Sins are things we
do that are direct disobedience to God’s law. The problem of sin started from
heaven when an angel called Lucifer decided to take over the seat and authority
of God.
The Bible said the
sin of pride entered him. He was the most beautiful and most intelligent
creature God made. He was also the choirmaster in heaven and had all the
instruments of music created inside of him.
These special
endowments made Lucifer believe that he was far better than others and that he
could take God’s place. He said, “I will ascend above the heights of the
clouds. I will be like the Highest.” Isaiah 14:14.
Lucifer convinced
about one-third of the angels in heaven to join him in his evil plot. In the
battle that followed, angel Michael led the angels of God to fight against the
revolters.
The angels of God
defeated Satan and his cohorts and sent them out of heaven. After being kicked
out of paradise, Satan starts his devilish campaign against God by trying to
lead man astray.
Satan possessed
the serpent in the garden of Eden to deceive Eve into eating the forbidden
fruit. He told Eve, “You will not surely die. For God knows that your eyes
will be opened when you eat of it, and you will be like God, knowing good and
evil.” Genesis 3:4-5.
Eve obeyed him,
ate the fruit, and gave his husband Adam, who was not there when Satan came
visiting. The two of them later realized what they had done.
They have
willingly surrendered the power and authority God gave them as creatures made
in the image of God to Satan. They have made themselves to be subjects of
Satan.
Unknown to them,
they have rejected God as their Lord and chose Satan instead. That action gave
birth to the nature of sin in them, which got transferred to all humanity.
Every act of
disobedience ever done by man came from this nature.
Sins of Christianity
Sins of
Christianity or sins that Christianity has considered as the deadly sins a
seven in number. All sins are harmful because the Bible says, “The wages
of sin is death.” Romans 6:23. And also, “All souls that sin shall
die.” Ezekiel 18:20.
That is enough to
tell anyone that God does not categorize any sins as small or big, but as far
as the Almighty God is concerned, all unrighteousness is sin and must be
punished.
It is also interesting
that the seven deadly sins are not recorded or listed in the Bible as
categorized by men. Among several other wrongs committed by men, they are not
termed more toxic than others.
The story of
deadly sins started in the 4th century when a monk called Evagrius Ponticus
came up with a message which described eight evils man must resist.
That message made
the round for many years until a couple of centuries later. Pope Gregory 1
claimed they were seven sins and not eight.
Since that time,
many Christian circles have believed in the seven deadly sins. These sins
include; pride, envy,
wrath, gluttony, lust, sloth, and greed.
The truth is that
these are sins indeed, but they are not more deadly than other sins in the
Bible.
The danger of
accepting the idea of deadly sins is that people who are free from them would
see themselves as saints, though they may be committing other sins.
We should not seek
to be free from these deadly sins alone but all sins. That is the will of God
for us.
For the same
reason, Jesus came into the world to seek and save those lost in sin.
The blood that He
shed on the cross is the antidote to the problem of sin. It can cleanse us from
all forms of evil and deliver us permanently from their consequences.
What is an Example of Sloth Sin
Many people
believe that slothfulness means laziness. While this may be true, it is not
entirely true.
Sloth sin goes
beyond acts of laziness. Many people see it as deadly and more severe than
laziness.
The sin of sloth
has been classified into four parts: carelessness, unwillingness to act,
half-hearted effort, and becoming discouraged quickly by any possible
difficulty.
An excellent
example of slothfulness in the Bible is the case of the children of Israel in
the wilderness.
They had the
privilege of knowing God and His power like no other people have done, but they
abused the opportunity. God journeyed with them as pillars of cloud and fire
and performed many great miracles in their midst.
These miracles
include; parting the red sea, providing water in the wilderness, bringing down
the wall of Jericho, stopping River Jordan, and providing manna which they ate
for forty years before entering the Promised Land.
The children of
Israel saw all these miracles, but they didn’t see anything special about them.
They are ready to blame Moses and God for their predicaments in the face of any
little challenge.
It got to a stage
where God said they would not enter the Promised Land, and He made them wander
about for 40 years until all of them died.
It was their
children that they gave birth to in the wilderness that God made to enter the
land and possess it.
The Sin of Pride
The sin of pride
is one of the seven deadly sins. What makes this a grave sin is that those who
are proud are ascribing the glory and honor that are God’s to themselves.
God cannot
tolerate the proud. He resists them and keeps them far from himself. A proud
man will never give glory to God.
An excellent example of the sin of pride in
the Bible is that of Samson, a man endowed with extraordinary strength to war
against the Philistines.
He was so powerful
that he put the entire army of the Philistines to flight. He killed a thousand
of them with the jaw bone of an ass, and the rest ran away.
Because Samson saw
himself as invincible, he became proud and disobedient to God’s instructions.
All of these made him take steps that made it easy for the enemies to discover
the source of his strength.
Pride brought
Samson down from grace to grass. Pride goes before a fall.
You can overcome
the sin of pride by acknowledging God in everything you do. See Him as the
power behind all that you are doing. See Him as the one that supplies all your
needs.
It would help if
you also gave him praise at all times. Jesus commanded the leper, who came back
to give him thanks. The same thing God expects us to do. Hence He said in
everything, give thanks.
The Cardinal Sin
The Cardinal sin
is another name given to the seven deadly sins. It is an example of how
Christians have tried to categorize sins based on their level of understanding
of God’s word
Many people have
tried to find out whether God can forgive Cardinal sins. The answer is yes. All
sins can be absolved according to Jesus Christ, except the sin of blasphemy
against the Holy Spirit.
God does not
rejoice in the death of sinners, but He wants them to repent of their sins and
be saved. That was why He came to the world.
The fact that
Jesus loved sinners showed up in the book of John 8 when some people brought a
woman caught in the sin of adultery to Him. Her accusers had wanted to stone
her to death, following the law of Moses.
They also want to
use the opportunity to make Jesus say what will contradict the word of God.
They told Him.
“The law of Moses says she should be stoned to death. What do you
say.” Jesus, who knew their intention, did not fall for their trap.
He bent down and
was writing with his finger on the ground. He then raised his head and said,
“Whoever among you that have not sinned should stone her first.”
When they hear
that, the Bible says they were convicted in their hearts and left one after the
other.
When all of them
had left, Jesus looked at the woman and said, “where are your
accusers.” The woman answered, “they had left.”
He responded,
“neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more.”
Jesus did not like
the fact that the woman was a sinner, but He loved her as a person created in
the image and likeness of God.
The power in the
forgiveness given by Jesus is the secret to overcoming the Cardinal sin, and
any other type of sin anyone might be committing.
Whoever the Son
makes free shall be free indeed. God has ordained Jesus to be the savior of the
world. He is the last Adam who has come to undo what the first Adam did in the
garden of Eden.
That is the reason
why He had to die and shed his blood. He took our place in judgment and
suffered for the unjust.
We should not look
at the Cardinal or the seven deadly sins, but we should look at Jesus, the
author, and finisher of our faith, who loved us so much that He willingly
surrendered himself to be killed so that we could be free from all bondage to
sin.