Evil Has A Name Series

Living the Lord’s Prayer, Part-6, Mathew 6:6-13

“Evil Has a Name”

Introduction

“Often, when traveling among the Alps [The highways of the United States], one sees a small black [white] cross planted on a rock or on the brink of a stream or on the verge of the highway to mark the spot where men have met with sudden death by accident. These are solemn reminders of our mortality, but they lead our minds still further. For if the places where men seal themselves for the second death could be thus manifestly indicated, what a scene this world would present! Here the memorial of a soul undone by yielding to a foul temptation, there a conscience seared by the rejection of a final warning, and yonder a heart forever turned into stone by resisting the last tender appeal of love. Our places of worship would hardly hold the sorrowing monuments that might be erected over spots where spirits were forever lost—spirits that date their ruin from sinning against the gospel while under the sound of it.” (Spurgeon)

We are in all ways tempted. We are at times surrounded by temptation to sin actively, by negligence, or by passivity; blind inaction. How many souls have perished not by radical disobedience but simply by loving this world and its much temptation more than they loved Christ?

Exposition

“Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.” A discussion about temptation begs a discussion about that most evil of worlds in a world which calls evil good and good evil: sin. Evil has a name: sin.

In the world our enemy, the Devil seeks to devour us. In our lives we are led astray into the temptation that is offered, of our own accord, into sin, which is an offense to God. Sin is an affront to God’s holiness.

Sin is the corrupt fruit of human arrogance. Sin assaults His perfect love for us.

Sin does not originate with God. There are instances where God uses temptation to test and purify believers as well as to draw men to Christ love initially. The Scriptures bear witness to this and our experience of reality attests to this.

Sin does not originate with God. He did not create us to sin. Our fallenness is a reality that God, in His sovereignty foreknew and allowed; not caused. God is not the author of evil. He is righteous in judging mankind according to His sins but praise the God of all mercy and sovereign grace, in Christ He has judged sin and offered redemption.

Praise God that He judges His children not in accordance with their works but in accordance with Christ alone! By faith alone! By grace alone! As it is been revealed in the Scriptures alone! To His glory alone!

Sin does not originate with God. We are tempted from without, in or day, by a culture which has murdered common decency and traded truth for a great trove of lies. Our ears and eyes are bombarded and our minds are assaulted with profanity, pornography, and all manner of indecency in the name of free speech, simple advertising, and free speech. We are tempted from without.

That temptation triggers the sinful nature which lives inside of all of us and we sin. The temptation comes from an outside source but the choice to sin or not to sin is solely with us. We know what is right and we deny it.

We know innately that what are about to do dishonors God, in many cases someone else, and always, ourselves as well.

Sin dishonors God because He is worthy of our obedience and yet we do not give it to Him. He has poured out the most radical grace, the most exuberant mercy, and yet we mock it in our near constant abandonment of His will in our lives.

It is not enough simply to deny ourselves of the most carnal of sins. The Bible knows nothing of the carnal and the venial sins. Sin is sin because by its very nature it obscures the beauty, worth, and glory of God!

Sin is not defined by its comparison with other sins. Sin is evil not because its action inherently but because any action which emanates from our corrupt hearts which is contrary to God’s will and perfect love robs our loving Heavenly Father of the dignity, honor, and praise which is due to His holy name.

In other words, this matter of temptation and sin is not a legalistic matter of keeping a rigidly ordered moral and ethical life. While morals and ethics matter greatly, the greater matter is demeaning the glory and worth of God!

Why do I strive to grow in the depth of honor which I give to Christina? It is because I love her of course?