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Colin Smith: Sin is much more than a list of things that you may have done wrong. Sin is a living power, it is a vicious enemy, and it is at work within you. Are you taking the power of sin in your own life seriously? This power is bigger and greater than you are.

Steve Hiller: Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. I'm Steve Hiller and glad that you've joined us today. Colin, when it comes to sin, I know some people like to think, "Well, that'll never happen to me."

Colin Smith: I guess that involves having a very short list of what you define as sin. It's easy to say it won't catch me if you only define a very few things as being sinful. The problem is actually that sin is much more than a list of things that are done wrong, even a long list of those things that are done wrong.

We're trying to get at what the Bible teaches today, which is that sin is a living power that actually inhabits the nature that is underneath the actions, the nature that produces that reaction, that pride, that foul language, and so forth. What is it that's the fountain of these things?

That's of huge importance because if we just think of sin as what we do, then Christianity becomes changing what we do. In other words, it's just a kind of behavior modification. But that's not the gospel. Sin is about a power that is at work within us. It therefore runs deeper, and the answer therefore has to run deeper.

It has to be about not just changing what I do, but changing who I am. That's why the Bible speaks about a new birth and becoming a new creation in Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. Now we're into real Christianity, but we got there from a proper understanding of sin.

Steve Hiller: Absolutely. As Pastor Colin has said, we've got to understand what the Bible says about sin. So I hope you'll open your Bible to Genesis chapter five as we continue a message entitled "The Enigma of the Double Image." Here's Pastor Colin.

Colin Smith: We are all on a level playing field, all in exactly the same position before God. We all stand before God, however privileged our background, however wretched our background, we all stand before God in exactly the same position: sinners to whom God offers his grace in Jesus Christ.

I've got to tell you, as I prayed about this part of the message and asked of God that he would shine a light so that some of us may be able to receive it for the first time, that is a big prayer. No doctrine is more repugnant to the natural mind and heart of a man or a woman than this. There is no truth that a sinner is more resistant to hearing and receiving than the truth that we are all sinners.

If you believe this today, it is because God has given light to you. If your mind is opening to this right now, thank God he's working in your mind and in your heart right now. You need to know that many churches are erasing this truth fast.

Have you noticed as you visit around various places how often confession of sin is quietly dropped from worship services? How massive tracts of Scripture that repeat this foundational Christian truth are silently glossed over? Did you know that there are active projects that are going on in our country to rewrite all the great hymns of the faith and to eliminate all references to sin because it's not a positive notion to make people feel good on a Sunday morning?

I plead with you to take this truth seriously. Sin is in us all by nature. If you don't see that something is wrong with you, how will you ever come to Christ? Only when we see our true condition will we see that our hope is in Christ and in Christ alone.

So this is a massive truth for us to try to digest today. It has the power to shift the whole trajectory of our living if we really embrace it and get hold of it. Sin is in all of us by nature. Here is the second thing: sin is a vicious enemy. It is a vicious enemy.

If you glance back at Genesis chapter four and there in verse six, the Lord says to Cain, "Why are you angry and why is your face downcast?" He says, "If you do what is right, you'll be accepted. But if you do not do what is right..." Notice these next words: "Sin is crouching at your door."

What a picture. The image here is as if sin was a predator like a wild animal, a lion, and it's crouching at the door and God says it desires to have you, to destroy you, to take you, but you must master it.

So I want you to see not only is sin present within every one of us by birth and by nature, but sin is an active and a destructive power. It is a vicious enemy. It desires to have you. You cannot live your life passively because there's an enemy at the gates, as it were. Sin is crouching at your door.

So over this weekend, the Homeland Security forces will be on the highest alert because we have powerful enemies who want to destroy us, and they will never stop hatching new schemes to try and do it. They want to have us. So the work of watching and the work of interrupting these schemes is never done. That's exactly how it is with sin.

