Where Did Sin Come From?

Introduction

God has already made everything. He has made Adam and Eve. They are alive now and living the life God has for them to live. God has told them that they can eat of everything here in the garden that He has placed them in with the exception of one thing.

God has given them the choice to either follow Him or not to follow Him. Genesis 3:1-7 "Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day that ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be open, and ye shall be as gods knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat and gave also unto her husband with her and he did eat. And the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaven together, and made themselves aprons."

Prayer: Father, we pray that you would give us discernment and understanding. We are not here merely for a lesson in theology about sin, but we are people who have to deal with sin on a daily basis. Father, tonight through your Word, give us understanding. Show us how we sin. God I just pray that you would work with us. At the time of decision, help those who need to make the decisions, which will glorify your name. Give us this victory through Christ. For it is in the name of Jesus we pray. Amen.

Everyone has wrestled with the question: Where did sin really come from? Where did sin really begin? The logic seems to be if God is good, then God can create nothing evil. Then just how did sin get on the scene?

We remember there in the heavens where God made the earth, that Lucifer, the arch angel, parallel with Michael in power was next in command unto God. He was a powerful angel. All of a sudden he began to rise up and to say, I will exalt myself over God. It went on until God dealt with it. God cast Lucifer and all the angels that were following Lucifer out of heaven. The book of Isaiah tells us that Lucifer fell as lightning falling to the ground. His habitation became the earth. We know that all the angels that were cast down with him are called demons. It was in heaven that we begin to see rebellion against God.

But how did sin begin in human beings? Now we see how God had created out of nothing the heavens and the earth. We are told how time started, and how God specially created and made man. The Lord God had placed Adam and Eve in the Garden where they were living the perfect life. They were walking and talking with God in the cool of the day.

But all of a sudden sin came in. And since that time mankind has been on the road to disintegration. Why? How did that sin begin? When you and I were born we were born sinners. We did not have to learn to sin, we did not have to learn to rebel against God. We were born that way.

David said, "I was shapen in iniquity in my mother's womb." In other words he was saying, even when I was born I had the sin nature, even while in my mother's womb.

Where did it all begin? I believe that if we can recognize and understand sin we will be able to apply the cure that God has given us for our sin. Every one of us wrestle with sin in our lives. The Lord Jesus came to this earth so that sin could be removed from our lives.

When you first trust Christ, He at that very moment forgives you and removes the penalty of sin in our lives through His death on the cross. The penalty of sin is death and He relinquishes the penalty of sin.

On a daily basis Jesus removes the power of sin in our lives. He takes away the power as we yield to Him.

One day we are going to get to be with Jesus and He is going to take the very presence of sin from us. There will be no sin in Heaven, nor anything to corrupt.

We need to better understand sin. Sin is transgression. The Bible says it is breaking the law of God, literally to go against the law of God. An even simpler way of looking at sin is simple disobedience to the will of God in any area of our lives.

Righteousness is a holy discontent for anything that is out of God's will. It is like a little pebble you get in your shoe that just aggravates, worries, and bothers you until you absolutely must get it out. Sin is the pebble and righteousness is the foot in the shoe. Sin is thus any disobedience to what God wants us to do or any attutude that God wants us to have.

So when did sin begin? In Genesis 3:1-5 we see the principle of sin;

I. The Principle of Sin

You must understand the principle of sin involved in this text. You have heard the old saying, "I don't smoke, and I don't chew and I don't go with girls that do." (I never dated a girl that chewed anyway) When we speak of sin we generally think of sin as an action. Some examples would be murder, lying, adultery, or jealousy etc... So it is generally considered to be an action. But sin is much deeper than the action on the surface.

A. The Categories of Sin

The Bible classifies sins into three categories. The first is the open, committed sin. The second is the inward sin of attitude. The Bible says "as a man thinketh in his heart so is he." That is what the scripture says. So there is an inward attitude of sin that generally precedes the open action. Jesus gave the following example of this inward sin. He said that a man looking upon a woman and desiring to have an adulterous relationship with her has already committed adultery in his heart even though he has never touched her.

The very principle of sin is the rebellion of our will that says, "I know what God wants and I am going to go my way and not God's." The sin of attitude leads often to action but just as often to inaction.

That leads us to the third type of sin which is the sin of absence. In the Book of James it says "to him who knoweth to do good and doeth it not to him it is sin." In plain English there is no neutral position with God.

