We know that ungodliness is caused by evil – or sin. That is the overarching cause and effect. This daily devotional looks deeper into how causes of sin and effects of ungodliness.
Nuggets
- Because Adam and Eve chose to sin, mankind has a sinful nature.
- Our sinfulness opens us up to God’s wrath.
- We may think we understand how God did many things and why, but we really don’t.
- The foundation of the virtues is faith.
Devotions in In the Days of Noah series
I started out working under the title What Are the Causes of Evil? But, then I realized some of these can be considered effects also.
This got long, so I am breaking it into two devotions. I am going to leave the connections and the applications for the next one.
The obvious answer to the question is that the cause was the original sin. The effects are ungodliness.
We are deluding ourselves if we think those are the only ones. In reality, that is the overarching cause and effect. Let’s dig in deeper.
Let's Put It into Context #1
There are two parts to the definition of ungodliness, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. The first part is that it is “contrary to moral law.” This was qualified by the words sinful and wicked.
That is the definition that is probably thought of first. It is the do-the-do’s-and-don’t-do-the-don’ts aspect.
The first definition listed, though, is “denying or disobeying God.” It qualifies this by the words impious or irreligious.
Resource
Ungodliness is denial of God and refusal of following His laws and commandments, instead living a life engaged in sinfulness.
Evil is equated with sin because it is that which goes against God and His purposes. Sins are actions by humans that disobey God and break one of His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, goes against a purpose He has for us, or follows Satan’s promptings.
Let's Put It into Context #2
God always knew that mankind was going to disobey Him and let sin into the world. He had the Plan of Salvation ready to go before He created the universe.
Glossary
God created us anyway. With sin, death, crucifixion, and resurrection all in place, He created us anyway.
Why would God create a world that is not permanent? We could argue that the world God created was permanent until Adam and Eve committed the original sin.
Glossary
God gave man just one restriction. “… You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die” (Gen. 2: 16-17).
Satan convinced Eve to not believe and to disobey what God said. Satan said bite; Eve bit; and Adam bit.
Because of Adam and Eve’s original sin, we all begin as sinners. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3: 23 CSB).
But God created it so that sin would be temporary. His new Heaven and earth — and a new Jerusalem — will be permanent. It will be eternal.
As soon as Adam and Eve committed the original sin, God said Jesus was coming to be our Savior. “I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel” (Gen. 3: 15 CSB). God was going to use His power to fix what was destroyed by the original sin.
To read a related devotion, click on the appropriate button below.
Mankind Has a Sinful Nature
“Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Ps. 51: 5 ESV).
Because Adam and Eve chose to sin, mankind has a sinful nature. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jer. 17: 9 ESV).
The heart is the core of all our lives. What begins in the heart permeates all of us. Gray said, “From the heart outwardly through all the life. The heart includes “conscience and consciousness, will and desire, intellect and emotion, understanding and affection.”
Glossary
Resource
I am sure I have read this before, but I never read it this way. “When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth” (Gen. 5: 3 ESV).
Does that mean we are made in Adam’s image, not God’s? Ooo, baby. That is going to have to go in the drafts folder, or I will chase a rabbit through the extended scenic route.
So, let’s get back on track with this. “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Ps. 51: 5 ESV). Both our bodies and our souls are sinful.
Paul put it this way. “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience — among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Eph. 2: 1-3 ESV).
Our sinfulness opens us up to God’s wrath. We’ve talked several times about God’s wrath. It is formidable.
Glossary
That is why we have laws and commandments. “Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers” (I Tim. 1: 8-9 ESV).
We need to be taught right from wrong. We have to be held accountable for our actions.
Boston brought up some good points.
- Don’t we have to be taught things? Boston’s example was we have to be taught to sew our equivalent of fig leaves together. But we also have to be taught to walk and talk. We don’t come out all-knowing.
- Adam and Eve hid from God in the garden (Gen. 3: 8). Don’t we still hide from God, especially when we have sinned?
- Oh, we hate to say we are sorry. We don’t want to admit we were wrong.
- We hate admitting we have sinned, so we deflect. “Eve made me bite” (Gen. 3: 12). “I was scared of You” (Gen. 3: 10).
Resource
We can say our sinful nature is both a cause and effect. While it is an effect of the original sin, our nature does cause us to sin. We make the choices whether we are going to sin or obey God.
Mankind’s Understanding Is Corrupt
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa. 55: 8-9 ESV).
We may think we understand how God did many things and why, but we really don’t.
This is especially true of spiritual things. “For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins” (II Pet. 1: 9 ESV).
These qualities? What are “these qualities,” you ask. “For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love” (II Pet. 1: 5-7 ESV).
Oh, yeah. The virtues again.
Devotions in the Christian Virtues series
Okay. Let’s connect the verses.
For whoever lacks the Christian virtues is so nearsighted that s/he is blind, having forgotten that s/he was cleansed from his/her former sins.
Yes, non-believers can have goodness, knowledge, self-control, patience, kindness, and love.
But the foundation of the virtues is faith. Faith is the conviction that the doctrines revealed in God’s Word are true, even if we do not understand all aspects of them, a belief which impacts our lives.
Having faith as the foundation of all the other virtues kick them up to God level. They lead to godliness.
If godliness is reverence in thought, feeling, and conduct that is promoted by walking in His Spirit and obeying God’s laws and commandments and produces a moral likeness of God, and is the last virtue in the continuum, we aren’t going to even come remotely close to getting up to God’s level if we don’t start out with the faith.
We are blind if we don’t follow God. We are in the dark.
Instead, we want to follow God and have His mindset. “Now the mindset of the flesh is death, but the mindset of the Spirit is life and peace. The mindset of the flesh is hostile to God because it does not submit to God’s law. Indeed, it is unable to do so. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom. 8: 6-8 CSB).
We like to think we are powerful. We aren’t. “For although we live in the flesh, we do not wage war according to the flesh, since the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but are powerful through God for the demolition of strongholds. We demolish arguments and every proud thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ” (II Cor. 10: 3-5 CSB).
We think we understand things, increasing our pride. This causes us to deny God’s power and His control over us.
The effect comes into play when our pride increases. We may not see that as what we would normally term evil, but it definitely is sin.
Gracious Heavenly Father. Lord, we thank You that You love us so much that You designed the Plan of Salvation so that our relationships with You could be restored. Even though our Savior has come and we have submitted ourselves to You, there is still sin in the world. There is still sin in us. Strengthen us so that we can choose You over Satan. Amen.
What do you think?
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