Sin Can be Tricky

This morning, my attention was turned to Genesis 6:5, where we get an insight into the condition of the world before God sent the flood of judgment. The verse reads, "The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." Wow! It would be hard to make a more emphatic statement about the depths of sin in rebellious human hearts. This sickness continues today, a few thousand years after the flood. Even for believers, we have to be constantly vigilant to fight the indwelling sin that continues to battle against our new natures.

When I heard this verse, I was immediately reminded of some reading I've done this week from the Puritan author, John Owen, in his book Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers (thanks to Crossway Books for the new edition). Perhaps the most famous quote from that work comes from the first chapter where Owen writes, "Be killing sin or it will be killing you." Later, in the second chapter, Owen warns, "When a man has confirmed his imagination to such an apprehension of grace and mercy as to be able, without bitterness, to swallow and digest daily sins, that man is at the very brink of turning the grace of God into lasciviousness and being hardened by the deceitfulness of sin."

Owen is right. If I find myself at a place where sins are slipping by without conscious thought; without grief and repentance, then I have reached a frightening place! This morning, Genesis 6:5 reminded me that sin, in any form, is evil. Without question, if I allow any form of sin (no matter how small, ordinary, or common it might seem) to go unchecked in my life, I will start down a road that may lead to Genesis 6:5. God used this verse to help unmask the deceitfulness of sin that tries to tell me not to worry when I move on in my life, tolerating some sins just as long as there are no 'big' sin problems in my life.

I pray that God will give all of us the power, by His grace, to battle sin in our lives every day. The battle isn't fought so that we can go to bed at night patting ourselves on the back because we engaged the enemy. We fight so that we will be more useful tools in the hands of our God to push forward in our goal to spread His Name all around.