In the beginning God created Adam. Adam was all alone and lonely and needed a partner to share his life with. God understood this and gifted him Eve, a beautiful female partner. God told Adam and Eve to be together, and support each other throughout their lifetime. Eve was created from the rib of Adam, and they were supposed to be attached to each other in God.

Days passed peacefully. Adam and Eve walked hand in hand, lapping up the beauty of the magnificent surroundings, and the heavenly garden that God placed them in.

One fine day, Eve decided to go on a solitary stroll, sans the company of Adam, her life partner.

Amidst the lust green surroundings, breeze scattering her sensuous hair like wild waves waiting to devour nature, Eve lazed around listlessly, soaking herself in celestial pleasures…

Remember my dear friends, when you decide to walk alone, a certain third party takes note and jumps into your realm of vision. If God is not with us, we will be with someone else- The Devil.

The Beginning of every sin is the absence of God

Everything started when you committed a grave mistake.

Everything started when you stopped your daily prayer; when you stopped thinking about your
God who called you to be his ally …

A string of sins unraveled and spurted like an avalanche, devouring your entire being. Failure starts the moment we move away from the presence of God.

This is exactly what happened in the case of Adam and Eve, especially Eve
who committed the first sin. Eve was trapped by the snares of the Devil when she moved away from God.

King David and his sins

Let’s look at the History of King David. Why did David commit adultery with Bathsheba despite being a man after God’s own heart?

During the spring of the year, when Kings fought at the battlefields, David sent his officers to fight the Ammonites. Against his call of duty, David chose to stay back and while away his time at the palace.

David committed one grave mistake when he stayed back at the palace. He sent the Ark of the
Covenant to the battle field. The Arc of the covenant symbolizes the presence of God. David then rests in the palace-a place without the presence of God.

While idling away his time, David happened to see a beautiful woman bathing.

My dear friends, if you happen to see something that you are not supposed to behold, it is definitely not your mistake. However, if you decide to look on with interest, and think with passion, you are surely putting yourself on risky grounds. David entertained his eyes and feasted on the sight of a woman taking bath. Like Job, he had not made a covenant with his eyes.

Being a King, David could have diverted his thoughts and attention, to perhaps constructing a barricade for the women of his Kingdom to bathe in private. Instead, David looked on and entered the dark and dubious world of sin. David entertained the evil spirit and welcomed him into his mind. Anyone who is living in the absence of God entertains the evil spirit- ‘a third party’.

Bemused by the beauty of the woman, David sent soldiers to beckon her to the palace. Desire entered his mind and tormented his soul when he saw her at close quarters. Temptation flustered his being and he lost his prudence. David brought the temptation in front of him and committed sin with her.

The process of sin is very clear in David’s life- Absence of God, entertaining the evil spirit, evil desire, temptation, and finally sin. Sin hardens the heart, and provokes the departure of the Holy Spirit.

Stay far away from the object of your temptation

The closer we get to the object of our temptation, the more destructive it gets. We must flee from sin as from a snake.

David could have prevented himself from falling into sin if he had looked the other way and
moved on with his kingly duties. Instead, he continued to enjoy the sight, got attracted to the woman, enquired more about her, brought her to the palace, and was tempted to enjoy her beauty.

Sin traps us into a vicious cycle. Just the way you have to invent a chain of stronger lies to cover up
a silly lie that you uttered, to hide one sin that you committed, you have to keep committing many more sins. When we begin to be influenced by evil, we are robbed of our reason, and cannot easily stop our actions.

David lost his grace, and his standing in the eyes of our God due to the atrocious deeds he so cleverly wove together to hide the adultery he committed with Bathsheba. He killed Uriah, the husband of Bathsheba to hide his sin, and ultimately loses his favour with God because of this barbarous act.

Failure starts with the absence of God in your life.

The Prodigal Son

Take a look at the Prodigal son. He found worldly pleasures more attractive than his father’s house. The minute he left his father’s house with his inheritance, he lost the presence of God in his life. He roamed around, entertaining the evil spirit. Evil desire was planted within him, and he took delight in the pleasures of this world. In the process, he lost all his material possessions and returned completely devastated and broken.

The prodigal son entertained the evil spirit and delved deep into sin. Devil is a thief who comes to steal, kill and destroy.

Sirach 21:2 tells us, ‘’Flee from sin as from a snake; for if you approach sin, it will bite you. Its teeth are lion’s teeth, and can destroy human lives.’’

