Why Sin Matters, Part 2

From God's standpoint, sin is serious. From our standpoint, sin is inconvenient. Dr. Tony Evans talks about the danger of downplaying the importance and impact of disobeying God. Sin brings consequences, and that's why it matters. Celebrating 40 years of faithfulness, this is the alternative with Dr. Tony Evans, author, speaker, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, and president of the Urban Alternative. Speeding can get you a ticket. A felony could land you in jail. Today, Dr. Evans will talk about the consequences of disobeying God's laws and explain why we need to take the concept of sin very seriously.

You'll want to turn to Genesis chapter 2 as we join him. When you go to the store to purchase a device, whether it's a tool or an electrical device, you do so because you want that device to improve some aspect of your life or your home or your vehicle. It is purchased to make something better or easier for you. But when you purchase an electronic device or a tool or an appliance, you will see something on the box or a sticker on the item.

It will simply say, warning, read before using. And so we get these warnings in order to maximize the device that we have purchased. There is a device called life.

You and I get to live it. But I want to talk to you about a warning that comes with the device called life. It is a warning often unread or, when read, unused, creating a breakdown in the device called life.

It is with that understanding that we begin at the beginning, when God first creates man. He gives man kind life. I'm using the word device, but I'm referring to life. You are alive. You possess life.

But I'm sure there are plenty in this room who could testify this device is toe up from the floor. It's broke down because it was misused or a warning was not heeded. Let me show you two verses in chapter 2. The Lord, verse 16, commanded the man, saying, From every tree of the garden you may eat freely, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat it, for in the day you eat from it you will surely die.

That was the warning on the package called life. While this is the beginning of mankind, it was not written in the beginning. Moses is the author of Genesis. Moses is living many generations after Genesis occurs, because that's the first man, Adam with the first woman, Eve. Moses is many generations later. He's in the book of Exodus, but he's the one who wrote Genesis and Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy, called the Pentateuch. The first five books of the Bible was written by Moses. So Moses is recounting God's history and the history of mankind up and to the point he's writing it in order to deliver it to the Israelites, who he's the leader of.

He's the leader of the Israelite nation. He wants that group to know the history of God with man so that they would have the information necessary to move forward as a nation and as a people to live a victorious life. So to teach them how to live a victorious life, he reaches all the way back to the beginning to show them how history, God's story, unfolds with mankind and how this principle I'm going to share with you today and beyond works itself out in order to get them to move into their future differently. So I am doing with you and with us what Moses was doing with them in his day, going all the way back to the beginning so that moving forward, we can get life right and not continue to repeat the generational cycle that has gotten so many of us messed up.

The point that Moses is making to Israel that he picks up from what God told Adam was a very simple principle, and it is this. Sin brings consequences. Sin brings consequences, and that's why it matters. Now you and I live in a day when the word sin has been dumbed down. We call it mistakes, bad habits.

In fact, when we want to be cool about it, we just simply say, my bad. Sin in God's definition is disobedience and departure from the divine standard. God sets a standard.

Men depart from it. The Bible calls that sin. From every tree of the garden, you may freely eat. But of that tree, do not eat it, for you shall surely die. The tree will kill you. Now, what did the devil tell Eve? In verse 4 of chapter 3, the serpent said to the woman, you surely will not die. Translation, there will be no consequences. I know God said there would be consequences, but I'm telling you, says Slick, if you eat from the tree in the middle of the garden, don't worry about it. God's talking smack.

He's talking noise. You're not going to die. You're not going to die. This tree's not going to kill you. See that fruit on that tree?

That's some good-looking fruit. That tree is not going to kill you. God says it will surely kill you.

Satan says it surely will not kill you. So we back to our choice. So now we got to talk about die. Die.

Let's talk about that. When you think about the word die, you're thinking about a casket with a body in it of a deceased person. That's what we think about when we think about death. In the Bible, the word die does not mean cessation of existence.

