Satan would hope that we would downplay the seriousness of sin. “It’s just a little white lie,” he would think. He had told Eve, “You will not die.” It seems we have bought into the idea that certain sins are worse than others. Catholics have distinguished mortal sins from venial sins. Some understand the biblical “sin unto death” as proof of levels of sin in the Bible.
Yet, any violation of law is a sin because sin is the transgression of law (1 John 3:4, cf. Rom. 3:20). There are no small and large sins, although some sins carry heavier consequences in this life. We may think that eating fruit from a tree, touching the ark to protect it or picking up sticks on the Sabbath is not a big deal. It certainly would not compare to Cain killing his brother, Abel. Yet, all four were sins transgressions of law that carried serious repercussions. In some cases, the consequence was the loss of life. In fact, the two cases where individuals lost their lives were over sins that we might consider to be inconsequential (picking up sticks, touching the ark). One deviation can lead to ongoing sins.
Sin has a way of creeping up on us and often several transgressions lead to more transgression — step by step (cf. Psalm 1). Ecclesiastes 10:13 reads, “The beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness, and the end of his talking is mischievous madness.” For example, David gives way to his wandering eye, and this led him to plot a death and adultery. He describes the condition of life when then memory of sin is repressed and ignored. His bones broke, wept rivers upon his bed at night. Satan draws you to will first draw you to sit with the drunkard, and then to sip with the drunkard, and then at last to be drunk with the drunkard. Similarly, Psalm 1 illustrates this progressive nature of sin. Sin is never at a stand-still (Psalm 1:1). But, Satan starts with downplaying the importance of pure thoughts and distinguising important and significant things from unimportant and insignificant. If Satan can get us in that mindset, then we can throw aside Scripture that we do not think is significant.