In today’s culture it is common to redefine words. Are we afraid to call sin, sin? Do we agree with what is culturally or politically correct instead of agreeing with what God says? Do we say abortion isn’t murder; it’s a choice for the woman to make since it is has to do with her body? Do we justify sex before marriage? Is adultery okay if your spouse doesn’t love you (or whatever other excuse you have)? Is homosexuality really a sin or is it a choice that makes some people happy? Is it okay to do whatever we want to do with our bodies, watch any entertainment we choose, tell or listen to any joke, are “little” lies okay (after all we are protecting someone), and is it okay to make up our own rules concerning right and wrong? When we have no standard of right and wrong, everyone does that which is right in his own eyes. BUT we do have a standard—the Word of God. God, who made us, gave us instructions in His Word how to live. It is our choice to check out what God says or to go our own way and do our own thing. The book of Judges in the Bible gives us a picture (horror story) of what happens in society when “every man does did that which was right in his own eyes.” (Judges 21:25)
When we redefine sin away, we cannot directly confront the sin problem, thus we cannot get to the cure for the problem. “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (I John 1:8) If we deny that we are sinning then we don’t need the cure. If you claim that you don’t have pneumonia or any other illness when you do, you are not going to seek a cure. We need to recognize our sin as God does. God gave us the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20) and many other instructions so that we would know what sin is. No we cannot come to God by keeping the laws but we can realize our sin and see our need of God. “Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God…by the law is the knowledge of sin.” (Romans 3:19, 20b) Now we can seek the cure! “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
