Is Falling into Sin Normal?
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Important messages
“None
of the people in the Bible were perfect, yet God used them.
1. Moses
was a murderer.
2. David
was an adulterer and schemed to kill the husband in battle.
3. Abraham was
a liar.
4. Jacob was
a deceiver.
5. Samson
was a fornicator.
6. Solomon worshipped
other gods, married many women and kept concubines.”
Usually,
these kind of statements are made by people who are trying to justify a shady
lifestyle. They are misleading and really show ignorance of the Bible accounts
and certainly ignorance of the ways of Christ. We’d better look at the rest of
the stories mentioned:
1. Moses…
It is debatable whether Moses’ intervention on behalf of a fellow Israelite,
who was being severely beaten (perhaps to death) by an Egyptian slave driver,
would be considered murder in the culture of those days, although it certainly
got him into big trouble with the Egyptians. Nevertheless, Moses received a “sentence”
of 40 years in the desert, caring for his father-in-law’s sheep. After going
through that “correctional institution” he was ready to be used of God.
2. David…
The Bible makes it very clear that David was to be plagued and his family would
bring him grief for the rest of his life, because of his adultery and murder.
Afterwards, one of his daughters was raped. His son, Amnon, was murdered by
another son, Absalom. Later, Absalom plotted against his father, usurped his
throne, and made an attempt on David’s life. Nevertheless, David loved Absalom
and was grief-stricken when he was killed. Another son, Adonijah, was killed by
his son, Solomon, David’s successor. From the Bathsheba incident on, David’s
kingdom never shown as brightly as it did before.
3. Abraham… did not lie to Pharaoh or to Abimelech
about his wife Sarah. He later clarified his relationship to Abimelech: “She actually is my sister and the daughter
of my father, but not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife.” (The
law concerning marriages between close relatives was not given until centuries
later.)
4. Jacob… was a deceiver. No doubt about it,
that was the meaning of his name, but that characteristic was manifested before
his encounter with God at Bethel. There is no evidence that God was his God at
that point. At Bethel, God revealed Himself to Jacob as the God of Abraham and
Isaac, but not Jacob. His deceiving nature caused him much grief over 20 years
of his life with his deceitful uncle Laban. At Peniel (the face of God), Jacob
had another encounter with God and his name was changed to Israel, no longer a
deceiver.
5. Samson… was a fornicator and that sin
eventually cost him both his eyes. From that point on, he was useless for God
and a slave of the Philistines, until the last moment of his life, when he died
with the Philistines, as God judged them and him. However, God’s mercy and
restoring power was evident towards Samson in that last act.
6. Solomon… was not used of God during the time
that he took on many wives and concubines. He blindly followed foreign wives into
idolatry. When his eyes were opened and he wrote the book of Ecclesiastes, he
discovered that all that he experienced, when he strayed from God, was
emptiness and vanity.
There are no
accounts of these kind of failures among the leadership in the New Testament,
especially after Pentecost. The Apostle John taught that “everyone who has this hope
in him purifies himself” (1 John 3:3). He is referring to the hope of being
with Christ in heaven. The doctrine
of holiness is an essential New Testament doctrine and towards that end the
sinner is born again and receives a godly nature. Without that, “No one will see the Lord.” No, the
Christian is not perfect, but through the new nature, he strives against sin.
The New
Testament doctrine is taught clearly by Paul in Romans 6: “Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? God forbid! How
shall we who died to sin still live in it?... So consider yourselves to be dead
to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus… For sin shall not be master over you,
for you are not under law but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we
are not under law but under grace? God forbid!
The Apostle John
defines the Christian life in his first epistle, providing us the opportunity
to judge whether or not we are born of God. Here is his conclusion concerning
true conversion and new birth: “You know
that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him… You know that He
appeared in order to take away sins: no one who sins has seen Him or known Him…
The one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; the
one who practices sin is of the devil…”
Sin has ruined
the lives of many a preacher and made him useless for God’s service. Let there
be no mistake about it, God does not take sin lightly; He has zero tolerance
for it and the person who makes provision for the flesh is in for a huge spiritual
catastrophe down the road.
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