The Knowledge Of Sin

So in Romans 1 to 3, chapters 1 to 3, we have seen how Paul showed that all, meaning both Gentiles and Jews, have sinned against God. Whether they have the law in their hands or not, that is whether they have the Bibles in their hands or not, they have all sinned. “There is none righteous, not even one,” says Paul in Romans chapter 3. All those who came naturally into this world by default have sin in their hearts. Newborn babies look cute, right? Yeah, they’re cute little sinners. As they grow up, then real nature comes out, and it is not cute. But sometimes parents

think it is cute. That is a cute little sin they have done. That applies only to their kids and not to the other kids. And instead of correcting them, they smile at them and feel very proud of them. Right? Even that is sin.

Now what is sin? So we will just look at this one phrase, knowledge of sin, from this verse. So we’ll try to understand what sin is and its effects and its consequences. So according to Easton’s Bible Dictionary, this is how this dictionary defines sin. “Sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God.” Sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God, “in the inward state and habit of the soul, as well as in the outward conduct of life, whether by omission or commission.” It’s a big definition, right?

So if you are not fully conformed to the law of God and are lacking in obedience in any part of the law, then that is sin. The same dictionary says, “Sin is not a mere violation of the law of our constitution, not of the system of things, but an offense against a personal lawgiver and moral governor who vindicates his law with penalties.”

So all sin is against God the lawgiver. An author says there are two general kinds of sins, namely original sin and actual sin, and each of them is a want of conformity to the law of God. Again, original sin is a want of conformity of our nature to the law of God, and actual sin is a want of conformity of our lives or actions to the law of God, whether by omission or commission. So our nature must match to the law of God. If it’s not, then it is original sin that we have. And our works, our deeds, our conduct should match to the law

of God. If it’s not matching, then it’s actual sin. That’s how some people define it. Now all sin is against God Himself, and He is the ultimate judge, the one who put His law in the hearts of all men and women whom He created for His own glory. He created all of us in His image, that is He shared with us some of His qualities and He expects us to live them out for His glory.

And failing to live in such a way is sinning against Him, that is against His will, against His word, against His promises or purposes. Anything that we do that does not give glory to God is sin. So God is holy, righteous, perfect and good. Sin is quite the opposite to His nature. It is unholy, unrighteous, unjust, imperfect and evil. So if God is light, then sin is darkness. If God is clean, then sin is unclean or filthy or dirty. If God is all truth, then sin is all lies.

Sin is wicked. Sin is quite the opposite of the very being of God and all His attributes. God hates sin and abhors it with all His nature. So God abhors all that is not like him. That is all that is quite opposite to his nature. He will never tolerate sin or come to terms with it or make peace with it. He hates it.

He hates it. Now let us see how it all began. If you would turn with me to Isaiah chapter 14 in the Old Testament. Isaiah chapter 14. A couple of verses, 12 to 15. Isaiah chapter 14, verse 12 to verse 15. It says, “How are you fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How are you cut down to ground, you who laid the nations low! You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven above the stars of God. I will set my throne on high. I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will make myself like the Most High.’ But you are brought down to Sheol, to the far reaches of the pit.”

Though this text talks about the Babylonian King in its historical context, how he had risen to great heights and had fallen from there, this text is used typologically or allegorically to the fall of the chief angel or archangel whom we call Lucifer, is a Latin word for day star or morning star. We all might have heard this story of how an archangel in heaven and desired the throne of God and rebelled against him. So when God kicked him out of heaven, he came out with a third of angels who followed him in his rebellion against God.

They sinned against God in heaven and were expelled. Paul described this fallen angel, Lucifer or Satan, as a lawless one for he is against God’s holy law. Jesus calls Satan a thief and says, “The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy.”

That’s in John 10:10. While talking to the church in Pergamum in Revelation chapter 3, Jesus mentions Satan’s throne and dwelling place. Satan now has his own throne and rule. We all know that Satan is a prince of the power of the air and the ruler of this earth, from John 12:31. In Revelation 20 verse 2 he is called by these names: the dragon, the ancient serpent, devil or Satan. So these are the names of Satan. So we need to remember again that Satan is not the opposite equal to God. He is not equal to God in any way as many think.

But he is a created being by God himself. Satan is a limited being with limited powers. He is still under the sovereign control of God. He can only do what God allows him to do and to touch God's children, he needs God's permission. We need to picture him in this way.

