Sin is a Scandalous Thing

In Genesis chapter 3 we read, And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked and I hid myself.

Sin has a sense of shame associated with it, because sin is a scandalous thing. But you can't excuse sin by placing the blame on others, because you can't whitewash sin and get by. Adam tried to do it.

He tried to put the sin on Eve, and he even placed the blame on God by saying, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. Then Eve tried to whitewash her sin by blaming it on the devil. She told God, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.

Sin, seen here, against the holy, pure white backdrop of Eden, is a very black, scandalous thing. It sticks out in its ugliness. It sticks out in its sinfulness.

Sin is a loathsome and reproachful thing that nobody wants to own. The fact is, friends, sin is a scandalous thing. Before we got desensitized to sin in this country, sin used to have shame associated with it, back when there was still a fear of God in the land.

Back in the 1950s, in America, if a girl got pregnant out of wedlock, it was a scandal in her community. Shame and sin went hand in hand. And if that pregnant girl tried to get an abortion, and it was found out, then that was an even bigger scandal.

And if a man and a woman lived together outside of marriage back then, it was a very scandalous thing. Public nudity was considered both a scandal and a public indecency. Homosexuality was not tolerated by society, but shunned by it as a dirty, perverted thing that went against nature.

But when a nation turns its back on God in sin, it goes off into the bushes like Adam. A nation that forsakes God will redefine sin. It will appoint godless judges to the Supreme Court to change the laws in the land that reflect godlessness.

In 1962, we kicked God out of the public school system when we banned public prayer for children. In 1973, America legalized the murder of the unborn and called it a woman's choice. In 2015, America legalized same-sex marriage under the banner of civil rights.

It was no longer sexual perversion, but sexual pride. The sin that used to hide in the shadows of society now parades down Main Street. The next step is to remove the words, in God we trust, off our currency.

But when a nation turns its back on God by legalizing sin, it writes its own death sentence. Judgment will hit that nation like a trillion tons of bricks. America is under God's remedial judgments for sin.

But there used to be a time when a fear of God in the land was around. But now, not that reverence for God is around, but a land that just mocks God and rejects his word. Even the church, which used to preach hard against sin, now is silent on sin.

When a nation rejects the God of the Bible, then God can reject that nation and lower its hedge that it had over it to make it more vulnerable to destruction in ways she never was before. Our nuclear defense system can be made inoperable by a computer hack, and this country could be laid bare and turned to toast by a nuclear attack. If we as a nation have turned our back on God, then if real trouble came our way, would God just look the other way? You can't whitewash sin and get by, friends, because sin is a very scandalous thing.

To a holy God, there is only one way to wash sin away, as seen in Isaiah. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though your sins be scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.

Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If America does not repent and turn back to God, then God will reduce America to rubble and place it on the assheap of history of other ruined civilizations like ancient Rome and ancient Greece. Rome used to rule the world with an iron fist.

Do you fear an Italian army today? No, it's laughable. The prophet Amos spoke of what can happen to a nation that turns her back on the God of the Bible. This is seen in a vision God gave Amos, as seen in Amos chapter 8. Thus hath the Lord God showed unto me, and behold, a basket of summer fruit.

And he said, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, a basket of summer fruit. Then said the Lord unto me, the end is come upon my people of Israel. I will not again pass by them any more.

America is a basket of summer fruit rotting out in the sun, awaiting judgment from an offended sovereign who has a holy indignation against sin.