What Are The Consequences of Sin?

I am continuing my series on the relevancy of The 10 Commandments. You can read part one here, part two here, part three here, and part four here.

In summary, keeping The 10 Commandments will make your life here on earth easier, but you cannot earn your salvation by keeping them. You earn no points with God, and He doesn't stop loving you when you break them. None of us is able to keep them perfectly and so they were never given to show us how to be saved. They were actually given to show us how miserably we will fail and are in dire need of a Savior. Christianity is about freedom. God came to set the captives free. We have been slaves to sin, we had no choice. But God sent His Son to redeem us (buy us back) and His Spirit to empower us to conquer sin.

Some may think I'm condoning sinning since I preach grace. I say you have the choice to battle sin in your life and rise above it (and it is God that gives you this ability). I say you have the choice to be free from it. But many don't and God still loves them the same. I truly think that those people are ignorant of the power that God came to give them, to break the bondage of sin. If you are one that justifies all your actions by saying, "it's okay, God has to forgive me", I question whether you are really saved at all. If you have any concern about pleasing God, then you probably are saved.

No, I don't preach liberty in the sense that you think. We have liberty in Christ to live free, joyful, peaceful lives, but the paradox is that this liberty is stronger the more we submit to His will and not our own. After all, we were bought with a huge price, our lives are no longer our own. (I Corinthians 6:19-20)

So what are the consequences of sin?

1. Repercussions from this world.

2. It opens the door to the devil.

3. Our flesh grows stronger.

4. Our soul is tarnished.

Think about the world we live in. If you steal, you suffer consequences in our society. You risk being injured or killed by your victim. You risk being arrested and convicted by our justice system. Let's talk about adultery. The natural consequences of this world we live in are such that your marriage will most likely fall apart, you may lose your children, you will definitely ruin your witness with your children, your chances in another marriage are greatly diminished, and you may catch a disease.

Secondly, sin opens the door to the devil. If he knows you bow to temptation easily, he will ruthlessly tempt you all the more. He also likes to throw scriptures in your face (used wrongly, of course) to beat you down and condemn you. He will tell you you're not worthy, unloved by God, and make you even question your salvation and entrance into heaven.

Now for the third category, we have the flesh. That is the part of ourselves that wants to do wrong. Before we're saved, we are slaves to it, but God sets us free, if we believe on Jesus. Unfortunately this part of us doesn't go away. It hangs around and tempts us. If we continuously give in, it grows stronger and stronger and becomes harder to resist. (I give more detail in my last post, click here to read.)

I will explain point four in detail next time. It will take a bit of space.

What are not consequences of our sin?

1. God stops loving us. (See Romans 8:38-39)

2. God punishes us.

3. God is unable to bless us or protect us. (Now it may seem that way, because you have opened the door to the devil, but God is able to do whatever He sees fit. Read all the Old Testament stories where people were in direct disobedience to God, yet He showed them grace, especially Ahab in I Kings 20. Ahab was a wicked king, but we see God calling to him, helping him win a battle, even in the midst of his sin.)

4. You can lose your salvation. And this is the controversial one. Some believe that there is a point where you can sin and lose your salvation. I don't believe that. Some believe that if you are one that has reached a high level of maturity, in Christ, and genuinely know what you're doing, you can reject your salvation. I'm still not sure about this one. But I do know that in general, people mess up, some mess up really, really badly. They still believe in the work that Christ did on the cross, they are not in danger of losing their salvation.

Tune in next time where I explain Romans 6:23 - For the wages of sin is death. Does this contradict what I have presented here?

I also encourage you to read through Romans and Galatians in light of what I have presented here. Don't take my word for it. Search the scripture for yourself.