Do you realize God is saying to Cain that sin is crouching at your door? Cain didn't listen and his life was destroyed by sin. It took him over. It had him. I wonder what percentage of us took in water during the heavy rains a few weeks ago? I think quite a lot of us. We didn't have too much damage, but we got it into three rooms and we're having some fun with the cleanup and especially with drywall.

Suppose you paint a wall and a child comes with a crayon and marks over your beautifully painted wall. You might get a little bit frustrated, but you can wash the wall. You can get rid of the crayon. If it's really bad, you can paint the wall over. Not that big a deal.

But suppose you have mold in your house. Painting over the mold won't help. So our house took on some water, and here's me cutting out two feet of drywall right round the bottom, all that stuff, taking out the insulation behind. Crayon leaves a mark that is easily dealt with, but mold is a living thing. You can't leave it. It spreads. It will take your health. It would destroy your house.

Sin is not like crayon. Sin is like mold. The crayon is static. The mold is on the move. Sin is crouching at your door. It's a living thing and it desires to have you. It needs to be cut out or it's going to destroy your house.

So please understand this: sin is much more than a list of things that you may have done wrong. If that's your notion of sin, you've not really understood it from the Bible. Sin is much more than a list of things that you may have done wrong. Sin is a living power, it is a vicious enemy, and it is at work within you as it is at work within me. That's why we have the battle of the Christian life, and we're going to look at that in a few weeks' time.

So I ask you this question: we've thought about the presence of sin. Are you taking the presence of sin in your own life seriously? I ask this question now: are you taking the power of sin in your own life seriously? This power is bigger and greater than you are.

Steve Hiller: And we're going to have to pause right there, but don't worry, we'll come back and continue this message, "The Enigma of the Double Image," in just a moment. Our message is part of a larger series called The Inside Story of Human Life. If you ever miss a broadcast in the series, come and listen online at openthebible.org.

Open the Bible depends on your generosity to bring you Pastor Colin's teaching each day. As you give a gift of any amount this month, we want to say thank you by sending you a copy of Lincoln's Daily Devotional. Colin, who is this book for?

Colin Smith: Well, I think it's for anyone who really loves the word of God. But especially, I think for anyone who's looking for something fresh or anyone who's looking for something really short. This little devotional that was actually used by Abraham Lincoln himself simply offers a verse of Scripture for every day.

They're organized by themes, a different theme each month. They go through the experience of a Christian believer in the various parts of life that we go through, and it gives to us just a verse that you can meditate on. So if you're looking for something really short, just to pop a verse of Scripture into your mind each day, then this book does it very simply, very wonderfully.

It does it from the old King James Version, of course, which so beautifully expresses the English language. And I think too, for someone who feels, "I just want to do something fresh and different." I find it helpful to change up what I'm doing in my own devotional life, to move from one thing to another, one part of Scripture to another, to use different books and devotionals and aids at different times.

And here's something that might just be fresh for someone today: a verse of Scripture each day from Abraham Lincoln's devotional that will help you to meditate on the word of God, take in its truth, and live in its beauty and in its power.

Steve Hiller: Well, we want to send you a copy of Lincoln's Daily Devotional as our way of saying thank you for your financial support this month. You can give online at openthebible.org or when you call 1-877-OPEN-365. That's 1-877-673-6365. Or again, the website is openthebible.org. Let's go back to the message. Here's Pastor Colin.

Colin Smith: Now here's what we've got then: sin is in all of us by nature. It is a vicious enemy. We've looked at its presence, we've looked at its power. More briefly, this last point: sin leaves us needing an intervention from God. When you really see that this vicious power is present within you, when you really see what it means to be born in the likeness of Adam as well as made in the image of God, you will begin to see that every person needs the intervention of God.

That is our need in every human life. And I want you to pick up on Genesis 4:26 where we're told, "At that time..." Very significant phrase. Chapter 4:26, the end of the chapter. "At that time, men began to call on the name of the Lord." By the way, that's the first mention of prayer, the first reference to prayer in the entire Bible.

This is the first time we read that men began to call on the name of the Lord. That's what prayer is. And it happened at that time. At what time? What was it that caused men to pray for the very first time? And the answer is when the destructive powers of sin became obvious in the world: broken families, violence, murder.

