What is Sin?

What is sin? Sin means to fall short or to miss the mark of a target. God has set a standard to live by and to get into Heaven. Jesus said in Matthew 5:48 “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect”. None of us has done this. All of us have done something that God said not to at least once in our lives, probably more. A set of laws that people often use to know what is sin, are the Ten Commandments. Most people cannot name the Ten Commandments. They are:

Exodus 20:2-17- “I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work:
But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor’s.”

Jesus summed these up into two laws which He called the greatest: Matthew 22:37-40- “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

Going down the Ten commandments, the first one is that God should be number one in our lives at all times, we seek to please God at all times. We have all failed this in our lives.

Most of us have never bowed down to any idol, but the Biblical idea of idols is some object that takes your time and devotion, basically anything we pay attention to more than God. We don’t necessarily have to bow down to something for it to be considered idolatry, we just need to pay more attention to it and care about it more than God. Everyone sometime in their life has done this. We have all not cared about the things of God more than anything else in our life. Thus we have all had other ‘gods’ or idols at sometime.

God said that we are not to take His name in vain. Most people have used God’s name in vain in our life by saying; GD, JC, or J. All most everyone has broken this commandment. God said we will not be held guiltless.

The Sabbath Day was a day to remember and to think on God. How many people spend any time thinking about God.

Honor thy father and mother is just that, obeying them. Most people have not done this, doing something their parents said not to. Of course this has limits such as if your parents tell you to kill someone, you don’t do it. But if your parents tell you to take out the trash or come home by a certain time and you don’t do it, then you are not honoring your parents.

Regarding murder: Jesus said in Matthew 5:22- “But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.” I was thinking on ‘without a cause’, how many of us have gotten madder at someone for something that they did then we should have? How many of us wanted to kill someone for cutting us off? Even if we didn’t do anything physically to them, God looks at our thoughts as well as our actions, and judges them equally. Another to think about this is have we ever judged someone by just looking at them and thought that you don’t like them, without even knowing them? 1 John 3:15 says “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.” Ever hated someone? God looks upon that as murder.

Jesus said in Matthew 5:28- “But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” All most everyone has looked at someone to lust after them (have sexual thoughts towards them).

Stealing is a major issue many people don’t think about. Most of us think that we haven’t done wrong because we haven’t stolen a car or robbed a bank. God looks at us taking anything that doesn’t belong to us as stealing, regardless of how much it is worth. Some examples that I have heard that make most of us guilty are; have you ever illegally downloaded music before? Then you stole the music. Have you ever been on the job and not been working, just been goofing off? Then you have stolen time and money from your employer.

Bearing a false witness against someone is lying. In today’s society lying is seen as practically nothing, but what constitutes a “bad lie”? Does it have to hurt someone or does it have to be serious such as lying in a murder trial? Lying is purposely saying something you know is not true. There are different degrees of lying but it is still lying. In Proverbs 5:16-19 in a list of 7 abominations to God, lying is listed twice and murder is in the same list. Proverbs 12:22 says “Lying lips are an abomination to the LORD”. Satan is called the father of all lies (John 8:44). A husband and wife were killed in the book of acts for lying (Acts 5:1-11). The latter part of Revelation 21:8 says “all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.” God takes lying a whole lot more serious than we do.

The last of the Ten Commandments is not to covet, which is to want what someone else has. If you see someone driving a brand new car and suddenly you become jealous of them, you are coveting. If you lust after someone else’s spouse, you are coveting that person because you want them for yourself. This one makes all most everyone one of us guilty before God for something in our lives.

Relating to all of these know that God said in Isaiah 55:8-9, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Many things we may think are not to bad, God considers very serious offenses and as rebelling against Him (because God said all souls are His Ezekiel 18:4).

Verses from KJV.