I remember a story I heard long ago. A younger member of a clan had gone abroad to work.  The older members of the clan were all hoping he would get married soon and settle down as the family felt that he had sufficiently prepared for the financial demands of married life.  One day, the OFW sent home a picture of himself with a woman with whom he was engaged.  The woman was Japanese.  When the OFW wanted to know if his engagement was approved of, the matriarch replied: “Tandaan mong mga Hapon ang pumatay sa Tatang mo (Remember that it was the Japanese who killed your father).”

During the days of the Liberation, the Japanese Army rounded up all the males of the town and imprisoned them in the local elementary school.  Then the Japanese Army set fire to the school.   Anyone who tried to escape the fire was shot dead.  The OFW’s father was one of those who was shot dead as he tried to flee the fire.

The OFW broke off the engagement with the Japanese lady.

On the one hand, it seems racist.  The Japanese fiancée was probably only a baby herself during World War 2 – or she may not have even been born at that time – she had no knowledge of the war plans of the Japanese Imperial Army in the Philippines, much less could she consent to or approve of their actions.   She cannot be made to atone for the war crimes of particular Japanese soldiers.

On the other hand, the loss of the patriarch spelled economic hardship for the entire family after the war.  It meant that some of the members of the family had to stop school and work so that they could at least eat.  The matriarch was distraught – she had lost her home in the war, her husband, all their livelihood and now she had to raise her seven sons all by herself.  That was what her issue was.  I suppose, to her, to love the Japanese woman and to marry her and treat her as family would desecrate the memory of the beloved husband and father.   This was how the OFW and his family perceived the meaning of the plan to marry the Japanese woman.

I have friends who are Japanese and they are very friendly people.  I do not hold them responsible for what happened in World War II because, just like me, they were not alive at that time and so they could not have been responsible for the atrocities of that war.

I only decided to tell this story because from it I can draw a spiritual analogy.  Sin was the cause of Jesus’ death on the cross: sin had to be defeated and sin had to be triumphed over by the shedding of the blood of the Eternal Son of God.  This is why He came to die on the cross of Calvary.  And for this reason, sin should not be embraced – it should be abhorred.  Sin isn’t something we should be comfortable about – it should be exposed and confessed and repented of in our lives DAILY.

The Bible commands us to love our enemies, love those who persecute us, but it teaches us to “’abhor that which is evil and cleave to that which is good.”  The Bible teaches us that we should “eschew evil.”  The New Testament is even more explicit in its language: we are to hate “the very garments spotted by the flesh.”  We are commanded to keep ourselves “unspotted from the world.” We are to be “blameless and harmless without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation among whom ye shine as lights in the world.”

You get the picture?  The Bible teaches us a godly hatred for sin.

We are to hate sin – the presence of sin in our hearts and in our minds must be odious to us, repulsive and appalling because to embrace sin is to deny Christ.  When the Holy Spirit alerts us and convicts us of sin in our lives, our reaction must be to fall down on our knees and see ourselves as “filthy rags” unworthy to come before the presence of God.  It is only when we see ourselves for what we are before God can we appreciate the robe of Christ’s righteousness that cover us.

It is difficult for us to discern when we sin.  Sin is so insidious and deceptive.  Sin very often feels good.  Eve felt that taking of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was desirable because in doing so, she can eat delicious fruit and her hunger would be satisfied; her eyes would be open and she would be wise.  It did all that – and more!  It separated her from Holy God.  Her relationship with the Holy God was severed in that one act of defiance and disobedience.

Sin is very much like that – it often comes as an innocent proposition (eat a piece of fruit) but the seemingly innocent act has eternal implications and repercussions (severed fellowship with God).  In the same way, when sin comes into our lives, it is often clothed as a very innocent proposition, but entertaining sin and giving it a place in our mind and in our time is putting in danger our fellowship with God.

You cannot lose your salvation if you sin after you have been saved – but you do lose the closeness of your fellowship with God.  If you have been deceived by sin (it means you are still spiritually immature and still inexperienced in discerning what is good from what is evil), the Holy Spirit will warn you and he will send you a feeling of restraint and distress.  If you ignore this, then you fall into sin.

