Sin is a Journey

Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children: Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; (2Peter 2: 14, 15)

I want to clearly state that sin is not the simple act of sinning.

You do not become an adulterer when you sleep with a person other than your spouse.

The journey to the act starts long before the act is done. The act is the evidence that one is adulterous. It is the indicator that the heart was stolen long before the act.

Let me use our first parents as an example

Do you realise that their sin started long before they were tempted? They were tempted because they had already succumbed to the enticement of sin.

Why do I say so? You may be wondering.

How big was the garden?

Do you realise from the description in the Bible that it was in multiplied millions of acres? It occupied the land that encompasses a large chunk of Africa and the whole of the Middle East, and beyond.

You therefore wonder why they were found in the proximity of the forbidden tree and especially why they had not even sampled the tree of life which was in next to the forbidden tree.

They were simply captivated by what was forbidden to the point that they were unable to move any distance from it.

Their fall was therefore the culmination of all that craving for the forbidden.

The serpent became the prick to burst the balloon that was supposedly lack of sin because the act was absent.

What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful. (Romans 7: 7 – 13)

Look at some things Christ said.

But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. (Matthew 5:28)

He gives the act a context.

You start committing adultery long before the opportunity presents itself.

The journey starts when the heart is inappropriately drawn towards an object.

It then begins to grow and expand in the heart.

As a seed, it gets to the point that it must manifest by bearing fruit, the act of sin.

Remember Jesus describing hate and spite as murder?

He spoke thus because He was cognizant of the fact that the seed determines the harvest and the fact that a seed always grows and increases as it feeds on the surroundings so that it can then bear the right fruit.

Of course, the fruit is way bigger than the seed. But the nature of both is identical. The fruit is also in its way a seed for the next generation of fruit. Then there are way more seeds than the single one that started the whole process.

But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of HIS own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. (James 1: 14, 15)

Sin starts with OUR OWN LUST. The devil just takes advantage of that lust to lead us to actual sin so that we can be able to acknowledge our sinfulness and of course give him a chance to justly accuse us to God.

For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women LADEN WITH SINS, LED AWAY WITH DIVERS LUSTS, (2Timothy 3: 6)

These false teachers do not go to mislead innocent women but silly women laden with sins and already lost to different lusts.

They therefore take advantage of their fallen hearts (though their conduct may be fine) and maximise on their lusts to give their ‘astrayness’ an avenue to manifest.

Balaam is another example that brings this out clearly.

He craved to feed from the king, probably whichever king was open for his ‘ministry’.

That is why he, instead of saying what God told him to say, simply said that God had refused to allow him to go. God was the reason he couldn’t go.

He was simply saying that he would have been on his way were it not for God.

And that is also why he had the guts to go to God again to look for new permission.

I suspect God acceded because Balaam could have continued to look for that permission until God granted it.

We again see it when he is confronted with a talking ass and angel with a drawn sword. He continues looking for permission.

A sober person could have simply turned back as there was no need of extra evidence to know that God was opposed to that ‘ministry’.

No wonder that he decided to offer wicked counsel when he couldn’t bend prophecy. To imagine he was God’s prophet!

And we see something else in Eden.

Why did they add to God’s command?

God never said anything about touching.

I suspect they added that commandment to inhibit their cravings for that forbidden tree. They wanted to make it difficult to sin.

But the problem was in the heart, a heart that was craving to sin. And no barrier is high enough to block it.

There is no way you can ringfence obedience. And that is what our first parents were trying to do. No wonder it failed so terribly.

Let me also say something I have come to the greatest realization just recently.

The spiritual sensitivity of the other side is way more accurate in assessing our heart’s tendencies toward sin. They are so accurate in that as well.

They can smell a person trying to avoid sin when the heart has fallen into the sin from miles away. And they get the actual evidence when they throw in a temptation your way from your response.

‘I am married’ is an excuse not to commit adultery as with many other ‘reasons’ you may give. Just like, ‘we were also forbidden to touch’, was in Eden.

He will then know that you are in the sin realm and will just need a little prodding before you give the evidence of the state of your heart sin-wise.

Compare that with Joseph

How can I do this and sin against God?

He was not looking for excuses. His heart did not have issues.

If truth be told, it was much easier for him to fall into sin than David

But David gave excuses until God confronted his sin. Then he was able to use Joseph’s argument.

Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. (Psalm 51:4)

Even justification for sin works along the same lines.

He mistreats me, she is unfaithful, he does not love me, she is not submissive, etc.

Those are the counter arguments the devil will use to break your attempts at ringfencing obedience (I am saved, I am a church leader, I am married, I signed a True Love Waits commitment card)

And he will win all the time because he captured your heart long before the temptation. He has in fact been nurturing that lust so that his final attack will be as easy as it was in Eden. All those excuses and reasons are the ones he has been growing in intensity until the only resistance remaining becomes so flimsy and the temptation so massive that you can be felled by a finger.

What am I saying?

The act of sin is an indicator of a long association with the tendency of sin harbored in our hearts for a long time.

That explains the folly and shame we associate with sin.

Like why would a mature and respectable church woman be found in bed with her watchman or shamba boy? Why would a pastor be found in bed with his house girl or harlot? Why would a respectable man or woman be found in bed with a street boy or girl? Why would someone have sex in the church compound or the bush?

Why should someone who can afford any five-star hotel room be found having sex in a car in the parking lot? Why would someone have sex with their own offspring?

The process of sin was complete and anything and anybody available could access the ‘goods’ since they were on display for whoever was available to pick. Everything else became secondary to that few minutes of pleasure; reputation, job, marriage, business opportunity etc.

Nothing else will matter when the fruition of sin occurs.

A CEO will have no qualms sleeping with a tramp, however unkempt they may be, at that point since that was the only available channel of release.

The sin act is the manifestation of sin that has been maturing in the heart.

I have used sexual sin because it is one sin that defiles all of life and nature.

But all other sins follow the same trajectory.

Unfortunately, the heart can easily deceive us that we are fighting sin even when we are nurturing it in our hearts.

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9)

But God as always has a solution; His word.

Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word. With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments. Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee. (Psalm 119: 9 – 11)

We are as safe as our alignment and agreement with the completeness of God’s word since we know that the devil is an expert at using this or the other verse to lead us to sin or explain our depravity away.

Our hearts must be in the right place for us to be able to identify those leanings toward sin in us.

Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults. Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression. (Psalm 19: 12, 13)

That must be our prayer.

Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139: 23, 24)

A very determined prayer. Also, a prayer that opens our hearts to the leading of the Holy Spirit towards the holiness His nature requires.

Otherwise, we could very easily be feeding the sin in our hearts by the right verses to bloom and flourish so that our fall will be all the more dramatic since he is a master at this game.

Only God can shine His light to enable us see the depravity of our hearts even when the sin acts are absent.

That explains this verse.

But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. (Isaiah 64:6)

This is because our hearts, however ‘clean’ they may look, harbor depravity in God’s eyes, a depravity only the blood of Christ can cleanse and only the total yielding to the Holy Spirit can overcome.

Where is your heart?