Is all sin equal?

Transcript from the podcast (so sorry for the spelling mistakes)

Wildfire podcast is an extension of Wildfire Ministries, an organization that has a focus of igniting men and women of God into a deeper discipleship with Christ, instilling them with a passion to radically and relentlessly pursue Christ wherever that leads, that God's truth will spread like a wildfire.

Hey guys, and welcome to another podcast.

I'm Nick Taylor, and I'm with...

Pedro Wright.

Pedro Wright, never say that again.

It's Peter.

Peter Wright.

Peter.

And so, Peter, just a nice, quiet question for you, just something light to start off.

How do you respond when you sin?

What is your feeling toward it?

Well, I've grown to hate it.

Yes.

Yes.

I'd say the more I think about it, the more I hate it, essentially.

And I think the more you see how holy God is, the more you hate it.

So I just finished listening to a series of podcasts on the Biddingus that spends a lot of time portraying how holy God is.

So after that, every time I see them, I'm like, yeah, that's...

Yeah, that'll do it.

That'll do it.

Yeah.

When there's a couple of pre-seed that you die from bringing on holy fire into the tabernacle, whatever that means.

But that's all they do and they die for it.

So just shows how holy God is and how unclean I am, I guess, whenever I sin.

Yeah, I completely, I'm the same.

I'm the same.

I guess what you said there was beautiful.

The more you're exposed to Christ, the more light, the more light that's shown, the more darkness that is revealed and that's present in my own life.

And I absolutely despise it, honestly.

Okay, so we're going to move on.

And from that, we can take a little insight of what we're going to talk about in this podcast, which is, is all sin the same?

Is all sin equal?

Is something we've been asked?

It's something I've been asked.

And it was stimulated when a person, basically, I heard a person talking, and they were saying, we've all got a past, and we're all sinners.

But don't worry, don't worry.

I wasn't a drug addict, or I wasn't an alcohol, an alcoholic, I wasn't alcohol.

I wasn't an alcoholic, or I wasn't so-and-so.

And there was just a very quick moment to diminish their sin, or to run from it, or to place other sins higher than others.

And so, what we're going to address is, can you say something like that?

Is that actually wrong, or is that right?

Is that perfectly logical and biblical?

Can you say your sin is not as bad as theirs?

If true, should that give you comfort?

Should you start getting comfort by looking at other people and saying, well, their sin's greater than mine, so that gives me a level of solace?

Or is all sin evil, and should it be responded in the exact same way?

These are questions that we're going to ask ourselves and answer.

The breakdown of this podcast will be in four, because this is the best way we think that we can address this question.

And it's going to be justice and society, justice and God, justice and self, justice and others.

So how is justice, how is sin, how do we deal with that in these four different areas?

And that should then give us the answer to all these questions.

Okay, so Peter, justice and society.

Talk us through that.

I'm glad I get to talk about this one, because I get to talk a lot about my favorite part of the Bible, the Hebrew Bible.

So, and again, I've just finished listening to the podcast in the video, which was quite interesting.

So kind of leading into that, the Torah or the law talks a lot about how Israel's government was formed.

So this is obviously justice and society.

So society is stems from the government.

That's the over overriding body of society.

So in the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible, we can see it.

Israel is meant to function as a theocracy with different branches of government.

Such as, or different branches of law, even ceremonial law, which talks a lot about Leviticus, civil law, how different interactions are between people are judged, moral law, such as murder.

And then, yes, those are the three main.

And then we actually get our branches of government from, especially in America, there's three different branches of government.

There's the White House, I think it's the Senate and also the Supreme Court.

Those are the three different branches.

And it's not actually stems from ancient Israel, where they had the priesthood, the king and also the judges as well.

So there's three different branches.

So even back then, that's how they developed the government structure.

And that's how it worked in the Old Testament, the theocracy.

But in the New Testament, we can see we're not under the law of the old but of the new.

And so we take the principles of the old and apply them to our days, our lives today.

And it's kind of the moral law, it still applies, but not civil or ceremonial.

