The Wicked Are Guilty of The Most Terrible Sins and
Evil.
What follows shows and explains in more detail why God must hide His face from the wicked. Thinking through this list of sinful behavior should arouse everyone's heart to combat all forms of wickedness. Wicked behavior damages lives, sometimes causing terrible pain, suffering, and even death. Moreover, wickedness always cuts the heart of God to the core, arousing His anger. So, take just a moment and think about each of these sinful behaviors and all the misery, heartache, and anguish they cause:
I. People defile their hands through abuse, murder, and other acts of violence (v. 3).
II. People speak lies, gossip, and other poison with lips that deceive (v. 3).
III. People give false testimony, promoting injustice and dishonesty in the courts (v. 4).
IV. People scheme and conduct evil plots in homes, businesses, and elsewhere (Js. 1:14–15; 4:1–2).
V. People act out of malice or hatred and become as deadly as snakes or spiders (v. 5).
VI. People deceive themselves and others with the intent to hide sin, forgetting that God sees through every deception (v. 6).
VII. People aggressively spread evil and violence, causing individuals, businesses, and even entire communities to fear for their lives and property.
VIII. People are reckless in pursuing fleshly, forbidden pleasures and increasingly more possessions, property, and wealth (v. 7).
IX. People kill senselessly, cheapening the value of life.
X. People flood the mind with evil thoughts—immoral, abusive, vengeful, covetous, greedy, selfish thoughts—that give rise to sinful, wicked behavior.
XI. People are destructive, devastating both lives and property.
XII. People act unjustly, upsetting the peace and causing chaos within the human heart and society (v. 8).
XIII. People mislead others and become a stumbling block in life (v. 8b).
The Sinful Behavior of
The Wicked
1 Listen! The Lord's arm is not too weak to save you, nor is his ear too deaf to hear you call. 2 It is your sins that have cut you off from God. Because of your sins, he has turned away and will not listen anymore. 3 Your hands are the hands of murderers, and your fingers are filthy with sin. Your lips are full of lies, and your mouth spews corruption. 4 No one cares about being fair and honest. The people's lawsuits are based on lies. They conceive evil deeds and then give birth to sin. 5 They hatch deadly snakes and weave spider's webs. Whoever eats their eggs will die; whoever cracks them will hatch a viper.6 Their webs cannot be made into clothing, and nothing they do is productive. All their activity is filled with sin, and violence is their trademark. 7 Their feet run to do evil, and they rush to commit murder. They think only about sinning. Misery and destruction always follow them. 8 They do not know where to find peace or what it means to be just and good. They have mapped out crooked roads, and no one who follows them knows a moment's peace. [1](Isaiah59:1–8)
A Person Who Sincerely Evaluates Even This Limited List of Wicked Behaviors Can Come to Only One Conclusion: Sin Is Universal, and We Are All Guilty of Sin. The Human Heart Is Sinful and Selfish Beyond Comprehension. Our Only Hope Is in The Mercy and Compassion of The Lord.
V "For from within, out of the heart of
men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, Thefts, covetousness,
wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness:
All these evil things come from within, and defile the man" (Mk. 7:21–23).
V "For all have sinned and come short of
the glory of God" (Ro. 3:23).
V "If we say that we have no sin, we
deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us" (1 Jn. 1:8).
V "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts
of his heart was only evil
continually" (Ge. 6:5).
V "There is no man that sinneth not"
(1 K. 8:46).
V "Have the workers of iniquity no
knowledge? who eat up my people as
they eat bread: they have not called upon God" (Ps. 53:4).
V "Who can say, I have made my heart
clean, I am pure from my sin?" (Pr. 20:9).
V "All we like sheep have gone astray; we
have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the
iniquity of us all" (Is.
53:6).
V "But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away" (Is. 64:6).[2]
The Unsatisfactoriness
of Sinful Courses.
"What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye now are ashamed?"
asks the apostle of those whom he had converted from a life of sin to a life of
righteousness (Rom. 6:21). What good did the life of sin seem to do
you? Of course, if the life of sin had no pleasures at all to offer, it would
have no attractiveness, and would not be led by any. But what, after all, are
the attractions, compared with the counterbalancing disadvantages?
I.
The Pleasures of Sin Are Slight, Even
While They Last.
No doubt there is gratification in the
satisfaction of every desire, in the venting of every passion, in the full
indulgence of every lust and appetite. There is a pleasure also in the mere
indulgence of self-will, the setting aside of every restraint, and the
determination to be free and do exactly what we choose. But put all these
things together, and to what do they amount? What is their value? Is the game
worth the candle? Are not the pleasures themselves always mixed with pains,
which detract from them? Do they not generally involve as their consequences
worse pains, so that mere selfishness should make us decide to decline the
pleasures? Does not conscience offer a continual protest against the life of
sin? and is not that protest painful—often severely painful? Again, are not
those who lead a life of sin, even while they lead it, always more or less
ashamed of it? And is not that shame a very bitter feeling? Is not the
disapproval of the life by friends and relatives, especially the nearest, who
should be the dearest, a very substantial set-off against any balance of
pleasure that might otherwise remain? Do the wicked ever "know peace"?
Can they ever calmly review their lives, and derive from the review any feeling
of satisfaction? Can they even boast in all their life of a moment's perfect
restfulness, contentment, calm, quiet, and sense of ease?
II.
The Pleasures of Sin Are Fleeting; They
Die Out as Time Goes On.
