Sin Is More Dangerous Than You Think
Are You Blind?
One of the most devastatingly dangerous powers of sin is its ability to deceive. Sin is an evil monster masquerading as your best friend. It is a grim reaper masquerading as a life giver. Sin is darkness masquerading as light. It is foolishness masquerading as wisdom. Sin is disease masquerading as a cure. It is a trap masquerading as a gift.
No matter how it presents itself to you, sin is never what it appears to be and will never deliver what it promises.
Sin is deceptive because it presents as beautiful what God says is ugly. When you are on your third burger, you are not seeing the danger of gluttony. Instead, you are experiencing the pleasure of succulent meat, dripping cheese, and that soft bun. When materialism has you spending money that you don’t have on things you don’t need, you are not feeling the danger of your greed and thievery. Instead, you are taken up with the pleasure of your new things.
Sin is also deceptive because it lulls us into minimizing our transgressions. We fall into thinking that our anger doesn’t matter, that the little lie doesn’t make much of a difference, that our gossip won’t hurt anyone, that our impatience isn’t a big deal, or that everyone is envious once in a while. Because of sin, we try to convince ourselves that our sin isn’t that sinful after all.
12 Truths Every Teen Can Trust
Paul David Tripp
Adapted from Paul David Tripp’s book Do You Believe? these brief, approachable readings help teenagers learn about 12 doctrines and reflect on their relevance to the Christian life.
But notice the remedy for spiritual blindness that’s given in the passage from Hebrews: “But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (Heb. 3:13). This is very humbling. We’re so easily tricked that we require daily intervention.
To help with our spiritual blindness, we need instruments of seeing in our lives. We need others’ eyes to help us see what we cannot.
And in his grace, God has surrounded you in his church with instruments of seeing. So open your heart to his gracious provision, and you’ll have a defense against the blinding power of sin.
Slaves of Sin
Sin is not just attractive, presenting as beautiful what God says is ugly, but it is also addictive. Sin is more than a bad thing you do; it is a master. And if you welcome it into your life, it has the dark power to enslave you. Somehow, someway, sin turns us all into addicts.
Hear the words of Jesus: “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin” (John 8:34). The pleasures of sin pass quickly, but its mastery over you remains. Because sin gives you momentary pleasure, you reach out for what God forbids. But the pleasure quickly fades. So you reach out again, hungry for more because created things have no ability to satisfy your heart.
Each time you reach out for more, you need more to achieve the pleasure you are craving. Whether it’s gluttony, materialism, gossip, stealing, the desire for power and control, or the craving for appreciation and success, what temporarily satisfied you yesterday doesn’t do so today. You have to have more and more.
Before long you can’t stop thinking about the object of your sinful craving. What you once were convinced was harmless and under your control now controls you. You are addicted to what God has forbidden.
Sin is never harmless; it is a cruel slave master, out to kidnap your heart and control your life.
The addicting and enslaving power of sin should make each of us thankful for the power of the Messiah. Jesus is powerful to “proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound” (Isa. 61:1). He is our only hope of escape from the bondage-inducing power of sin.
Do you need to run to your Savior for his bondage-breaking grace? He is able, he is willing, and he will not turn you away.
A truly changed heart is always the result of God’s grace.
Hope for the Sinful Heart
If our problem were simply that we do wrong things, then changing our actions would fix it. But what if sin is, in fact, a problem of the heart? Then lasting change in a person’s behavior will always travel through the pathway of the heart.
Rules can’t change us. The gospel tells us that if God’s law had the power to rescue and transform our hearts, Jesus would not have had to come. And people can’t change us. No human being has the power to transform another person. A truly changed heart is always the result of God’s grace.
God says, “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezek. 36:26).
The word picture here is very helpful. If I have a stone in my hands and I squeeze it with all my might, nothing happens. Why? Because it’s hard and resistant to change. But a soft, fleshy object is malleable; it can be molded into any shape I desire. The promise of the gospel is heart change, without which there is no victory over sin.
We like to make plans for self-reformation. We think:
“I will do better next time.”
“It was just a weak moment.”
“I’m smarter now than I was.”
“I think I know what to do next time.”
“I now know how to avoid this in the future.”
But the fact that sin always originates in the heart destroys those plans. Instead, we must humbly confess that when it comes to sin, our biggest problem is us. We are led astray not primarily by things outside of us but by the thoughts, desires, motivations, cravings, and choices of our own hearts. We also have no power whatsoever to change our hearts or the heart of anyone else.
Lasting change is only ever an act of divine grace. So we run to our Savior for the rescue and transformation that only he can provide.
This article is adapted from 12 Truths Every Teen Can Trust: Core Beliefs of the Christian Faith That Will Change Your Life by Paul David Tripp.
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