Bible Text: Psalm 130:4 | Speaker: Dr. Harold J. Sala | Series: Guidelines For Living | But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. Psalm 130:4, KJV

The artist presumed that it would make the viewer laugh. It was a cartoon showing a man standing at the gates of heaven confronted by an angry-looking St. Peter who was blocking his entrance to heaven. Peter was holding a long list of the man’s sins. With the look of bewilderment on his face, the man responded, “Sins? What do you mean sins? I thought those were lifestyle choices!”

When an author whose best-selling books made their way into bookstores around the world became involved with another woman, he reluctantly admitted his infidelity, referring to it as a “poor choice,” and a “mistake” which he regretted, but the word sin didn’t make the confessional.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger is a common-sense talk show host who refuses to let people get away with irresponsibility. As often as not, people who call her expecting a pat on the head hang up the phone feeling more like a whipped puppy. Recently she wrote, “Every day on my radio program I talk with people who have gotten into all sorts of troubled, unhappy and unworkable situations because they put aside questions of what was sensible, good, right, legal, moral or holy and turned instead to what they thought were worthy, viable alternatives. And always, they have excuses—excuses that may sound good but that don’t stand up to careful examination. ‘Things are different now,’ people say to me.”

Another common theme, says Dr. Laura, is the “Everybody’s doing it” line, to which she responds, “In the final analysis, the ‘everybody’s doing it’ excuse amounts to dropping humanity to its lowest common denominator.”

Dr. Karl Menninger, the renowned psychiatrist, asked the question, Whatever Became of Sin? in the title of his book on personal responsibility. Have we gone soft on sin? Has the word become obsolete? Have we forgotten that there is still a God in heaven who holds us accountable for those “poor choices?”

“I have sinned,” is a phrase used seldom today in accounting for our misdeeds.
Interestingly enough, it was an Egyptian ruler, the Pharaoh who did battle with Moses over the issue of whether or not the cheap labor that had built Egypt should be allowed to emigrate, who first used the phrase, “I have sinned” in the Bible. He wasn’t alone, either. Tracing the use of that phrase chronologically in the Old Testament, the next person to voice those words was a sort of New Age Guru before his time, Balaam, whose donkey had more sense than he did. It was also used by King Saul and his successor David, who cried out, “I have sinned greatly.” In the New Testament both Judas, who betrayed Jesus Christ, and the Prodigal confessed, “I have sinned.”

Dr. Laura suggests that people believe things are different now. And who wouldn’t like to believe that? While people are different, the issue of moral and spiritual wrongdoing has never changed. We still are born, live, die and face the consequences of our moral actions.

A closing thought which brings the whole issue into perspective: To acknowledge your personal responsibility for wrong-doing (which the Bible calls sin) may be difficult, but in doing that, the door to forgiveness and life is opened. Reflecting on his affair with Bathsheba, David cried out, “But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared” (Psalm 130:4, KJV). God forgives sin, but the stupidity of refusing to acknowledge personal irresponsibility is unforgivable. “For the wages of sin is death,” says Paul, quickly adding, “but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

Forgiveness is the solution to our human failure, but until we are forthright and honest enough to admit the reality of sin, we play word games with ourselves and still walk in darkness. Think about it.

Resource reading: Romans 6