The Danger of Unrepentant Sin, Part 6

The Danger of Unrepentant Sin, Part 6
Thursday, December 22, 2022 by Dr. James Walraven

Categories: Apologetics / Contemporary issues / Encouraging words / Hope in Christ / Scripture discussion / The church / Thought for Today

What about us? What about our own sin? Where are we? How do we respond when God starts to convict us regarding our own sin?

I’m going to start by writing about a recent example from my own life. I like to play computer games. I’m also very competitive. Particularly if the game is a “city builder” type game or presents an underlying long-term logic puzzle, I will probably enjoy it. Often, this type of game doesn’t depend on eyesight: one can take as much time as needed to figure something out. For me, that is yet another big plus. This sort of game isn’t inherently sinful: we’re not talking about a game that is, say, pornographic or directly tied to the occult, games that are directly sinful.

Almost all of our culture, and even most within the church wouldn’t have an issue. Maybe spending extra time isn’t a good idea, but big picture, so what? So what indeed is the problem? Exodus 20:3: You shall have no other gods before Me.

Anything that we spend excessive time with, anything at all in our lives that we place before God violates Exodus 20:3; we’ve placed something other than God first. I ended up spending way too much time playing that particular game, taking time away from things I needed to be about, things God wanted me to do. It was, therefore, sin, even idolatry. We saw in the previous post that idolaters will not be part of God’s eternal kingdom.

God made it very clear that I needed to stop playing it (at least for now, and possibly permanently). If I didn’t there would be long-term consequences. So although I hate to say that it took awhile, I did stop. I repented.

Now suppose I hadn’t stopped, that I hadn’t repented. What would I have then done? Most likely I’d have rationalized Exodus 20:3 along with other passages away, figuring out alternate interpretations so those passages wouldn’t apply to me. In other words, I’d start to deliberately misinterpret and reject the clear meaning of Scripture. Again, that is where unrepentant sin leads.

I should add that we Christians, and churches in general often have our own hierarchies of sin, that some particular sin is especially heinous while some other sin is more or less excusable. Adultery and divorce are often viewed as being unforgivable (even after there has been genuine remorse and repentance), while gluttony at a church potluck is disregarded and joked about (see a near endless number of Facebook posts about church potlucks). Telling a “while lie” is often seen as being a good thing, even though lying is another sin that lands one in Hell.

A biblical understanding of sin is crucial. There is much that our culture excuses or even celebrates, that God calls sin.

How do we become free of the sin that so easily entangles us? We will look at that question in the last post of this series.

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