When we entertain the evil spirit, he enters our mind and multiplies the pleasure slowly. We desire more of the pleasure that we first experienced. Worldly things can never satisfy a human mind.

Why do we never get bored of sin?

Haven’t you seen children complaining to their mothers about the same food items being made every day?

’’Every day the same taste. I’m so bored”.

Do you get bored or complain when you are committing the same sin every day? We almost never get tired of the pleasure that a sin offers.

Ask someone who commits adultery. Do they ever get tired of it? Maybe not! They go on and on from one instance to the other.

Why?

Because the evil desire that is planted inside you is controlled by a third party- The evil spirit. You are no longer in control. The evil spirit is prompting you to desire more pleasure.

The evil spirit shows you more instances to fall into sin;
provides rave reviews to try exhilarating passions, and helps you to multiply your sins through providing more opportunities. The more you cooperate with him and allow yourself to be controlled, the deeper you fall into sin.

Take the instance of pornography. Why do people desire more and more of it and not get tired? A person could have exhausted his resources of watching porn, but would still be inspired to search for it due to the evil desire that was first planted inside him. Evil desire once entertained will never fade away, but instead grows with every scene that you feast on.

Don’t we know how seeds thrive under water, sunlight and manure? Seeds grow abundantly and produce flowers and fruits. Amidst the healthy and desirable growth, we also see the undesirable weeds growing and thriving, thus corrupting the entire flora and fauna.

A seed of dirty thought which is inside you corrupts your mind and body. Every time you entertain and enjoy this thought, you are watering and nourishing it. It grows as a weed, pushing your good thoughts aside, and flourishing inside your being. Slowly, you fall into all kinds of temptations.

If the seed that you plant inside is of an unholy thought, every time you see someone, you will entertain this thought. It transforms into an unholy desire, and eventually leads you to a sinful action. The temptation that you encounter is most definitely a strong one, and sometimes cannot be easily dispelled.

Lack of presence of God leads you to entertaining the evil spirit, evil desire, temptation, and sin.

Once a sin is committed, guilt kicks in. Have you noticed that we are not so perturbed by the evil desire, temptation, or the entertainment of the evil spirit, that actually caused us to sin?

We are worried only about the sin that was committed, not the process that led to the sin. The process still remains rooted in our minds even after the sin is committed. This is the reason we repeat sins even after several rounds of confessions.

To get rid of sin, preventing yourself from committing the sin alone will not suffice. The root needs to be removed from your system. The four steps that precede sin, i.e. the absence of God, entertaining evil spirit, evil desire, and temptation need to be expelled before the actual sin is completely removed from your body.

‘’so that they might learn that one is punished by the very things by which one sins.’’(Wisdom 11:16)

The process which led us to sin is much more dangerous than the sin itself. The sin has already been committed, but the process still remains, and can lead us to commit sins repeatedly. For every addiction, there is a root cause. One is punished by the very thing by which one sins. Many people fall into addictions and sins because they don’t want to face the reality of life.

They try to make up for the shortfalls in their life by committing sins and revelling in their addictions. Ultimately, they are destroyed by the very thing by which they sinned. If you commit adultery, you will be destroyed by adultery. If you drink alcohol, you will be destroyed by alcoholism. This is a universal truth that we quite often fail to see or decipher.

We see some people falling into wrong relationships because they want to prove to themselves that they are lovable. Probably they are trying to take revenge on their partners because of the lack of love and intimacy in their marital life.

Are you struggling with a wrong relationship?

Delete everything connected to the person; stay as far away from the temptation; stick close to your spouse, and make the person inaccessible in your life. This is the first step to come out of a wrong relationship.

Binge drinking?

Destroy all the alcohol bottles stored at home; stay away from friends who drink and cajole you to join for a drink; stay close to your loved ones and keep away from the temptation.

Dear people of God, God already proved to us that we are lovable by sacrificing His only son on the cross for the sins we committed on earth. Isn’t it sufficient to know that Jesus died on the cross for us and we are precious to Him? He promised us that even if our father and mother forget us, He will not do so.

To get out of a sin, we also need to first go back to the first time we enjoyed the pleasure of that sin. Examine the cause which prompted you to commit the sin. The root needs to be uprooted and dealt with. For this, we need Jesus. He can go back to our past and heal wounds and scars that were caused by our past sins.

We must ask forgiveness not only for our present sins, but also for our past sins, as past sins pave way for subsequent sinful actions in our life.

Let us beg forgiveness to God for all the sins that we have committed, and stay pure hearted and divine.
Amen