No Wiggle Room

March 15

Our God doesn’t give any ‘wiggle room’ to man’s sin. The just punishment for all departure from God’s holy ordinance is death. The man who is a mass murderer is guilty in God’s eyes of the infraction of all His law. The man who is a tax cheat is guilty in God’s eyes of the infraction of all His law.

That doesn’t sound ‘fair’ to our finite mind. We are accustomed to making accommodation for our proclivity to sin, for our shortcomings, our foibles. In fact, we hardly call our law-breaking what it is--‘sin.’ The word ‘sin’ itself is virtually obsolete in the modern vocabulary. It is an archaic relic of our distant past.

The notion of sin before a Holy God has been ‘white-washed’ in the doctrine of a very influential religion. One of its tenets is that because their god knows man's penchant for sin and because he understands his frame and because he is merciful, he will, ‘wink at sin.’ That is not to say there are not harsh penalties to be paid if one breaks his law, but he gives some lea-way. The idea is that he has made man as he is so he understands his helplessness when confronted with temptation.

Contrast that with the truth that is set forth in Ezekiel 12:21-24 which says, “If the wicked man forsakes his sin…he will surely live; he will not die…and if a good man turns away from goodness to commit abominations…his sin will condemn him to death.” God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but anyone, even someone who has once known the path of righteousness, will not be spared if he turns to evil.