We look at it that way. Nor does it mean annihilation of existence. That's not the biblical understanding of the word death. The synonym for the word death in the Bible is separation.

Okay, so for where I am now, I want you to think the word, not cessation or annihilation. I want you to think separation when you think of death. Death occurs when something that should be connected is illegitimately separated. When you see a body lying in a coffin, the only reason the body is lying in the coffin is that the soul has separated from it. The soul has left the body, and since the soul is the core and essence of life, life has left the body, leaving the body on the ground in the coffin, and the soul marches on to eternity. There has been a separation that has occurred. So by death, you shall surely die—stay with me—you are going to experience an illegitimate separation. God said, the day you eat of it, you will surely die. Not next week, not next month, not next year. On that day, there will be an illegitimate separation that should not be that will occur.

And here's where it gets nasty. They didn't die that day. They didn't keel over that day.

There were no heart attacks that day. In fact, Adam lived for hundreds of years after that. So was God uninformed about what He meant by that day?

Does one day equal some long period of time, or did He mean what He said? Separation is death. On that day, a whole series of separations took place.

That is, a whole series of deaths took place. Death, number one, was spiritual death. They used to walk with God, the Bible says, in the cool of the day.

We find them running from God, not walking with God. It was an illegitimate separation, sort of a spiritual death. The first family fight between a man and a woman took place where the Bible says, and you will be at odds with one another. So there was a relational death that did occur. The reason why people talk about my marriage is dead is because there's a separation that has occurred.

They created a scenario where their siblings became separated and Cain kills Abel. So there is a separation that occurs. You know, one of the worst separations that occur, you know, the worst kind of separation you can have is when you separated from you. People commit suicide when they can't live with them anymore. When they are so out of sorts with their own humanity, and the Bible says that shame took over, and fear took over, and their emotional well-being collapsed, and they were dissatisfied with themselves. So they're dissatisfied with themselves, they're separated. They're dissatisfied with each other, the relationship is separated.

And then we find in chapter three, there is an environmental separation. The environment goes crazy so that no longer is there order in the environment in which they live. So there was death. A lot of people today under the sound of my voice are dead. They're not physically dead like Adam and Eve, but your circumstances are dead, your well-being is dead, your relationships are dead. Like people often say, I just die.

Because there is an illegitimate separation that has occurred as a consequence of biting the wrong tree. The day you eat from it, you will surely die. The day you go for information independently of me, you don't know it, and it may taste good, but you just bit death. Now let me just mention this one right now. Verse six of chapter three. I'll just throw this one out for you.

Okay. When the woman saw that the tree was good for food. When the woman saw that the tree was good for food.

Okay, now I won't go too fast on this one. When the woman saw, so she's looking at this tree, that the tree was good for food. Now, okay, what's the problem with that? There are a couple problems here.

Problem number one. When she saw the tree was good for food, but that's not the first time she's seen this tree. She's seen this tree because she just told the devil what God said about the tree. She knows about this tree. She's seen the tree. What the devil did was give her a different picture of the tree. She was now looking at the tree through his eyes, not through God's eyes, and he painted a different look. He made that thing look a little different. Oh, but there's something worse.

There's something worse. When the woman, verse six, saw that the tree was good for food. Let me say that again. When the woman saw that the tree was good for food. I don't know if you caught it yet, because I've said it three times. When the woman saw that the tree was good for food.

What's the problem? The problem is that the tree is not only good, it's also evil. All the devil pointed out was the good part of the tree.

He never told her about the evil part of the tree. Even though she knew about the evil part of the tree, he made the good part look so good she lost sight of the evil. How many of us have been flim-flammed by something that looked good because the evil was hidden, but all of a sudden it showed up with a vengeance?

With a vengeance. When you and I live our lives independently of divine revelation, a separation occurs. Even though it looks good on the outside, it may be good in terms of its look and its taste and all of that, a separation occurs first from God and then it spins over to everything else. Dr. Evans will come back in a moment with more of today's lesson, including the Bible's interesting parallel between sin and childbirth.

