Hating Sin

[Job’s] sons used to hold feasts in their homes on their birthdays, and they would invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. When a period of feasting had run its course, Job would make arrangements for them to be purified. Early in the morning he would sacrifice a burnt offering for each of them, thinking, “Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.” This was Job’s regular custom.

JOB 1:4–5

JOB HATED SIN AND FEARED GOD. WHAT A POWERFUL MESSAGE Job’s example must have passed on to his children, especially when they saw how earnestly he contended for their salvation and spiritual health. Surely, they must have known. Surely, they must have talked among themselves: “Did you hear how Dad went home and offered a sacrifice in case one of us got a little too loose at the party last night and sinned against God?”

What do my kids see me getting passionate about? Do they watch as I enthusiastically praise an athletic performance or an A+ on a math test, while at the same time minimizing an act of disrespect toward their mom or of cruelty toward a sibling? Or do they see me even inviting sin into my home, acting as though sinful influences won’t affect their souls and weaken their spiritual resolve? Do my children think I hate sin? Or do they see me tolerate it, maybe even occasionally enjoy it?

Job knew well the toll that sin can exact from a human life. Even without our New Testament perspective—that Jesus Christ came to destroy sin—Job zealously tried to root it out of his life and his family. Sometimes, I think we simply forget how utterly loathsome and destructive sin can be. When we model a holy hatred of sin, we can spare our children much of the pain that sin brings.

Take lust, for example. Lust will lead our children to forsake the modesty, purity, and innocence that will bless their sexual experience once they get married. Lust may result in a lifelong disease or an out-of-wedlock pregnancy. It may blind them with misguided priorities just when they need to make wise choices as they decide on their spouses. It will certainly leave spiritual scars. It is my duty as a parent to warn my children while they are adolescents, every bit as much as it was my duty to warn them when they were toddlers that a hot stove will burn their hands.

My wife and I once attended a public performance and watched with great distraction and discomfort as a single Christian teen got virtually mauled with hand caresses by her boyfriend. This young man had no reverence, no sense of discretion, no hesitation in claiming this young woman’s body as his own. The young woman’s father sat right there and later even brought up the matter in a conversation: “Well, what can you do?” he said, laughing.

Contrast this with my friend Dave Dickson, a high school teacher. Dave’s son is a star athlete (as a high school junior, he was offered a four-year full scholarship to play college basketball), a musician who has cut his own CD, and a guy who could pretty much take his pick of dates. But he has decided not to date, and he has never gone to a high school dance.

I asked Dave about this, and he explained, “As a teacher, I’ve been to those dances, and they’re not a place my son needs to be.”

The cavalier “boys will be boys” approach demonstrated by the first father is the polar opposite of that taken by Job and Dave. The latter two understood—and applied—a more God-honoring approach to sin.

I’m sympathetic to those parents who want to avoid an overtly negative piety that defines Christianity only by what we don’t do. If we err in emphasis, I hope we err in preaching the positive glories and goodness of God—his mercies, his kindnesses, his comfort, his love, his gentleness, his grace. But we mustn’t do this to the exclusion of warning our children (and ourselves) of the horrors of sin. Much of what we are told to avoid will seriously wound us if we fail to obey (or in our case, to warn). Charles Spurgeon reminds us, “To be a believer in God early in life is to be saved from a thousand regrets.”^a

Spiritually healthy children grow up with a keen awareness that they will always have a Loyal Friend, a True Companion, and a Trusted Savior—and that they have a vicious enemy, a lying opponent, and a twisted deceiver who seeks to lure them away from God’s plan, purpose, and joy for their lives. His first tool is the deceitful ruse called sin, making an activity seem fun and exciting when in actuality it will bring heartache, pain, and regret.

I want my children to focus on the Loyal Friend 90 percent of the time—but I don’t want them to completely forget about the twisted deceiver. I want to be like Job, who models his hatred of sin, who demonstrates to his children how sin is their enemy—an enemy not to be taken lightly. I want this to be, as it was for Job, my “regular custom.”

This week, let’s consider how we can model an appropriate and holy hatred of sin.

Lord Jesus, let us remember the price you paid to bring forgiveness of sins and to break the power of sin over us. Give us your hatred of sin, and let that hatred be a warning and a refuge for our children. In your name we pray, amen.