Sin is Costly

I was having lunch with an evangelist friend of mine, and he was telling me about his father, who was a pastor, who had an adulterous affair with his church secretary, and it cost him his church, it cost him his reputation, it cost him his home and his marriage, for he ended up divorced and even homeless. And my evangelist friend, with a tear in his eye and a sob in his heart, said, sin is costly. And I thought about that statement.

I chewed on it for a while, and I agree, for when I read my Bible, I see that sin is costly. It can ruin a paradise. Adam and Eve had an idyllic life in paradise, full of peace and harmony, until sin crouched at the door.

And when they sinned, they saw immediately that sin was costly. God told Adam, Cursed is the ground for thy sake. In sorrow shall thou eat of it all the days of your life.

And since that fall, every mother's son is born with a poison in his blood and a bent toward sin. Sin is costly. And as I read my Bible, I don't have to look far to see how sin touched Adam and Eve's family.

First, it began with resentment of one brother to the other. And one day, the two boys were out in a field, and Cain picked up a heavy stone. And while Abel wasn't looking, he brought that stone down on his brother's head with all the force that rage and resentment can muster.

And when God showed up and saw that first bloody murder scene of mankind, he turned to Cain and said, A fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth. And you don't know, friends, how much it hurt, unless you're a parent, that when Adam and Eve, the first parents, found out about it, they were so brokenhearted because it cost them their two boys. Sin is costly.

It can ruin a happy home. I had a friend at church that I looked up to. He was one of the most dedicated and vocal Christians you could find.

He had a loving wife and three beautiful children. And every time I got together with him, he just wanted to talk about Jesus. Do you know someone like that? That every time you're with them, they just want to talk about Jesus.

They make you thirsty for Jesus. Well, this man was like that. Then one Sunday at church, I ran into him in the parking lot and said hello, and he wouldn't look me in the eye.

Something was strange about him. It turned out he'd just hired a pretty little secretary half his age, and it wasn't long after that they were in a red-hot bed of adultery. My friend, who was a leader at church, lost his reputation.

He lost his home and family because his betrayed and hurt wife divorced him. The last time I saw him, he was sitting at a bar in a restaurant half drunk, and he looked miserable. Sin is costly.

Listen to me, friends. Sin will take you further than you want to go, leave you there longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you ever realized. I read in Genesis that God created the heaven and the earth, and he hung the stars out and put borders on the oceans and made creatures small and great, and he looked at all of it when he was done creating it.

And my Bible says, and God saw that it was good. And I don't have to read on too far in that same book of Genesis to realize that sin can take a perfect world and destroy it. I see the taint of sin on a perfect world when I read, and God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of his thoughts was only evil continually.

And he repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and he grieved him at his heart. Oh, sin's misery, a sin that makes almighty God brokenhearted. God tells Noah to get busy, and he hands him the blueprint for an ark that will save a man, his family, and two of every creature.

And the skies that were blue turned black, and the wind began to howl, and thunder roared, and streaks of lightning cracked across the sky, and a generation of sinners ran for cover. But the torrential downpour just kept falling and falling until the very tops of the mountains were all under that great deluge that destroyed an entire civilization because sin is costly. I had a church friend who had to leave town once a month to drive to a penitentiary to visit his son.

He told me his son had a family and a promising career, and one night he got drunk and got behind the wheel of his car and ran a stoplight and killed a woman driver. And since that time, he's been incarcerated. His wife has divorced him, and my friend goes every month out of town to see him, and takes his little grandson with him to see his father in jail.

When Jesus was here in his earthly ministry, and he called his disciples to him, you'd be hard-pressed to find a man more excited about Jesus than Peter, the big fisherman. He'd see Jesus on the shore, and he'd jump in the water and swim to him so quick. He'd see Jesus walking on the water, and he'd yell out and ask Jesus to enable him to come out of the boat and walk on the water to get to him.

He swore up and down his allegiance for Christ and vowed he'd go to the death for him. But when the rubber met the road and Christ was arrested and arraigned, it was Peter who went back on his vows and disowned him, not only once but three times with swearing and oaths denying him. And I read over in the Gospel of Luke the sad narrative.

And the Lord turned and looked upon Peter, and Peter remembered the words of the Lord, how he had said to him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And Peter went out and wept bitterly, wept bitterly, sin is costly, sin is costly. And I read in the Gospel record, friends, and they stripped him and put on him a scarlet robe.

And when they had plaited a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head and a reed in his right hand. And they bowed the knee before him and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews! And they spit upon him and took the reed and smote him on the head. And after they had mocked him, they took the robe off from him and put his own raiment on him and led him away to crucify him.

And as those Roman soldiers took Jesus and fastened him to that cross and pounded those nails into his hands and feet, every stroke of the hammer was an explanation point that sin is costly, sin is costly, sin is costly. Listen to me, friends. I go over every chapter in my Bible.

I see that grand theme that raises its ugly head time and time again. Sin is costly, sin is costly. I end up over in the last book of the Bible.

I still can't get away from it, from the fact that sin is costly. In Revelation chapter 20, I'm confronted with the awful scene of the final judgment day where every man, every mother's son has to give an account of himself to God Almighty. And I read those terrible words that are emblazoned in bold and whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

And as I stand on the verge of eternity, and I ask an angel to help me lift the lid off the bottomless pit, and I cup my hand to my ear as I lean over that smoking black hole, I hear a collective cry of anguish and regret rise up from that pit. Sin is costly, sin is costly, sin is costly.