God warned Lot’s wife of the impending disaster. He tried to rescue her from His judgment. He even set her on the way to salvation, shepherding her to safety. But the bent of her heart was even more powerful than the grasp of the angels leading her by the hand. She gave proof that she had never taken God seriously when she would not sever her heart-ties with Sodom. She came as close to deliverance without receiving it as was possible. Looking to the past she destroyed her future. Having received the grace of God in vain, she passed the point of no return. Not even the fire and brimstone falling around her could heal her divided heart… We might feel inclined to ask why Lot’s wife paid such a price for her error. Oh, but she sinned grievously against the Lord. Not only did she lack the pioneering pilgrim spirit required of those who leave their former lives for a better city, but she was in love with the sinful world… What she left behind and still held in her heart obviously was very dear to her, dearer than the treasures of God.
Treasures from the Heart, Crossway Books, 2000, p. 162-163.
Sin gets its power by persuading me to believe that I will be happier if I follow it. The power of all temptation is the prospect that it will make me happier.
What would you expect? Sin will not come to you, saying, "I am sin." It would do little harm if it did. Sin always seems "good, and pleasant, and desirable," at the time of commission.
Thoughts for Young Men.
We must understand that sin is a desire. We don’t fall into sin. We may be tempted, but sin is a personal choice we make and one to which we are responsible. Simply put, we sin because we want to sin. We believe sin will bring us greater pleasure, greater joy than obedience.
Sermon, Rejoice! God is Pleased, Psalm 16:11, August 6, 2018.
Failure to repent simply displays a heart greater in love with its sin than in love with its Savior.
Sermon, 14 Reasons to Repent, Luke 13:3, 5, Sunday, October 13, 2019.
Not until we take God seriously will we ever take sin seriously.
R.C. Sproul Cosmic Treason, Tabletalk, May 2008, p. 7, Used by Permission.
The list in Galatians 5 is not a list of unforgivable sins. Instead it is a list of those sins, which when they are practiced, evidence a lack of saving faith. Practicing these sins, however, is not the same thing as committing them. We practice these sins, or any sin, when we give up, when we no longer fight the temptation, when we embrace the sin as good. When, however, we fight, when we repent for falling into these sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins (1 John 1:9).
Ask RC: Can a Person Who Has Committed Suicide God to Heaven? December 31, 2013, Used by Permission.
People don’t sin because they feel they have to. We sin because we enjoy the pleasure it brings. We sin because it feels good. We sin because it brings a thrill to our bodies, fleeting satisfaction to our souls and excitement to the banality and boredom of our everyday lives… We sin because we believe the lie that the pleasure it brings, though passing (Heb. 11:25), is more satisfying than the pleasure obedience brings.
Copied from: Pleasures Evermore: The Life-Changing Power of Knowing God by Sam Storms, © 2000, p. 26-27. Used by permission of NavPress – www.navpress.org. All rights reserved.
[Some] though they cannot sin outwardly, for want of strength of body or a fit opportunity, yet they act sin inwardly with great love and complacency. As players in a comedy, they act their parts in private, in order to a more exact performance of them in public.
A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 94.
Think not the better of sin because it is in fashion. Think not the better of impiety and ungodliness, because many walk in those crooked ways. Multitude is a foolish argument; multitude does not argue the goodness of a thing. The devil’s name is Legion… The plea of a multitude will not hold out at God’s bar when God shall ask you, “Why did you break your oath?” To say then, “Lord, because most men did so,” will be but a poor plea: God will say to you, “Then seeing you have sinned with the multitude, you shall now go to hell with the multitude.
A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 101.
Sin tends to look less attractive when it is closely inspected.
Talk About Sin by Edward Welch taken from Caring for One Another by Edward Welch, copyright 2018, Crossway Books, a division of Good News Publishers, Wheaton Illinois 60187, www.crosswaybooks.org. Page 63.
Why do we find it so easy to be amused by behavior that God hates and that Jesus Christ died to save us from?
Everyday Talk, Talking Freely and Naturally about God with Your Children, Shepherd Press, 2004, p. 108, Used by Permission. Get this book!
