Sin. That ugly little thing that we simply cannot get away from. We are all sinners in the eyes of the Lord. We need to be saved. But even after salvation, we continue to sin—our carnal man never ceases to mess things up.
If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us.
—1 John 1:10
For we know that the law is spiritual—but I am unspiritual, sold into slavery to sin. 15 For I don’t understand what I am doing. For I do not do what I want—instead, I do what I hate. 16 But if I do what I don’t want, I agree that the law is good. 17 But now it is no longer me doing it, but sin that lives in me. 18 For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For I want to do the good, but I cannot do it. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but I do the very evil I do not want! 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer me doing it but sin that lives in me.
21 So, I find the law that when I want to do good, evil is present with me. 22 For I delight in the law of God in my inner being. 23 But I see a different law in my members waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that is in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
—Romans 7:14-24
You want to do good, but your flesh desires what is sinful. You are a slave to your desires, even though you know what is good.
For the wages of sin is death
—Romans 6:23
It is not just death itself, but rather decay. Disease started to spread. Sickness, pain, disease, and death were the results of sin.
Now there are theories as to the cause of sin. Some say that Satan is the originator of sin. They use quotes from 1 John 3 to substantiate this idea.
Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. 8 He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.
—1 John 3:7-8
Verse 8, though, says that the devil has been sinning since the beginning of our world. Scripture tells us that the devil will use sin to attempt to drive people away from God. He used it in the garden to get Eve to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The devil will use sin. Nothing in scripture says that he created sin. In fact, being a created being himself, the devil is not shown to be capable of creating things out of nothing.
Others say that disease, sickness, and death are simply the results of sin. They are a wickering of the created world because of the effects of sin. Because sin infects everything from man down to the dirt we dig in, decay results.
This post is not to argue each of these and show the devil not to be the creator of sin, nor is it to show that there was some flaw in God’s creation that allowed a wickering of the very fiber of creation, breaking it down into decay and death. Rather, the focus here is to show that sin results in some form of affliction.
What does sin affect?
It should be fairly easy to conclude that sin can affect other people. The sin that you engage in can be found out and cause a ripple effect across relationships, friendships, and other connections. Sins such as adultery can break up marriages and relationships. Not only that, but the stress and anger that result can actually create physical problems, sicknesses, emotional distresses, etc. Sin itself, as I’ve shown above, causes sickness and disease to set in.
But whose sin? And by that, I’m not speaking anymore about an affair that causes the spouse great emotional (and possibly physical) harm.
You’re familiar with the Ten Commandments, right? Let’s take a look at the second commandment a little closer:
‘You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; 9 you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, 10 but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
—Deuteronomy 5:8-10
Hey, your great-grandfather sinned, and you get the iniquity. Fair game, dude. Of course, here it says that you have to hate him. I you love him and keep his commandments, then if you are one of the thousands, you get mercy.
And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, 7 keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.”
—Exodus 34:6-7
(Numbers 14:18 says pretty much the same thing.)
Again, mercy for the thousands, but if you are guilty (sinful), then BOOM! down to the third and fourth generations. Ah, but this is judgment for the generations that did not repent properly but continued in their guilty ways. That's acceptable, right, even if the following generations don't realize they are acting improperly since grandpa taught them how to behave?
The Story of Ahab
In the book of 1 Kings, there is a story about a king of Israel named Ahab. Ahab met up with a guy named Naboth, who owned a vineyard that had been in his family for quite some time. He received it through inheritance. Well, King Ahab wanted the vineyard because of where it was. He was willing to give Naboth a lot of money for it, or trade it for a better vineyard. But Naboth did not want to part with his inheritance because it had been in the family for so long. So he refused to sell or trade it to King Ahab.
King Ahab was married to Jezebel (yeah, that one), and she writes a letter in Ahab’s name, telling the elders of the city to send scoundrels into Naboth’s city and to stone him to death. They did as the letter told them to do. Naboth is now dead; Jezebel goes to Ahab and tells him that Naboth has been killed and that he, Ahab, should go into the city and lay claim, as King of Israel, over the vineyard, which Ahab does.
Elijah finds out from the Lord what happened, and he goes to Ahab and tells him that the Lord will punish him for the sin. Ahab's reign as king will come to an end, and Jezebel will be eaten by dogs.
So Ahab tears his clothes and begins fasting and lying about in sackcloth.
Because of this, the Lord says that Ahab has become humble, so he’s not going to bring calamity upon him.
And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, 29 “See how Ahab has humbled himself before Me? Because he has humbled himself before Me, I will not bring the calamity in his days. In the days of his son I will bring the calamity on his house.”
—1 Kings 21:28-29
Ahab cries and gets out of it. Ahab’s kids are going to suffer the calamity.
I mean, someone has to pay. It might as well be the kids who didn’t do anything wrong, might as well be those who don’t even know what might have happened. You can also know that Jezebel got out of this, sort of. In 2 Kings 9, she gets thrown out of a window and eaten by dogs anyway.
So here, there is no mention that the kids are still guilty of something. They didn’t do anything wrong. However, the Lord will punish them.
Illegitimate births
Public worship is important to the Lord. You are called to assemble together.
A person of illegitimate birth may not enter the assembly of the Lord; to the tenth generation no one related to him may do so.
—Deuteronomy 23:2
So if one is born illegitimately, then that person and all his descendants down to the tenth generation, including anyone related to him, cannot go into the Lord’s assembly. They’re out!
Just remember, if you have some ailment going on, it’s not you. It’s likely your great-great-grandfather on your mother’s side. You might want to add a few more greats to that for good measure.
And lest you read my words in some sort of joking manner, this is no joke. This is scripture—unless, of course, you want to pick and choose which scripture is true and still applicable today. We will talk in future posts about what part of the OT law was put aside under grace, but not the whole of the OT (lest you want to quit quoting from Psalms and Proverbs). It is quite possible indeed to dismiss some of this from a law vs. grace point of view (even though this is not the law), but at the very least it shows what God was willing to do, even to his own kids—the apple of his eye.
Just remember:
For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations
—Deuteronomy 5:9