But again, it's still important because we can understand how God was treated in this context in ancient Israel and how that can still apply to us today.

And we talked about that.

We talked about the emphasis on the importance of the Old Testament.

It shouldn't just be, you know what I mean?

Oh, we're not under the law of the old?

Okay then, okay, bye.

No, that's not what we mean.

Check other earlier podcasts on that.

Sorry, Peter, go.

No, that's a good point to emphasize.

But obviously you've got moral law, which is thou shalt not murder.

And I hope everyone who's listening still thinks that's applicable today.

And that's an example of moral law.

But then you get civil, which is like an intranasural, that was punishable by death, which here in Northern Ireland, that's not the case.

So that's how our government would differ from then.

And it's not our job as Christians to emphasize that, because we have a separation of church and state now.

And even Jesus says, give unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's.

So he kind of, Jesus himself is talking about how the church is separate from the state.

And Paul talks about in Romans 13, respect the governing authorities, and when God's law is being broken, God's law supersedes any governmental law.

So what would an example of that be look?

So it's this idea, for example, the most obvious example is going to history.

You got the Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, how they were going to execute over 6 million Jews.

You don't respect the governing authorities there because God's law supersedes that, and so you show your opposition.

And then, of course, there's a difference to be as to how you show the opposition, but opposition should be shown because God's law is supreme and supersedes that.

Yeah.

So, again, we can see all these principles of how certain old testament principles, in terms of sin and moral law, last today, and how these other different ceremonial and civil are applied today, and how we're under the new covenant and the Church.

So that's how the government and the Church deals with sin.

There are other references for this and how we deal with it.

So 1 Thessalonians 5 says, and everything in prayer and supplication, Proverbs 2.6, the Lord gives wisdom from his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.

So we need to look at the Bible to get our basis of morality.

Yeah.

Isn't that what those verses say?

Yeah, of course.

So you're emphasizing the importance of what the Old Testament is saying with regards to Church and state and how they're one, the theocracy.

And then you're also emphasizing in the New Testament how there is a new separation of Church and state that is clearly emphasized by the passages highlighted.

And so from that, we can understand the moral law, the transients, we can establish biblical principles and take those and apply them to day to day life as to how we execute justice within our society.

But again, these are principles.

So they're not just, you can't go to the Bible and say, this is exactly how our government should be run today and just give a list.

It requires wisdom, it requires discernment, it requires prayer.

And that's what those passages we're talking about, as Peter highlighted about, in everything in prayer and supplication, and for the Lord gives wisdom and knowledge.

So using God's word, using prayer and knowledge and the Holy Spirit, we can get a firm basis as to what the judicial system should be in society and how sin should be dealt with in society and the judicial system.

So in that regard, much of the morality should be governed by the church.

And what I mean by that is lust.

Whenever you look upon a woman with lust, I don't think there should be lust police who monitors that and then arrests you or imprisons you.

To me, that is too much.

Again, that's an exaggerated example of how something should be dealt with the church and not by the state.

What are examples of how the state should intervene?

The state takes over in regards to murder, stealing, or if that lust takes too far into rape in some situations, that's when the state steps in.

And again, you can see how these are interacted with in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, and then you can see through prayer and wisdom and discernment how we come and formulate our own conclusions on that.

So that's justice and society.

So what about justice and God?

How do we as Christians interact with God, and how does our sin look in God's eyes?

Yeah, so we've established justice in society.

So what's the second?

How is sin dealt with by God?

Well, whenever we read in the Old Testament, we read of Sheol, and that's the Hebrew for the Greek, which is Hades, which is basically the bottomless pit, or this darkness, you can read about it, with the rich man and Lazarus, and how there's different levels of judgment that is given within that.

And then also in Gehenna, which is the Hebrew for the Greek, which is hell, which is the lake of fire, and there's different levels of judgment that are present within that there.

And then you've also got the Bema Seat, and how, which is 2 Corinthians 5 and 10, all must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, and receive according to what we have done.

Okay, so the Greek is Bemaida.

