Would you stop the conception of Adolph Hitler if you could?

Thinking about time machines is fun because it allows us to think about the hypotheticals of history. As we study the past and we see the cause and effect relationship of people and events we can speculate what may have happened if a certain person had never been born.

This then always leads to the question of what would you have done to prevent the Holocaust or any of the other horrific events of human history.

We then wish “Oh if we only had a time machine we could go back into the past and stop that person from ever being born”. Sound familiar?

While this is a fun topic we all know that such is mere conjecture and more of an exercise in understanding history than it is a fruitful endeavor of any consequence.

But what if I told you that you can prevent the conception of the multiple killers, murderers and villains of the future?

Sin Gives Birth to Death

James 1:13-15 is one of the most telling passages in all of Scripture because it shows us the process of how death is brought into and released from our lives.

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. 14 But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. 15 Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.

-James 1:13-15

The Holy Spirit is indicating here that temptation is a result of our evil desires attempting to bring about death in us and through us. The picture that James paints is that of our evil desires being like a gold-digger seductress that attempts to entice us so that she can conceive a child and then give birth to a baby named “Sin”. James goes on to say that once this child is full grown that it will become a serial killer and bring forth death.

Evil is Present Within Me

It is truly a fascinating thing to consider that within our very hearts are dormant desires to do wrong and sinful things. I say it’s fascinating because it speaks to the complexity and inscrutability of the human heart. In other words we may think that we are good people and want to do things that are righteous but we are only able to say that honestly when the desire for something we know is wrong is not manifest in our souls. Yet such words seem less powerful and true when wicked desires make themselves present in our hearts and we find ourselves tempted to do wrong.

Paul discusses this in Romans 7:14-25 lamenting over the mystery of his heart that in one sense agrees with the Law of God and wants to live that way but then in a hidden and unknowable way doesn’t want to follow God’s Laws. He concludes that “evil is present within me - the one who wants to do good” (Romans 7:21). Essentially stating that in his inner man there is a struggle - he ultimately loves God and wants to please Him but there is a mysterious thing inside of him that doesn’t want that and he regularly finds himself struggling between the two.

This battle is probably one of the most common experiences of all christians - we find ourselves struggling with sin.

In this struggle I would admonish you - along with James - to fight against sin with all your heart because if we give sin place in our lives we have just allowed for a mass murderer to be conceived and grow up in our midst because when sin reaches its maturity it brings forth death.

So would you stop something that brings death from ever coming into the world? You can if you are able to resist temptation and defeat sin by the Grace of God.