What is a small red ant before us? Satan is like that red ant before God — puny, not his equal. So Satan is quite the opposite of God’s nature. He became the embodiment of sin when he rebelled against God. Now all that he can do now is to sin. He knows no other trade but to sin. That’s hidden. Now it is this serpent who showed up in the Garden of Eden while Adam and Eve were minding their own God-given business. Turn with me to Genesis chapter 3, look at verse 1 through 6. Genesis chapter 3, verses 1 through 6. Now the serpent was more crafty

than any other beasts of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the women, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘We shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You shall not surely die. But God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be open and you will God

knowing good and evil.” So when the woman, when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and there was delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. We see in Genesis 1 that God gave Adam and Eve dominion over all the living things of this earth. He told them to fill the earth and subdue it. And Adam and Eve were to be representatives of God on this earth. Together they are supposed to rule this earth.

In Genesis 2 we see in detail how God created Adam and Eve. We see that God first created Adam and gave him work to do and a commandment to follow. Just one commandment. Since his work is too great for him to do it alone, to subdue the earth and to rule over it, gave him a helper, that is Eve. And the plan is to populate this earth with many Adams who will take care of this earth. Before they start their training program, serpent enters the garden and deceives Eve, falls for that serpent’s words and break God’s commandment and makes Adam and to break it also. Now they both go and hide from God’s presence in the garden. Let’s pause and think what happened in the garden. Before that serpent entered that scene, everything was well and perfect. God

created everything and saw everything and said it was very good. And Adam and Eve were completely transparent to each other. They were morally perfect. There was no sin in them. They had a very good access God’s holy presence. They knew God face to face and were having fellowship with him on a regular basis in that garden. Their state at the time was unlike our state now. The newest state where there was no sin in them, so they were prone to no pain, no curse, no death in the mortal bodies. What a perfect state of being. That’s how God created them and expected them to live

in such a way. All those advantages they had were gone in a moment. They were just gone. There was only one commandment in the law. They broke it. And now look how many commandments we got. Adam and Eve willfully chose to sin and had to experience its consequences.

They were kicked out of that life-giving garden. It was like they were living in a supermarket. And all they need to do to survive is to grab and eat. Work was joyful too. It was like work from home. They don’t have to travel anywhere.

But they lost all those privileges by sinning. with their sin they brought upon themselves curse and death the punishment they were kicked out of the garden of eden so now they have to work hard to eat the ground was cursed because of them and it will not yield to them easily man the man will be toiling in the field to bring home food and the woman will be toiling to give birth and to raise children both men and women are experiencing the effects of sin outside the Garden of Eden but it does not stop there in Genesis work for we see Cain murdering his own brother and rebelling against God face to face

God spoke to him face to face, but he rejected him. He outrightly rejects God and goes his own way and creates his own society. Then we see Lamech involved in polygamy and murder as well. He says in Genesis 4:24, if Cain's revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech is 77-fold. What do we see there is, we see curse multiplying on the face of this earth. In Genesis 6 we see more. It says in Genesis 6, “the Lord saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth. And that every intention of the thought of his heart was only evil continually.”

“And the Lord regretted that he had made man on earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, ‘I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of heaven, for I’m sorry that I’ve made them.’” See, there was too much evil on this earth practiced by men and women of this world, and God’s response was that he felt sorry for making them. Then he choose to flush everybody out except Noah’s family. God did wipe away all human beings on the face of this earth, saving Noah’s family. That’s his judgment on this earth for all those wicked things that people were doing, which were great in the

sight of the Lord. God did not spare them, but poured out his wrath upon them. Whenever we see sin rising to a certain level, we also see God’s judgment falling on the people. We see that happening various places. God poured out his wrath on Sodom and Gomorrah and wiped out those cities. He poured out his judgment on Egypt and destroyed them. He judged many nations and is still judging them. You might not see how he’s doing that, but he is doing that. He’s not done with the judgment. There is a final day of judgment coming. The world will pay for its sins. The world

will pay for its sins. There will be death and destruction on that day. Death and destruction. It is not just an end. There will be a second death for all those who live the sinful life. Revelation chapter 21 verse 8 says, “but as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, the portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