It was elevated place in Jewish times, and that's where God would be seated, and how he's gonna judge us on what we have done.

Okay, so there's different levels of rewards that are given.

So different levels of judgment, different levels of rewards.

Again, there's a pattern and a theme emerging here.

And then we see the opposite judgment, which is the great white throne, which is for those who are not saved, the goats as they're referred to.

And how in Revelation 20, it talks about judgment being bestowed on these peoples and different levels, again, according to what they have done.

Okay, and we can read about loads of other passages in this.

Luke 12, 47.

And a servant who knows what the master wants, but isn't prepared and doesn't carry out those instructions will be severely punished.

But someone who does not know, and then does something wrong will be punished only lightly.

So again, we see a differentiation here.

About someone who does know will get punished more, and someone who doesn't know will get punished lightly.

Again, differentiations in punishment.

Again, emphasizing these different levels and how sin is dealt with differently, and justice is executed differently by God.

It sounds like that's an example from the Proverbs.

So could that not just be that we referenced Jesus has the Proverb, he's just using another example?

Like, is that not what others look?

Or are there other examples of this being?

No, no, no.

So again, you could align it with that and talk about principles, but this is backed up by so many other scriptures.

Again, the preceding ones we just talked about with regards to God and his justice, the Great White Throne, the Bema Seat, but all of their passages that appear is John 19 verse 11.

The one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.

Did they talk about Judas?

Yes.

So that's that done.

The greater sin, there is a sin that is greater.

There is greater sins than others.

Again, they're showing these differentiation in levels.

So the previous passages and that passage, and then you've got James 3, verse 1.

Those who teach will be judged more strictly.

Again, talking about shepherds and talking about people in ministerial roles or people who are teaching how they're going to be held into a higher account.

You got Mark 12, how the Pharisees will be judged more severely.

You've got the teaching of the unforgivable sin, how there's a sin that is unforgivable.

Again, to put people at ease.

If you're feeling guilty about that, then it most likely means that you have not committed the unforgivable sin.

And then even in terms of your actual conscience, someone who steals a pencil and someone who murders someone like John Wick with that pencil, they deserve different punishments.

It doesn't take too much common sense to realize that different people who do different things deserve different punishments.

That's how we, even from an earthly lens, that's how we view things.

Yeah, so the common sense has been given to us by God to reaffirm things.

Now that doesn't mean that you just need your common sense.

Common sense should be used and should be aligned and reaffirmed and backed by God's word.

So that's a perfect example by Peter and a little John Wick reference thrown in.

Okay, but what is important to understand in all of this, so we've highlighted how justice and sin should be dealt with differently in society, how justice and sin is dealt differently with regards to God, but we need to understand that this does not give us a license to compare.

Matthew 7 talks about why look at the speck in someone else's eye whenever you've got a log in your own, okay?

Which is sort of a segue into what we're going to talk about next, but there needs to be an emphasis on reaffirming this.

This does not mean you can just go and start comparing your sins to other people.

That is not what is being said.

This is talking about judgment as it pertains specifically to God, okay?

But Peter, justice and self, talk us a little bit more about that now.

Talk about how we deal with it personally.

So you have to understand that we all have sin.

Adam fell, and we all as in Adam fell.

And Romans 3 talks about, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Romans 3 again says, there is no one good, no not one.

Isaiah 65 says, all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.

So even again, back to the holiness of God.

God is so holy, things that we perceive as righteous, they're nothing to him.

They're completely worthless to him.

So all of sin, they fall in short of the glory of God.

So all of us then need saved.

We can't be liberated from our sin, because like this verse Isaiah says, even the good things we do, don't outweigh the bad.

That's impossible.

So we all need to be saved.

We know this from the Bible, and we know how we're saved, because that's the central message of the Bible.

1 Corinthians 5 says, He who knew no sin became sin.

And that's of course talking about Christ Jesus.

And Romans 5 says that we can be justified in Christ.

Probably the most famous verse in the Bible, John 3.16.

That God died for the whole world.

And that's why the father sent the son.

So that there passage blows my mind as well, in 1 Corinthians 5.

