This week is my last article on the results of sin. To conclude the series, I want to look at how sin results in the curses that we experience in this life.

The Bible plainly tells us that because of sin painful curses fall upon man as he lives in the world: ‘However, if you do not obey the LORD your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you: You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country. Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed. The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out. The LORD will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him’ (Deuteronomy 28:15-20). And that is only part of the passage. The rest of the chapter outlines in greater detail what horrible things occur to man because of his sin, such as wasting diseases, natural disasters, wars and failed marriages. It would be a healthy exercise to read the rest of Deuteronomy 28 to remind you of all the terrible things that occur in this world as a direct result of sin.

Now I must be careful to emphasise that whenever you see someone suffering you cannot draw a direct line to a particular sin that they have committed. Jesus demonstrates this when he encounters a blind man: ‘As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus’ (John 9:1-3). However, we can say that this man would not have been born blind if there was no sin in the world. The Biblical principle is that we only experience pain and suffering here because there is sin here.

So what can we to do to avoid these curses? The sad fact is that while we live in this sinful world we will still continue to feel the effects of our sin and the sin of others. But the great hope for the Christian is that he can one day be completely cured of sin and placed in an environment where there is no sin and thus no curses. That place is heaven.

So although we cannot avoid the curses now, we can avoid them for eternity by repenting and believing in Jesus for our sins. Will you be cursed for eternity? Or have you repented and believed?

Joel Radford.