Sin: What it is

SIN:What It Is

 

The general idea of sin - “great” sins. 

---

Object Lesson Illustration: A lightly yellowed and a snowy white handkerchief.

The rescue mission is an interesting place. There you see men and women dressed in rags, some drunk, some with scarred faces, and some unable to walk. The reason why they are so terrible looking is because of sin. They have gone deep down into sin, and it has left its marks upon them. Just as soon as you look at them you know they are sinners. There are other people who do not look like sinners, beautiful and gracious ladies, men who are kind and generous and who seem to be perfect gentlemen, and do not appear to be sinners like these others; but that is looking at them from the outside only. We cannot see their hearts. Only God can see hearts, and He has told us in His Word secrets about people that we would never guess from looking at the outside.

 

Here is a handkerchief (the yellowed one). What color is it? White, you say? Now look at this one (the snowy one). The first one does not look so white now, does it? For now you have the whiter one to look at, and the other one seems to be a dirty yellow That is the way with sin. We speak of little sins and big sins. Some people even talk about “little white lies.” That is because they do not realize the holiness of God.

 

What is holiness? It is perfection - absolute freedom from sin or wrong of any kind. God is perfect. He is holy. Let us find Psalm 145:17 in our Bibles and see what God says about Himself. He says He is righteous in all His ways and holy in all His works. He has never done anything or thought anything that could be even the least little bit wrong. Here is another verse in Habak. 1:13. It says that God cannot look on sin. He is so pure that when He sees sin, He turns away from it. When we think of a holiness like that, all our own goodness begins to look like the dirty handkerchief when we brought out the very white one.

 

For God, everything that is not absolutely perfect, is sin. Here are some verses that tell us what sin is before God. (Look up and discuss the verses under 2.) Sin is breaking God's law. God’s law is like a measure, and when the things we do are measured by it, we see how far from perfect they are. Just think of the commandment which is called the great commandment of the law. You will find it in Matthew 22:36-39. No one has ever kept it perfectly for one hour! So you see we have all broken the law, and so have all sinned, in fact, having broken the first and great commandment, we are first and great sinners.”

 

You cannot see into my heart, to see whether or not I am a sinner, and I cannot see into yours, but God’s Word tells. I know you are a sinner, and you know I am. Here are the verses (under ). God says we are all sinners. That is why Jesus died for us all.

---

STUDY QUESTIONS