But he who knew no sin, that is Jesus, became sin so that we might become the righteousness of God.

We might become pillars of righteousness.

Okay, so again, just emphasizing that.

I just wanted to say how beautiful that was.

That was me.

Continuous.

But before we can even begin to see what life pasts and looks like, we need to accept that we all have sin.

And the only way to be saved from this sin and from the judgment is through Christ Jesus.

And thanking Him for His sacrifice on the cross, and having faith in the grace that we have from the sacrifice.

But once you have that grace and that faith in the one who died for us, then you can start to look at how to get rid of this in your life.

There's a process called sanctification.

So Romans 5 treats this as an ongoing process, which it obviously is.

As soon as you become a Christian, you're not immediately perfect.

That's obviously the case.

And Romans 8 talks about being conformed to the image of Christ.

Most of the New Testament, I would say, actually talks about this.

Actually, once you're saved, that's the process of becoming sanctified.

Like what is tied in to salvation is sanctification.

So salvation not only secures our eternal security, but also our daily sanctification, that is God's grace needed for our lives every single day.

So what we're emphasizing there with regards to justice and self and paired with justice with God.

So there's justice that specifically is down to God and God alone, and that is for Him to judge and for Him to act.

And then Matthew 7 reaffirmed that about the speck.

And then justice with self is how we deal with our sin.

We need to understand the gravity of our sin and how corrupt and disgusting we actually are with every act that we do, and how we need to repent of that and experience salvation, and how as believers, if we do sin and fall short of God's glory, which we do, how we need to be conformed to the image of Christ daily, and how we need His grace.

And what we're trying to emphasize is that is your mindset or perspective towards the sin that is in your life.

Not His sin is greater than my sin, okay?

So it's by understanding theologically, but understanding on a personal level how the Bible and how grace and mercy should be applied.

And Romans 7 talks about how we need to have hatred and enmity towards our sin, and how we need to store the word of God in our hearts as the Psalms teaches repetitively over and over again.

So then how can we deal with sin regards to other people?

How do we interact with others?

Yeah, so as we've established throughout this podcast, it's all sin the same, and we've talked about how sin with regards to the judicial system is different, and how we function with regards to that, use the Old Testament, New Testament, and our own prayer and discernment.

We've talked about justice in God, and how God deals with sin on the different levels, and then we've talked about justice in self, and how we deal with our sin, and understand that we need to have hatred towards that.

But justice and others, how do we deal with that there?

Well, all sin results in us seeking independence from God, because sin is something that is not of God, because God is everything that is good, and sin is everything that is evil.

So whenever I sin, I am ultimately seeking independence from God.

I'm saying, God, I don't need you.

And that's ultimately what it is.

We are seeking our own independence.

And then point number two of this is that there are implications and effects of sin.

There are greater implications and effects to other sins.

And this is self-evident with regards to Peter.

In Judas, Peter rejected Jesus three times on how this was prophesied by Jesus, yet he was reconciled and forgiven.

Yet we see with regards to Judas, Jesus' teaching that said that it would be better for this man that he was never born.

Okay, so we see these sins and the implications and effect of one sin over the other.

Peter, can you think of other examples where there is greater implications and effects of some sins over others?

So in terms of consequences?

Yes.

Okay, so consequences of sin.

Well, for example, lust.

So if you lust after a woman with your heart, that's a one, it's kind of, obviously there are consequences, because if you develop that into a pattern, that's going to not be great, because your mind will constantly be dwelling on that.

But then that's kind of a consequence of something small, or it could be perceived as small.

But then if you have pre-marital sex, then the consequences are, I mean, it's all the ones you go through and skilled when they tell you to have, quote, unquote, safe sex.

It's like STDs, you got unplanned pregnancy, and not to mention you're gluing yourself to someone who's not your wife, all these kind of things.

So both have consequences, undoubtedly, because they're sin.

But one has kind of a lot, like evidently, because even schools teach you about the issues with it, has a lot of much greater consequences.

What else is there?