The great pleasure-seekers have always
acknowledged that the end of all indulgence is satiety. The cry of the sensualist
is for "a new pleasure;" but the cry is vain. New pleasures are not
forthcoming. Sensualists tread the same weary round repeatedly, with less satisfaction
each time it is traversed, and with a growing feeling that they are slaves,
compelled to grind perpetually on the same futile treadmill. Almost every
passion dies out after a time. If anyone remains, it is avarice, which reduces
its victim to the most miserable condition possible.
III.
The Pleasures of Sin Separate from God.
If God is, as even the heathen acknowledged, the supreme good; and if man's highest good is, as some of them also allowed communion with him, —then anything whatsoever that separates from him is weighted with a disadvantage that must necessarily overbalance all possible good that it can possess. Were the pleasures of sin ten thousand times greater than they are, and were they absolutely permanent, instead of being, as they are, fleeting and evanescent, the single fact, here mentioned by Isaiah (ver. 2), that they erect a barrier between man and God, should render them utterly unsatisfactory to a reasonable being. To be cut off from God is to be cut off from the source of all joy and peace and happiness; it is to be shut out from the light, to lose contact with the Life which sustains all other life, and to be left to our own miserable selves for the remainder of our existence. Nothing could possibly be a compensation to man for such losses.[3]
A Prayer of
Repentance
A Psalm of David When Nathan the Prophet Went to Him
After He Had Gone into Bathsheba.
"Have mercy upon me, O God, According to
Your lovingkindness; According to the multitude of Your tender mercies, Blot
out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from
my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done
this evil in Your sight—That You may be found just when You speak, and
blameless when You judge. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin,
my mother conceived me. Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts, and in
the hidden part, You will make me to
know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall
be whiter than snow. Make me hear joy and gladness, That the bones You have broken may rejoice. Hide Your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a
steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not
take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and
uphold me by Your generous Spirit.
Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners shall be converted to You. Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, The God of my salvation, and my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Your praise. For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it; You do not delight in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, A broken and a contrite heart—These, O God, You will not despise. Do good in Your good pleasure to Zion; Build the walls of Jerusalem. Then You shall be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering; Then they shall offer bulls on Your altar."[4]
"Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight…." David acknowledged his sin as being in the sight of God. God saw everything David did, and David knew it. The next time we think we hide our sinful behavior from others, think again. When we look to the left, right, before us, and behind us, do not forget to look up and remember that God sees from heaven all we, both the good and evil.
"Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin, my mother conceived me…." Another point to remember is that no matter how good we think we are, we must acknowledge that our sin is from birth. People like to argue about nurture and nature. Alternatively, to say this another way, Tabula Rosa means a blank slate. This theory purports that individuals are born without built0in mental content, and therefore, all knowledge comes from experience. So, in theory, we learn to sin. Consider an infant screaming for food. That infant has not learned how to scream from observing another infant. That infant came into this world screaming, "I want food, and I want it now, and effectively it is saying, I do not care about the needs of anyone else needs my needs to come first." In addition, we do not teach our children how to behave selfishly. Watch a few minutes of children playing together as diaper-crawling babies, and you will see the selfish nature of those infants as they fight for toys and even the baby bottle. Sin is inherent in each of us.
"Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me…." God's Word says, "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death."[5] David acknowledges that it was God that he needed to create in him a clean heart and a renewed spirit within him. Nevertheless, David knew he could not do it. He tried to through a veneer of false repentance but could not restore the fellowship with God that he once enjoyed. This is true for each of us. In any marriage relationship, when the two argue and break fellowship because of sin, both parties must repent of their sin seeking forgiveness from God first and then from each other. However, for another topic of discussion, the male, the husband, is to seek God first and then his wife's forgiveness regardless of who is wrong. The natural order is that the man takes responsibility for the wrong and is to humble himself in repentance, seeking God's face and then his wife's. God created man first, which is why God requires male leadership in the home, which is not up for debate.
So, what can we learn from our sinful nature and God's expectations? First, we are sinful by nature. Second, God knows our nature is sinful, and He is willing to forgive us if we come to Him in true repentance. Third, if we do not repent, we will not have peace of heart, mind, body, soul, or home. We will lose sleep. Our peace of conversation with our family and friends will seem empty; even as chasing after sinful pleasures, they are empty. Fourth, it is true that sin is fun for a season, but as the seasons change and we long for the seeming pleasure we found in that sin for a season, it is chasing after the wind. The pleasure of sin will soon fade, and we will look to fill the void again. Last, we will only find the only true peace of heart, mind, body, soul, and by extension, peace in our home in Christ. Read "The Unsatisfactoriness of Sinful Courses" again, and you will see those sinful pursuits are empty.
Father, God, we acknowledge that our nature
is to sin and to sin continually. However, we would destroy ourselves but for
your grace and drawing us to yourself. We thank you, Lord, for providing a way
for us to receive redemption and begin a new life in you. May we honor you with
our lives through our motivations, thoughts, and actions, and a life well lived
according to your will. Lead us into your will each day, Father God, by teaching
us how to live according to your Word, and may we teach others the same.
In Jesus' Name, we pray. Amen
For I Acknowledge My Transgressions, And My Sin Is Always Before Me. Against You, You Only, Have I Sinned, And Done This Evil in Your Sight.
[1] Tyndale House Publishers. 2015. Holy Bible: New
Living Translation. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers.
[2] Leadership Ministries Worldwide. 2005. Isaiah: Chapters
36–66. Vol. II. The Preacher’s Outline & Sermon Bible.
Chattanooga, TN: Leadership Ministries Worldwide.
[3] Spence-Jones, H. D. M., ed. 1910. Isaiah.
Vol. 2. The Pulpit Commentary. London; New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company.
[4] The New King James
Version. 1982. Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
[5] The New King James
Version. 1982. Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
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