This phrase appears in 1 Kings 16:31, speaking of King Ahab of Israel at the time.
And it came to pass, as though it had been a trivial thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he took as wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians; and he went and served Baal and worshiped him.
If you know anything about the characters involved in this verse (Ahab, Jezebel, Jeroboam, and Baal), you’ll understand the gravity behind it. The sins of Jeroboam were nothing less than extreme national idolatry, but that was considered a trivial thing compared with what he did next. The subtle trigger in this verse is right at the beginning: And it came to pass. All of this simply came to pass.
Two abstract little phenomena are all it takes for sin to grow to egregious levels: an attitude that regards sin as trivial, and the passage of time. It’s inevitable. If we don’t recognize the seriousness of a “small sin” and take appropriate steps to extirpate it, it won’t be “small” for long. And we won’t have to do anything to make this happen. We won’t have to plan to make things worse. We won’t have to rationalize it. We won’t have to intentionally lower our guard, loosen our filter, alter our habits, or change our circles. Time and flesh will take care of that for us.
If we don’t want to end up marrying Jezebel or going and serving Baal and worshiping him, then when we find ourselves walking in the sins of Jeroboam, let’s not consider it trivial.
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