“One leak will sink a ship, and one sin will destroy a sinner.” So said John Bunyan, and he said right, for he based his words on the Bible—the Word of God.
There is an idea that unless a man has committed some great crime, unless he is a murderer or a thief, he is not a sinner. But that is only a human thought, and God has said, “My thoughts are not your thoughts.”
Mankind judges sin by the way it touches or affects others. God judges it by His holiness and by the way it dishonors Him. He has said, “The thought of foolishness is sin.”
Suppose someone is found guilty of murder and is executed. For one murder or for a dozen, for a murderer of one or for a serial killer of many, the law of the land can do no more than execute the murderer. And one sin will expose the sinner to the judgment of God as much as one million sins!
How many sins did Adam and Eve commit before God put them out of the garden of Eden? One, and only one. For that one act of disobedience they were, by the holiness of God, righteously excluded forever from that earthly paradise.
“The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” God does not say, The soul that sins a hundred or a million sins shall die, but, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.”
Again, “The wages of sin is death.” God does not say the wages of a hundred or a million sins is death, but, “The wages of sin is death.”
Sin, death and judgment are our lot, because “all have sinned,” and “all the world” is guilty. Is there no open door of escape? There is! Thank God, there is!
Christ has died, was buried and has risen again. He has borne sin, death and judgment on the cross, and now all who trust Him get forgiveness, eternal life and righteousness.
Sin must be measured by the holiness of God, and by the cross of Christ. At the cross I learn that the holiness of God required the death of Christ for one sin, just as much as for one million sins. Nothing less would do to put away one sin, and nothing more was necessary to put away one million sins. “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:77The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. (John 1:7)), and whether one has sinned few or many sins, forgiveness and justification are to be had through faith in His blood.