48. There Are No Little Sins

Welcome back to the broadcast where we prod the sheep and beat the wolf. This is episode 48.

There are no little sins. There are no such thing as little sins.

Every minuscule action or inaction, every microscopic thought, feeling, or lack thereof that is tainted with even the slightest trace of sin is eternally damaging to our relationship with God.

And yet we live in a world constantly seeking to minimize what the Bible calls sin.

I do it, you do it, we all do it. We want to reduce the gravity of our sin to the point where it no longer stings the soul.

We take things that are offensive to God and then reframe them in language that is more palatable to our egos and our consciences.

For instance, how many politicians or celebrities have you heard make the claim, I made a mistake, whenever it's been discovered that they're cheating on their spouse?

They do not call it sin or evil or adultery. They reduce it down to the level of accidental carelessness.

The same word that I would use to describe spilling a glass of milk or tripping on a street corner, a mistake, is the word that's used for intentionally planning a prolonged, illicit relationship of sexual and emotional infidelity.

These two actions are not the same. This is why infidelity is cast as my needs aren't getting met because the perpetrator wants to continue to be the victim.

Divorce has now been recategorized as falling out of love or drifting apart or we just aren't a good fit anymore in order to avoid a sin that God hates.

Digitally depicted sex acts, incest, race, rape, grotesque forms of violence are all rebranded under the guise of entertainment and then joyfully consumed without even so much as a question.

Homosexuality and pedophilia are called love, rebranded as normal expressions of affection and sexual behavior instead of the rank perversions that they are.

Abortion, which is the intentional slaughtering of innocent human life, is now more politely called rights, quote unquote, and healthcare.

Yet, we not only play those games in this society with the big sins, but we also do that little slimy dance with the sins that we consider to be small.

For example, many treat lying as no longer wrong in an absolute sense, but something that can be situationally advantageous and it may just be a white lie.

Gluttony can now be described in words such as comfort or foodie or boredom.

Even sins of omission, where we do not do the very things that God has commanded us to do, can be seen now as, that's just not my gifting.

I'm not qualified to do that, which does not biblically work. See Matthew 28, 18 through 20 for an explicit command that is woefully ignored today as a perfect example.

Now, I'm convinced that this kind of behavior is a universal condition, Christian or not, believer or skeptic, we all long to maximize our egos and to minimize our culpability before a holy

God. How can I say this? Because I want to minimize my sins right along with you. I can't speak for everyone, but I know intimately how the human condition works because I'm very much human.

I detest that I am a guilty sinner and I would gladly scuttle past that point without a moment's reflection if I could.

To do that, I either have to deal with how sinful that I am and be brutally honest about it, or I will do what everyone is doing, what all of us are naturally and are in our proclivities prone to do, which is minimize, trivialize, and placate our sin.

And maybe you'll ask, why do we do this? Well, I think it's evident in scripture why we do this. It's because we chose rebellion against God. Something intrinsic to our own soul was broken that day so that all we now do and everything that we crave has now been tainted by the disease called sin.

Instead of honesty, we weave clever ruses to picture ourself as the good guy or as the hero. We don't want to face the music that we failed and that we've become deeply flawed in ways that we cannot fix.

We don't want to admit that we would fail a million times if we were given a million chances with God.

We avoid the obvious truth so that we can keep our sin outside of us instead of dealing with the reality that it's going on inside of us, affecting, effecting, and infecting every part of us.

Like a viper that is killed by the very young that she nourished in her womb, so it is that our relationship with God is damaged by the little sins that we allow to fester down inside our soul like baby cobras without recourse.

Ignoring them doesn't actually help the situation or make them go away. They still grow. Convincing ourself that we are all okay is not actually getting at the problem.

In fact, it's making the whole thing worse. The longer we attempt to justify ourselves or make ourselves feel better, the deeper that we actually disappoint ourselves and do damage to ourselves.

Imagine the fatalism of Sisyphus, a character in Greek mythology who was condemned to roll a massive boulder up a hill over and over and over again only to have that massive boulder roll right back down the hill for all of eternity.

That's called fatalism. But all of us are doing the very same thing when we minimize our sin.

We get stuck in a pointless cycle of futility that will never bring our souls the rest and comfort and relief and healing that all of us are looking for.

The more that we try to minimize our sin, the more our inabilities are put on full display and the more hopeless we become.