This is a final payment for the sins that sinners commit. Paul gives us a list of sins that deserve this kind of punishment. In Galatians 5, if you turn to Galatians 5 with me, in Galatians 5, chapter 5, verses 19 onwards till 21, he says, “Now the works of the flesh are evident. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.” Paul says, “I warn you as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” And same Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 9 and 10, he says, 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 9 and 10, “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not

inherit the kingdom of God do not be deceived neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who practice homosexuality nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor revilers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of god all those above examples are written for our warning in first corinthians chapter 10 verse 11 says now these things happen to them as an example but they were written down for our instruction on whom the end of the ages has come therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he falls it's a warning for all of us even peter says that in second peter chapter

2 verse 6, “if by turning the cities of Sodom to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly.” All the judgments are happening in this world are pointing out to the great judgment day. So Jude 7 says, “Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise was indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desires, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.”

With the effect of the fall, humans have lost their ability to choose good. Every aspect of human nature has been corrupted by sin. The mind, the will, the emotions, are all affected by sin. That is why every thought of ours is sinful in one way or the other. That is why Paul says in Ephesians 2 that all are dead in our trespasses and sins. That’s a default position that we are in this world, and that is called total depravity. Take the worst sinner on this earth, worst sinner on this earth. What he can do, every one of us can do. Now we have the ability to sin much, to sin more. But that doesn’t mean that we are utter sinners and there is nothing good in us, but that

we are totally sinners in all aspects of our life. So sin has corrupted our nature to the core. Just imagine this: from our heart, where does the blood flow? To all parts of our body, right? The same. Sin is in our heart and it’s flowing to all parts of our body. Both in moral sense and in spiritual sense.

Now, but by God’s grace we are protected from doing much evil. The reason much evil is not happening in this world which can happen is because God is restraining it, protecting us from being in such a way. God’s image is still in us, but it’s marred, it’s broken. So we not only see the world sinning and God judging the world, but when God’s people sin against God still judges them. God still judges them. However, he will not give them that second death that the world will get it. Do you remember how Israel sinned in the wilderness? In Deuteronomy chapter 1 we see when they reached the hill country of Amorites, the Lord commanded them to go

and occupy the land. Moses encouraged them to go, but they rebelled against the command of the Lord and murmur against God. So God gets angry and swears that none of that generation will enter the promised land but will die in the wilderness. Then they quickly realize the consequences of this sins and say, “We will go.” They’ll say to Moses, “We’ll go and fight,” but Moses tells them not to go because God won’t be going with them. What did the people do? Moses says, “So I spoke to you, and you would not listen, but you rebelled against the command of the Lord and presumptuously went

into the hill country. Then the Amorites who lived in that hill country came out against you and chased you as bees do in Seir as far as Hormah. And you returned and wept before the Lord, but the Lord did not listen to your voice or give ear to you.” In the beginning God said go. They did not go, so God judged them. After hearing that judgment they say, “Oh no, we will go,” and God says, “No, do not go,” but they still went and got defeated. So there you see first the people did not do what the Lord told them to do, then people did

what the Lord told them not to do. So these are the sins of omission and commission, and there is presumption to a rebellion to the face the consequences of this is even Moses was not granted permission to enter the promised land because he did not honor the Lord properly. When God said to speak to the rock, Moses struck the rock with his rod. It wasn’t — it was in anger he did that. Moses did not show God as a holy God to his people, and thus he lost his access to the promised land. We hear about King David. King David was a man after God’s own

heart, right? But he was known throughout history as a man who committed adultery with Bathsheba and murdered her husband to hide his sin. God rebuked him. David paid the price for his sins. Solomon’s wisdom was praised by the whole world. People came from the ends of the earth to hear from Solomon, his wisdom. But in all that wisdom, what did Solomon do? He sinned against the Lord.

And the consequence of it, the kingdom was divided into two because of him. You can see how sin caused a lot of damage, even in the life of believers and how the Lord judged them too. Remember Ananias and Sapphira in the book of Acts, how they lied to the Holy Spirit and were dead. The Lord judges even believers. But there is hope. There is hope. 1 Corinthians 11 verse 32 says, “But when we are judged by the Lord we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.” Again the author of Hebrews says the same. Hebrews chapter 12 verses 5 to 6 and verse 11 as well.

Hebrews chapter 12 verse 5. “For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” All these examples show that God is very serious with sins and he will never tolerate it or ignore it but will for sure judge it. God hates sin with all his being. Sin is the only thing that God — that makes God angry. Sin is the only thing that makes God angry, not a little anger, but with an infinite and eternal anger. His holy character demands that response. There is another example that shows how hates sin. What is that example?

