the wrong thing? It's because sin is in our heart. We do the wrong thing because we want to do the wrong thing. And when we want to do the right thing, we still find ourselves constantly doing the wrong thing.

Why do you suppose the Apostle Paul cried in anguish, "Wretched man that I am! Who will save me from this body of death?" Paul knew his problem. He said once in a letter,

"For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me."

Catch that at the end? He said, "sin that dwells within me."

The corruption of this sin is strong enough to make us want to do evil. You don't have to teach us. We know all about it from the get-go. And it separates us from God. We are far away.

Paul says we are dead in our sins.

There's an old metaphor that gets tossed around that speaks of our situation as sinners. It is said we are drowning in sin. We can barely even keep one nostril above the surface. We're treading water, gasping for breath, looking for help, going nowhere because of the ocean of sin in our hearts.

I don't believe this for a second.

I believe we are stone cold dead on the bottom of that ocean. Lifeless, rotted, eaten by sea creatures with no ability to move at all.

Hopeless in ourselves. Desperate and dead.

Paul said,

"Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned..."

We're all guilty. We've all done it. We were all born with it.

What does this say about our relationship with our Creator? What happened to us when were kicked out that garden? How badly does this sin separate us from a holy God?

On this Paul doesn't mince words. He said,

"For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God."

What are we supposed to do? This is quite the hopeless situation. How can somebody believe after reading these things that people are "basically good"? Paul quotes the Old Testament saying that no one is righteous.

Not one.

No one understands.

No one seeks God.



Coming Soon: Part 2. Undeniably lost Without God