Tag Archives: Righteousness

Good Morning, M. Le Pew!

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“The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD,
but the prayer of the upright is acceptable to him.”
(Proverbs 15:8 (ESV)

I must have missed the memo.  Did anyone else know it was Skunk Week?  Maybe the drought has made these “odor-able cats” more adventurous, or perhaps with the sunrise coming later every morning, their “up” time and my running time are overlapping.  Whatever the case, I saw three skunks in the last week while on my morning run.  So be warned, the skunks are out in force.

As a public service, then, I thought I’d share some advice on avoiding skunks that I found at the Animal Planet website.  Most of it is common sense – something that, as a runner, I may be lacking.

  1. Stay Away – Skunks only spray when they are threatened, so keep your distance and don’t threaten the skunk, and you won’t have a problem.
  2. Freeze – If you do see a skunk at a distance, stop where you are and let it pass.  It is the passive approach, but it is effective.
  3. Speak Softly and Walk with a Big Stomp – Speak in a low voice and stomp your feet. Skunks have poor vision and often spray in defense because they simply don’t know what’s going on.  (I tried this approach when I saw one at the corner of 11th and Hillside – the skunk just stood there and looked at me until I decided to turn around and run the other way – not a real effective technique).
  4. Run… or Shut Your Eyes and Hang On Tight – Right before a skunk lets loose its spray of stinkiness, it stomps its feet and turns around.  If you see a skunk doing this little dance, run away or hang on tight, because you’re about to get skunked.

If you do happen to get sprayed remember,

  1. Everything you touch will smell like skunk, so stay outside
  2. Don’t soak yourself in tomato juice, or spray on a bunch of air fresheners, unless you want to smell like “fresh morning dew skunk” or “vanilla skunk.”  Instead, you have to wash yourself in a special mixture that will neutralize the chemicals in the spray.

Now, as bad as it would be to get sprayed by a skunk, the sad reality is, apart from Christ, we reek of sin and we are an offence in the nostrils of God.  The prophet Isaiah writes, “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garments” (Is 64:6).  The prayers of the faithful were meant to be a fragrant offering in the presence of God, but because of our wickedness, because of the pride of our hearts, our offerings, our works of righteousness, our best efforts are nothing but an abomination to God.

Unlike the blast of a pole cat, this odor isn’t something we can out run or avoid.  We carry it with us.  Like the home of a habitual smoker, everything is saturated with the reek.  Everything we touch is polluted by our sins.  We can try to cover up the offensiveness of our sins with religious showboating and showers of self-righteous, but eventually we’ll all end up smelling of rancid mild and foot.  We try to rid ourselves of the smell, but eventually you realize, it’s not the skunk, it’s you that stinks.  The odor is coming from your heart.  Then what?

Our only hope is to be washed and made clean in Christ Jesus.  Repeatedly in the NT, this idea of washing is used to signify our salvation.  Paul summarizes the gospel in Titus saying, “But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:4–7), and in 1st Corinthians when he writes, “You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor 6:11).  Hebrews encourages us to come before God through Jesus, “with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water” (Heb 10:22).

When the Leper came to Jesus for healing in Matthew 8, he cried out “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”  And of course, Jesus said in reply, “I am willing, be clean.”  Whatever the sin, whatever the offence, whatever blemish you carry, the Lord is able and He is willing to cleanse you; to wash you and make you new.  Turn to Him, fix your eyes on Jesus, let his mercy pour over you so that you may lay aside the filthy garments, every weight and sin which clings so closely… and run with endurance the race that is set before us.

Repentance is…

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“No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”
(Luke 13:3 (ESV))

Imagine for a moment that you had a friend, a spouse, a child, who continually hurts you through what they said or done, and, when confronted about their behavior, readily apologizes and promises never to do it again, but only too soon returns to their offending behavior.  What would you do?  What would you think of their apology?  Would you still be able to trust and respect?  When someone we truly love and care for causes us pain, it’s one thing to know that they are sorry for what they’ve done, it’s something else entirely to know that they are trying to change their ways and never do it again.  We’re grateful for the apology, but what we really need is repentance.

Now at the risk of “meddling,” when given the opportunity for privately confessing your sins during worship on Sunday morning, or in that moment of honest reflection in your daily prayers, what do you confess before God?  Is it the same sin each day?  Do you find yourself coming back to God day after day, week after week, confessing the same sin?  While I encourage your constant struggle against sin and your return to the throne of God for mercy, I have to stop and ask, “How is that any different from the unrepentant apology of the friend, or spouse, or child mentioned above?  (Please know, I am writing to myself here more than anyone else.)

Charles Spurgeon once wrote, “the repentance which has no tear in its eye, and no mourning for sin in its heart, is a repentance which needs to be repented of.”  Repentance means to change your mind, to change your behavior, to turn yourself around.  To repent means that at one point you were headed in one direction, but now you’ve changed course and are going a new way.  If you say to God on Sunday morning, “I really am sorry for my behavior last night after the fifth round of drinks,” but next Saturday night you find yourself bellied up to the bar, that is not true repentance.  It may be regret, but it certainly is not repentance.

Here’s the thing: Genuine faith will produce heartfelt repentance.  If you truly believe that while you were still lost in sin, God, in His love, sent His Son Jesus Christ to die your death, to bear God’s wrath, and to offer you forgiveness and the promise of eternal life, then you will grow more and more aware how little you deserved this love and how nothing you could have done could have earned this love. Faith in such radical grace and undeserved love will naturally produce heartfelt sorrow and even a hatred for those things in our lives (covetousness, pride, anger, sexual sin) which offend the One who loves us so, and will teach us to flee from sin and to live joyfully according to the will of God in all good works (Heidelberg Q & A 88-89).  Listen to what the Westminster Confession says about repentance:

By [repentance] a sinner, out of the sight and sense, not only of the danger, but also of the filthiness and odiousness of his sins, as contrary to the holy nature and righteous law of God, and upon the apprehension of his mercy in Christ to such as are penitent, so grieves for, and hates his sins, as to turn from them all unto God, purposing and endeavoring to walk with him in all the ways of his commandments (WCF XV.2).

Unfortunately too many (progressives and conservatives alike) want Scripture to validate their choices and behavior, their opinion and prejudice, rather than submitting to Scripture’s authority as God’s word.  We stare deeply into the well only to find our own reflection looking back and, liking what we see, think that the Bible takes our side and supports our position.  We tell ourselves, “Now that I’ve confessed my sins, and God says he loves and accepts me just the way I am, why should I ever have to change?” 

Let us once again hear the Confession’s call to repent:

They who, upon pretence of Christian liberty, do practice any sin, or cherish any lust, do thereby destroy the end of Christian liberty; which is, that, being delivered out of the hands  of our enemies, we might serve the Lord without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life (WCF XX.3).

Repentance is an ongoing practice, where by the power of the Holy Spirit through the word of God we are continually being convicted of our sin, learning to turn from it unto righteousness, and seeking forgiveness and reconciliation with God and neighbor.  Repentance is part of the Sanctifying work of God’s Holy Spirit within us, destroying the body of sin, mortifying the savage lusts that once ruled our hearts, and working growth in grace and holiness before God.

I leave you with one last thought from Spurgeon:

The man who has led the purest life,
when he is brought before God
by the humbling influence of the Holy Spirit,
is the man who almost invariably
considers himself to have been viler than anybody else.

Repentance is to leave
The sin we loved before,
And show that we in earnest grieve
By doing so no more.

Grace and peace,

SDG