You'll want to stay with us for that. The Bible makes it clear that you know when God has cursed a land, when its fathers are nowhere to be found. Dr. Tony Evans says that what becomes of the next generation of men depends on what happens with this one. Our kids need to see men in their midst who love God and who love them. But what does it take to be that kind of man?

You can find out with the help of the Tony Evans Training Center's free course called Kingdom Man. It'll teach you to see past the phony images of manhood that society surrounds us with and become the loving leader that a wife and family would want to follow. As with all of our courses, there's in-depth study material you can work through at your own pace, lots of exclusive content from Tony, tightly focused Q&A videos, and an online forum where you can collaborate with other students.

It's almost like having a seminary on your smartphone. Check out the free course called Kingdom Man and the growing list of other subjects waiting for you. Visit tonyevans.org today and follow the link to the Tony Evans Training Center. While you're there, be sure to check out our current featured resource, Dr. Evans' popular booklet, 30 Days to Overcoming Emotional Strongolds.

It's a step-by- step plan that over the course of a month will teach you how to heal the hurts that you've been dealing with for years. We're offering it as a special bonus alongside Tony's current sermon series, Consequences, which counters our culture's tendency to think sin is no big deal. Just help support our ministry here on the air and around the world with a contribution, and we'll send you both of these powerful resources as our thank you gift. But this special offer runs out soon, so don't wait. Contact us today at tonyevans.org to get the details and make the arrangements. Again, that's tonyevans.org. Or give us a call at 1-800-800-3222, where there's always someone standing by in our resource center to help you. I'll repeat that information for you after Dr. Evans brings us part two of today's message.

Let's join him. The Bible says in James, chapter 1, verse 15, that when sin is conceived, it brings forth death. Now, that doesn't mean everybody who sins has a heart attack, everybody who sins falls over, because he's not using death only in that manner. He's using death in the sense that the life of God is separated, and therefore, it fleshes out to your circumstances. It says when sin is conceived, something dies. So many of us are dead men walking, because sin has claimed control over us. And what we do is we go to saccharine solutions to make us feel alive.

Because I'm walking dead, but I want to feel alive, I need drugs. I need this situation, a relationship. I need this circumstance. I need this opportunity. I need this job.

I need this money. I need something to help me forget how dead I am. Let me ask you a question. How many people here, how many people here, tell it to you, shame the devil, how many people here, are still reeling from a consequence of a sin that took place years ago? It could be a financial death. Your grandchildren can't even pay off your debts, because you spit based on what the world said, not based on divine revelation. So it could be anything, but you're still reeling from that. And we're going to have good news as we go through this series, because God has a recovery program. But what he's trying to say is, Moses is saying to his people, as you move forward, I don't want you carrying the wrong tree into the future.

You can't change biting the wrong fruit in the past, but you can change what you're eating in the present and what you're going to eat in the future. And I'm not trying to hurt you. What I'm trying to do is let you enjoy all that I have created for you.

That's what the warnings are. But otherwise you shall surely die. And everybody in here, on some level, has experienced this separation. This separation with yourself, with the relationship, with resources, and with God, because of His nature.

And He will not adjust who He is, but He's been loving enough to tell us. Let me show you why the Bible says He's not just talking about physical death. Moses talks to Israel, and in Deuteronomy chapter 30, verse 15, this is what Moses says to Israel. See, verse 15, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. So death equals adversity. Then go down and he says, I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, verse 19, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So by life and death, he means the blessing and the curse.

That is God's presence or God's absence. So you can live under the blessing, God's presence, or you can live under the curse, but guess what? You choose.

He says, now you choose. God has given you the freedom of choice with a warning label. Did you know when you get a device and it gives the warning label, and it says don't do this, you still have the ability to do it?

