The Slippery Slope of Sin

This article is either going to really offend you, or it will be the best news your heart has ever heard. 

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In the first chapter of his Letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul outlines the effects of ignoring God. Before you go on, read the chapter here.

The people Paul describes follow a downward progression away from God that is typical of every sinner.

Stage 1: Suppressing the Truth

It starts with suppression of the truth (verse 18). "People who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth" refers to the necessity of sinners to willingly forget what they know to be right in order to satisfy our wrong desires. Do this enough times, and you begin to lose the ability to actually tell right from wrong. Bang your head against the wall enough times, and you'll be sure to get brain damage. Suppressing the truth in order to sin is like that. 

This is the beginning of the slide down the slope. 

Stage 2: Refusing to Thank God

The next stage: "they did not glorify Him as God or show gratitude" (v. 21). This means that we sinners, after we have willingly decided not to believe in God's existence and character, now refuse to give Him thanks. God has blessed everyone in many ways. But when you suppress your knowledge of Him, of course you can't switch your mindset and give Him thanks for those blessings. That would mean acknowledging His existence--and His authority to tell you not to satisfy all those sinful cravings. It would mean that He was right and His plan was good.

This past winter was one of the worst on record. Everyone and his brother complained about it on Facebook. But now this summer when there are fewer bugs (because they all died last winter), how many of those complainers are going to turn around and celebrate the polar vortex? Probably not many. Why? Because they would have to lose face. They invested so much in complaining about it, that became part of their character. Instead, they'll take for granted the fewer bugs, and enjoy their summer. This is what we do when we invest so much effort in forgetting God. When He blesses us, we can't just flip around and start thanking Him. We have too much invested in denying His existence. 

At this point, the sinner is sliding down and picking up speed. 

Stage 3: A Darkened Mind

Stage three of the downward progression is that we become foolish. "Their thinking became nonsense, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools..." (vv. 21b-22). 

Think about it. You've denied God's existence. To do this, you've had to suppress the obvious conclusions your mind wants to make based on your observation of the world.

Here are two conclusions you have already had to suppress:
 
(1) The world exists. Nothing comes from nothing. If the world came from something, that something must not be part of the world. God is the best explanation for this. God must exist. 

(2) I recognize there are such things as good and evil. Nothing in the physical world demands such a recognition (it's not found in the animal kingdom nor the laws of physics, etc.). A divine moral Lawgiver is the best explanation for this. God must exist. 

So sinners suppress commonsense conclusions about the world in order to deny God and sin with impunity. But then they find themselves with all these things to be thankful for, and no one to thank. So that part of their soul--the part designed to give gratitude to God--is left unused. 

Having looked at the previous two causes (willing suppression of obvious truth and the consequent suppression of the desire to give thanks to God), it is easy to see how psychological confusion would follow. 

When you have denied yourself two basic mental and spiritual needs (i.e. the need to make rational sense of the world and the need to show gratitude), your psychological condition is going to suffer. So when Paul says "their thinking became nonsense," that is what he means. You have trained yourself to think in nonsensical ways--denying basic truths about the world and depriving your soul of its faculty of thanksgiving. 

This is the spiritual and mental equivalent of foot binding. In ancient China, it was considered beautiful to have tiny feet. So princesses would have their feet bound constrictively from a young age, in order to prevent them from growing. The result, as they grew older, was that their feet remained small but grew useless--all the internal bones getting jumbled and misaligned. The poor princesses could no longer walk. Their feet were damaged beyond repair. This is what sin does to our minds. It binds them, constricting them and forcing them to accept contradictions and nonsense. Eventually, our minds become limited and warped in their thinking. "Claiming to be wise," we "became fools."

By now, the sinner is hurtling down the slope, and is losing hope of finding any way to stop their sliding.

Stages 4 & 5: Idolatry and Depravity

The inevitable result of nonsensical thinking (which in turn results from the two-headed monster of truth-suppression and thanks-suppression) is idolatry. As much as we might deny it, to reject the true God is to accept false gods. 

