We are continuing to discuss the fact evil – or sin – is the overarching cause and effect of ungodliness. This daily devotional continues to look deeper into how causes and effects of sin promote ungodliness.
Nuggets
- Our moral corruption is both a cause and effect of evil, though it is mainly an effect.
- God gives us free will, but He wants us to use that free will to choose Him.
- Sin has caused mankind’s affections to become corrupt.
- Our conscience is to help guide us to do what is right, but our sinful nature helps to muddy that picture.
Devotions in In the Days of Noah series
In the last devotion, we started looking at the causes and effects of evil. I had hoped to finish it up here, but we are going to have to save some of it for the next devotion.
So, once again, we are going to wait for the connections and applications until we have all the causes and effects.
Let's Put It into Context #1
There are two parts to the definition of ungodliness, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. The second part is that it is “contrary to moral law.” This was qualified by the words sinful and wicked.
The first definition listed, though, is “denying or disobeying God.” It qualifies this by the words impious or irreligious.
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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
Nuggets from the previous devotion.
- 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 Christian virtues is faith.
Mankind’s Depravity Is Great
“The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (I Cor. 2: 14 ESV).
Our moral corruption is both a cause and effect of evil, though it is mainly an effect.
Fuller made an interesting observation. He connected the increased depravity with the population growth.
Growth is seen as a sign of healthiness, which makes it a blessing. However, it can also be connected to depravity.
Fuller wrote, “When men are collected in great numbers they whet one another up to evil, which is the reason why sin commonly grows rankest in populous places. We were made to be helpers; but by sin we are become tempters of one another, drawing and being drawn into innumerable evils.”
Resource
I see the moral depravity mainly as a effect. There is an argument at can be made for it being a cause.
The faith and the godliness wouldn’t have been where it should have been in Adam and Eve. That caused them to bite when Satan pushed.
Mankind’s Will is Corrupt
“For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life” (Gal. 6: 8 ESV)
God gives us free will, but He wants us to use that free will to choose Him.
God always intended to give us free will. Free will is the ability within us to make decisions, which determine actions that produce character. He was not going to force salvation on us.
Think about it. If God had predestined who would be given salvation and who wouldn’t, wouldn’t He have just done that from the get-go? Why make Adam and Eve sin and make it look like their choice?
If God wanted to flex His Sovereign muscles, He could just proclaim it to be so. But He doesn’t work that way.
Instead, disciples are called. Morison said that we are not compelled. We are invited.
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But that will has become corrupted. Boston wrote, “The will, that commanding faculty, which at first was faithful and ruled with God, is now turned traitor and rules with and for the devil. God planted it in man ‘wholly a right seed,’ but now it is ‘turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine.’”
Resource
Regeneration is the change in us that God brings about through the work of the Holy Spirit when we go from being spiritually dead to spiritually alive. Spiritual death is the separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin. The spiritually alive are those who have ABCDed, so they are no longer separated from God.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Our wills are corrupted when they lead us to put this world and it’s offerings above God and His provision for us. This again was caused by the original sin but exasperated by our continued choice of this world over God.
Paul put it this way. “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” (Rom. 8: 7 CSB)
There is that word mindset again. It is a choice. We decide. That is what free will is.
It is an attitude. It is how we think because it reflects our behavior.
Mankind’s Affections Are Corrupt
“Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth” (Col. 3: 2 KJV)
Sin has caused mankind’s affections to become corrupt.
Affections are important to us. What we like and what we dislike makes us who we are. We aren’t going to all like and dislike the same things.
We have to make sure we are letting God lead in choosing our affections. We can’t follow our sinful nature or even the worldview.
We have talked before that the worldview people think love is based on tolerance. We are to tolerate their sins to show that we love them. That isn’t setting our affections on things above.
Foster describes the struggle that disciples face. He wrote, “Our nature, composed of two kinds of being, places us in strict relation to two different economies. Therefore there is great difficulty in apportioning the regards towards these in due proportion.”
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That, again, is both a cause and effect of evil. Adam and Eve’s desire for wisdom was the affection they put over things above and created our sinful nature. That began our habit of putting earthly things above heavenly things.
Mankind’s Conscience Is Corrupt
“To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled” (Ti. 1: 15 ESV)
Our conscience is to help guide us to do what is right, but our sinful nature helps to muddy that picture.
Our conscience is the part of our inner nature that makes us us and governs our actions by pointing us to what is right and giving us pain or pleasure when we choose wrong.
Our consciences grow as we experience situations in which we must decide what is right and what is wrong. We are regenerated and sanctified when we utilize those experiences to grow our character to be like God’s.
God put our consciences in us. He has a conscience, and we are made in His image.
Our conscience is the tie between our moral character and our free will.
- Our moral character tells us what is right and what is wrong.
- Our free will gives us the opportunity to make the choice.
- Our conscience prompts us to make the right choice.
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
There is just one little problem. Foot wrote, “That the decisions of conscience are not always in accordance with the truth is evident from the fact that sinners are [not] always convinced of sin.”
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Reynolds explained what that defilement is. He wrote, “Defilement of “mind” must mean that thoughts, ideas, desires, purposes, activities, are all corrupted and debased. Defilement of “conscience” would mean that the sentinel sent to watch was bribed to hold his peace, or that the guide to loftier standard was eagerly applying some base-born, man-made perilous rule as all-sufficient.”
That’s right. Worldview people aren’t convinced something is really a sin. Two examples off the top of my head are homosexuality and abortion.
Our sinful nature corrupts us so we question God and His authority to proclaim something is a sin. We question His proclamations.
If we are kicking back, how is our conscience supposed to prompt us what is right and wrong? Our conscience is corrupted by the kicks.
Foot made another interesting observation. He wrote, “This view of the subject is strengthened by the fact that even Christians do not always detect their own sins.”
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Yep, even disciples struggle with this. Do you think that is why there is no law or commandment to follow our consciences? (That is a great argument for the Holy Spirit not being our conscience.)
It also strengthens the argument that we need God as our guide. We can’t depend on ourselves to get it right.
Taylor had a good definition of mind. He wrote, “By the mind is meant the whole understanding part of the soul, which, being the eye of the soul, carrieth with it reason, judgment, and election.”
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So, let me see if I have this right. The mind is a component of the soul that controls our will. Our soul is our spiritual part that is immortal. It is in our minds that we process and make judgments and decisions.
We’re talking internal here. I keep thinking of the connection this has to have with our hearts, our core.
I am also thinking of the greatest commandment. “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mk. 12: 30 ESV).
Glossary
We are called to submit our all to God. Heart, soul, mind, and strength are all internal. (Yes, strength is external, also.)
No, Adam and Eve didn’t follow their consciences, causing the evil. We keep the effect going, because we don’t follow ours, either.
Loving Heavenly Father. We are humbled by the fact that You love us. Even before You created us, You loved us enough to make us — flaws and all. Lord, we will always have to deal with the effects of sin. Help us to resist sin and follow Your Will. Amen.
What do you think?
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