Avoidance

The punishment of your iniquity has been completed, O daughter of Zion; He will exile you no longer. But He will punish your iniquity, O daughter of Edom; He will expose your sins! Lamentations 4:22 NASB

Recently one of my grandsons decided not to do his homework. Not just for a day, but for quite a while. He got away with it too long, and finally got caught. I said to him “the Bible says be sure your sins will find you out.” I have lamented that comment for a couple weeks now. Here is why, I can’t find that exact quote in the Bible. It was drilled into me as a child that it was a direct Bible verse.

I had no more than said it to my grandson when I began to wonder where it was located. There are several indicators in Scripture that show the truth of the matter, but no direct quote. It may be that you are not disturbed by sayings that have truth but don’t have a direct basis; I am okay with that. However, it has bugged me to no end that I would say something that is not totally true as though it was the very gospel itself. I think that our “playing loose” with Scripture quotes is part of what has damaged the church in the eyes of the skeptic.

My grandson’s father is a self-declared agnostic. He is an agnostic in part because of the things he was told as a child that have not come true in his life. I may be overly sensitive to these types of issues because of our relationship, yet I fail to see where misquoting the Bible helps us spread the gospel in an honest and forthright manner.

It is true that God will expose sin, but He generally only does so when there is no repentance. Un-repented sin almost always shows up. I believe it goes to the matter that God will do just about anything to bring us to repentance when we are one of His children gone astray

Sinners seem to get away with a lot more than saints. My thinking is that as Christians (saints) we have a loving Father that will chastise us to keep us walking the straight path to heaven. The sinner has either rejected the Father or never known the Father, and there is no relationship to guide them in the ways of righteousness.

There is coming a time when God says enough as it relates to every man. He gives us opportunity in our life time to develop a relationship with Him, but He will not wait forever. Our sin will come out. It happens over and over in life. As I write this a prominent politician is under fire for his sins, a former star is fighting to stay out of jail for his sins, and millions of people are facing an eternity of damnation as they face the final judgment of their sins.

The easiest thing to do with sin is to confess it and repent. When I began researching the phrase I quoted to my grandson I started with “your sins.” In the New Testament we find this:

"Therefore, repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; Acts 3:19 NASB

Don’t hide your sin, instead repent.