Topical Studies
What the Bible says about
Addictive Quality of Sin
(From Forerunner Commentary)
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Isaiah 65:11-13
Drink in the Bible suggests "to take in; to accept; to believe." In this case, it indicates that the person assimilates the very life of God by His Spirit, so it becomes a part of every part of his life. It is not the mere assimilation of facts, knowledge, proof, or evidence, but also all the nuances and subtleties of an intimate relationship—the kind that exists between a shepherd and his sheep and that should exist between God and us. These subtleties and nuances affect every aspect of life, and they can be learned only by experiencing life with another. They form the essence of our knowledge of the spirit of that other person—or of God! God is complaining that people will drink from any dirty pool, which has led to man's history of false governments, false religions, false educational systems, false childrearing practices, false marital practices, and so forth. The deceit reaches into every facet of life because people are imbibing from any stagnant pond that they can find along the way rather than the one God would lead them to. God's people will be satisfied by what they drink. But those who drink from any old pool along the way are feeding their minds—and therefore their spirits—falsehood and will come up thirsty. It does not matter how much they are drinking from that pool. They are going to become sick and diseased spiritually, and if nothing changes, they are going to die. Mankind has an unfulfilled craving to worship. People desire to fill that longing within them and find a sense of well-being, accomplishment, and excitement. To get this fulfillment, we can see from our experiences and our observation of the world that people will drink from any dirty pool they find. Humans will eat anything that wiggles or moves. They will put anything into their bodies to experience a momentary thrill or excitement. They will engage in any kind of perversion to satisfy this longing or need. Most people want to live on the wild side, which is what Paul writes in Romans 8:7: "The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be." Where will we drink? What are the long-range effects of what we take in to feed our minds and spirits? Will we end up in the Kingdom of God because of it? Will our lives acquire a sense of fulfillment because of our relationship with God? Or will we become like those who are "always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth" (II Timothy 3:7)—broken in spirit and in heart, and feeling frustrated and empty, as though God does not care? The Bible shows that for people with that last outlook, trouble will suddenly come upon them, and they will all fall in a pit that they themselves have dug.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Psalm 23 (Part Two)
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Hosea 4:1-2
The Hebrew word zanah, translated as "harlotry," is not the word used to indicate a single act of adultery. Instead, it means "sexually wanton," meaning something done repeatedly as a way of life. Ultimately, it is understood spiritually to signify idolatry. Hosea 4:11-12 defines it in this manner: "Harlotry, wine, and new wine enslave the heart. My people ask counsel from the wooden idols, and their staff informs them. For the spirit of harlotry has caused them to stray, and they have played the harlot against their God." By linking zanah, harlotry, with wine and new wine, God is showing that this spiritual harlotry has addictive power. "Enslave the heart" illustrates that this faithless spirit bends the heart to obey its desires, and in the process, it destroys discretion and understanding. Recall that Psalm 119 repeatedly states that meditating on God's Word and obeying His commandments give understanding, indicating a major way in which we come to know God. However, if a person practices faithlessness, loss of understanding results. No constructive wisdom ever results from breaking any of God's commands.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Seventh Commandment
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Mark 10:17-24
Mark 10:17-24 tells the tragic story of a wealthy young man who greatly desired to become part of Jesus' following. Because he wanted eternal life and to be in God's Kingdom, he asked Jesus what he must do to obtain them. When Christ replied that he would have to get rid of all he had, his high ideals came crashing down. A sin smashed them because his sin was stronger than his ideals. Jesus says in verse 24: "And the disciples were astonished at His words. But Jesus answered again and said to them, 'Children, how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the Kingdom of God!'" The young man's covetousness destroyed his ideals, and he was willing to settle for less. Sin destroys ideals. A tragic process begins when we become involved in sin. At first, we regard sin with horror. If we continue to commit the sin, we will still feel ill at ease and unhappy about it, but gradually our consciences will adjust. Each sin makes the next one a bit easier. Over time, the conduct will become entirely acceptable, and we will sin without a qualm. Sin is addictive like a drug. As the addiction becomes stronger, the ideal depreciates until it is completely gone.
John W. Ritenbaugh
What Sin Is
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John 8:34
The basic concept of sin is failure—failure to live up to a standard, failure to hit the bull's eye, failure to stay on the path. The slavery Jesus speaks of is bondage to a pattern of thinking that produces failure. This is what God wants to deliver and convert us from. All who come out of the world have been addicted, held in bondage, to ways of thinking that produce failure, mental illness, physical disease, and death. God desires to give us freedom through applying truth in faith and love for the Father, His Son, and the brethren. He has revealed Himself, His way, and His truth. Do we believe it? Will we discipline ourselves to use the truth? This is the responsibility that faces us. It has been done, and we can do it. Will you?
