Tag Archives: Sin

Walking into the Spider’s Web

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Looking out my office window today there is a leaf caught in an unseen thread of a spider’s web. I’ve known the spider’s been there for a while, there is a funnel web outside the window that leads to the corner of the sill.  What I didn’t know is how far out the web reached.  This fine, gossamer web is able to keep hold of the leaf, regardless of the wind that makes it spin and pull at its restraint.

It reminds me that this is the time of year when I will inevitably walk into a spider’s web.  This is what I look like when that happens:

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There is no dignified response when you walk into a web.  It’s a mad dance of fury, an unlooked for exercise in futility.  You spend the rest of the day pulling webbing off of your face, just wondering when the spider’s going to crawl over your shoulder. Fortunately, we have more strength than the leaf caught in the web in my window, we can, eventually, break free.

But not from every web.  “Sin is crouching at the door,” it is waiting to devour you. Sin lies in waiting with hidden snares and webs that will bind up your soul in its destructive hold.

Quite often, we never see it coming.  The temptations of the web are subtle, enticing, or otherwise so imperceptible, that when we do finally notice, its too late.  We chase that momentary thought of self-pity and entitlement to its natural end and we are day-dreaming of vengeance and selfishness.  We catch a glimpse of something from the corner of the eye and an hour later we’re watching something with no redeeming value.  We say we only “share because we care,” but in reality we enjoy being the source of gossip and sought out by others.

The problem is, sin has such a hold on us we cannot break free.  Like Frodo bound in Shelob’s web, we are incapacitated and unable to help ourselves.

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No matter how much you struggle, once entangled in sin, you cannot get free.  Every effort simply makes the binding even tighter.

The good news is this: Christ breaks the power of cancelled sin.  By his atoning work on the cross, Jesus has not only cancelled the power of sin in your life by taking the guilt and wrath you rightly deserved upon himself, he also has set you free from sin’s power to reign over you.

Psalm 31:3-5 says, “You are my rock and my fortress; and for your name’s sake you lead me and guide me; you take me out of the net they have hidden for me, for you are my refuge. Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.”

By faith in Jesus Christ, you have been set free from the entangling web of sin, and hidden in the refuge, the fortress, the rock!  By his word and Spirit, Christ leads you and guides you in righteousness for his name’s sake.  Commit yourself to him, for he is faithful, and will keep you from stumbling.

SDG

Abhorring Evil

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“Abhor Evil…”
Rom 12:9

We are living in evil days.  There is boldface murder of the unborn under the guise of “reproductive freedom,” and the profiteering and politicizing of this atrocity.  Around the world Christians are persecuted for their faith with little to no repercussion.   Politicians pander in deception, misdirection, and lies, and advance their careers upon their falsehood with impunity.  In our culture wickedness and godlessness are not just tolerated but encouraged, and those who are most provocative are set forward as “role models” for our young men and women.

And so when the Spirit teaches us to “abhor evil” in Romans 12:9, we find this something we are ready and willing to do.  It is easy to identify the evil and wickedness of the age.  The filthy and lurid putrescence of the day stands out like soiled garments to those who are even tangentially familiar with godliness.  We are quick to decry the offending evil around us and to pronounce our condemnation upon the evil in the lives of others.

But what about the evil in our own hearts? We certainly may have routed out the more visible sins in our lives – immorality, licentiousness, drunkenness, and the like – but we gladly turn a blind eye to the gossip, the bitterness, the envy, and the judgmentalism in our own hearts. It is easy to hate the evil of others and to dismiss our own.

The Westminster Confession reminds us that repentance, which is a gift of grace, leads a sinner to realize the “filthiness and odiousness of his sins” that he might grieve for and hate his sins, “to turn from them all unto God.”  (Notice that the direction of repentance is inward, not dealing with the sins of others, but with our own.) We don’t come to abhor our sins by the power of our will or a determination to better ourselves.  This conviction of our sinfulness and repulsion for our sin, is the working of God’s Holy Spirit within us. As the Spirit leads us to know and understand the greatness of the glory of God, the depth of our depravity, and the extent to which Christ has gone to purchase our salvation, we will come more and more to hate our own sinfulness and to turn from it.  Charles Spurgeon once said, “I hate sin not because it damns me, but because it has done God wrong. To have grieved my God is the worst grief to me.”

And therein lies the key to hating sin and evil. It is not enough to simply stop doing evil and picking up a few good habits. Doing this will only replace the wickedness of our hearts with some rigid morality and legalism – which may be an even more pernicious evil.

This was the fault of the pharisees. They practiced outwardly the habits of ceremonial cleanliness, while their hearts were far from God.  Jesus said, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness” (Matt 23:27–28).

What we need is  what Thomas Chalmers called “the expulsive power of a new affection.” The only way to truly abhor the evil of our hearts and of the world is to find a new love.  As we turn our eyes to Christ, and find in Him the deeply satisfying glory of purity and holiness, we will see more and more the emptiness and futility of evil.  As we come to know the sweet and refreshing fragrance of the joy of Christ, the foul offense of evil will become detestable to our senses.  As we behold more and more the beauty of our ascended Lord, the hideousness of evil will cause us to fly from this world into His everlasting arms.

So let us learn in the Spirit to abhor sin, the sin of the world, and the sin in our hearts. But let our hatred of sin come only as we gaze upon the goodness and loveliness of Christ our Savior!

SDG