Excuses, Excuses...

Early on this summer we had a discussion on Sunday morning in which I contended that in many cases, we as humans and Christians, cannot judge someone's actions as sin or not sin. I'm not talking about the blatant things, but about motives behind actions that we deem sin at worst, and foolish or unwise at best. God will be the judge of these things, and we cannot see the heart as He can. I felt that there were situations where a person can make decisions that do incredible harm to the Church, but do so with the right motives, simply not understanding the whole equation, or not knowing any better. Would a just God punish someone for ignorance?

I don't know whether my position has changed, but it certainly has been narrowed since that time. Romans 2 states:

"For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work fo the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus." (ESV)

This is much like the Law of Human Nature argument presented by C.S. Lewis in the opening of Mere Christianity, and it is right on.

The Normals have a song with the chorus, "Innocence, we never got to say goodbye, But the glory of redemption is the wisdom that we find has taken its place." I had forgotten the verse so often brought up in final judgement debates - "For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse." Romans 1:20 (ESV). Somehow, I think "I didn't know any better" simply won't cut it in the end.

This is the problem with being human. We have been plagued by the greatest deception in the history of the world. I take that back, we are continually plagued by the greatest deception in the history of the world. In my favorite way of phrasing it, we are trapped in these stupid bodies - bodies that are of the flesh, that are weak, that love sin, love pleasure, lack control, rationalize, excuse, and are cunningly deceived by a very, very dangerous enemy. Most of us don't even realize the depth of the fall.

I sat a listened to a conversation among Christians the other day about whether smoking pot in a legal state (and by state I mean country) was a sin or not. None of the group had ever had any experience with marijuana, so were relying on what they had read or had been related to them. The group agreed that drunkeness was clearly a sin and was outlawed for the reason that one's mind is in an altered and uncontrolled state while intoxicated. They also agreed that drinking alcohol at all under the age of 21 was a sin, because it is illegal in the place where we live. It was brought up that people and even some entire cultures smoke pot for the express means of feeling "closer to God". In a similar note, Jazz musicians smoke pot to better experience the music, and critics agree that some of the most incredible music and writing about Jazz has come under the influence of marijuana. So it was concluded... not having personally understood the effects of pot, and if one was to find himself in a country where it was legal, and if someone did it to feel closer to God, there was maybe a sliver of possibility - depending on the effects of pot on the mind - that it could be alright. Now I don't believe that any of these guys would ever smoke pot. BUT SERIOUSLY.

How easy it is for us to get so sidetracked. Whittle down an issue, cut a little corner, overlook a few things, simplify it and anything can look pretty good. That's all it takes. But we live not in a black and white world, but a world in full living color. There is a whole spectrum to be taken in! Never mind legal or illegal, or what constitutes altered states - can you really step up in the end and say that the best stewardship of your gifts and abilities and time on that day was to spend an afternoon wiggin' with Mary Jane? And that's not even addressing the issue of why in the world you would need pot to enhance your view of God - go sit in a truckbed one night and convince yourself you can count all the stars, or sit on a cliff and watch the sunset!

But it's not things like marijuana. It's things like television, or video games, or movies, what you read, or how you spend your time with friends - it's what you surf for on the internet, the way you spend your money, what you talk about, how you talk to eachother, what you eat. Are we making compromises without even recognizing them? Or have we made compromises over and over until they are norms for us?

Here's an excerpt from a John Piper sermon:

…I just plead with you. Don’t throw your life away. You were made to know His Glory. If you say, “I can’t, I won’t, I’m gonna watch TV to get my kicks, I’m gonna do all the other stuff horizontally that are here to do,” …You will waste your life and lose it in the end. That’s number two.

Finally, number three, the word riches. Let’s go to verse 23 again: “God’s purpose is to make known the riches of his glory for the vessels of mercy which he prepared beforehand for glory.” To make known the riches of His Glory, let’s focus on the word riches, as we get ready to close.

Why did he use the word riches? Wealth? For this reason: So that we would be awakened to the truth, that to have God’s Glory as our inheritance makes all the wealth of this world as nothing. If you had all the money in Ft. Knox, or the Ft. Knox of all the nations of the world, you’d be a pauper compared to those who had the Glory of God and nothing else. That’s why he uses the word wealth… “Don’t lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and thieves break in and steal…Lay up for yourself treasures in heaven”, that is, increase your potential enjoyment of the Glory of God…by loving it here, living for it here, sacrificing for it here, lowering your life standard here, so that there’s more of God and less of the world here…Pouring mercy out through your bank accounts, and out of your pockets, so that you learn what it is to receive God’s mercy.

Oh, this word riches is amazing…when you do a study of it. It is unimaginable Paul said…listen to this word: “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, no heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him.” The riches of the Glory of God are unimaginable…Or immeasurable. Take the word immeasurable and go to Ephesians 2:7… “In the coming ages he will show the immeasurable riches of his Glory in kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” Do you see what Ephesians 2:7 is saying? “In the coming ages, he will show,” verse 23, his aim is to show the riches of his glory “…he will show in the coming ages the riches of his grace in kindness…”

Why does he say, “in the coming ages”? You know why? It’s going to take ages, and I would add everlasting ages, for God to finish showing us all of the riches of His Glory. Which means, we will never know all of the riches of his glory. Or better to say, we will always know, every day of eternity, more of the riches of his glory. The reason eternity exists for God’s vessels of mercy, is because these vessels will require endless days to receive new revelations of God’s mercy. A finite vessel cannot receive all of the Glory of God, otherwise we would be infinite also, and if we’re infinite, then we’re God, and God is no longer our God, we are God. Therefore, we will always be finite and yet moving toward infinite possibilities of joy. There will not be one boring day in eternity, (as I feared there would be when I was nine years old). And there will not be one day when the almost infinite pile of past revelations aren’t ripening in the memory giving joy upon joy and every morning there will be new mercies bursting as coming up over some alpine ridge upon our minds to give fresh delights. Old delights ripening, fresh delights coming every day, this is the way it will be forever, and ever, and ever. That is why he uses the word riches. Riches of glory, inexhaustible riches, immeasurable riches, unimaginable riches! And you were made for this.

Oh, if you would just get this! You would turn the TV off, I know you’d turn it off! And you would set your face to see the sky! You would look into your wife or your husband, your babies’ or your friend’s eyes and try to feel wonder! You’d try to get yourself ready for the magnificence of the Glory instead of being drug down into the dirt, and the emptiness, and the triviality, and the banality, and the trifling of television day after day, after day, shrinking, shrinking, shrinking your capacities for spiritual, powerful Joy.

I just plead with you. Set your face to know this Glory! ...Set your Heart to know this Glory! Lay up BIG treasures in heaven!


In the end, very few if any of us can claim ignorance - instead, we might just see for the first time the true depth of how far we fell.

Innocence, we never got to say goodbye
But the glory of redeption
is the wisdom that we find has taken its place...