Original Sin (5) Passing Sin Down

Deception is still the best weapon of the spiritual powers of evil. They have spiritual authority over all humans, so they have the right to speak to them, even though they don’t speak the truth.

The spiritual powers of evil have always attacked every descendent of Adam and Eve to deceive them into sinning. Once they have sinned, they can hit them with shame and cripple them.

The spiritual powers of evil get other people to do things to us that hurt or harm us. This makes us angry or afraid. This is often our first sin, and it causes us to strike back to hurt or harm others.

Different people can be manipulated differently. The spiritual powers of evil push some people into pride, and they push others into guilt and shame. Both these sins shut us out from God.

Some humans go no further than this. Others get a taste for evil and push further into it. A few choose to pursue evil seriously. For most people, the spiritual powers of evil do not have to do much to push them into sinning. Most children automatically copy the behaviour of their parents anyway. Parents who are in captivity to sin will often hurt their children, by speaking negatively or angrily, withholding their love, or failing to provide for all their needs. These actions make the child feel insecure or fearful, often while still in the womb.

Children who are fearful and hurt do things to harm others. We tend to react to being hurt by hurting others. In this way, children inherit the sins of their parents without the powers of evil having to do much at all.

If we have good parents, the influence of the spiritual powers of evil will be minimised. But if our parents are really held tight by the evil powers, we might be permanently corrupted by them when growing up, and get a serious taste of evil. If the harm is severe, they might be able to influence us to pursue evil. Unfortunately, this happens to some people.

Christian Parents
Being born to parents who have been set free from their spiritual captivity by choosing to serve Jesus is a huge advantage. The spiritual powers of evil will harass their children to prevent them from escaping too. They will prompt the parents to upset their children in ways that will cause them to respond by sinning.

The spiritual battle is stacked against us. There are millions of evil spirits in the world, waiting to attack every human born and tip them into sin before they are aware of what is happening. Therefore, it is not surprising that all humans have sinned. This gives the spiritual powers of evil an ongoing authority over us until we are set free by faith in Jesus.

Our spiritual antennae have not been switched off by something that has changed in our brains. Rather our spiritual senses are shut down by guilt and shame. The spiritual powers of evil can use deception to cloud our thinking, so they use this power to push shameful and proud people into sinful behaviour. That is original sin.