​The prophet Isaiah issued the following warning: “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight!” – Isaiah 5:20-20
 
Many Christians have rightfully invoked this passage to describe the peril and madness of what is unfolding in our current culture.  Indeed, Isaiah’s words can be viewed as a timeless message that is very relevant for our time.  But I believe it also points to the human condition and more specifically, the actions of Adam and Eve that precipitated the Fall.
 
Chapter 3 of Genesis describes Eve’s encounter with the serpent, where rather than rebuke and turn from the lies being spoken by the blasphemous beast, she ponders, and ultimately embraces them.  Upon considering this exchange, one cannot help but think of Paul’s later warning to the early Church: “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.” – 2 Timothy 4:3-4
 
God had provided Adam and Eve with sound doctrine, which Eve even quotes back to the serpent: “God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’” – Genesis 3:3
 
The serpent counters with a lie and a truth framed in such a way as to entice Eve: “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” – Genesis 3:4-5
 
What follows is Eve’s rejection of the truth of God and her embrace of the lies of the serpent.  God said she would die.  The serpent said she would live.  Why would she take the words of a serpent, a creature of lower standing than her, over the words of her creator?  She did it because the serpent affirmed her desire. She wanted to know good and evil. She wanted to be like God. Her itching ears had found the teacher she sought.
 
And deep down that is what every human wants.  We want to make our own rules. We will go to great lengths to justify our actions, impulses, and desires. That is why the actions of two people condemned the entire human race – because we are no different than them.  We would have done the same thing in their place.
 
The critical moment for Eve (and subsequently for all of us) came next: “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.” – Genesis 3:6
 
Conventional doctrine teaches that sin entered the world the moment she ate the fruit.  However, I would submit that the sin occurred when “the woman saw that the tree was good for food”.  The tree was not good for food.  God plainly said so.  The tree was an instrument of death and was a symbol of rebellion against God.  But Eve had decided to call what God had declared evil good.  In doing so she was also justifying her evil act of rebelling against God and calling it good, because in her mind she had a right to the knowledge the tree provided.  Lastly, she was placing God under her own moral judgment, declaring his truth not only invalid, but harmful to her own self-actualization. In short, she had created her own reality where God was evil and she was good.
 
In this analysis you can see how deep the roots of our modern culture war go.  The transgender teacher trying to brainwash your children is no different than Eve. The teacher has created his/her own reality.  Their own definition of good and evil.
 
Adam’s sin was even greater than Eve’s.  Adam had been given stewardship of God’s creation.  One might say it was Adam’s duty to maintain and protect the reality created by God.  But when God confronts Adam and Eve, Adam blames God by saying “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.” – Genesis 3:12
 
Adam had been derelict in his duty as steward of creation.  He had not been watching over Eve.  He was not there to protect her from the lies of the serpent and more importantly, from her own destructive thoughts.  He had failed to reinforce in her mind the truth of God.
 
But rather than admit his failure, he joined Eve in her sin.  He decided he would also create his own truth.  It was all God’s fault.  God had placed a flawed creature under his care.  How could he be expected to protect creation when the helper God gave him was treacherous?
 
The modern Church has become Adam.  The Church has been derelict in its duty as steward of the truth of God.  We have abandoned the institutions created to help us manage our society (government, schools, etc.) and they have fallen under the influence of the serpent.  Now these institutions are redefining reality and denying the truth of God.
 
And just like Adam, a portion of the Church is joining them in their sin by ignoring or redefining doctrine to affirm these new “truths”.  Others in the Church are in essence blaming God as they hide from their duty of standing for truth, justifying their laziness and cowardice by proclaiming that we are nearing the End Times and this turning from truth is all part of God’s plan. 
 
We might indeed be nearing the End Times, but that does not excuse us from our duty of standing for truth.  Indeed, it makes our mission to proclaim the truth of God all the more urgent.  Those who remain silent when evil is called good and good is called evil will not be held blameless in the eyes of God.

A dangerous doctrine has emerged among some Christians whereby they have come to believe they can sin with impunity because once they are saved, they are saved forever, no matter what they do. While it is true that Christ’s act of sacrifice for the atonement of sins is final and complete for all who believe in him, one’s personal salvation hinges on one’s acknowledgement that salvation is necessary in the first place. To live in perpetual sin, without expressing any repentance, is to deny the need for a savior. It is this sort of reckless way of living among those who profess to be Christians yet remain comfortable in their sin that Jesus is addressing when he said: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.” Matthew 7:21.
 
Let me clarify that I am not suggesting that Christian’s should rest their hope of salvation in following the Laws of God over trusting in Grace. No human, save for the mortal incarnation of Jesus, is capable of perfectly following the Law. We have all sinned and we will all continue to stumble and fall into sin over the course of our lives, even after we are saved.
 
This brings me to another point of clarification – just because you continue to struggle with sin does not mean you lose your salvation. The key is that you are “struggling” with sin and not surrendering to it without a fight or worse yet, embracing it.
 
What one must remember about sin is that sin is not simply a breaking of a rule that has been established by God. Sin is separation from God. By sinning you are actively separating yourself from God. This is because at its core, sin is defiance against the very truth of God. And what is the truth of God? It is that God is the author of all creation and the definer of reality.
 
A life of sin is a life devoted to a lie. The rules God made for us are not arbitrary. They were put in place to protect us from harming ourselves or harming others. One can pretend that these rules do not exist or protest that they are unfair, but the result is the same – if you break the rules, you will suffer the consequences. You will do so not because God is angry or vengeful (although there are instances where the offenses of sin are so great that it does incur the wrath of God), but because God's laws are based on the unchanging truth of the reality he has defined as creator of the universe and all that is in it.  If I build a stove and tell you not to touch a hot burner, yet you do it anyway, you get burned, not because I am angry at you for disobeying me, but because it is the inevitable consequence of touching something that is hot.
 
God’s laws expose the tragic folly that led to the banishment of Adam and Eve from Eden and the fall of humanity. Adam and Eve chose sin over God. They chose to believe the lie that they could define their own reality in place of God’s reality. They chose to replace God’s truth with what they wanted to be true.
 
When a Christian lives in sin without repentance, that Christian is in danger of following in the footsteps of Adam and Eve. Sin without repentance leads to defiance. It begins by defying reality. You ignore or rationalize away the harm it is doing to you or to others. You silence the voice of your conscience, which for Christians, is the Holy Spirit attempting to guide you. Once cut off from the Holy Spirit, you transition from surrendering to sin to embracing it. Your sin becomes a defining aspect of your identity. As such, any criticism of that sin becomes a criticism of you. You begin to challenge and even despise anyone who would state or even imply that your sin is somehow wrong. You begin to call the evil of your sin good and the good intentions of those who would point out the truth of your sin evil. You might even attempt to convince other Christians that your sin really is not sin and that they too should embrace it. In the end, you reject the salvation of Christ because accepting it would mean that your sin is wrong and that is something that you refuse to admit.
 
A life without repentance leads to an eternity of separation from God. This is why repentance is so important. Repentance is an acknowledgement that you have lost a battle with sin, but you are committed to continuing to fight against it, trusting that the final victory has already been won by Christ.