Men saw evil in its ugly colors. Adam must have begun to say, "I never realized it would do this, and this is in me too." And they began to ask God for help. And it doesn't say that all men did this. All men will not ask God for help, but some men did, some men saw, and some women saw what sin was doing in the world.

And when they saw what sin was doing in the world, they knew that they needed to pray. "God, we need your help. This is bigger than us. What's going on around me in my life, I'm facing incredible darkness. It's bigger than me and I need an intervention from you. I need your help." And men begin to call on the name of the Lord for the very first time.

What does God do? Two things that are both very wonderful, and I mention them just briefly. Men begin to call on the name of the Lord and as you follow the story through Genesis, you find that God does two things. The first is that God wonderfully restrains sin, and we should thank him for this. That is what happened, of course, through the flood, which is the story that follows in the subsequent chapters.

God restrains sin in the world. If you think this world is bad, dark, and evil, you cannot imagine what it would be if God took his hand off. If God took his restraining hand off sin, it would be hell itself. That's what hell is: when God's restraint is taken off and the full ugliness of what evil is is left.

How does God restrain sin? I don't have time to go into this, let me just give you the headings and you can ponder them a little more fully. God restrains sin through the law. Thank God for law. Thank God for law in our country. Thank God for law in the Bible. Law is a gift from God.

If you see a policeman this weekend, thank him. Tell him that he is a gift of God, or tell her that she is a gift of God in a fallen world. Without the law, our streets would not be safe, and it is a gift of God that restrains sin in our world. Second: conscience.

We saw last time that Adam was a law to himself. He didn't need a written law. Why? Because the law was already impressed on his own heart. Of course, much of that has been erased since the fall, but in Romans 2:15, the apostle makes it quite clear that there is some residue of this, and we call it conscience. Conscience bearing witness.

And Paul says this is true even of people who are not believers, even of godless people. There is some functioning of conscience for which we should thank God. Number three: common grace. That is as distinguished from saving grace. We're not talking about how God saves people.

We're talking about the kindness that God shows to people indiscriminately. Just as he causes the sun and the rain to come for all people, so there are gifts of God and kindnesses of God that come to all people: his enemies as well as his friends. So when you see someone who has absolutely no time for Christian faith but she is a good mother, or you see someone who is a rampant atheist and will not have any time at all for your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ but he is a good neighbor and looks after an elderly person who lives next door, you say, "Where does that goodness come from?"

It is an echo of the image of God, even in an unbelieving person for which we should thank God. Common grace restrains sin so that nobody is as bad as we might be apart from the grace of God. And God cuts sin back through judgment in this world. Think of it this way: sin is like a massive weed.

A massive weed that would take over and destroy the whole world except that God keeps cutting it back. He doesn't cut it out, but he cuts it back. That is what happened in the flood and it has happened in other less dramatic ways throughout history. When a nation becomes intolerably evil, God either sends revival or he causes that nation to fall. You can read that in history.

That's why the Bible says righteousness exalts a nation and sin is a reproach to people because there comes a point where if sin takes hold within a society, the society itself is judged by God and it collapses. And that's a merciful thing so that the world may be protected. The weed is being cut back.

So God restrains sin, but of course, you know he only does that in part. The law restrains some, but not all. Conscience restrains to some extent, but not fully. Common grace shines on some much more than others. Judgment in this life comes on some wickedness, but clearly not all.

God is not removing the weed during the course of human history; he's just cutting it back. But its root and its sprouting leaves continue throughout the generations of human history. Its growth and its root remain until the day when Jesus Christ comes in power and glory. Which is why our hope is not in God's restraint of sin, cutting back evil in the world.

Our hope lies in God redeeming sinners. In the day when God will take the weed up by the root and cast the whole thing into the fire, and sin shall be no more. Then there will be, the Bible says, a new heaven and there will be a new earth, and that will be the home of righteousness.

