Recently my wife told me of an incident she witnessed while grocery shopping. The person in front of her in line, had some items lying on the bottom of the cart. As she watched, the person in front of her took a couple of flat boxes and covered the items up where they couldn't be seen and then proceeded to check out, and the checker, instead of checking under the boxes (which, I believe, is standard operating procedure in any store), only checked out the items in the cart, and never looked under the boxes to see if there were any items there.
Needless to say, my wife was stunned. Her first reaction was to say nothing, not get involved. After all, it was the checker's responsibility to look under the boxes to see if there were anything there, not hers, but the more she thought about it though, the more she felt she should say something and so she did. She told the checker the person in front of her had covered up some items on the bottom of the cart and had checked out without paying for them. Needless to say the shock she had felt at the brazen attitude of the person who had stolen the items was nothing to the shock she received at the checker's next action -- he just shrugged his shoulders in a "no big deal" way and continued to check her out not doing anything about the fact that the person in front of her had stolen the items. My wife was totally flabbergasted at the attitude of the employee that it was no big deal that someone had just stolen no telling how many dollars worth of merchandise.
As she told me about the incident, I could not help but think of how the attitude of both people, the one who stole and the checker, was a reflection of the attitudes of many Christians and Christian ministers.
All around us, people openly commit sin and Christians and ministers turn away and do not say anything or, if they do say anything, it's after much thought about what they are going to say for they surely don't want to offend anyone.
Growing up in the '50s & '60s, the idea of living together and having children without being married was considered to be sin and the children of such unions were called bastards. Well, at least until the mid '60s -- today, not so much. It's even looked upon by the church as acceptable behavior. What changed? God? Jesus? God's Word? I don't think so. Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today and tomorrow (Hebrews 13:8). Sin is, and always will be sin.
It has always amazed me how we will consider some sins to be really horrible, and others, because they have now become acceptable by society are OK even if they are clearly against Scripture. We have progressed to the point where we dress sin up, kinda clean a sin up (by our standards) and give it a new name and bless it, allowing it to run rampant in the body of Christ. The sin called fornication calling for the excommunication of the guilty parties spoken of in 1st Corinthians 5 is so common in today's churches no one even raises an eyebrow, while we, as did the Corinthians are puffed up, proud of our "tolerance" our "unconditional love."
We have progressed to the place where the church is no longer repentant of our personal sins -- after all, Jesus cleanses from all sin, right? Wrong. The scriptures say: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness"(1st John 1:9) but we no longer believe we have any need to repent of our sin since we are no longer sinners because we are in Christ. I would like to understand how we can read the verses in 1 John 1:5-10 and come away with the idea we are no longer sinners? Are we calling God a liar?
We support our sinful actions by dressing them up and calling them mistakes which everyone makes. It's OK, as long as you go to church, hear what God says, live a good life. Those martyred, who have perished fighting sin are weeping for you -- can't you hear them?
If it WAS sin in God's view, it's STILL sin in God's view, our dressing it up doesn't change that fact any more than denying the sun is going to rise in the east is going to make it rise in the west. Actually, I think the odds would be more favorable for the sun to rise in the west than for sin to no longer be sin in God's sight.
The Bible was written to God's children not the unbelievers of the world. Even after Jesus died for sin and rose from the dead we are told to "go and sin no more." We are told to flee sin, to not allow sin to have dominion over us, to be on the lookout because the same devil that deceived Eve is still running around trying to deceive mankind. We are told to walk in the spirit so we will not fulfil the lusts of the flesh which James says will lead us into sin (James 1:14-16). You can gamble if you want; as for me and those I teach and am responsible for, we will repent of our sins and follow the Lord.
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Editor's note: Charlie Newman is pastor of Avoca Christian Church. To contact him, e-mail [email protected], or write in care of The Times at [email protected] or P.O. Box 25, Pea Ridge, AR 72751.
Religion on 06/17/2015