BORN IN SIN . . . SHAPED IN INIQUITY

So, in my search for the why, I went back to the beginning of God’s Word. We know the story of Adam and Eve. God created them and gave them instructions about the tree in the Garden. He told them they could have anything in the Garden, but the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil to leave it alone. Why is it that human beings always want what they are denied? It does not matter what God gives us, we want more. Adam and Eve had the whole garden and the earth, but they could not leave that one tree alone. That one tree caused all what we see now in the world. So, I went back to why. I used to blame God for what happened to me. You know the world does this too. People could be sinners, but when something goes wrong they always want to blame God. One day I looked in the mirror and said, “Lord I want to know what is going on inside of me, something is not right.” I was not right inside and this is what we all have to deal with. The outer shell is nothing, for the real us is not in the flesh, but inwardly. You could entertain someone everyday who hates your guts, but you would never know it because they always have a smile. If the inside of us is not right, we can forget the outward facade. Let’s go back to the Garden. It is so significant because so much happened in that simple act of disobedience. When Adam and Eve took of the fruit, that marked the entrance of sin into the world. Everyone born afterwards was born of the similitude of Adam in sin. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. (Romans 5:19)

Psalm 51:5

Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Genesis 2:16-17

16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:

17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

SIN IS THE TRANSGRESSION OF THE LAW GOD GIVES US TO LIVE BY. God sets boundaries in our lives. God knew that after Adam sinned man was no match for what was about to come on the earth. God knew we could not handle what was about to happen. This is why God told him not to touch the tree, because they were about to unleash something they could not handle. All men born after Adam were born into all sin, the seventeen lusts of the flesh . Because we were born in sin and shaped in iniquity, we were capable of any of these sins: lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, murders, envyings, drunkenness, fornication, revellings, adultery and uncleanness (Galatians 5:19-21). All of these were unleashed when Adam and Eve ate from the tree. This is why you don’t have to train a child how to be bad, it is already in them. It is in all of us, we were born corrupt. This is our penalty. GOD SAID THAT THE SOUL THAT SIN SHALL DIE. If you sin, you are going to die. Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die. Ezekiel 18:4.

God’s Word is true. If He says it is going to happen it is going to happen. When Adam partook of that fruit, we died. Adam represented all of mankind. Adam should have interceded for Eve after she had eaten from the tree. We would not be in the state we are in now if he had. But, he bent to the will of his wife, he partook of the fruit that marked the entrance of evil into the world; sin came as a result. The very same thing they left God for was the same thing that came back to judge them. We can see that there was a consequence to Adam partaking of that fruit. The consequence: Man was to be born in sin and shaped in iniquity. There is always a consequence for disobeying God. Iniquity is the spirit of Satan and it stops the flow of love. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. Romans 5:14

We did not partake of the fruit, but Adam did, so in essence we all sinned. God gave Adam directives and instructions of what to do and not to do and he chose to sin. After this the conscience God placed in all men was held captive. The conscience is that part of us that tells us right from wrong and good from evil. It does not matter what people say, there is a part of us that knows God is real. This is why He can hold us accountable if we reject Him. He has put a part of Himself inside all of us, and His truth is what wakes up that conscience. The conscience was held captive in the body of sin and death. Nothing but corruption (evil) is in there, and if God does not come and redeem us out of it, we grow up contrary to God. This is why we see little children growing up in homosexuality and children killing one another. All of this is a result of Adam’s sin in the Garden. So, I had to come to the conclusion that because of Adam’s disobedience all mankind was put into sin. On my quest to find out what was going on inside of me, I got into the Word and found out that my thinking was wrong. Obedience is better than sacrifice. Conscience – The spirit of the mind. Co-perception of both worlds (good and evil, flesh and spirit). Banks’ Expository

NOTE: Reference is made to Diagram #1, however, no diagrams were seen in the document.