Hard Freeze - Rejecting The Word of the Lord

You know how you can read something over and over and never see the way it fits together and then one day you look at it in just the right way and the next thing you know, you're having an extraordinary moment of discovery as a truth you've never noticed before shines out at you like a beacon ? That's the natural result of bible study.

I realized something incredibly interesting (to me, at least) while studying with friends last night. People always say (usually without knowing why) that one sin is not greater or lesser than another sin. They're all equally sin, equally bad. Well, we all had an ahah! moment last night and realized why. We were comparing and contrasting the leadership styles and qualities of Saul and David in the books of Samuel and we saw that no matter what their sin was, the prophets (Samuel and Nathan) always told them that they were despising or rejecting the Word of the Lord.

It occurred to us that the real sin is always rejecting the Word of the Lord ... whatever action (sin) that you took is really of no consequence - it doesn't really matter because all sin equals rejecting God's Word (commands). Therefore they are all equal - equally bad. If you follow that logic back to the Garden of Eden ... that's exactly what Adam and Eve did, too. The act of sin that they commited was kind of irrelevant - it still equated to rejecting the Word of the Lord. You can see it even in Satan's words to Eve. "Indeed, has God said, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden ?'" To eat from the tree was to reject God's Words on the subject - his command was "Don't." They did anyway. They rejected (or despised) His Words (commands) on the subject. THAT was the REAL sin.

That also explains why rebellion can be as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness like iniquity and idolatry in 1st Samuel 15:23. They are all equivalent to rejecting the Word of the Lord.

So whenever we're sinning (no matter what it is) that's what we're doing ... rejecting or despising the Word of the Lord.