From Pride to Addiction to Greed: How Sin Creates Addicts and Consumers

Posted on February 9, 2016 Updated on February 12, 2016

God Hates Sin

God hates sin. Were it not for His abundant love for humanity and amazing grace, humanity would have been utterly destroyed a long time ago. God created two people and put them in the perfect environment, gave them everything they needed, and let them know only good – it wasn’t enough for them and they decided they wanted to know evil to. When Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, they were telling God that they didn’t just want to live in a world where they only knew His presence and good things – they wanted to know evil too. Remember, it was the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Gen 2:17). And then, in knowing evil, they brought about their own destruction.

Since that day, we have seen an abundance of grace given to us, despite our love for evil. The whole world became corrupt – thinking only evil thoughts all the time – and instead of destroying everyone in the flood, God chose to save Noah and his family. And within three verses of God’s Rainbow Promise to never flood the earth again, the puddles have only just dried from the flood, Noah passes out naked and drunk and his son stands there gawking and mocking.

And it keeps going downhill from there. God says go forth and multiply, man creates Tower of Babel and refuses. God wants to save the world through Jesus, so He reveals himself to Abram – an unbelieving, pagan who, though believing God at the beginning keeps showing himself to be an untrusting fool. Then you’ve got Hagar and Ishmael, the great cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, Esau selling his birthright, Jacob the liar, and Joseph’s brothers selling him into slavery… and that’s just Genesis! Each time we see men sin against each other and God, we see God’s amazing hand of grace. He has the right to wipe us out, but relents because of His love.

But make no mistake: God HATES sin. Sin is the source of evil in this world. It is sin that tears apart our lives, families, and nations. Sin causes people to starve to death. Sin makes Christians hypocrites. Sin sends people to hell. God hates sin because it is totally incompatible with His nature – He is Holy, Righteous and Perfect. – and God hates sin because it separates us from Him. He hates sin because God loves us!

In the Bible God describes sin using some extreme language: “Wounds, bruises and putrefying sores” (Isa 1:6), an impossibly “heavy burden” (Ps 38:4), a contaminating stain (2 Cor 7:1), an unpayable debt (Matt 18:21-35), and walking in utter darkness (1 Jn 1:6; Rom 1:21)…” This is not the condition He wants His children living in!

The presence of sin causes him to feel both deep sorrow and fierce anger. He loves us, but He absolutely hates sin. Listen to Hosea 11:8-9, at the intense emotions God feels because of the sins of His people: “My heart churns within Me; My sympathy is stirred. I will not execute the fierceness of My anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim. For I am God, and not man, the Holy One in your midst; and I will not come with terror.”

He could though, and one day He will. He’s fierce in his anger, ready to bring terror, but relents because He loves his people. He will be patient for a little longer, and give them yet another chance to repent. But make no mistake: God hates sin. We see this all over scripture, and we’ll see it as we look at Habakkuk today.

Quick Review

Over the next couple weeks we are going to look at the “Woes to the Chaldeans” and it is an intense section of scripture, full of incredibly hard language and pointed threats. It’s a reminder of how much God hates sin – and of the amazing grace of God.

Remember the context. Habakkuk has asked God why there is so much suffering, injustice, violence and sin in his nation. God has answered that He sees it and plans to deal with it by sending the Chaldeans (later called the Babylonians) to wipe out the nation and drag everyone off into captivity. Habakkuk’s follow-up question is to ask God why He would use a greater evil to punish a lesser one. Why would he use the evil, pagan Babylonians to punish the lesser wrongs of His own people, Israel?

God’s answer is that He is a God of justice, and no one will be getting away with anything. He’s allowing the Babylonians to act as a rod of discipline to His children so they will stop doing evil and come back to Him. And then next, we read that the Babylonians won’t get away with their evil either. They too will receive God’s wrath against their sin.

Habakkuk’s complaint was the God wasn’t doing anything about the wrong in this world. And God’s answer was a vision that would show Habakkuk, and us, the truth about how God deals with sin. There will be a day of reckoning for all humanity and no one will get away with any wrong they have done – not Israel, not the Babylonians, not you, not me. One day, perfect justice will be brought against all sin.

Sin From the Inside Out

Before we get into the woes, however, I want to look at verses 4-5, because they show us the root of the sins that God outlines in the five woes to the Chaldeans. This is an MRI or an XRay of the souls of this pagan nation, and shows us what makes them tick. On the outside we see their violence and conquering, but here God gives us insight into what’s making them tick, what’s happening in their hearts – and it shows what happens in our hearts too.

“Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith. Moreover, wine is a traitor, an arrogant man who is never at rest. His greed is as wide as Sheol; like death he has never enough. He gathers for himself all nations and collects as his own all peoples.”

This is, basically, a summary of what we’re about to read in the woes, but it also shows how the Chaldeans (who here are addressed with the singular “he”) spiraled into such deplorable actions. It’s a map of their slide into hell. What we see here is pride fueled by drunkenness which leads to an unrelenting appetite for more sin, which leads to violence against others and then temping others to commit more sin. (Romans 1 shows this spiral too.)

What I want you to be looking for as we study this introduction to the woes is how this pattern shows up in your own life. In what ways does the downward spiral of the Chaldeans play out in your own heart?

Sin Starts with Pride

Their spiral of sin starts with the declaration: “Behold, his soul is puffed up.” Sin starts with pride. If you know the story of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, then you know that he was an egomaniac – we’re talking pride at a mentally disturbed level. This was a man who erected a nearly 30 meter tall, golden image of himself and decreed that everyone, everywhere – on penalty of death – must bow down and worship it whenever his theme music played. God eventually brought Nebuchadnezzar down to earth by humiliating him (read about it in Daniel 4-5: it’s amazing), but pride wasn’t just the King’s problem, it was rampant throughout the nation. He merely typified it.

The whole nation’s soul was puffed up and not upright within them. This was the first and greatest problem, and the fountain from which all the other sins came. Pride places us not only above others but above God. It makes us believe we are own rulers and closes our ears so we will not listen to anyone or anything else – even the Creator. Our way is law.

When 1 John 2:16 summarizes worldly sin, it gives three categories: “the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and [the] pride of life.” This section shows how abundant these three are in the life of this pagan nation, but also convicts us today and our own country. It all stems from pride.

This is where our sin starts too – pride. We all know the well-worn proverb, “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18) but how many of us really listen to it? Did you know that word “fall” could also be translated “stumble” or “slide”? Pride comes before the slide. It’s not that we have pride and then crash into the wall… it’s that our pride starts the stumble, the trip, the slide out of control that sends our life into the wall.

• “I know what I’m doing!”
• “I’m the exception to the rule.”
• “I’m strong enough without any help.”
• “I don’t need to pray about that, I’ll take care of it.”
• “It doesn’t matter what the law of the land says, I’m smarter than that.”
• “It doesn’t matter what scripture says, I’m doing it my way.”
• “It doesn’t matter what my parents, my spouse, my elders say – I’m the boss of me and no one can tell me what to do!”
• “It’s my car, my house, my land, my toy, my computer, my tablet, my gun, my tool, my money, my time, and I can do whatever I want with it!”
• Lack of prayer and lack of Bible reading is also pride – it means we think we can live without the voice of God.
• Lack of accountability to the other believers is also pride – it means we think we can take on this world alone.
• Lack of humility in worship is pride.
• Thinking we’re right all the time, refusing to forgive, making decisions without consulting the people that care about us – that’s all pride, pride, pride. It’s the sign of a puffed up soul.

Pride is the engine that starts the slide into the wall of destruction. But it’s just the start – it gets way worse from here.

Pride Leads to Addiction

If pride was the engine, then verse 5 says wine was the fuel. The Babylonians were famous for their drunkenness. It was eventually the cause of their downfall – it was during a drunken party that they decided to raise a toast to their idols while drinking from the gold and silver vessels they had stolen from God’s Temple. And it was during another drunken party that the Persians were able to cross the Euphrates and conquer Babylon – because they were all too drunk to notice or do anything (Herodotus, 1:190-91).

It actually became practice to use getting drunk as a way to make national decisions! They would drink, make decisions, and then evaluate those decisions the next day during their hangover. They would drink to have fun, drink to make decisions, drink to go to war, and then drink in the end of their empire: Israel, Assyria, Babylon and Rome fell while the leaders and people were drunk.

We’re no better today are we? People still get drunk, high and do stupid things. Addiction is constantly ruining lives today. Over and over in scripture, we are warned to avoid drunkenness and addiction, but it’s still a huge part of our society. How many are people are trapped in addictions that lead to the destruction of their bodies, relationships, families, communities, churches, and nations?

Drunkenness is a natural outflow of pride. If we are the masters of our own bodies, the one who makes the best decisions for us, and the world revolves around us, then it stands to reason that we can do whatever we want. And what do we want most? Freedom from pain and the experience of pleasure. What’s the quickest and easiest way for us to kill pain and experience pleasure? To find something that dumps dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin and endorphins into our brain. Those chemicals in our brain are designed by God to make us feel good. They are a gift. They increase pleasure, minimize pain, and strengthen human relationships and flourishing.

