There are things that we know in our inner core being as wrong, and yet often we go ahead with them anyway. I think of how when I’m on one of my glutton pilgrimages, I will sneak food into the house, tuck it away in the corner where no one will look, and eat it when I think no one will notice. I can’t find anything in the Bible that says eating potato chips in the closet of my bedroom is a sin. In an objective sense it’s not, but in a subjective sense I know that I’m doing something I’m not supposed to.
In the same way many of our bigger actions which are sins are covered up because we know what we are doing is wrong. God seems to want us to tithe. That is one of the reasons why we insist on secret giving and swearing the counters to silence. It’s not because we don’t want people knowing how generous we are with God. It’s usually because we’re being cheap and we don’t want them to know. We forget that God knows exactly how much we made, and how much we gave.
Of course, you can come to some of the ultimate violations. This could easily be having an affair with your neighbors wife. It could be getting an abortion. It could be cheating a customer on the contract that you had with him. Sin comes in many forms. In your heart you know they’re wrong. That does not stop you.
Often it starts small and grows. I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced a lab experiment using petri dishes. You put the growth material in the bottom and just put it in one little speck of pollution and before you know it the dish is full. In our moral lives we start small, but it grows very quickly. I think that’s what Jeremiah is referring to here,
Jeremiah 19:5 (KJV) They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind:I don’t think that the Jews started off thinking that they were going to take their children and throw them into the furnace, at least not at the beginning. At first, it was simply a matter of being invited to a party in the next village. It went from there to flirting with a cute little girl, who had a pagan father. It might progressed to involve temple prostitutes or wild and crazy sexual exploits that were perfectly normal in that pagan culture. And the slope gets deeper and more slippery with every step.
With the first step these Jews of ancient Israel knew that what they were doing had been forbidden, but it seem like such a small thing. It’s just a party. But they knew that party was forbidden and went anyway. Somehow they thought they were smarter than God, and they began suppressing that inner voice that said this is wrong.
Sometimes that going ahead traps us into proclaiming that what we are doing is good when we know it isn’t. We have the blatant parading of our second or third wife in fancy restaurants. I speak not from experience, just observation.
I think this is where the modern church is. For the most part they are teaching things that they know are not true and living lives that they know are rejecting God’s standards. They may be able to suppress it. They may surround himself with people who sing the same chorus and dance to the same tune. If they were honest with themselves, they would remember that first step where they said, “I know more than God. Don’t be a spoilsport.”
In the final analysis, we are only responsible for our own choices. You cannot reform an entire country, a wayward denomination, or a local church that has sunk into pagan worship. Often you will find no one willing to listen. Make sure that you are willing. Make sure that the one you were listening to is the Holy Spirit. Make sure that the literature that your mind is absorbing is God’s word.
Remember that commercial talking about potato chips, which said, “I bet you can’t eat just one.” You never thought of it as a theological statement. Think again.
homo unius libri
Wow! Thank you!
ReplyDeleteA simple prayer might be, "Lord, preserve us from theologians."
DeleteGrace and peace