George Whitefield on the Seriousness of Sin

If even one sin is enough to send a person to Hell, how much more shall it be then that a person who continues to rebel against God also deserve Hell?  The more I read the pages of Scripture, the more evident it is that the unsaved heart continues to grow in sin.  The very act of disobedience of Adam in Genesis 3 brought sin into the world and hence caused the fall of mankind.  Cain's murder of his righteous brother Abel was just the beginning as it went worse.  The deeds of Cain formed the Cainite civilization that started to wreck havoc that caused the Flood.  Marrying the Cainite women caused severe confusion in doctrine, leading to the Flood.  But even after the Flood, the descendants of Noah have followed the path of Cain instead of Seth from whence all men today came from.  We are all descendants of Seth and Noah but many follow the path of Cain and Nimrod.

Sin is no laughing matter and it is no fairy tale, it is no fantasy word.  Murdering someone is no act of self-defense or survival but the most obvious violation of God's Word.  To kill someone in self-defense was allowable but never to kill anyone for one's own selfish purpose.  The very act of Cain ended from your everyday murder to the rise of murderous religion.  Right after the Flood, Babylon became the center of paganism after the flood.  The very religion of fallen man had done every inconceivable evil such as infant sacrifice and cannibalism.  These were not acts of self-preservation but rebellion against the Word of God.  The more hardened the person is into sin, the more they have become resistant to the Gospel.

John 3:19-20 states the sad fact men love darkness rather than light.  Why do criminals love the dark alleys?  It is because they can hide in the darkness so their misdeeds cannot be easily seen.  Most crimes happen at night because it is very hard to trace it.  Any crime done in broad daylight is easier to apprehend than any crime done in the darkness of night.  When men love their sin so much they are bound to hate the life-changing Gospel.  The heart that is so bound to love sin will hate the Gospel that came to save men from their sins.  They only want to be saved from the consequences of sin but never from sin itself.  When they find the true Gospel and they love their sinfulness they are bound to reject anything that separates them from sin.

In real preaching, the seriousness of sin must be addressed.  Most people who love their sin do not even think for a bit they are in the wrong or that they are morally good people.  Whitefield's successful preaching was also because he would never compromise with sin and never put up with it.  As Charles H. Spurgeon says that we also need more Whitefields.  Only when the seriousness of sin is addressed can there be true conversion.  Otherwise, people will be led to false conversions with them sinning all they want only to find out they were never saved to start with.