Look to the cross. Look to the cross. Why was Jesus hanging there? Why was Jesus bearing upon that cross that the Father was sorry? What was Jesus bearing upon that cross that the Father is hiding his face from him? Why should Jesus endure that punishment and drink from that cup, the wrath of God? If you want to truly understand how serious God takes sin, look at the cross. Look at the cross. If you want to understand the real consequences of sin, look to the cross. Look to the cross. Next time when you want to play around with that sin, look to the cross. Jesus, the

second person of the Trinity, the co-equal with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, and who was there with them for all eternity, stepped into this world. The only sinless one among sinners. He lived a perfect life, yet he had to face death. He spoke no wrong thing, yet he was beaten. He did no evil, yet he was condemned as a criminal. He never sinned, yet all the sins of his people were on him. He is the author of life, yet he has to face death on that cross, not an ordinary death but a cruel one. If God the Father did not spare

Jesus on that cross, what makes people think that God will spare them? Jesus is the one who talked a lot about judgment and hell. He forgave sinners but never approved their sins. Instead he said, “Go sin no more.” If Jesus takes it, if God the Father takes it seriously, should you and I not take it seriously too? Brothers and sisters, there is nothing good in sin. There is nothing good in sin. It is quite the opposite of all good. It robs us of all the good things that we can enjoy and leave us with emptiness, guilt and shame. Sin is against all the good plans

God has for us. Sin will rob us of our joy and peace, which we can only find in Christ Jesus. Sin will damage our reputation and make us look like fools before others. Sin disrupts our relationships. It disrupts our relation with God and with our fellow human beings. Sin might offer us momentary pleasure, but there might be eternal consequences to it. Nothing good comes out of sin. So why desire it? So how should Christians respond to sin? First, we need to remind ourselves of what Christ had done for us. Galatians chapter 3 verse 13 says, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by

becoming a curse for us, for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.’” Paul says in Titus 2 verse 11 to 14, “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in the present age, waiting for a blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of a great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” See what God is doing through

Christ. He’s redeeming us for a purpose, that we might not continue in sin, but renounce sin and live self-controlled, upright and godly lives unto God for his glory. He has enabled us to do that. Christians should put off sin, overcome sin, fight against sin, pray against sin.

Sin is our enemy now. It’s not our friend or ally. Christians should condemn sin at all costs and never encourage it. Mortify their sins, that is, put to death their sins daily. Christians should help one another in overcoming sins. James chapter 5 verse 16: “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. And the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” So Paul gives a big list of what to do in Ephesians chapter 4 verses 25 to 32. So it’s a big passage. Let us read it.

If you turn with me to Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4 verse 25 onwards. Ephesians chapter 4 verse 25. “Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor. For we are members one of another.” So have you ever hurt your left hand with your right hand?

Did you ever hurt your own body? When it’s not listening to your voice? So Paul is saying, you see, members in the church are like parts of the body. We are all together. One body. If we sin against others, then we are sinning against ourselves.

We are hurting ourselves, not just others. So that’s why he says, “one of you speak the truth with his neighbor.” What happens if you speak lies to one another? We’ll hurt each other. “For we are members one of another.” We are all joined in Christ. Verse 26: “Be angry but do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.” Why should we not be angry? What happens if we continue to be angry or continue new in our anger? We are letting the devil take hold of us. Again, you see that? And is that a good thing? No. What does the devil do

to us? He comes to steal, kill and destroy. Verse 28: “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have share with anyone in need.” You see, the gospel is quite transforming. People are selfishly stealing things for themselves now ought to work hard, earn and share with others. We don’t earn to selfishly spend it on ourselves. We get salaries so that we can share it with others. Is it hard to take?

Verse 29. “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” Again, what do we talk after the church service? Is it really helping the other person, building the other person to grow in the knowledge of Christ, to grow in his Christian life? If not, then that’s a useless talk.

