Sin Lurking Within

The New York Times published an article about the recent discovery of a bomb in Germany that led to the evacuation of 20,000 people in Berlin.  The people were evacuated so that the bomb could be disarmed.  The bomb was discovered along the Rhine River during excavations for a pipeline.  It was a bomb that had been dropped seven decades earlier by the Allies during World War II.  The article explains that there are many of these bombs lurking beneath the surface of places all over Germany.  In the previous year, in one of the most populous places of Germany, bomb squads defused nearly one thousand bombs alone. ¹

In a similar way, every person has lurking within themselves the potential of an explosion without.  The Christian has been liberated from the power of sin, but not the presence of sin.  While sin no longer reigns, it remains.  To grow in holiness, Christians must correctly deal with sin every day of their lives.  If we don’t regularly confess our sin and turn from our sin, we may “go off” like a bomb that was previously lying dormant and has suddenly found ignition.  

The Apostle James teaches us how unhealthy cravings within lead to ungodly conduct without:

You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war...

James 4:2

You lust and do not have (within), so you murder (without).  You covet and cannot obtain (craving on the inside), so you fight and war (conduct on the outside). 

Unhealthy cravings within lead to ungodly conduct without.

The key to keeping these “bombs” from going off is to defuse them regularly by finding satisfaction in healthy ways rather than unhealthy ways, by finding ultimate satisfaction in Christ and His perfect will for our lives.

Then James adds, “Yet you do not have because you do not ask.” (James 4:2)

Here is a reminder that Christians should ask God for the things they seek rather than allowing their unhealthy cravings to lead them into sin.  Of course, James is not teaching that God grants our selfish desires.  That is clear based upon what he says in the very next verse: “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.” (James 4:3)

Don’t ask God for things to satisfy your unhealthy cravings.  Don’t treat God as something of a divine “To-Go Window,” approaching Him hurriedly and “placing your order” thinking only of what you want.  Someone said this is like “using God as a means to your own end rather than seeking God as the end itself.”

Instead of seeking God to satisfy your unhealthy cravings, approach Him in humility, asking for things consistent with His will. Ask for things that bring glory to Him. Ask for things that He believes are best for you and others.  We must ask in accordance to God’s perfect will for our lives.  This is the kind of prayer that God honors and delights to answer!

We should note also that James is not teaching that all pleasures are wrong.  Only pleasures inconsistent with His will are wrong; pleasures that do not glorify Him.

Remember that the very last verse of the opening chapter of the Bible says: “Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good (Genesis 1:31).”  Everything God created “was very good.”

Not all pleasures are wrong.  Sexual intimacy, for example, is a pleasure given by God to be enjoyed within the sole context of biblical marriage, the union of one man to one woman.  The pleasure of sex is wrong only when used in a context other than biblical marriage.

Again, we are to come to God asking for things that are consistent with His will.  When we come to God in this way the very act of prayer itself has a sort of purifying effect upon us.  It calls into question the health of our desires.  It prompts us to consider: “are these things for which I am asking healthy cravings or unhealthy cravings?”

James goes on to provide the third warning sign of worldliness. We’ll consider that sign when we return to our study. For now…

• Do you have any unhealthy desires of which you need to repent right now?  If so, confess, repent, and ask God to give you desires for Him.

**Excerpt from You’re Either Walking The Walk Or Just Running Your Mouth (Preaching Truth: 2020), pages 128-131, available in all formats here.

1. “A Wartime Bomb, Unearthed in Germany, Recalls Darker Days,” available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/28/world/europe/decades-later-germans-still-dread-the-bombs-that-didnt-go-off.html last modified May 27, 2015.