A lot of people want to be saved, and then just shift into the secure gear of neutral. You are familiar with that attitude. People say, "Well I am saved and when I die I know I am going to heaven, because I have trusted in the grace and mercy of God." And you are right. But when you say, "I am never going to put myself in gear," you are going against the will of God. Because God did not put a neutral gear in us. Jesus said "Either you are for me or you are against me." You cannot sit on a fence or stand idly by. You must either be gathering the harvest in for the Lord or He said that you are against Him. So the sin of absence is knowing to do something that God wants us to do, but failing to do it. It is having the talent and ability that God gave us and failing to use it. It is simply not doing anything.

We see the principle of sin but now let us look to the conception of sin.

B. The Conception of Sin (vs. 4-5)

When does sin begin? Sin begins in the life of a person when they put themselves in the position of God. When you begin to say I know what is best for me over and above what God says is best for me. That is where sin begins in your life. Now we do it by nature, because we have a sin nature in our heart, and in our lives.

From the moment that Adam and Eve sinned every man, woman, boy, and girl who would be born would have the sin nature. We have that nature in us by the very blood that flows through our veins tonight going all the way back to the original couple who chose to sin against God.

You say that is not fair. I would not have chosen to sin against God. Yes you would have because you have done it before and likely as not will choose to do so again. So we see the conception of sin begins when we put ourselves on the level of God.

When we say I know what God says, but I also know what I say. We are in essence doing precisely what Eve did. She questioned the Word of God, then she modified the Word of God to her own liking and convenience. Then she straighway rejected the word of God. She had the right to eat of every tree in the garden except one. There were more than enough trees to supply her every need. But she wanted to have more than God's provision. The serpent had told her that she would not surely die. She modified what God had said in Genesis 2:16-17. She left off the positive statement of "freely eating of all the other trees in the garden." and demonstrated her doubt by leaving out the word "surely." She rejected the Word by adding in the unreasonable demand of touching it.

We see in this great text more than the conception of sin. There is the continuation of sin.

C. The Continuation of Sin

Turn with me to Romans 5:12 and you will notice an interesting truth. "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned."

Adam had the conception of sin. When Adam and Eve chose to go against God, they conceived sin right then. It began at that point. In their heart when they said, I am going to do the opposite of God's will.

Then this sin was continued. This is the reason that everyone has sin in their lives. This is the reason we have the world's greatest blood disease; the disease of uncleansed blood in our veins. This is what is meant by "so then death passed upon all men for all have sinned."

Now that is the principle of sin, but notice the progression of sin.

II. The Progression of Sin

I have heard some folks say "Well, I just fell into that sin. I was walking along one day and sin was like an open manhole and bloop I was gone. I just fell into that sin." My friend, sin is not an open manhole; sin is a progression.

If I understand the progression I can better understand how to deal with sin when it comes into my life.

Sin manifests itself in three different areas in our lives. The story is true here. Look at verse 6; "And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree to be desired to make one wise she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also to her husband with her and he did eat." We see the progression of sin.

But there is always someone who will say, "Doesn't that prove that the woman got us all into trouble." That statement is just like the little story I heard about Cain and Abel. They were Adam and Eve's children. Cain and Abel were out playing one day and were told to go work in the garden. Instead of going to the garden, they decided to go over the hill and down the road. All of a sudden they came up to a big brick wall. They crawled up that wall and looked on the inside. They saw the most beautiful place that they had ever seen. There were pomegranates as big as pumpkins. The apples, plums, cherries, peaches and the other fruits were the largest and best that they had ever seen. They dropped down off that wall and ran straight for daddy. "Daddy, daddy, daddy, we have got to tell you what we have found. We have got to tell you what we have seen. Why, right over this hill is a place.

Daddy, if we lived there we would never have to plow the garden again. We would never have to work again as hard as we do now Daddy. You have never seen grapes so big. Why can't we move there?"

Adam said, "Son we used to live there. That is before your mother ate us out of house and home."

Now some people blame sin on Eve. But I want you to notice that Eve took, ate and gave to her husband, and of his on free will, he did eat. I Timothy 2:14 tells us that the woman was totally deceived (exapatao, to totally deceive), but not the man (apatao - to merely deceive). In I Corinthians 15:21-22 it tells us that "through one man Adam death came to all men." Romans 5:12 told us that "sin entered by one man Adam."