There is no avoiding this. Our hearts were designed to worship. We may suppress worship of their Designer, however we cannot fully eradicate their function of worship. We will either worship God or idols. And when this happens, all kinds of awful, harmful and God-dishonoring behavior results. 

Paul says, sinners "exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals and reptiles. Therefore God delivered them over in the cravings of their hearts to sexual impurity, so that their bodies were degraded among themselves. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served something created instead of the Creator, who is praised forever. Amen" (vv. 23-25). 

Outside of certain culturo-religious groups in the US (e.g. religions that revere statues, icons and images of saints and gods), we Westerners are not an overtly idolatrous people. That is, most of us don't have shrines in our homes to Zeus or whichever deity we wish to bless us. But that doesn't mean we aren't idolaters. 

As Timothy Keller explains in Counterfeit Gods (Penguin, 2009), our idols are "spiritual addictions" (xiii) which dominate our lives. These can take the form of money, prestige, respect, narcissism, ideology, relationships--the list is endless. Our idols are usually intangible. But they are nevertheless just as real as those of the ancient pagans. 

Anything that you value above God in your heart of hearts is an idol.

When idolatry takes root, the sinner's heart is racing on the slope, away from God, on a smooth track with no traction and no handholds, no way to slow down, and only one possible direction: down.

Reversing the Slide

So now, we have seen what Paul says about the downward road we travel when we are led by sin. When followed to its terminus, this road's destination is death and wrath, apart from God's goodness forever. It is a judgment that is totally well-deserved for sinners like you and I, who willingly suppress the knowledge of God from our minds. The worst part is this: no matter how hard we try to do what is right, there is no way for us to make up for lost time--no way to turn around and climb back up the slope. Left to ourselves, we are doomed to keep on sliding down, all the way to Hell. That is a word (Hell) that has been taboo in polite society until now. But it should be offensive. Hell is terrible. Sin is awful. It is painful. It causes damage. It hurts ourselves and those we love. We should want to avoid Hell--but we can't avoid it by avoiding talking about it, anymore than we could avoid death by "positive thinking!"  

The same Bible that depicts Hell as the terrifying consequence of a life lived in sin, is the same Bible that presents the escape route: God's grace. 

Grace means "free gift." And because of God's great love for His people (sinners every one), He gave the greatest free gift He could ever give: His own Son. Jesus Christ, God's Son, came into the world to save sinners. This is such great news for sinners like me. 

And it is great news for you! 

Do you believe that sin is wrong? Do you believe that when you sin you dishonor God and suppress the truth? Do you recognize the foolishness of trying to live like God cannot see everything that you do? Have you understood the awful consequences of a life lived in opposition of God? 

Have you become convinced that, in spite of all the bad things you have done--the wicked sin that you have committed in your heart, which no one knows about except you and God--God loves you? That He sent His own Son to live the perfect life you could never live? To die for you, in your place? Are you ready to give up trying to earn your right standing with God and accept God's free gift of salvation through Jesus? 

The payment for Sin is death, but the free gift of God is everlasting life in Christ Jesus the Lord (Romans 6:23). The Lord will save everyone who calls on Him in faith, to repent (turn) from their sin and trust Him with their lives. He is totally reliable to do this. Only He can reverse the downward progression.

He will grab you with His strong arm and stop your slide. He will pull you to safety. And His love does more than just save you from Hell. He will adopt you into His family as His child, with full rights to His inheritance! He will give you real life and the ability to live for Him. That is God's amazing and unstoppable love for sinners. 

How do I know He is trustworthy to do this? Because He has done it for me. I am a terrible sinner! That is not just a figure of speech or a thing to say so I can relate to people. Ask anyone who knows me, or knew me ten years ago. And yet God has saved me and changed me through Jesus Christ. If God can save me from my downward slide, He can save anyone. Even a sinner like you. 

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Joel Settecase is the Associate Pastor of Youth and Evangelism at Grace Pointe Plainfield, located at 143rd St. and Route 59. Sunday service begins at 9AM every week, and you are invited to join us.