The Things That Matter Most . . . No. 6

THE SINS THAT MATTER MOST

There are frequent efforts made in the Bible to identify those sins that God hates most. In Psalms 15 the question is weighed as to who will dwell in God’s holy hill, and it is made clear that slanderers, liars and reprobates will not. It specifies that those who do evil to a friend, reproach a neighbor, or take advantage of a loan will not sojourn in the Lord’s tent.

The prophets often pinpointed those sins most abhorred by God. Zechariah says: “Do not devise evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath, for all these things I hate, says the Lord.” Amos spoke to several nations, accusing each of three or four of the most abominable sins, including such things as violating the law of brotherhood and treating humanity with disrespect. They would be punished, the prophet insisted, because they sold the righteous for silver and cast off all pity. Drinking had become so excessive that they were using bowls for wine, and a man and his son were sleeping with the same woman.

Jeremiah was disturbed because “Both prophet and priest are ungodly; even in my house I have found their wickedness, says the Lord.” He goes on to say: “In the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a horrible thing: they commit adultery and walk in lies; they strengthen the hands of evil-doers, so that no one turns from his wickedness.” (23:11, 14) These sins are especially horrible to the prophet since they are committed by the religious leaders, thus setting a bad example for the others.

More than anything else, however, the Lord’s wrath was against cold and meaningless worship, which emanated from a selfish and proud heart. He even tells Jeremiah not to pray for such ones. Even when the people come to the temple to pray and offer sacrifices, the Lord turns His face from them. They make God’s house “a den of robbers,” and when they cry out “We are delivered!” it means nothing at all because of their abominable lives. (chap. 7) Their sin was in only having a form of godliness, for in their lives they denied its power. According to 2 Tim. 3:5 this is among the sins that matter most.

The prophet Isaiah would add willful ignorance to the list of the more serious sins. “The ox knows its owner, and the ass its master’s crib; but Israel does not know, my people does not understand.” (1:3) It is the depths of arrogance to pretend a spiritual wisdom that one does not even desire, and it is this that the prophet detested. Among the woes that he pronounced was this one:

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!

Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight!” (Isa. 5:20-21)

The prophet Micah makes clear what God considers most wrong by naming what He considers most right:

“He Has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8)

In the same context the prophet refers to such sins as wicked scales, deceitful weights, violence, and a mean tongue.

In Proverbs, chapter 6, there is a list of the seven things which the Lord hates. It is a wise man’s list of the sins that matter most.

1. Haughty eyes, which reflect a proud heart.

2. A lying tongue, which shows a lack of veracity.

3. Hands that shed innocent blood, which is a desecration of human personality, made in the image of God.

4. A heart that devises wicked plans, which reveals a mind so corrupt that it uses others only as a means for its own gratification.

5. A false witness who breathes out lies, which shows no regard for truth.

6. Feet that make haste to run to evil, which describes a life of folly and moral irresponsibility.

7. A man who sows discord among brothers, which shows an insensitivity to brotherhood and a willingness to corrupt it for one’s own egoistic ends.

We are more familiar with the various lists in the New Covenant scriptures that name the more serious sins. The catalogue given in 2 Tim. 3, referred to above, stresses those wrongs that are centered in selfishness: “For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant. . . “ He also lists “swollen with conceit.” Then there are those sins stemming from disrespect of others: “abusive, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, fierce.” He is describing degeneracy of mind and heart when he names: “haters of good, treacherous, reckless . . .”

“Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” is also on the list, and this sin may be as prevalent in the modern church as it was in the world of Paul’s day. The root of all sin is, after all, disregard for God. It is made all the worse when one regards pleasure and disregards God.

Paul gives further lists in Col. 3 and Gal. 5 and elsewhere. In Col. 3:5 he begins the catalogue of evil by saying: “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you,” and then follows the naming of such sins of the heart as immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness. The list in Galatians is introduced by the injunction: “Walk by the Spirit, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh,” and most notable in this list is “dissension, party spirit, envy.” By our standards we are reluctant to place these things in the same category with “immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery . . .” Those of us who are most fastidious in avoiding “the sins of the flesh” are slow in seeing that partyism is in God’s mind on the same list with adultery and drunkenness.

