Our True Dilemma

May 8

We live in an age of moral ambiguity. We no longer see matters of 'right and wrong' as being 'right or wrong.' We see through a veil of uncertainty that results in our calling 'good evil and evil good.' Isaiah 5:20 pronounces woe upon those who blur the distinction between righteousness and evil.

Our dilemma is that man has obscured the line between right and wrong since his habitation of the planet began. When the evil one suggested to Eve that perhaps God hadn't really intended that she refrain from the forbidden, he planted the seed of vacillation between obedience to God's law and disdain for it (See Genesis 3:1).

Covert sin began at that point when Eve and the man that she compelled to join her in sin, Adam, hid from God to conceal their disobedience. The pronounced difference between them and man today is the fact that the modern sinner doesn't feel the need to hide his sin. There are blatant examples of today's acceptance of sin that would once have been condemned.

The mayor of a great American city, for example, lives openly with his mistress. The governor of that same state shares the governor's mansion with his live-in girlfriend who happens to be a celebrity in her own right. In their flagrant wallowing in the quagmire of sexual sin, they are without shame. In this they reflect the moral ambiguity of the voters who elected them.

We are without moral 'high ground,' and we are indeed, without a moral compass. Has sin changed? Are we worse than our ancestral counterparts? No, it has not and we are not. We are simply so inured to the reality of sin that we don't feel any need to veil it. If we feel no compunction against sin, then we recognize no need for a Savior--and that's our true dilemma.