The most simple solution is to simply admit that we are not good, that we are in fact miserably evil, which ironically, that admission is where the truth actually and the true hope actually begins.

When we understand the desperation and the futility of our situation, we will stop looking at ourselves for help.

We will no longer hope to find any goodness inside of ourself and we can finally accept that all goodness comes from something or better yet someone outside of us, which is

God. When we begin to deny our own ability and ingenuity to bring healing into our souls, then we will finally instead start looking to the scriptures and to Christ, which is where our real and actual help comes from.

Now below, I wanna talk about just a few things for you to consider as you take up the sword to fight the temptations that Satan wants you to minimize.

Number one, there are no minor sins. We must understand that there's no such thing as a minor sin.

Every single sin, regardless of its degree or magnitude, was enough to entirely damn the soul of man.

It was a single sin committed by Adam and Eve that unleashed the terrifying plague of sin upon the soul of man and created conditions whereby

Christ committed himself to come and to die. Knowing this, we must not view any sin with triviality and we must remember to be vigilant in putting to death the flesh.

Number two, minimizing sin maximizes sin. When we view some sins as more petite or less significant than others, it won't be long before we begin minimizing other sins as well.

That's the way the sinful nature works. It's always attempting to take more and more control over us, more and more ground.

It's always attempting to grow. If Satan can convince you that lusting after a single woman in public is not a big deal, soon he's gonna have you lingering on pornographic websites in private.

If he can get you to bend the truth and tell a lie in an unimportant area of your life, it won't be long before you're casting lies in consequential areas as well.

As Thomas Brooks once said, he, that is Satan, will cause you to sit down with the drunkard first before you become one.

Seeing this, we must recognize that sin is not modest. It has a cruel and insatiable appetite that will never be filled.

If you give into it at all, it will never stop craving more. Because of that, wouldn't it be better for us to kill sin while it's still a hatchling than when it becomes a fully grown dragon?

Number three, minimizing sin has maximum consequences.

We must remember that in some ways, little sins bring more devastation and culpability into our lives than even the bigger ones.

Now, for instance, if a man missed his 10 -year anniversary dinner with his beautiful wife due to an urgent and time -sensitive matter at work, his wife might be more inclined toward understanding than if he missed it because he was at home playing video games.

In the former, he was choosing an important event at work over his wife, which is a hard enough pill for her to swallow.

But in the latter, he was selecting a trivial game over his precious bride, which communicates the flippancy of his affections.

In much the same way, overlooking a perfect and glorious savior for the thrill of an insignificant sin expresses the shallowness and the frivolity of our affections, so much so that it must be ardently, seriously, and forcefully repented of because it says much about the way we actually love

Christ. Number four, minimal sins are more evil than maximum struggle.

We must also remember that there's infinitely more evil in giving into the slightest and sweetest -tasting sin than in the most extraordinary and bitterest struggle.

We may suffer for years under the pain of unmet desires. We may quake in the depths of our soul as we wrestle against the enemy without relief.

We may shake with tremors unimaginable in the mind and in the flesh and in the body. But so long as we are struggling, the

Lord is pleased with our travail. We must remember that we are worshiping as we are resisting the toxic pleasures of Satan.

We must not give in too easily to end that struggle or end that pain prematurely.

The Bible promises that if we keep on struggling, Satan will eventually flee from us.

Perhaps we have no experience of the enemy fleeing from us because we are so prone to escape our pain, to avoid the embarrassment, and to end our struggle with sin far too early.

Remember, it is evil to give into sin, but there is sanctification and God -honoring worship when we fight.

Conclusion, sin must not be minimized or trivialized. Sin caused our world to fall into the depths of depravity and violence that we see so forcefully today.

Sin caused our precious and spotless Savior to undergo the wrath of Almighty God. And sin, while promising putrid pleasures, becomes the bane of our intimacy between us and God.

Knowing this, my friends, let us be vigilant in fighting, in making war, and in mortifying our flesh so that we can experience more joy, more intimacy, and more pleasure in knowing

God. Thomas Watson said, "'What fools are they who for a drop of pleasure "'drink a sea of wrath?'

May we follow Watson here in avoiding the frivolous and trivial pleasures of sin. May we fight with the strength of the

Holy Spirit and may we honor our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. To Him be glory and honor forever and ever.

Amen." Thank you so much for joining us on the broadcast. I hope you have an awesome day. Mortify the flesh.