Introducing these catalogues of sins as he does with such terms as “what is earthly in you” and “the desires of the flesh,” Paul is giving us insights into the meaning of sin. Sin comes from a word originally meaning “missing the mark,” a military term describing a failure to hit the target. In biblical terms we can say that sin is man’s failure to be like God. It is to veer from the course that God intends for man, whether knowingly or unknowingly.

Paul sees the flesh as the seat of sin. But by flesh (Grk. sarx) he does not refer to the body (soma). By flesh he means man’s weakness, the propensity toward evil. It is that tendency to be unlike God and to rebel against God. Sin is therefore a state of separation from God. A sin is an act or attitude stemming from the state of sin, in which one behaves or thinks contrary to God’s purpose for him. Hence it is a missing of the divine mark, of which all men are guilty.

And so Paul says, using the term flesh again: “For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, indeed it cannot; and those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom. 8:7 -8).

Again he speaks of the flesh in I Cor. 2:14, though he uses the synonym psuchikos (unnatural or animalistic) when he says: “The unspiritual man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” This is saying that the carnal part of man cannot understand or appreciate God, for it is at war with God. It is the state of sin that curses man by virtue of the fact that man is carnal as well as spiritual. This is what Paul refers to when he speaks of “what is earthly in you.”

It could be argued, therefore, that it is amiss to speak of the sins that matter most, for all men have sinned and are in the state of sin (unless redeemed by Christ) and so sin is sin with no differentiation to be made. But this is to overlook the difference between the state of sin and sins committed therein, or sins done because of the continual presence of man’s carnal nature, even if redeemed by Christ. Surely some acts and thoughts are more sinful than others, for they are more serious departures from the will of God.

The same may be true even of the state of sin. One man may be more deeply entrenched in a life of sin than another, more unlike the image of God than another. Otherwise the Bible would hardly use such language as “Evil men and imposters grow worse and worse,” and “They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin.”

We must guard against making false judgments about sin. We are inclined either to treat all sins alike, which is bad, or to magnify the lesser sins to the point that they become the greater sins, which is worse. Either fallacy makes our views superficial, but the second adds the pharisaical trait of becoming preoccupied with trivia.

A case in point, which took place in a Dallas congregation, takes the form of a drama, involving family, feelings and friends. The daughter was graduating from high school, where she had marched in the pep squad, dressed in shorts. She was chosen as leading lady in the senior play, which called for dancing scenes (in sparse dress again) and even one in which she lighted a cigarette and twirled with the boys in a night club, all accented by the fact that she did it so very well! This gala affair was followed by an all-night senior party—a Saturday night-chaperoned by the way by her own parents.

A pious girl she is, and one taught never to miss the assembly, so she wound up the exciting senior week in time to attend an early service at her congregation.

During his sermon the minister said some things about the girls in the congregation who display themselves before the public in shorts, referring to those in the pep squad at the high school and perhaps to those in the play. It was probably only a passing remark among more important points, but still he communicated to the audience, and especially the teenagers, a common view of what the church sees as sin. The girl apparently took it in her stride and went her merry way, reacting as so many teenagers do in not taking too seriously the dull platitudes that they hear from the pulpit.

But her father did not react so calmly. Thinking the point important enough to repeat at another service, the preacher again talked about the girls in the congregation who were dancing in shorts on stage and field, or some such words. The father, realizing that everybody knew that the minister was referring to his daughter, stormed Out of the assembly in righteous indignation or at least in indignation!

Later he registered his protest to the elders, insisting that if there was a question about such things it should be handled privately, thus saving his daughter (and himself!) public embarrassment. When the elders defended the minister’s action, the father asked one of them about his son’s basketball activity, performed before the public eye in shorts. And on and on it went . . . .

(If I am prejudiced in my portrayal of this, you should know that I am referring to one of my own brothers and a niece. I saw the play, by the way, and thought it delightful!)

This story points up our need for a consideration of the sins that matter most, which should be our chief concern in our public utterances. What sins would concern Jesus should he stand before that same congregation? He might smile with compassion and delight over the tired high school kids, after a harrowing once-in-a-lifetime experience, who did not forget His assembly even at such a time as that. And He might be less merciful toward sleepy business men who have dissipated their energies all week, as they do every week, chasing the dollar all for selfish gain. His rebukes might well be toward self-righteousness and complacency than toward kids at a high school dance. He might be far more concerned about the lack of love and devotion in the hearts of those that wear His name than in the length of a woman’s skirt. Pride might draw His wrath much more than poker.