Sometimes, though, we know something to be sin, and yet, we willingly entertain sin.  We go out of our way to revel in things that necessarily lead us to sin.  You attend a party with your friends knowing that there will be alcoholic drinks which will be served there.  You know that drinking alcohol is bad for you because it puts your health in danger, it puts you in a position where you might lose control of your faculties and your drowsiness may be taken advantage of and you put your Christian testimony in jeopardy.  You still go, anyway.  You enjoy yourself and feel triumphant that you were able to secure your friends’ acceptance and approval – at the expense of the grief of the Holy Spirit whose temple (your body) has been defiled.

Going to a party is not sin (it’s not in the Ten Commandments, is it?  It’s not forbidden in the Gospels or in the Epistles), is it?  And yet, even if no one rebukes you of it – you know you’ve crossed a line somewhere.  You have revelled in something that does not glorify God.  You thoroughly enjoyed yourself in doing something where God is not honoured, your faith was not built up or strengthened.

So how can you know that something is sin?  Since sin is often disguised?

1. You were given the mind of Christ when you were born again.  You must stop leaning on your own understanding and instead, put on the mind of Christ.
2. You were given the Holy Spirit who convinces us of our sin and bears witness with our spirit when we sin.
3. You were given the Word of God which is alive and can therefore help you pierce through the lovely appearance of sin so that you can expose its disfigurement.
4. You were given the body of Christ which is the church where you can have people of like mind who are also in the same spiritual struggle against sin.
5. You were given the hope that someday, just as the penalty of sin was dealt with on Calvary, and just as the power of sin in your life is dealt with by the work of the Holy Spirit in our daily lives – the presence of sin will be totally removed when Christ comes for us – being “glorified” means the presence of sin in our heart, emotion, will and in our very body will be removed – never to plague us again.

 

Let us examine ourselves whether we are in the faith:

1. If sin doesn’t bother us at all – it must be because we do not have the new nature yet, the Holy Spirit is not living in us and we have no vital relationship with Jesus Christ.  Mud doesn’t bother pigs.
2. If we do not see the abhorrence of God for sin – then we do not understand the importance of Calvary at all.  The reason why Christ received all that bodily punishment was because the wrath of God against sin was unleashed and Jesus bore the brunt of it in my place.
3.  If we do not see the burden of sin – then we do not understand that it robs us of our joy in the Lord, it robs us of comfort from the Word of God, how it robs us of fellowship with God.  Sin enslaves, sin paralyzes, sin renders us insensible — Christ sets us free from the enslavement of sin.
4.  If we do not see how wilfully sinning and loving sin is a direct defiance of the Holy God, then we do not understand the Holiness of God.  We do not understand that in order to have a relationship with God, we must turn away from the filth of sin and put on the righteousness of Christ by faith.  It means, everyday, we count your old sinful self to have been crucified with Christ, therefore, the new life we have is the resurrection life of Jesus Christ – we have been saved to live a holy life, not to go back to the muck we have been rescued from.  Sin is like a rain cloud that hides the glorious brightness of the sun.
5.  If you do not see how sin hardens the heart – then you do not understand how salvation means putting down your arms, ceasing from rebellion against God and living in submission to Him.  Sin “besets” us, it sidelines and marginalizes us from the race of faith.  It zaps us of spiritual energy.  We cannot worship and we cannot praise God.  We cannot witness for Christ.  At the end of this life, we will not receive the prize of the high calling of God.  There is a crown for those who overcome temptation and sin.  There is a prize for those who overcome sin, we must not forfeit that prize.

It has been my experience that most Christians today live comfortably with sin in their lives.  It is a sure sign that the coming of the Lord is near.  When people love pleasures and when they love themselves over and above their love for God or for the Word of God, then they are insensible to sin.  It is the Laodicean church – they thought they were rich and in need of nothing but all the time, God thought they were blind, poor and wretched.  It is time we turn away from sin in our daily lives. Trim our lamps and keep our oil burning for the Son will soon come.