You have the ability to do it. You ever been with a child around wet paint and it says don't touch? Or maybe you were the child around wet paint and it said don't touch?

And how tempting that was to touch it? Well, the reason why is because you had a choice. Yes, God wants to give you the right to choose him, but he has it with a warning sticker. If you don't, I just want you to know it'll kill you.

It'll separate you illegitimately from something. And so by way of introduction, because that's all we've done today, I want you to avoid, me to avoid, us to avoid, in the future, unnecessary consequences because we were impressed with the wrong tree, with the wrong people in our lives giving us information independently of God, the wrong influences in our lives giving us information independently of the revelation of God, and because it looked good, sounded good, sounded good, and they were impressive, we bought it and then went oops. Dr. Evans will come back in a moment with a great illustration to wrap up our message, so be sure to stay with us. First though, a quick reminder about that special offer I mentioned earlier. If you can help us keep Tony's teaching on this station by making a contribution toward his ministry, we'll say thanks by sending you on CD and digital download all six messages in his current series, Consequences, along with the insightful booklet, 30 Days to Overcoming Emotional Strongolds. This is a limited time offer, so don't put it off. Drop by our website, tonyevans.org, where you can get all the details and make the arrangements, or give us a call at 1-800-800-3222. Resource team members are standing by 24-7 to help you with your requests. Again, that's 1-800-800-3222. A lot of things can be mass produced, but next time, Dr. Evans will explore how God builds one life at a time, each of us with our own special purpose on this planet.

I hope you'll join us. Right now though, he's back with this final story for us. A mouse one day was looking through the hole in the farmer's house. A package was delivered to the farmer. The mouse, curious about what was in the package, stared as the farmer and his wife opened the package. And when they opened the package, it was a mouse trap. Obviously, this is not a happy day for the mouse, having had the farmer and his wife just order a mouse trap. The mouse scurries outside of the house and comes to the chicken. The mouse says, chicken, I want you to know that the farmer and his wife just got a mouse trap. Chicken said, oh, I feel sorry for you. I feel sorry for you, mouse trap. That's not good news for you.

I'm just sad for you. The mouse then went over to the pig and said, piggy, farmer and his wife just ordered a mouse trap. Pig said, I'm praying for you.

All I can do is pray. Mouse went over to the cow, told the cow the farmer and his wife just ordered a mouse trap. The cow said, that's no of concern to me. I don't have any reason to be concerned about a mouse trap. That night, the farmer's wife heard the trap go off. She hopped out of bed and went over to the trap, only to discover that the trap had caught the tail of a snake.

So the snake's tail is caught in the trap. The problem was that the wife got too close to the trap and the snake bit the wife. Poison worked up in the wife's body, so the farmer took the wife to the doctor. When the farmer took the wife to the doctor, they tried to give her an antidote and said, well, now you take her back home.

Let's see how this antidote works and you give her some chicken soup. So the farmer went and found the chicken, cut off the chicken's head, plucked the chicken's feather, boiled the chicken so his wife could have chicken soup. The farmer still had to work while his wife was trying to recover. So the farmer invited over some of his friends to watch the wife while he had to work, but he had the fetal. So he went out and got the pig, cut the pig up. They had bacon for breakfast, pork chops for lunch, and chitlins for dinner.

They ate well while watching the wife. The sad news is that the farmer's wife died. When the farmer's wife died, they had a funeral, but the farmer had to feed all the folk that came from the funeral. So the farmer went over to the cow, cut the cow up, and they had steaks and all kind of great meals from the cow for the folks who attended the funeral. After all of this was done, the mouse said, I told him that farmer had a mouse trap. I tried to tell him that farmer had a mouse trap. It may not look like the devil's up to much, but if you ignore him, he's got a way to pull you in so that you bear the consequence of eating from the wrong tree. The alternative with Dr. Tony Evans is brought to you by the Urban Alternative and is celebrating 40 years of faithfulness thanks to the generous contributions of listeners like you.