John W. Ritenbaugh
Eating: How Good It Is! (Part Five)
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John 8:44
Just as surely as a person on drugs eventually wants to take the drug because he is enslaved by it, sin has an addictive quality. Satan knows very well that if he can get us to sin once, there is a strong possibility he can get us to sin again and again and again until we are eventually enslaved by it and cannot help ourselves. Satan's lies produce death through sin, and they are deliberate attempts to wipe us out. Satan is a cold-blooded life destroyer. We can look at "life" in two ways: in terms of physical life ending in death and quality of life. What is so sad is that he seems to have such an easy time in getting people to swallow the lie that it will somehow be better to disobey God than to obey Him.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Satan (Part 2)
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Romans 1:20
Even with such an overwhelming testimony, some hapless fools, having immersed themselves in evil behavior, have deluded themselves into rejecting this general revelation, refusing to see God (Psalm 14:1). Even the public or general revelation cannot penetrate the darkened minds of those whom, because of their addiction to sin, God has given over to a reprobate mind (Romans 1:21).
David F. Maas
Why Does God Keep Secrets?
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Romans 8:28
Attitude is an important factor in our Christian lives. The frame of mind from which we approach situations is a major dynamic in how we react to them. Our attitude could easily mean the difference between solving a problem and making it worse, and this has obvious ramifications to our growth in the image of God. Man's natural state seems to lean toward pessimism. This springs from the fact that human nature and the flesh that clothes us are never satisfied; they always want more. Solomon notes, "The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing" (Ecclesiastes 1:8). Our desire for more of even good things is like an addiction to drugs or alcohol. An addict will use a small amount at first, but soon, he needs more to give him the same feeling of euphoria or mellowness because the body and brain compensate to manage it. Before long, he is taking far greater amounts of the drug, and ultimately, the dose is lethal. Because we are never truly satisfied, then, we tend to think that our best days are behind us and things can only get worse. Notice that, in literature, the Golden Age is almost always in the remote past, and though the author may express hope for the future, a lingering feeling of nostalgia remains for a time that can never be recovered. Even among Americans, known worldwide as a most optimistic people, many recall some era of our past as the "glory days" or "happy days." Some yearn to turn the country back to the principles generally followed by the nation's founders because they are what made America truly great, and this yearning is fed by dissatisfaction with present-day America and little hope for a more-principled tomorrow. If one dwells on his dissatisfaction long and deeply enough, he will not only be pessimistic, he will soon become downright bitter. The author of Hebrews tells us that this was among Esau's problems. He allowed a root of bitterness, a constant gnawing of dissatisfaction, an empty feeling of deserving better, to drag him down (Hebrews 12:15-17). He reached a point where his bitterness was so much a part of his nature that he could not change for the better. The story of Job instructs us more positively. We could call Job the "anti-Esau." God allowed Satan to take everything of value from him short of his own life: his children, his wealth, his health. Even his wife told him, "Curse God and die!" (Job 2:9). To make matters worse, his three friends—supposedly there to encourage him—sat around and lectured him on how he must be some kind of sinner to have attracted such stupendous curses on himself! Sure, Job was depressed. Who would not be? He says, "May the day perish on which I was born. . . . Why did I not die at birth?" (Job 3:3, 11). Yet, as we progress through the story, we find that Job is not really a pessimistic man. Though he loathes what has happened to him, he maintains his integrity with feisty arguments and a keen desire to know why God has dealt with him in this way. As soon as God reveals His sovereignty to Job, the man humbly submits to it and repents (Job 42:1-6). Unlike Esau, Job does not let his sorry state drag him down. Instead, he optimistically chooses to do something positive to change his situation for the better. The epilogue to the story reveals a lesson we can take from this: "Now the LORD blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning" (Job 42:12). Job's "golden age" is before him, not behind, and the key to his optimism is his relationship with God. Because he knows that God is in control of events—from the spinning of the cosmos to the smallest detail of his life—things would only turn out for the best. Jesus certainly echoes this in Luke 12:32-33: "Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." So, are you optimistic or pessimistic? If we are confident that God is with us—and He tells us positively that He is not only with us but in us (John 14:20; 15:4; 17:21)—our glass should not be half-full but brim-full and running over!