Adam was just as responsible as Eve was and if anything even more so, for he knew what he was doing when he did it. Why? This is because the progression of sin.

When sin comes into my life and your life this is how it will present itself. This is how sin shows or manifests itself. If we can understand that first a desire will begin, then we can be prepared for the devil's temptation in the area of our desires and emotions. He will lay that temptation before you. The question comes to mind concerning temptation. Is temptation a sin? The answer is, "No!"

The Bible tells us in the Book of James that all of us are going to be tempted. The Bible tells us that "God tempteth no man." So if you say that God tempted me, but I did not sin, then you do not understand the Bible. God allows us to be tempted, but he does not tempt us.

When temptation comes we are presented with two things; either a problem or an opportunity. We are presented with the problem of sin or the opportunity of obedience. Every time temptation comes into our lives we can ask ourselves, "Will it be the problem of sin or the opportunity of obedience?" Even now we must ask, "Am I going to do what God wants me to do during this service?" You may need to rededicate your life, move your letter or make a public profession of faith in Christ.

Satan comes with the temptation. Then the desire begins, and we begin to desire. Satan told Eve, "If you will eat of that tree you will be just like God." Wouldn't all of us want to be just like God? She worshipped God and thought, "Oh, if I could be like God." Suddenly the desire came and she began to yield to the temptation to do the thing that God would not have her to do. So we see in her heart, in her emotional center, she began to be tempted.

Physically there was the lust of the flesh: she saw that "the tree was good for food." Emotionally, there was the lust of the eyes: the tree was "pleasant to the eyes." Last but not least was the "pride of life": she saw that the "tree was desired to make one wise."

It happens in many different ways. Someone will say something to us that will just boil our oil. We just fill like sticking a knife in them and turning the blade around and around. They will make some remark off the cuff, and all of a sudden we get really hot and ready to fight. There is a temptation to do what is right, and resist, or to let Satan entrap you.

Desire wells up in us. The desire to put our fist down their throat or to get back at them in some way, that vengeance, comes into our heart. When the desire is in our heart we are ready for the second prong of sin and that is deception.

Deception moves on our mind. Someone said something to me; it made me mad. My mind said, "Well, they are no good anyway. They have been talking in the office behind your back anyway. They have been working against you for years. You just need to go ahead and nail them to the wall and get it over with. Our mind begins to deal, or to rationalize. Satan has slipped in and begun the dissolution of our mind. At the very same time we know the truth of the will of God. The mind of Christ needs to operate in our lives.

Have you ever been tight on your money and sat down to write your tithe check. O, Lord, I have to pay this bill this week and that bill today. We get caught up emotionally. We say, "Lord you know I just do not have enough money at the end of the month. Lord, I am just going to skip this tithe this week." And you just let it slide. All of a sudden we begin to talk to ourselves. We think well the Lord has all the money in the world. He will never miss a few dollars. The deception has come in and literally floored us spiritually.

All the while the truth of the matter is not whether the church has all the money it needs, or even whether the Lord owns all the wealth of the world. God is saying that it is a matter of whether or not you are going to be obedient to God. That is the real issue.

You see tithing, witnessing, praying, following the Lord in believers baptism, loving the brethren, sharing our time and our talents, and especially the most essential need of the new birth are a matter of obedience and faith. And we will still sit there and think of the reasons why we cannot do the things God commands. In reality there is no real reason why we can't do them.

The temptation comes into our heart and then begins to do its rationalizing work in our heads through our own desire. We begin to find reasons why we should disobey God. Have you ever done that? Have you even thought of reasons why you should not come to church? You begin to tell God why you should not commit yourself the way that you know that you should. You begin to come up with all these excuses, and that is the second prong of sin, deception.

The next step is the step where the sin takes place. So far you have not sinned; you have only been tempted. You are discussing sinning. You are wrestling with the temptation. You have the problem of sin or the opportunity of obedience. You are bouncing back and forth. You are like an air traffic controller and temptation is like an airplane wanting to land. The temptation of sin is present but whether it is allowed to land and become sin in your life is up to you.

