Forgotten Words that Need Reclaiming – "Sin"

Certain Bible words have become the stepchild of the pulpit and of Christianity in contemporary America and other places in the world. Not always entirely forsaken, these words have nonetheless been designated to the back closet of the back room in the back section of the building. If anyone wanted to know more about them, we preachers might discourage it: “Oh yes, they are there and I’ll have to admit they are valid, but nobody talks about them anymore. They’ve become outdated and don’t fit well into the modern narrative of doctrine anymore, "There are other, more appealing parts of the house we’d rather show you,” we might say.

These neglected words have become antiquated – passé, in our minds and hearts. They’ve become politically, educationally, legislatively incorrect and socially unacceptable. They don’t dominate the media unless with disdain.

Few preach on them. We don’t want to lose good tithers who donate nicely to the church. Few write books on them. Such a book would not sell much. Hardly anyone tweets or goes on Facebook to talk about these subjects. Someone might block us from their account.

What words are we talking about which some would prefer to delete from the lexicon? What words do we need to reincorporate into our thinking, speaking and teaching? Here is the first.

Sin

“Sin,” such a little word, but one which comes with such big consequences. Hardly anyone talks about sin anymore. I remember a time, when I was very young, that preachers preached often on the subject of sin. They preached it hard but with tears.

The bible tells us that our first ancestors sinned against God.[i] It says that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was “very grievous."[ii] It has much to say about sin:

“Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.”[iii]  

“Jesus answered them, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.’”[iv] 

“Sin is the transgression of the law.”[v]

“All have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God.[vi]” 

“The wages of sin is death.[vii]”

As you read the messages of the great preachers of the past, you’ll recognize a vast difference in their preaching and ours. Jonathan Edwards said:

Sin is the ruin and misery of the soul; it is destructive in its nature; and if God should leave it without restraint, there would need nothing else to make the soul perfectly miserable.[viii]

Charles Spurgeon preached:

Sin is the greatest evil in the universe. It is the parent of all other ills. All manner of evils draw their bitterness from this fountain of wormwood and gall. If a man had every possession a mortal could desire, sin could turn every blessing into a curse; and, on the other hand, if a man had nothing for his inheritance but suffering, and stood clear from all sin, his afflictions, his losses, his deprivations might each one be a gain to him. We ought not to pray so much against sickness, or trial, or temptation, or even against death itself, as against sin! Satan, himself, cannot hurt us except as he is armed with the poisoned arrows of sin. Lord, keep us from sin. “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” There is no evil like the evil of sin—deliver us from it, O Lord! [ix]

These great preachers did not just talk of sin in the generic sense, saying things like “we all do it,” as some kind of excuse. They named the prevalent and popular sins of the times in which they lived.

George Whitfield preached a message entitled, “The Heinous Sin of Drunkenness” and another entitled aptly, “The Heinous Sin of Profane Cursing and Swearing.” One of his sermons was on “The Folly and Danger of Being Not Righteousness Enough.”

They did not just stop with the bar or the brothel where unsaved ones gathered but pointed toward the sins of the church as well (which could be one and the same). Dwight L. Moody proclaimed:

I firmly believe that the Church of God will have to confess her own sins, before there can be any great work of grace. There must be a deeper work among God’s believing people. I sometimes think it is about time to give up preaching to the ungodly, and preach to those who confess to be Christians. If we had a higher standard of life in the Church of God, there would be thousands more flocking into the Kingdom. So it was in the past; when God’s believing children turned away from their sins and their idols, the fear of God fell upon the people round about. Take up the history of Israel, and you will find that when they put away their strange gods, God visited the nation, and there came a mighty work of grace . . . The judgment of God must begin with us.[x]

Where is this boldness once seen in our pulpits? Oh, there are some wonderful men of God who still thus proclaim against sin but it seems they are the exception rather than the rule.

Sin is real. It is a serious offense against God that he will judge. There is also a remedy for sin and that is the man who was God and who died as our substitute for sin on the cross and then rose again from the dead – Jesus.

Men of God, called to proclaim God's word, let us faithfully preach the whole counsel of God, and let us not exempt ourselves from the subject of sin!

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[i]     Genesis Chapter 3

[ii]    Genesis 18.20

[iii]    Proverbs 14.34

[iv]    John 8.34

[v]     1John 3.1

[vi]    Romans 3.23

[vii]   Romans 6.23 – this verse adds “…but the gift of God is eternal life
        through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

[viii]  Sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.

[ix]    Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit  Volume 36 
        THE DECEITFULNESS OF SIN NO. 2130

[x]     Dwight L. Moody, Prevailing Prayer (Chicago: Moody Press, 1990), 28.