We had an excellent preacher at church last night from the US of A.  It was great, he sounded just like Jessica Fletcher from ‘Murder She Wrote’.  He delivered a great sermon and somehow Americans have this knack of sounding really profound, whatever they say.

There was one point he made though which has got me thinking.  He said that sin will not be your downfall/nemesis/something or other, but doubt will be.  I am just not sure about this although I totally understood what he was saying.

His point was, that you will constantly be held back by doubt.  If you doubt that God will heal someone then maybe you won’t ask him to.  If you doubt that God exists then your faith could be on the rocks.  If you doubt that you are good enough then you will never use the gifts God has given you.  He reminded us that every time God speaks, the enemy lies (not in those words).  Every time you are certain of something, doubt is right behind you, creeping in to ruin you.

The above is absolutely true.  However I do not think that we should underestimate the detrimental effects of sin.  The whole of the fall was based around sin and disobedience.  The whole reason that Jesus had to die on the cross was because of sin and the whole reason that we got separated from God was because of sin.  It is quite a big deal.

Doubting Thomas got a rap on the knuckles, but sinful Adam and Eve got banished from the garden of Eden.  Ouch.

Sin is not a popular subject, mostly because we are all rather partial to it, but would not like anyone else to know!  I wish I could twist the Bible verse that says “do not let you left hand know what your right hand is doing” and make it relate to sin and interpret that you can brush it under the carpet, but actually this verse relates to blessing other people and doing it secretly rather than on show!  Ah well.

Sin…  Not to be taken lightly.