The kind of indegestion that none of us need

From the Pastor's Study, by Rev. Jack Hulsey

The kind of indigestion that none of us need

When sin creeps into our lives – and believe me, it will – we have to choose how we will respond. We can look to others for help, we can seek all the advice we want to seek, and our friends and loved ones may very well try to come to our aid with good opinions and great intentions. But the reality is that the choice is ours and ours alone. God holds us responsible for our own sin. We can't face Him like Adam did and cry that “someone else made me do it.”

I ran across an interesting little morality tale the other day, which I think illustrates this idea in a unique way. An old desert nomad, sleeping in his tent under the stars, woke up in the middle of the night and was hungry. He lit a candle, and finding some dates and a bowl beside his bed, he began eating them.

He took a bite from one date, and saw it had a worm in it. So he tossed it out of the tent and picked up another date. He bit into it and it also had a worm, so he threw it away, too. He did this a few more times, and then it occurred to him that if he kept doing so soon he'd have no dates left to eat but would still be hungry.

Well, his answer to this problem was just the kind of solution many of us are often tempted to apply to our dilemmas like this: he blew the candle out and ate the rest of the dates in the dark. I hope I haven't spoiled your appetite by telling you this story. What does it remind you of? Isn't it something like the story where the man told his friend," I've been reading so much about the dangers of drinking lately that I'm going to give it up."" You're going to give up drinking?" his friend asked in amazement." No, I'm going to give up reading," the man said.

Unfortunately, you can close your eyes to sin, or you can turn the light off so you don't see it – but it's still there and it's still sin. Obscuring it doesn't make it go away, doesn't make it less sinful, and really doesn't make it taste any better, either.  The Bible tells many stories of people who tried to cover up their sin, Adam & Eve, Achan, Saul, David, and many others.  Proverbs 15:3 (NASB) tells us that, “The eyes of the LORD are in every place, watching the evil and the good.”  There is no way that closing our eyes or turning away will erase what is being done. All have sinned, that separates us from God, and sin brings death. But there is hope! "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.  (John 3:16)  The choice is yours, turn away or turn to Him.

Now back to our story about the nomad. It doesn't tell us how the rest of his night went, but it's not hard to imagine. Sin is the most toxic substance there is, and the wages of it are a whole lot worse than a case of indigestion.

From the Pastor's Study -- by Rev. Jack Hulsey
(Printed in the March 8, 2015 Praise & Worship, Woodlake Baptist Church)