The best way to do this is through a healthy diet, regular exercise, building loving, committed relationships and developing a close connection to our Creator, but that’s all way to hard. The easy way to do it is to take a drink, pop a pill, eat some fat, sugar and salt, light a joint, go shopping and rack up the credit cards, or more often today – go look at pornography and masturbate. It’s quick, easy, and guaranteed to give you the dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin and endorphin rush you so badly want. For a moment, pain goes away and pleasure washes over your brain.

And who’s to stop you? You are the king or queen of your own body. You are the boss. No one can tell you what to do! The world owes you pleasure. The world exists for your sake. If you are hurting, then you deserve to do whatever you want.

When pride is the engine, addiction becomes the fuel it uses to keep going.

But it says “wine is a traitor”! Proverbs 20:1 says, “Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise.” Whatever your favourite method of getting your pleasure chemicals is – alcohol, drugs, porn, sex, shopping, work, or food – it’s a traitor and a mocker.

We know this, don’t we? It promises one thing but delivers another, and then sits back and laughs at you.

• It tells you “just this once”, and then leads you into captivity.
• It tells you, “this will make you feel better”, and then turns you into a fool.
• It says, “I’m here to make you feel good”, and then destroys your body, heart and soul.
• It says, “This will bring you power and control”, and then proceeds to weaken and control you.
• It says, “I can take away your pain”, and then returns more suffering than you ever had before.

This is another reason that God hates sin. It destroys us. He is jealous for us and wants to be our Lord, God and Saviour because He knows that whenever we are left to ourselves, we turn to things that destroy us. He wants to be our King, not for His sake, as though it makes Him feel big and important, but for our own sake! It is only when we come under His Lordship that we finally realize that we have no business leading our own way, because our pride only leads to our destruction! His rules, laws, and ways, are there so we can know life abundantly – and not be trapped in the downward spiral of prideful, sinful destruction.

Addiction Leads to Greed

But there’s one more step down this slide into hell. If pride is the engine, and addiction the fuel, then greed is the product. Pride and addiction creates a void in our souls that can never be filled. Pride makes us think they we are our own gods, addiction fuels our decision making, and the machine we keep feeding only produces an appetite for more and more and more. These people were never content, always thirsting for more – and they were willing to take it at anyone’s expense. That’s what sin does – it seeks to rob us and everyone around us of everything. It says, “His greed was a wide as Sheol, like death he never has enough.”

They had access to their many vices in Babylon (or Chaldea), but it wasn’t enough. As with all self-centred addicts, their problems didn’t just stay inside their own mind and body but spilled out over everyone else. Their addictive behaviour wasn’t content with only one form, it needed to grow. Now, without anyone to stop them, their addictions grew and spread: They wanted more wine, more wealth, more comfort, more land, more prestige, more gold, more power – and they wouldn’t stop.

Their addiction made them as hungry as hell and turned them into an agent of death for all those around them – and no one was going to stop them. They became a gaping maw that only knew how to consume. They were never full, always wanting more, ruining everything they touched, consuming everything and everyone. They became consumers, as hungry as the grave. (Pause and consider for a moment.)

In their addiction fueled pride they believed that the world now existed to fulfill their desires. Their souls were thirsty for something of substance, their hearts devoid of anything real, but they didn’t turn to that which was good, pure and right – instead they tried to fill it with anything and everything the world had to offer – even at the expense of their souls and all of humanity.

This is the nature of sin. It makes big promises, but never fulfills. It only makes us more greedy. We never, ever walk away from sin satisfied.

We fanaticize about shouting someone down and making them feel like garbage, and then when we do, we don’t feel better for long – but we keep thinking that if we shout down enough people, then we’ll finally be in charge and feel better.

We roll around in our minds the fantasy of committing adultery, playing with it, reveling in the idea of it, and then when we follow through, that few moments of pleasure lead to a lifetime of pain.

We can’t wait until we can fill our bellies with sugar, our veins with chemicals, and when we do… we feel sick and guilty. Sin never fulfills, because it can’t.

No matter what the sin is – lust, addiction, anger, greed, laziness, wrath, greed – when we act on it, it never satisfies our deepest needs. It just causes us to slide further down and consume something and someone else. If you think about this, then you know it’s true.

