Devotions for Lent from Holy Bible: MosaicSample

The Smell of Sin (Timothy G. Walton)

One early American preacher traveled from town to town preaching the gospel message. It was witnessed that as he approached the outskirts of a town, he would pause and say, 'I smell hell!'" If we were sensitive to it, would the world smell like hell to us? It's an entirely foreign concept today, yet that strange smell permeates this world we live in because of the aftermath of Adam and Eve's sin.

What do you think of sin? People have all kinds of creative ways of dealing with sin. They deny it. They minimize it. They make excuses for it. They blame others for it. Duke, a fictional character in James Thurber's The Thirteen Clocks, admits, "We all have our little weaknesses; mine just happens to be that I am evil."

Why is sin sinful? Who says sin is sin? Just calling sin, 'sin', implies a standard. If a trooper stops you for speeding, it implies an official government sign set a speed limit, and you violated it. The moral standard for all humanity comes right out of the holy character of God.

This world that smells like sin also smells like death. The Bible says that the wages of sin is death. Sin leads to death. There was death in the Garden. Adam and Eve didn't drop dead the minute they ate the forbidden fruit, of course, but two things did happen instantly. Firstly, the seed of physical death was planted in them. Two perfect individuals created to be forever young began to grow old and eventually would die. Secondly, they died spiritually. Their intimate and friendly relationship with the Lord died. The next scene in Genesis 3 finds Adam and Eve hiding from God in the bushes. Though they didn't realize it at the time, their only hope is for God to do something heroic to rescue them and bring them back into a healthy relationship with him. When God sacrificed two animals and proclaimed the coming of Jesus Christ, the Savior (Genesis 3:15), he did just that.