Yeah, well, for example, if I, again, we've brought up, if I stole a pencil from a friend, that will yield minor consequences.

However, if I stole money from a trust fund that was allocated to 30 kids with special needs, okay, that's very specific.

I have robbed 30 children of education.

Okay.

And there is, and in that then is a catalyst for further sin.

So we see the differentiation between the two.

So what we're trying to emphasize is that all sin results in us seeking independence from God.

However, other sins reap greater consequences, which we've highlighted.

Okay.

So this will then result in us giving differing responses.

Okay.

So Peter, talk to us about that there, about if I committed the sin of lust, as in I looked upon a woman with lust, how would you respond to that?

But if I had sex with someone, how would you respond to that?

Well, so in terms of lust, all sin in general, you have to confess to God.

You confess when you sin.

That's justice with self.

Justice with self.

And justice with God as well, I guess.

Yes.

Because you're already saved.

Yes.

And you can't be lost.

Yes.

But in the process of sanctification, you need to be justified in God's eyes.

So you confess your sin to God, and then you confess your sins to others.

So again, look at I have talked on about community groups.

We confess our sins to others.

So then those people can keep us accountable, so that we don't sin again.

Yeah, bringing your sin into the light.

Yeah, and with lust, especially, you need to catch it early, or else it can progress and progress, and then it becomes a habit or an action.

So you catch the lust early by confessing it to others and letting them keep you accountable.

In regards to pre-marital sex, if it's, again, same process, confess to God, confess to others, but then need to put boundaries in place so that same sin doesn't happen again.

So whether that's, you don't see the person when you're alone with each other.

These things may sound extreme, but we've seen how holy God is.

We don't want to do anything that can lead to negative consequences.

Yeah, if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out.

Yeah.

And all you're doing is spending time with them in the presence of other people, not alone.

Yeah.

Okay.

So again, Peter just literally highlighted that framework.

So for the couple who had sex outside of marriage, that there is the sin that results in independence from God, number one.

However, the implications and effects could be unwanted pregnancy.

It could be sexually transmitted diseases.

It could be an intimacy that clouds their judgment in the future.

And then the response then to that is going to be different.

Again, it's going to require a lot more stringent measures to be taken into place, so that doesn't escalate.

It's going to result in reconciliation between that person and yourself.

And it's going to have a very profound impact and is going to result in something different.

Whereas the person who looked upon a woman with lust, they saw independence from God and they should have hatred towards that sin.

However, the implications and effects are limited to them and them alone.

They must deal with that internally and confess that.

And then again, they might respond by picking up different boundaries, etc.

But again, we talked about murdering someone, hating someone in your heart, but then actually taking someone's life.

Again, there's different consequences for each action, and then that resolves different responses.

So that is justice with others.

And the pattern seems to be whenever there are others involved, greater kind of barriers or greater kind of implications have to be taken.

So that the sin doesn't happen, because you're not just affecting yourself, you're affecting others.

Yeah, and it talks about being a stumbling block in the Bible and the consequence of that.

Do you want to lay out the consequences of that?

Do you remember it?

They should have a milestone tied around their neck and then thrown into the ocean.

Yeah, so quite a drastic one.

You tested me there, I was nervous for that one.

Okay, so-

Well, that's specifically for a Christian, maybe it's another Christian astray.

That's a specific example, if you want it.

Okay, so sum that up, sum that up, Peter.

You said a good line to me whenever we were discussing this.

Yeah, so all sin is equal in that it leads to death and separation from God.

All sin is equal in that regard.

However, sin is not all equal in its consequences and punishments.

God will punish sin differently, and the sins you commit will have different consequences for you and for those around you.

That's how I would kind of summarize it.

Perfect, and so we've concluded that justice in society, how does the judicial system deal with sin and with regards to that and punishment.

We've talked about justice in God and how God deals with sin.

We've talked about justice with self and how you should deal with sin, and we've talked about justice in others and how we should view other people's sin and our own, and how we should respond with regards to that.

So guys, thanks so much for listening, and we shall see you next week for another podcast.