Your sin always leads to more and deeper sin. You never stay at the same level of sinful action. Once leads to twice, and the void inside gets bigger (nots smaller) and leads to doing it more often and in worse ways. You eat more, yell more, accumulate more, find more levels of perversion… consuming all you can until you’ve consumed everything around you – your conscience, your marriage, your family, your friends, your community – then, like Nebuchadnezzar, you decide to move outside your borders so you can consume others. It’s a never ending cycle that only builds a greater appetite.

In Matthew 6, Jesus spends a lot of time talking about the dangers of pursuing the things of this world instead of the things of God. When He said:

• “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth…”
• “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
• “You cannot serve God and money…”
• “…do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”

He wasn’t giving us pious platitudes – He was warning us about a dangerous condition within the human heart – that every time we start trying to find joy, comfort, love, peace, meaning and hope in creation rather than Creator, we end up driving ourselves crazy and slipping into destruction.

John Calvin put it this way: “Man’s nature… is a perpetual factory of idols.”

I hope you know this and have seen it in yourself. Whenever you try to replace God with something in this world – even a good thing like food, wine, or sex – it turns traitorous on you and sticks a knife in your back. It’s universal. And no one, not even Nebuchadnezzar, the king of the whole world, could stop it. Can you see now why God hates sin so much?

How To Get Out From Under

So how do we get out from under the terrible weights of pride, addiction and greed?

First, admit you sin. Just admit it. You are a sinner who loves to sin. Don’t let your foolish pride make you believe that you are above sinning or that all that you do is right. Admit you’re a sinner.

• “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:8)
• “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” (James 4:6)

If you want the grace of God, you have to stop being so prideful.

Second, admit that you are utterly incapable of dealing with and conquering your own sin. You don’t need more willpower. You don’t need a special tool. You don’t need another book. You don’t need some kind of special knowledge. You need someone stronger than you – you need the Holy Spirit of God. The only way to have access to the Holy Spirit is through Jesus Christ. You must admit to Him you are a sinner and that you need Him to save you. Accept that He took the punishment for your sin on the cross and has invited you to accept Him as Lord and Saviour of your life.

When you have done that, He will grant to you the Holy Spirit, and it is He who will do the hard work in you. Take a look at what Galatians 5 says about the battle between sin and the Spirit and our desperate need for the Spirit’s help.

“I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” (Galatians 5:16-21)

I know you see yourself in one of those works of the flesh. I know you see your greatest temptation struggle in there. How do you get rid of it? Ask for forgiveness and then ask for the Holy Spirit’s help. The next verse says,

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” (Gal 5:22-25)

Do you need more patience, more gentleness, more self-control? You need to submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and accept the gift of the Holy Spirit. And then you need to listen His words by reading scripture and stay alert for when He speaks to you. Learn what He desires from you by reading His word, and then listen for his voice to convicts you, correct you, train you, help you, educate you, encourage you, and strengthen you. His voice is still available today for those who want it.

And third, if you want to be free from your sin, you need to hate it. Let me give a final warning, and it’s something that convicted me very deeply this week. It comes from Psalm 66:18, but I want to read the context to you. Open to Psalm 66:16-19:

“Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for my soul. I cried to him with my mouth, and high praise was on my tongue. If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. But truly God has listened; he has attended to the voice of my prayer.”

This is written to believers – “all you who fear God” – and contains a promise and a warning. The promise is that God will hear our prayers and He will do something on your behalf. The warning is found in verse 18:

“If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.”

This promise is written all over the Bible. I told you that the way out from under sin is to turn it over to God through the shed blood of Jesus Christ, and by accessing the power of the Holy Spirit. That all comes through prayer – talking to God. Nothing happens until we talk to God in prayer. That’s how God built the system.

As long as we are “cherishing” sin, God doesn’t listen. No forgiveness, no healing, no renewal, no miracles, no nothing. If we cherish sin, God’s ears are shut. To cherish sin means to enjoy it, approve of it, make excuses for it, love it, hold it close, make it important, protect it, make it special, keep it secret and safe.

The only way to kill the sins within us is to hate them – to hate them like God hates them. Only then will we want to be rid of them! Learn to hate pornography, hate drugs, hate greed, hate unrighteous anger, hate greed, hate laziness, hate gluttony. As long as we cherish our sin, we show that we do not hate it, and we will never be rid of it. Cherishing it means we want it more than God, more than forgiveness, more than blessing, more than peace… even though it’s killing us.

Your sin is affecting your conscience, your heart, your home, your relationship with God and with others. Don’t cherish your sin – instead confess it to God, accept His forgiveness through Jesus, and live His way.