Just having read the book by Jerry Bridges; Respectable Sin,
I’m reminded of a old fable, coming out of Africa, which tells of the hunter
who lost his life to the leopard he himself had saved as a pet for his children
when the leopard was just a cub. I
deducted the moral of the story simply from the title, Little Leopards Become
Big Leopards, meaning that sin is easier to deal with before it becomes a
habitual practice that eventually defines my life. (Thank you, Sonja and Ed. For not having your service, as missionaries in
Africa, I probably would have never read Paul White's work.) Though the story
as it stands is a beautiful illustration of a profound truth, there is a deeper
lesson regarding the nature of sin that is easily concealed by this line of
thinking and which, I believe, lies at the very essence of the Christian call
to Christ-likeness. The problem is that the
parallel between little harmless leopard cubs and little harmless sins has, at
times, been dangerously deceptive.
Whereas leopard cubs are indeed harmless, there is no stage
of development at which sin I can say to be harmless, for my acts of sin are
merely the symptoms of the true condition of my heart. It is not accidental that the call to
Christian growth in the Scriptures repeatedly zeros-in on such seemingly benign
"human shortcomings" as bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words,
slander, and malicious behavior, as Ephesians 4:31 indicates. In his watershed address, The Sermon on the
Mount, Jesus placed a great deal of emphasis on lust, anger, and
contempt—behaviors and attitudes that would probably not rank high on most
folks list of problems in need of urgent resolution. Armed with firm and
sometimes unconscious categories of serious versus tolerable sins, I have
sometimes, glossed over lists of vices in the Scriptures because, I suppose,
they seem to be of little consequence to life as I experience it.
But when thinking about it, I’ve failed to grasp the
subtleties of sin, running the risk of rendering much of biblical wisdom
irrelevant to my daily life and practice.
While I appreciate the uniqueness and necessity of the sacrificial death
of Jesus on my behalf, His specific teachings can at times appear to be farfetched
and the emphasis misplaced. Does it not
seem incredible that the God who made this world would visit it in its
brokenness, dwell among us for over thirty years, and then leave behind the
command that we must be nice to each other?
Can the problems of the world really be solved by having people "turn
the other cheek" and "get rid of anger and malice"? To quote a close friend, "Hello!"
Unfortunately, those "little" sins are not only
the mere symptoms of a much bigger problem; they are also effective means of
alienating me from God and other human beings. I’m asking myself, right now, how
many careers have been ruined only because of jealousy? How many people have been deprived of genuine
help as a result of the seemingly side-comment of someone who secretly despised
them? How many relationships have been
destroyed by bitterness? How many
churches have split up because of selfish ambitions couched in pietistic
terms? How much evil has resulted from
misinformation, a little coloring around the edges of truth? And I have just come through an experience
where I noticed how much control someone can have with body language? From the political arena to the basic family
unit, the worst enemy of human harmony is not spectacular wickedness but those
seemingly harmless petty sins routinely assumed to be part of what it means to
be human.
According to a NASA scientist, a two-degree miscalculation
when launching a spacecraft to the moon would send the spacecraft 11,121 miles
away from the moon: all one has to do is take time and distance into account. How
perceptive then was George MacDonald when he uttered these chilling words, "A
man may sink by such slow degrees that, long after he is a devil, he may go on
being a good churchman or a good dissenter, and thinking himself a good
Christian"! Similarly, C.S. Lewis
warned that cards are a welcome substitute for murder if the former will set
the believer on a path away from God.
"Indeed," he wrote, "the safest road to Hell is the
gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without
milestones, without signposts."
On Ash Wednesday, this past, mother died at age ninety
one and what a glorious day for her as the day came she had lived her life for! Genesis 3:19: “For dust you are and to dust you shall return.” Mother was a strong believer of confession
and repentance, practicing it; I had always thought, almost to a fault. I finished Respectable
Sin the next morning after taking sister to the airport and began this journal
entry having discovered the decisive path out of this quandary is not just a
greater resolve to be obedient to God. I
ruminated on the fact that such a response has usually been motivated by guilt,
and the duration of my effort has been directly proportional to the amount of
guilt I have felt: finding myself right back where I had started from when the
guilt was no longer as strong. Thank you Mother for your example in my now conviction that the appropriate response must begin with a greater appreciation
of the holiness of God and a clear vision of life in God. It is only along the path of Christ-likeness
that the true nature of sin is revealed and its appeal blunted. O’ Yes, brazen sinfulness is appallingly evil
and destructive, but it only makes a louder growl in a forest populated by
stealthier, deadly hunters masquerading as little leopards.
Father, God, I think it is no idle, perfunctory pastime,
this morning, to pray with King David:
this morning, to pray with King David:
Search me, O
God, and know my heart;
Test me and
know my thoughts
Point out
anything in me that offends you,
and lead me along the path of everlasting life. Your loving son, Amen