Preachers who bargain for pulpits might disgust Him more than a crap game in a back alley, and congregational pride more than prostitution. Elders who seek “peace” more than truth and brethren who have their minds closed to new ideas may be more offensive to the Christ than gambling or dancing. If amidst our arrogance, smug complacency, and insatiable luxury we have occasion to chide high school kids for wearing shorts, we testify to the awful truth that we have little concept as to the nature of sin. And while we are at it we alienate our young people, for they can hardly take our small talk about sin very seriously in view of the real sins they see in the church itself-superficiality not being the least of them.

Yes, all these things we call “worldly” (we hardly see self -conceit as worldly) may well be sinful, whether smoking, dancing, gambling or wearing shorts, but they may well not be. It depends. To say the least, these were not the sins that disturbed Jesus. They are not the sins that matter most.

The mistake we make in “preaching” about these things to our youth is that we put them under law. They get the impression that if they avoid all the things on the “don’t” list they are not worldly. We must rather urge them to yield themselves to God’s grace, and thus realize that the worldliness that is real is a carnal heart, which may manifest itself in erecting a pretentious church edifice as well as in a brothel.

Let us point our youth to Christ, to His love and goodness, to His mercy and compassion. If we bring them to the Christ, we need not bother about putting a tape measure to their skirts. His love will constrain them. If they then choose to join others on the athletic field or on a basketball court dressed in shorts (would anything else be appropriate?), or on a dance floor, we will conclude that they are doing what they believe Christ would have them do in this situation. It is what we do as members of Christ that really matters, not as members of a congregation. Our Christian faith is largely our own business, a very personal matter indeed. In Rom. 14:4 Paul asks: “Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another?” He then utters a most neglected truth: “It is before his own master that he stands or falls.”

It would be wise of us if we approached our youth with that philosophy spoken by Augustine: “Love God and do what you please.” This must be our message—the love of God through Christ. If this does not motivate our youth in the right direction, it will certainly be of no avail to preach law to them. If we teach them to love God, they will of course be pleased only to do what pleases God, not out of fear, but out of devotion.

The legalists were offended when Jesus taught that it is a bad heart that defiles man, not violations of man-made codes, whether regulations about washing hands, dress or diet. “Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man, but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man,” He said. “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.” (Matt. 15:19-20)

In his Mere Christianity C. S. Lewis writes about the sins that matter most. He identifies pride as “the Great Sin” and as the basis of all sin. He observes that “the worst of all vices” has a way of smuggling itself into the very center of our religious lives, that the most pride-filled people are often religious leaders, who theoretically admit themselves to be nothing in God’s presence, but really imagine that He approves of them and thinks them far better than ordinary people.

Lewis points out that pride is essentially competitive. The proud girl not only wants to be pretty, but prettier than others; an arrogant intellectual is not satisfied with being intelligent, but in being more intelligent than others. Pride gets no pleasure out of having something. It must have more than the other fellow.

This truth about the most important of all sins strikes home in the lives of most of us. Perhaps we are most unlike God when we are conceited, and when we are so proud that we think of other children of God as competitors. We compare our homes and our salaries with those of other Christians. We want our children to go to a better college than others get to attend. Preachers have a way of not being satisfied merely in being effective speakers. The compliment they like is that they are better than the others. They also are drawn toward the biggest and most influential churches with the best salaries. In moments of candor the ministers will admit to the competitive nature of their profession.

But we are all hurt by this monstrous sin of pride. We are too concerned for self. We have even learned to be proud of our humility. And yet it is the one sin, as Lewis observes, that people are so unaware of being guilty. While they detest pride and conceit in others, they are blind to it in their own lives—except those whose hearts have been touched by Christ. Through His indwelling Spirit we cultivate selflessness. Not that we deprecate ourselves or indulge in false modesty, but simply that in Him we forget self in service to others.

I am persuaded that more of this kind of thinking will lead us to a deeper view of sin, and will consequently turn our eyes from the lesser sins of others to the sins that matter most-the ones that we are more likely to find in our own lives and in our own churches.—the Editor