A Way out of This...

I’ve been preaching through Genesis lately, and the tragedy of human sin has been striking. Adam and Eve were able to enjoy a rich relationship with God. And then BOOM! Sin entered the world. In the Garden, sin was an external enemy. It had not entered our world. It was waiting like a stranger on the outside, wanting to come inside and take possession.

Now, suddenly sin becomes an internal enemy. It becomes a crouching tiger, waiting to possess and control us. Sin wants to master and possess us. But we must master sin.

Because sin possesses us, death rules us. For when we open the door to sin, death enters in as well. This is what happens when we shut God out- our punishment is the natural outworking of our crime. We say we want to be independent of God, the giver of life, and as a result we get death.

And death always gets in the way of life. We might seek a way out of the mess we are in, but death means that there is no way out. There is no way out of the maze from the inside. We need someone from the outside to come and free us from the tyranny we have created for ourselves.

Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through the Lord Jesus Christ!