Then you move into the area of disobedience. Do you know where you disobey God? It is in the area of your will. When you say, "My will, not Thy will be done," that is sin. The example Jesus gave us in the garden of Gethsemane was on His knees pleading with God that if there was any way to let this cup pass from Him to let it pass, but nevertheless Jesus was willing to be absolutely obedient to the Father, even to the death of the cross. This example of Christ in obedience to the Father's will is exactly what our will should be.

Sin entered the human race before Adam and Eve ever broke the skin on that fruit; before they ever took the first bite, sin had already entered the human heart. They had disobeyed in their will because they had touched the tree.

That is the progression of sin. It starts out with desire, then temptation is presented. There is the "lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, or the pride of life," or all three. The next step is deception. (We begin to give ourselves reasons to be disobedient to God).

Ian Thomas wrote in his book The Mystery of Godliness, "The devil will always give you a reasonable alternative to faith." Satan always gives us a rationalizing alternative to faith, and the will of God. It is true and it comes in the area of the deception of our mind. Then we say I am going to do it that way because it seems right to me. In our disobedience we sin.

You do not accidentally walk into sin. You do not suddenly hit the brick wall of sin. For example a man may say, "I just cannot understand how I got involved with that woman, or how this adulterous relationship came about?" He never considers the literature that he reads, the movies he saw, or the TV programming that he watched. He did not consider the truth that "as a man thinketh in his heart so is he." He never considered that he is admonished to think and dwell on the things that are good, pure, true, virtuous, righteous, and godly. He does not really understand that continuously entertaining thoughts of wrong and filth are literally egging on the continuous temptation and deception of his mind and heart. It is more than he can stand. Satan slid the opportunity in the front door and he willingly committed the sin.

You must understand that Satan is at work every day trying to get every person to sin. That is why it is so important that we are careful what we put into ourselves. We need to be careful of how we feed ourselves emotionally and mentally. Our moral conduct is governed by what we are dwelling upon in our minds and hearts. How we will react when the progression of sin comes depends on these things.

Proverbs 14:12 says, "There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death." This speaks of the next truth that I want you to notice and that is the penalty of sin. Look at Genesis 3:19 with me. "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, til thou return unto the ground; for out of it thou wast taken: for dust thou are and unto dust shalt thou return." They had already eaten of the forbidden fruit. God called them! They were hiding. It seems silly that God called them. He knows everything. He knew right where they were. Why did He have to call for them? It is like when your parents call you and you don't respond, then finally, by the tone of their voices you knew it was time to come in.

God knew where Adam was but He called for Adam. Why? Because He wanted Adam to know where he (Adam) was.

The first step to repentance is realizing where we are in God's eyes. Adam was out behind a fig bush hiding. He was trying to make himself some clothes. He was embarrassed, because sin had entered into his life.

III. The Penalty of Sin

What is the penalty of sin? What are we going to receive because of sin? The first thing we are going to receive is death. "For the wages of sin is death." That is what the scripture says "for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." If Adam and Eve had never sinned, they would have never died. We would never have to die physically, but sin brings about the breakdown of our physical body, and because of sin, we die. If there had been perfect obedience to God, and sin had not entered the world, these bodies were designed to live forever. However because of sin, our bodies will not live forever. We have put ourselves in the grave. Because of the sin and disobedience that is in our lives, every man, woman, boy, and girl will die. Why? It is as a judgment of sin. "It is appointed unto man once to die and after this the judgment."

The curse of sin means that these bodies which we inhabit are going to die. Somehow, someway, someplace, sometime we are going to die unless the Lord comes first. So the problem of sin is death in our physical lives.

Not only is the penalty of sin death, but it is also defeat. In Romans 7 Paul tells us that we want to do things that are right, but we cannot do them. We do not want to do these things that are wrong, but we end up doing them. What is the matter with us? Have you ever felt that way? I have. We want to go out and set the world on fire. We want to go out and win the whole country to Jesus. Thirty minutes after you get right with God, you want to do it right then. You set out and then you eventually begin to flounder. Things which you need to do, you do not. The things which you should not do, you do.

How does this happen? Paul says it is the sin nature that dwells in us. Sin in the life of a Christian brings defeat. The more we allow sin in our lives, the more defeat that is in our lives.

One of the reasons we live such disillusioned, disobedient, discouraged lives is that there is sin in our lives. We carry a grudge, or are involved in some non-commitment to God. God then says that He cannot bless you the way He wants to bless you. He wants to open the flood gates of Blessing on your lives, but you keep building little dams of sin. They dam up the river and stop up the wellsprings of blessing that He wants to flow through your lives.

