THE RESULTS OF SIN IN MAN'S RELATION TO HIMSELF

The change which took place in the heart of man when he chose to sin was very great, indeed. Since that choice man has gone farther and farther away from God, and so his heart has become darker and darker. That darkness, however, is often hidden behind a mask of religion or of respectability. Man has many high ideals, but it is impossible for him to reach them, for he is bound by sin and darkness. Below are some of the changes that took place when man sinned:

He became the slave of sin. The Bible says, “Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.” John 8:34. Man wanted to be free from God, but he became the servant or slave of sin.

He becamse separated from God. “For the wages of sin is death.” Romans 6:23. And, as we have already explained, death means separation. Since man became the slave of sin, he must receive sin’s wages, death. Separated from God now, and separated from Him in Hell forever.

He became vain in his imaginations or thoughts and his foolish heart became darkened. Romans 1:21. Separated from Him who is all wise, man became foolish. Romans 1:22.

Guided by a darkened heart, man’s mind became completely reprobate. Romans 1:28.

His life thereby became filled with all manner of evil. Romans 1:29-31.

This included wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, envy, murder, deceit and disobedience to parents.

Finally, although he knew the judgment of God that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only does the same, but has pleasure in them that do them. Romans 1:32.

It is not difficult to follow this change in man which took place when he sinned. Separated from God, his thoughts became darkened. Then his heart which receives his thoughts as light became darkened too. Influenced by that darkened heart, his thoughts then became completely reprobate or base. Finally, his deeds became very vile until he could sin without being ashamed. Today, man is proud of his sin. Stealing is no longer wrong in itself, but rather he feels pleased at how cleverly he steals. Happily he deceives his fellow man and engages in corruption. And in all these deeds he does not realize that “the wrath of God abides on him.” John 3:36. He does not realize his danger. He laughs and jokes, unaware that daily he is moving nearer and nearer to eternal destruction in hell.

My dear reader, remember that what is written above is not only a picture of the life of Adam and Eve. It is not only a picture of mankind in general. It is a picture of your life too. Do you realize your danger? If so, consider carefully God’s way of salvation as explained in the following blog writing, entitled: “Gods Remedy and Promise”.

John E. Capron – Guest Blogger

THE RESULTS OF SIN IN MAN’S RELATION TO HIS FELLOW MAN

The darkness and death which filled man’s heart as a result of his sin, quickly showed itself in his relation to his fellow man.

After Adam and Eve were driven out of the Garden of Eden by God, Eve gave birth to children. Two sons are especially pointed out to us. The older was Cain, the younger was Abel. Cain was a farmer, while Abel was a keeper of sheep. We are told that one day they both brought an offering to God.

Cain’s offering of the fruit of the ground was rejected by God. Abel’s offering of the firstlings of his flock was received. Basically, Cain’s offering was rejected because it was one he thought up himself. It, like the fig leaves used by Adam and Eve, was an effort to cover his own sin. Therefore, it was refused. Every effort on man’s part to save himself from sin is sure to be rejected by a holy God.

On the other hand, Abel’s offering shows his faith in God’s way of salvation which He showed to man in the Garden of Eden. By slaying goats and making coats of skins for them, God pointed out that One must later suffer and die to cover man’s sin. Every offering based on the work and promise of God to provide salvation is sure to be received by Him. This was true then. It is true now.

Afterwards, Cain and Abel were talking in the field. Suddenly Cain rose up and killed his brother. Now it is vital for us to realize why he killed him. IT WAS BECAUSE HIS OWN RELATION TO GOD WAS BROKEN. He was angry with God because his offering had been refused; so he killed his brother. Normally we don’t want to connect these two incidents. But in His Word, God does connect them, to show that our relation to our fellow man can only be right AFTER our relation to God has been made right first.

We steal from our fellowman, because we are not right with God! We deceive, oppress, and hate our fellowman, because we are not right with God. When a person repents of his sin and comes back to God, he becomes rightly related to Him. And he experiences a real change toward his fellow man too. He no longer wants to steal from him or deceive him in any way. Instead, he wants to help him, and, above all, to bring him to God so that he might be saved too. So in reality our relation to our fellow man shows clearly whether our relation to God is right or not.

As long as we are separated from God, we are separated from LIFE, LIGHT, and LOVE, for He is the Source of all these. Our hearts, therefore, become filled with death, darkness and hate. And these things are clearly seen in our relation to our fellow man. Dear reader, before you can really treat your fellow man right, you must be rightly related to God. You must be saved. In receiving salvation, you receive Him who is Life, Light and Love into your heart, and these things will then be clearly seen in your relation to others.

