Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight if the LORD more than all who were before him. It came about,

as though it had been a trivial thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat,

that he married Jezebel... and went to serve Baal and worship him.

I Kings 16:30-31, NASB

 

Did you catch that? Ahab thought sin was a trivial thing!

 

I think there are a lot of people today who do the same, and perhaps you are in agreement. Do you ever get tired of some old fashioned person going on and on about how sexual immorality is wrong? After all, people today will argue that God just wants us to be happy and that "love is love is love" so it doesn't matter who you sleep with, just as long as you are in love with them. Isn't God all about love anyway? And how about this: Does it become wearisome to you to hear someone stuck in the middle ages talk about how abortion is wrong? Don't they know about the importance of a woman doing whatever she thinks best with her own body? Never mind the fact that there is another "body" involved - a person should have the right to choose, shouldn't they?

 

Didn't God give Adam and Eve the right to choose whether or not to eat of the forbidden fruit? What about that?

 

The questions could go on and on, but you get the point. People have so trivialized the things that God defines as sin to the extent that they will even implicate Him in their sin. They will say things like, "Well, God made me this way" or "The Devil made me do it" and that will be that. And in their pitiful little minds the issue is settled. Sin is no longer sin. Case closed!

 

Or is it? When we read of Adam and Eve we find that God did in fact give them the freedom to choose. On this point, no one can argue. However, what people fail to do is to read on to the conclusion. God did give Adam and Eve a freedom of choice, but not the freedom from punishment should they make the wrong choice. So, when the two ate of the forbidden fruit contrary to God's commandment, they died spiritually. This spiritual death required that they be separated from God, and that separation meant that they had to be removed from the Paradise that God had made for them to be with Him. And though it is true that they did not suffer physical death that day, the spiritual death was a far worse punishment for it meant an end to a relationship with God. This is not to imply that they could not repent of their sin at a later time, and have their spiritual lives along with their relationship with God restored, but it did absolutely mean that as long as they were unrepentant and in a state of trivializing sin, they remained separated from God.

 

And in this state, a person loses even their right to ask God for His assistance through prayer. This right could be restored, but again, as long as they trivialized sin to the point where it was no longer sin in their own minds, they remained apart from God and His Divine help.

 

Now, look at the passage above that involves King Ahab and his wicked wife Jezebel. It would be hard to find another couple so completely devoid of conscience, but this is what always happens when people trivialize sin to the point that they no longer pay attention to God's commandments. Ahab was eventually killed, and Jezebel was literally eaten by dogs. And the nation of people that they ruled and that followed their evil lead would eventually come to a bitter end themselves.

 

How about today? We have got to the point where people actually call evil good, and good evil. They will say that it is right to engage in activity that God has defined as sexually immoral, and that it is bigotry to call such conduct wrong. Further, they will support a woman's "right" to kill their unborn babies and will even vote for those who promise to keep this vile form of modern-day human sacrifice legal. 

 

And in their minds they are justified in doing so. They have so trivialized God's sacred commandments that they are no longer sacred or commanded in their eyes. After all, isn't God's grace sufficient to cover all thins?

 

The answer to that question must be qualified, for the One who through His grace is willing to forgive has placed some terms of His own upon that forgiveness, For example, in verse four of Jude's letter to the church's, God inspires Jude to warn about those who would pervert God's grace and turn it into a license to sin. He defines such people as "ungodly" meaning they neither are acting according to God's commandments, nor are they recognizing God's right to forbid certain types of behavior in the first place. The ironic thing is that such people do not believe in any commandments they do not agree with, but they do believe in grace.

 

So, what's the lesson? The lesson is that God has defined very clearly what sin is. Our duty is to love, revere, and respect Him enough to pay attention to His directives and then to comply with them. Anything else would be a trivializing of sin. And, history shows, such an attitude has always resulted in disaster.

 

When we become so jaded to the commandments of God, we need to catch ourselves before it is too late. It is true that we still have freedom of choice in all things. The caveat is that we do not have the right to make the wrong decision without having to eventually pay the penalty for such error. The solution? Consider the words of Jesus:

 

If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.

John 14:15, ESV

 

The solution, then, is to love God and Christ enough to obey Them.