This missionary had no intention of analyzing the outstanding sins of the natives, but these three things naturally came before her as she described their daily life. And these three comprise “all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the vainglory of life.”
Put into briefer form these three sins are lust, covetousness, pride. All sin comes under one or other of these three classes.
America’s Three Sins
These three are the outstanding sins of America. Dan Crawford came out of Africa into civilization just about the time the “newer” forms of dancing were having their first popularity. He made the startling statement that he had seen all of these unspeakably vile dances in pagan Africa. In America, he said, they were only in a new setting. Essentially they were the same, and they were for the same purpose. What we call the gross sin of the African flourishes in every civilized land.
Those who read a business man’s article, published several years ago in The Sunday School Times, on “The Sin That We Are Afraid to Mention,” will not soon forget his arraignment of the awful sin of covetousness, “which is idolatry.” And it was in the Christian church that this layman found the black sin that Christians keep quiet about. What then shall be said of covetousness in the business world?
There is finally that climax of all sins of America, and of man, the sin of pride, most subtle and most pervading of all, the sin that will culminate in man’s final defiance of God. Saddest of all, it is this sin which appears at its ugliest when it takes the form of spiritual pride in the life of one who is zealous to serve God and to be wholly yielded to him.
In a message that S. D. Gordon gave on temptation he remarked that there are three chief avenues by which Satan reaches men. He stated the three in these brief words: “Sex,” “Money,” “I.” It is exactly the classification that God makes in his Word. If, by his grace, we get victory at these three points, then indeed are we free from the dominion of sin.
So much for the sin that results when man falls before one or another of these temptations. But what of the temptations themselves? How do they affect a Christian who is trusting Christ for victory? What is the practical bearing on the common temptations that meet us in everyday life? Then there is the final, most important question, what is the way to prevent these desires from conceiving and bringing forth sin?
Why Not Freedom from Temptation?
A Sunday School Times reader has written of his experience. “It is not a temptation for me to take a glass of beer; there is nothing in me that requires or desires it; but sometimes it might be and has been a strong temptation to get impatient, which I have yielded to at times. Why should one be any more a temptation than the other, provided I am in victory over all sin?”