And we should put it off. So every moment that we speak with others, we must have this intention of building them up. That’s why we speak good things to them. their lives, the gospel into their lives as often as we speak. And then we’ll not give any chance for dirty words to come out of our mouth. That’s not a good thing to do. Verse 30: “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you are sealed for redemption.” See, all that we do in this life with our thoughts, words and actions, it will either please God or grieve God. So the God who gave us his only son to die for us on that cross, what does he expect of us? That we

might make him happy or that we might grieve him? Well, let's just pause and think. Every day in our lives, if we consider every moment of our life, are we pleasing God or are we grieving his Spirit? If the Holy Spirit looks into our minds and see the thoughts that we are having and entertaining, will he be pleased or will he be grieved by it? If the Holy Spirit hears our words from our mouth every day, will he be pleased or will he be grieved? And the things that we do not in front of people but when nobody is there — when we are alone, if the Lord looks at our works, our deeds, will He be pleased or will He be grieved?

Let's keep thinking these thoughts. And our goal as Christians is to please the Lord, not to grieve Him. To please the Lord, to make Him happy. you know the Bible says even God rejoices over us and we want to see him rejoice over us every day and every moment of her life we're study to us sorry we're study one let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice

Again, what do we see here? Something that's coming out of our hearts, right? Bitterness against one another. If somebody said something against us in a negative way, what do we have in our hearts against them? Bitterness. First we'll be upset with them, then as we think and ponder upon that we get angry. As we continue to think about that, bitterness builds in our hearts and we hate them. And hating our brother or sister is committing murder.

It's like committing murder. So let us check our hearts and see what our hearts are doing. The Bible says our hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked. We cannot trust our own hearts. We cannot trust our own hearts. Slander. Slander, when we see somebody sinning, what do we want to do? When we find out that somebody had fallen into some sin, what do we want to do? You want to go and share it with other people, right? Sometimes you feel like… Don't we?

We want to make them look bad in front of others. That's our heart. That's a sinful heart. And that's slander. That's even like murdering as well. Verse 32, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you.” So what do we do as Christians? As our example, with a Christ our example, and we follow in his footsteps, what did God do? He has forgiven us when while we were yet sinners, right? When we repented of our sin and put the, put our trust in Jesus, he had forgiven us. So while we had sin, as Christ died

for us to obtain his forgiveness for us. So when other people sin, what should we do? We should be quick to forgive them rather than fight against them. If we do not have this habit of forgiving people, then we need to ask this question: did the gospel really work in our hearts? Did the gospel really work in our hearts? So again, we need to remember this, that a person who continues in sin, who loves sin, who enjoys sin, and who keeps sinning in his life but says he's a Christian is not truly a Christian at all in the first place. 1 John chapter 3, verse

8 and 9. 1 John makes it clear in his epistles. 1 John chapter 3, verse 8 and 9: “Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep because he has been born of God.” We have seen that before. God disciplines those who commit sin among believers, Christians.

He will not leave them in sin, but he will discipline them and bring them back to himself. He will not let them continue in sin, but if a person you see is continuing in sin, that means he's not at all a Christian in the first place.

And sin leads people to eternal hell. Eternal hell, where there'll be no more chance to repent. They'll not be given another chance to come out of it. In hell they'll keep on sinning forever and ever as they keep facing the judgment. They'll not be happy. They'll keep cursing God even in hell. So dear brothers and sisters, let us be careful in how we understand sin. If we do not have this knowledge of sin, then probably what shall we do? What we'll do is continue in sin, right? That's why as Christians we need to understand what sin is, what the Bible says about sin, what God

is saying about sin, so that we'll better be prepared to avoid it, to reject it, to condemn it. So we need to work hard, we need to study the word, we need to update ourselves, right? We all try to update ourselves with all the AI and the new technologies that's coming, right? But are we updating ourselves with the knowledge of the word? Do we spend time in the word to know what God likes and God dislikes? Do we study the word to understand what God hates and what we should hate? So we need to spend time in the word. That's why we have the Sunday

services and Bible studies so as Christians as members of the church we are responsible to be regular to those things. We need to attend those things so that we can be better equipped to live for God's glory in this world. So let us be careful in how we walk with our God, introspecting ourselves daily, whether we are in the faith or not.

Let us remember that our God is a holy and righteous God, and He will not tolerate sin, will not entertain sin, will not lead anyone into sin, but He is the one who will redeem us from all our sin. We have already experienced that in our life and one day we'll fully experience it once He comes back or once we reach Him. So until that day, let us keep pressing hard. Let us keep pursuing our Lord Jesus. Let us keep looking unto Him as we live our day-to-day lives in this world.