John E. Capron – Guest Blogger

THE RESULTS OF SIN IN MAN'S RELATION TO GOD

It is very necessary for us to understand the results of Adam and Eve’s sin, because the results of our sin are the same as theirs. Those results can be classed under three relationships: man’s relation to God, his relation to his fellowman, and his relation to himself.

The results of sin which are connected with man’s relation to God are:

He became afraid to meet God. After God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, we read that it was His habit to walk in the garden in the cool of the evening. He came to talk and fellowship with them. How happy they must have been! It is easy to imagine how they must have waited for His coming. How happy they must have been when they heard Him approaching! But after they had sinned, what a difference! When they heard His voice in the garden, they began to tremble with fear. They ran and hid.

Dear reader, sin always makes us afraid to meet God. This is the reason why death causes so much fear to man. Death takes man into the presence of God who is both just and holy. And in every man’s heart there is deeply planted a belief that God, Who is holy, cannot overlook sin, but rather must punish it.

The fear of meeting God caused Adam and Eve to try to cover the results of their own sin. They made loin cloths from fig leaves for this purpose. Ever since that day, man has continually tried to cover his sin by making himself more acceptable to God. For example, he may cover himself with religion to accomplish this, for in his heart he feels that in this way his sin will not be known. His one desire is that other people, and more especially God Himself, should not know the sin that is in his heart.

He became separated from God. Adam and Eve were driven out of the Garden of Eden where they had experienced daily fellowship with God. This being driven out was the fulfillment of God’s promise that in the day they ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would “surely die.” Genesis 2:17. This is the most important result of their sin and their heaviest punishment. Death never means an end. It means separation. When a person dies, what happens is that his spirit is separated from his body. Spiritual death occurs when a person is separated from God. In the Bible hell is spoken of as the second death, because those who enter that terrible place will be separated from God forever. And so, when man was driven out of the Garden of Eden, away from the presence of God, he died spiritually, for his sin separated him from God. Separated from God who is the Source of all light, man’s life became filled with darkness. Separated from God, the Source of all good, man’s life became filled with evil. Separated from God, the Source of all blessing, man could only bring a curse on those around him.

These are the results of Adam and Eve’s sin. These, dear reader, are the results of your sin too.

John E. Capron – Guest Blogger

DEAD TO THE LAW

"Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God."(Romans 7:4)

Why would Paul make such an outlandish statement right in the middle of dealing with us living the Christian life? We have already found out that the law (the 10 commandments mainly) could not provide us our salvation, our deliverance from the penalty of sin, our justification before God. And now right in the middle of explaining our sanctification (our Christian walk of being set apart to God in this life now and the resurrected life of Christ living in us and out through us now in these mortal bodies) He brings up the Law again.

He even uses a law that has to do with the marriage between a man and a woman to explain what he means by being dead or delivered from the Law. That the death of the husband freed the woman to be married to another and likewise the death we experienced by dying with Christ when His body died on the cross freed us from the Law so that we might be married to the resurrected Christ so that we might bring forth fruit unto God.

"For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man. Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God." (Romans 7:2-4)

We don't have a problem believing we need deliverance from our sins, or deliverance from the world, or deliverance from self, but deliverance from the Law? Sins and the world system and self are bad but Paul states that the Law is not sin (Romans 7:7) and is holy and just and good (Romans 7:12).

"What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, “You shall not covet.” (Romans 7:7). "Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good." (Romans 7:12).

So why would he state that we are dead to something that is holy, just and good? Well let's see if we can find out. Do you ever get irritated with someone who is always negative? It doesn't matter what the subject is they always look at the negative. Telling you where you are wrong. It seems that their whole purpose in life is to tell you where you are wrong. It seems that they delight for an opportunity to tell you that you are wrong. Always pointing out the things that are wrong, only condemning. Not only that when they keep telling you where you are wrong, it tends to make you want to do what is wrong more than ever. How do we get deliverance from a person like this? Well I guess we just have to reckon ourselves dead unto them.

Well that is what the Law does, it tells, it reveals but shows no way of deliverance. The Law could not deliver us from the bondage of sin and could only reveal, and sin used the Law to arouse passions in us that ended up producing just fruit of death, thus our master was sin. As far as deliverance by the Law was concerned we were dead. We needed deliverance from the Law that, in itself could not deliver us.