Sins paralyze us; they rob us from doing what God wants us to do. Secondly, they paralyze us and set us off to ourselves. The fellowship that we have had with God and other Christians starts moving away.

Sin is a dangerous thing for the lost person. Its penalty for a lost person who has never had Christ deal with their sin is death physically and spiritually. They have allowed the full consequence of sin to be felt for eternity.

The penalty for the Christian who continues in sin, who allows little habitual sins to continue in their lives, is defeat in his life We live a defeated, frustrated, unsatisfied, miserable life.

IV. The Provision for Sin

There is one very important fact that we must consider in Genesis 3:15 "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Biologically the woman does not carry the seed. The man does. Something is different here, it is the virgin birth of Jesus. His passion and his death on the cross are the provision for our sin. When Jesus hung on the cross, some of the greatest pain was felt where His heel was pressed against the cross. The stone bruise that came when the nails went through his feet and drove His heel into the wood brought about the bruise to the head of Satan.

We see the provision for sin. God has given us the life blood of His son for the cure of our sin. God has taken care of the problem. He knew that sin would kill us and defeat us. God knew and still said that He was going to step in and meet our need. "He who knew no sin, became sin for us." When we appropriate the death of Christ, the blood of the cross to our lives, we are cleansed from sin. His blood forgives our debt of sin and He gives us power over sin in our daily lives.

Life's ultimate question must be answered. What will you do with Jesus? What will you do with God's provision for sin in your life?

"For by the shedding of blood we have remission of sin." The sin nature and sin in your life is cleansed. When you trust Christ.

What about our daily lives? We have victory over death. Though our bodies will die because it is appointed unto man once to die, yet we'll live on in eternity with Christ.

In our daily lives, He will give us power over sin, over habits, over poor attitudes, over jealousies, revenge etc... He gives us power to live our daily lives. What will you do with Jesus? Confess Him. Confess "I don't have the power to overcome the principle and progression of sin. I am going to yield unless you dear Jesus give me the power to turn away and make this a moment of obedience instead of a moment of disobedience." In that time God gives us the power and we can move away from sin. Sin is a dangerous thing.

Like blood poisoning, sin will kill if left untreated. There is no doctor that can treat sin except for one and that is the great Physician Jesus.

The Scotch patriot, Robert Bruce, was once hiding in the mountains from the forces of King Edward of England, when he heard the baying of bloodhounds. Bruce suddenly recognized the baying as that of his own dogs. His English enemies had put them on his track, sure that they would lead straight to their owner. Although worn out from hardships and lack of food, The Scotch patriot rose up and   fled at once and fled as rapidly as possible. But in vain; only one end seemed possible. The baying dogs came closer and closer. The fugitive was at the point of despair when suddenly he came upon a brook. Quickly he entered the water and walked downstream. Shortly afterward the dogs were at the bank. The tone of the barking changed as they worked upstream and down without finding the continuation of the trail. Bruce was able thus to elude his enemies because the dogs were unable to find the trail under the water.

Surely this is the picture of the sinner. Robert Bruce's own hounds were his pursuers. The sinner is pursued by his sins. Everyman's own sins are sure to track him down and destroy him. What to do?

Conclusion

There is only one way; but thank God, there is one in which the guilty sinner can be saved from the judgment of God. He must hide himself in the current that flows from Calvary. There Jesus Christ paid His own blood in order to freely offer pardon to every sinner. The bloodhounds of sin are at your heels--but here is hope for you. God loves you still. "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin." (1 John 1:7)

Jesus said "You have to come to me, believe that I died on the cross so your sin could be forgiven. Accept my provision, and you will have eternal life. I will live in you daily."

Where did sin begin? When we said my will instead of God's. Where will sin end? Only you can answer that question. Will you let this moment be an opportunity of obedience? Will you give your life to Christ? Will you come when the Invitation is extended?

If you do not, it means death, separated from the love of God in hell.

Many Christians are not living a life of habitual victory over sin. You have not appropriated the power of God over sin. As a Christian you need to come.

You have thought about it but you have never done it. You are going to do it now. Come now. God grant us a holy discontent with sin. Let us only do your will.