Each Sunday, I try to post a devotional thought for you to meditate on. Sometimes it will be something out of my own studies and prayers. Other times – like today – it will be from another source.

Today, I am posting a about the true nature of sin by Arthur Pink, courtesy of Grace Gems:

(Arthur Pink)

“Hate what is evil” Romans 12:9

If we took a survey of everything on the earth–we could not find anything so vile as sin. The basest and most contemptible thing in this world, has some degree of worth in it, as being the workmanship of God. But sin and its foul streams have not the least part of worth in them. Sin is wholly evil without the least mixture of good–it is vileness in the abstract.

Sin’s heinousness appears in its author: “The one who practices sin is of the Devil; for the Devil has sinned from the beginning.” Sin is the Devil’s trade, and he practices it incessantly!

Sin’s enormity is seen in what it has done to man: it has completely ruined his nature and brought him under the curse of God!

Sin is the source of all our miseries. All unrighteousness and wretchedness are its fruits. There is no distress of the mind, no anguish of the heart, no pain of the body–but is due to sin! All the miseries which mankind groans under, are to be ascribed to sin.

Sin is the cause of all divine punishments: “Your ways and your doings have brought these things upon you. This is your punishment.” Had there been no sin, there would have been . . .
no wars,
no calamities,
no prisons,
no hospitals,
no insane asylums,
no cemeteries!
Yet who lays these things to heart?

“The deceitfulness of sin!” Sin assumes many garbs. When it appears in its nakedness–it is seen as a black and misshapen monster! How God Himself views it, may be learned from the various similitudes used by the Holy Spirit to set forth its ugliness and loathsomeness. Sin is likened to the scum of a seething pot in which is a detestable carcass, and to a dead and rotting body!

There is a far greater malignity in sin than is commonly supposed, even by the majority of church members. Men regard sin as an infirmity, and term it a human frailty orhereditary weakness. The majority regard sin as a mere trifle.

Tens of thousands of religionists see so little filth in sin, that they imagine a few tears will wash away its stain. They perceive so little criminality in it, that they persuade themselves that a few good works will make full reparation for it.

All comparisons fail to set forth the horrible malignity in that abominable thing which God hates. We can say nothing more evil of sin, than to term it what it is!

photo credit: Astrogems