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Reasons for Optimism
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2 Timothy 3:13
Men are not improving; they are growing increasingly worse! Here God is acknowledging that human nature is prone to progressive degeneration. There are two related reasons for this: 1. Sin has a drug-like addictive quality in that the sense of relief, satisfaction, or pleasure derived from it does not last. Thus, to receive the same amount of pleasure as before one has to sink deeper and deeper into the perversion. 2. Closely related is that a person must commit the sin more frequently because the duration of satisfaction decreases the longer one continues in a sin. Because of this inclination toward increase, social and religious barriers to immorality within the individual and community gradually come down. Therefore, each new generation provides a more fertile breeding ground for sin because human nature provides no real impediment to it. As sin becomes more acceptable in a society, the people have more difficulty recognizing it. To the Christian, this sets up a disturbing possibility. Suppose twenty years ago we were fifty percent more righteous than society, and today we are still fifty percent more righteous. But because standards in society have declined steeply, we have slipped far ourselves! People who do not understand sin call evil good and good evil until society reaches the point illustrated in Genesis 6:5: "Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." In cultures all over this globe, mankind is rapidly approaching conditions that are just like the days of Noah (Matthew 24:37).
John W. Ritenbaugh
Little Things Count!
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Hebrews 3:12-14
"The deceitfulness of sin"! In this context, to be deceitful is to be seductively and enticingly misleading. Sin promises what it cannot deliver. It promises pleasure, contentment, fulfillment—life—but its delivery on these things is fleeting and ultimately unsatisfying. Its deceitfulness is the very reason why it has addictive qualities. It lures us on to try to capture what it can never deliver. The pleasure is never quite enough to produce the contentment and fulfillment one desires. Thus, people are forced into greater and deeper perversions until it results in death. All along the way, from its inception to death, sin quietly produces hardness of heart. Like a callus that forms over a break in a bone or stiffens a person's joints, sin paralyzes right action. "Hardness" is translated from skleruno, from which name for the disease multiple sclerosis is derived. In a moral context, it means "impenetrable," "insensitive," "blind," "unteachable." A hardened attitude is not a sudden aberration, but the product of a habitual state of mind that reveals itself in inflexibility of thinking and insensitivity of conscience. Eventually, it makes repentance impossible. The will to do right is completely gone. The will is the power or faculty by which the mind makes choices and acts to carry them out. An old adage says: "Sow an act and reap a habit; sow a habit and reap a character; sow a character and reap a destiny." At first, against his will, a person engages in some forbidden pleasure out of weakness, curiosity, or sheer carnality. If the practice continues, he sins because he cannot help doing so; he is becoming addicted to it. Once a sin becomes a habit, he considers it to be almost a necessity. When it becomes a necessity, the destiny is produced.
John W. Ritenbaugh
What Sin Is
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Hebrews 3:12-13
The will is the power or faculty by which the mind makes choices and acts to carry them out. At first, against his will, a person engages in some forbidden pleasure because he wants to, but if he keeps it up, he soon finds that he has no strength to resist it. This process does not happen any more quickly than an addiction to alcohol, but in the end, he keeps sinning because he cannot help but do so! Once a thought or act becomes a habit, it is a short step to being a necessity. The old saying is true: "Sow an act and reap a habit; sow a habit and reap a character; sow a character and reap a destiny." Hebrews 3:12-13 reveals a worrisome characteristic of sin: "Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called 'Today,' lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin." Sin is seductive, enticing, deceitful, and hardening. Sin's deceitfulness is that it cannot deliver what it promises. It deludes a person into thinking he can "have it all" or "take it or leave it." It promises pleasure, contentment, fulfillment, and life, but what it delivers in those areas is fleeting, which leads to its addictive quality. The pleasure is never quite enough to produce the desired contentment and fulfillment. Sinners are forced into greater perversions until it kills them. Sin offers rationalizations and justifications. It puts on a plausible appearance and can even seem to be virtuous, as in situation ethics. However, sin's drug-like quality always demands more because what formerly satisfied no longer will. The person in its grip gradually becomes its slave, and all along the way, his heart becomes hardened as well. In Hebrews 3:13, hardened is translated from the Greek word for a callus. A callus forms around the break in a bone, on the palms of hands and on fingers from constant hard use, or in a person's joints, paralyzing its actions. In a moral context, it suggests "impenetrable," "insensitive," "blind," or "unteachable." A hardened attitude is not a sudden aberration but a habitual state of mind that shows itself in inflexibility of thinking and insensitivity of conscience. It can eventually make repentance impossible. Jeremiah 9:1-5 describes people in this state, so inured, so enslaved to sin that they weary themselves pursuing and doing it: Oh, that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people! Oh, that I had in the wilderness a lodging place for wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! For they are all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men. "And like their bow they have bent their tongues for lies. They are not valiant for the truth on the earth. For they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not know Me," says the LORD. "Everyone take heed to his neighbor, and do not trust any brother; for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbor will walk with slanderers. Everyone will deceive his neighbor, and will not speak the truth; they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity."
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Elements of Motivation (Part Seven): Fear of Judgment
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