And it will be very wonderful because remember that suffering came into this world on the coattails of sin. So when sin is finally evicted from this world, the weed is pulled up and it is cast into hell, suffering will go out of the world on its coattails as well. There will be, the Bible says, no more death and no more mourning and no more crying and no more pain, and God will wipe away all tears from the eyes of his people. That is the hope of the world and it is in Jesus Christ.

You say, "How can sinners be in the home of righteousness?" There's only one way. You remember what John the Baptist said when Jesus began his ministry? John the Baptist pointed to Jesus and he said, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." Our hope is in him. Our hope is in him. That is true for every person, every culture, every nation, every generation. Only in him.

One story and we're through. I'll never forget the Sunday after September the 11th and the particular sense of responsibility bringing the word of God on that day. And of the many conversations that I had after the service, one will always remain in my mind.

A woman who I had never seen before really came rushing up to me after the service. I'd never seen her in church before, to my knowledge she has not been there again—I certainly have not seen her there again—but she was there on that day as with many people who suddenly felt a sort of momentary need of God.

And so she came to church first Sunday after September the 11th. She comes rushing up to me, quite distressed, and she says, "Pastor, Pastor, how can I tell my children that they're safe?" And I said to her, "You can't. The world isn't safe." She looked absolutely astonished. I said to her, "Listen, we need to learn to live in this world in such a way as to be prepared for the next. That's what I need to do. That's what you need to do. And that's what we need to tell our children."

Steve Hiller: What a great reminder that we have to live in this world in such a way as to be prepared for the next. You're listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and a message entitled "The Enigma of the Double Image." It's part of a series called The Inside Story of Human Life, really looking at the problem of sin and why this world is as it is today.

If you want to get a copy of this series, call us at 1-877-OPEN-365 or you'll find ordering information at openthebible.org. Colin, you brought up in the sermon today that there was a woman who approached you after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and she asked, "Boy, how can I go and tell my kids that they're safe?" and you told her quite honestly, "Well, you can't do that." So then what are the long-term effects for families who want to present this illusion to their children that they can be safe in this world?

Colin Smith: Well, illusion is a very good word, Steve. And bringing our children up in an illusion is obviously a devastating thing to do. Which wise parent wants to do that? You seek to guard your child by suggesting that everything's kind of safe and that everything in the world is as you would want it to be.

And what do you do? You set them up for an absolute devastation because they will not understand what they discover in themselves, they will not understand what they discover in other people, and they will not understand what they discover in the world. The reality is, as the Bible is teaching us, that we are dealing with this fallenness, and grasping the reality of that is huge.

And so obviously that has to be communicated in ways that are appropriate to a child's age and development. But it's awfully important that we don't try and put a gloss or a spin of optimism on everything and actually pull the wool over our kids' eyes so that eventually they say Mom and Dad just weren't talking reality.

Steve Hiller: All right, so then what does that conversation look like or when would you begin to talk with your granddaughter about the fact that this is the reality?

Colin Smith: Well, you're always looking for teachable moments, aren't you? And the teachable moments usually come where something goes wrong. It might be that something goes wrong for me. It might be that something goes wrong for the youngster.

It might be just that something has gone wrong within the wider world and we're all saying, as we did on September the 11th as we referred to in the message here, how in all the world could this have happened? And really at that point, we're going to find out: do we have a real biblical mooring in what we are taught with regards to where evil comes from and our need of Jesus Christ?

And that's the other important thing to say here: never talk about the doctrine of what's wrong without pointing to the person who is God's gift to us for putting it right. That's the reason for putting our hope in Jesus Christ.

Steve Hiller: That's a great reminder today and thank you, Colin. And thank you for listening. I hope you'll join us next time for Open the Bible. This program is a listener supported production of Open the Bible.

Jesus said, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God." God's word is the food that will nourish your soul. You need it every day. And Open the Bible Daily is a daily devotional that will open the word of God and lead you to Jesus. It's available for free on our website openthebible.org. For more information, visit openthebible.org/daily. That's openthebible.org/daily.