"But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire. For apart from the law sin was dead." (Romans 7:8)

"BUT NOW" (Romans 7:6) through the death and resurrection of Christ we are delivered from the Law that couldn't deliver us from our state of death. So we need no longer try to serve the Law with the expectancy of deliverance. So now we are free from any expectancy of deliverance from the Law because we have been delivered from the penalty of sin and now have this power within us to deliver us from the power of sin as we allow Him to, because He will eventually deliver us from the presence of sin.

"But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter." (Romans 7:6)

The Law could not deliver us from the penalty of sin (our justification) and neither can it deliver us from the power of sin in this life (our sanctification). And I might add that it will not be the Law that eventually delivers us from the presence of sin.

We have been saved from the penalty of sin and have a new nature within us, a new creation, the new man that desires to do the will of God and be delivered from this power of sin but just doesn't seem to have the power to accomplish it.

The new nature tries but just seems powerless to this power of sin within us that is not dead unto us. We just cannot command and control this old nature by presenting the Law to it and trying to make it straighten up and even making more rules for it to abide by (and some of our rules can be just as strict as God's). This tells us that we still have confidence in this flesh and God has no confidence in it, and all He could do with it is crucify it.

Making more rules and regulations is the way we are convinced we can make this flesh do right, even though it has been proved to us by God's Word that we can't even keep the rules and regulations God has set up, let alone more that we set up. This would be turning the Christian life into a religion of works. This would all be our pride; that we could dress up something that God saw no use for and crucified it. It is easier for us to make rules and regulations than to look to God by faith to live this Christian life His way.

Neither can we present the Law to the new nature and tell it to keep it. The new nature delights in the Law of God and wants to keep it, but just seems powerless to accomplish it.

I believe that Paul's experience in Romans 7 answers the vital question. Can the regenerate (saved, born again) person, apart from the dependence of the Spirit do the will of God, even though he delights in that will?

I believe we all have to experience what Paul experienced in Romans 7 before we will turn this Christian life over to the power of the Spirit to be lived out.

The victory of Romans 7 is for those who have experienced the defeats of Romans 7. Each time there is progress in our Christian life it is preceded by dissatisfaction with our current condition. All progress starts with dissatisfaction.

"For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. Romans 7:15-20

I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin." (Romans 7:21-25)

"For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." (Romans 8:2-4)

"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."(Galatians 2:20)

Mark Chandler

MAN'S FALL INTO SIN

In the Garden of Eden there were many fruit trees, which were planted by God to provide food for Adam and Eve. They could eat the fruit from these trees as they wished. However, in the middle of the garden was one tree whose fruit God told them not to eat. This tree was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Now, it came to pass that Satan, the deceiver, came into Eden to begin his wicked work of separating man from God. He began this work by placing doubts in man’s mind and heart concerning the goodness and love of God. He said, “Yea, hath God said, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” By this question he sowed the thought in Eve’s heart that God was withholding something good from them. Now in fact, they could already enjoy every good and pleasant thing according to their heart’s desire. By forbidding them to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God was only protecting them from evil, and the misery and death that follow it.

After Eve explained God’s command to Satan, he answered, “If you eat of the tree, you shall not surely die.” That was the word of the father of lies. Then he showed Eve that the fruit of that tree was “good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise.” Eve was deceived, and she took of the fruit and ate it. When she carried some to Adam, her husband, he ate of it.

And so they made their choice. They chose to believe the devil rather than God. They chose to do what they themselves desired rather than what God desired. They rebelled against God, and sin entered into the world. The Bible says, “Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned.” Romans 5:12.

Their eyes were immediately opened and they knew they were naked, and they were ashamed. To cover their nakedness they made loin cloths from fig leaves.

In the cool of the evening they heard God walking in the garden. Because they were afraid, they hid from His presence. But God sought them, calling out, “Where art thou?” What a beautiful picture! God, who already knew that man had sinned, did not turn His back on them. Instead He sought them, to save them from their sin.

After He found them, God faced them with their sin. Then He punished each according to his part in that sin. The earth was cursed for man’s sake, and Adam was forced to work hard for his food. Eve’s sin was punished with added trouble and pain in bearing children. The serpent, who surrendered himself to Satan’s use, had to crawl on his belly all his life. God told Satan that he would be destroyed by the Seed of Eve, who was deceived by him. God Himself would raise up a Savior who would destroy the devil through His suffering.

After this God made coats of skins for Adam and eve. They were then driven out of the Garden of Eden, away from the presence of God, the Source of all light and good.

John E. Capron – Guest Blogger