Calling Sin What It Is.

[aiki]

Romans 1:28-32
28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.
29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips,
30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,
31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

​

North American culture is demonstrating at this very moment the process of delusion and degradation the apostle Paul outlined in the first chapter of Romans. This process has played out in other cultures and times, of course, but now we get a front row seat to the moral collapse of our own nation (I'm Canadian, by the way, but Canadian culture is close enough to American culture to sustain lumping them together, I think). It's amazing, really, how accurately Paul has described what is occurring in this modern moral implosion of North American society.

There are a number of tempting lines to follow in the parallels of modern North American culture to the first chapter of Romans, but what I want to highlight right now is how greatly Christians have been silenced, or have been forced to be very...careful in their reference to moral evil.

A fellow in a podcast I was watching yesterday observed how that the cessation of public censure of wickedness, the alleviation of a general condemnation of, and shame in association with, sin, has encouraged moral evil, helping it to expand and deepen. It hasn't been that evil has remained hidden, private, touching no one beyond the one engaging in it. Instead, what the sexual pervert wanted to be left alone to do in the privacy of his or her bedroom has now oozed out into the public domain. No longer do sodomists practice their vile sin in private, but now parade their moral degeneracy down the avenues of major cities all across North America, enacting their heinous perversion before the eyes of onlookers that include children as well as adults. And if you don't applaud their evil (for an entire month), you'd better not offer any criticism. Forget the bedroom, these people will display their sin out in the open, celebrating it, challenging any to denigrate their moral corruption, using rage, threats, even assaults and prosecution in court to silence detractors!

And the labels. Wow. It turns out, labels scare the wits out of Christians. Even the hint of the possibility that they might be called a homophobe, or transphobe, or racist, or misogynist, or whatever, has cowed Christian believers into shivering silence. Certainly, never call sin, sin. That's not nice; it isn't polite; it's a micro-aggression. Christians are supposed to be loving, aren't they? Where's the love in calling someone a sinner, or their conduct immoral and evil? Noble action, virtuous conduct, is open-minded, tolerant, flexible and embracing, not condemning and judgmental. You don't want to be narrow-minded, do you? You don't want to be a bigot, do you? You don't want to be a self-righteous prig, do you? Shut up or you'll get a label slapped on you, hard.

By this means, the voices of the righteous have fallen silent. The declaration of God that the sin of Man is abominable, vile, evil and death-bringing never reaches the ears of the wicked these days through the lips of the children of God. Free of the shame and condemnation that their sin deserves, sex perverts, deluded drag queens, demonic child-predators strut about, flaunting their sin, grooming children in book readings at the public library, or drag queen dance parties, or in lessons in kindergarten about masturbation and homosexual acts. The stuff we refuse to call sin isn't staying hidden, or prowling about only on the margins of society. It's a regular part of Disney's child-programming; it's common subject matter on Netflix for kids and adults; its pushed on children in every grade of public school. And this expansion of evil will only continue AND WORSEN as Christians remain afraid of labels, frightened of the scorn and rage of the wicked, muted by the threats of the morally-degenerate.

To the silence of the believer, the Bible replies:

Psalm 50:17-21
17 "For you hate discipline, And you cast My words behind you.
18 "When you see a thief, you are pleased with him, And you associate with adulterers.
19 "You let your mouth loose in evil And your tongue frames deceit.
20 "You sit and speak against your brother; You slander your own mother's son.
21 "These things you have done and I kept silence; You thought that I was just like you; I will reprove you and state the case in order before your eyes.

Proverbs 24:24-25
24 Whoever says to the wicked, “You are in the right,” will be cursed by peoples, abhorred by nations,
25 but those who rebuke the wicked will have delight, and a good blessing will come upon them.

Ecclesiastes 7:5
5 It is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools.

Ephesians 5:8-13
8 for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light
9 (for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth),
10 trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.
11 Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them;
12 for it is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret.
13 But all things become visible when they are exposed by the light, for everything that becomes visible is light.

Matthew 23:15
15 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.

Titus 1:10-13
10 For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party.
11 They must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach.
12 One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.”
13 This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith,

1 Corinthians 5:1-2
1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife.
2 And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.

I am NOT espousing angry, finger-wagging, high-horse, moral pontificating, some sort of frothing-at-the-mouth tirade against the wicked; but I AM pointing out that the Christian has an obligation to call sin what it is, to rebuke it, reject it, and to refuse to let it go on in public without public censure. So long as we neglect to fulfill this obligation, we ought not to complain in private about how morally far gone North American society is, nor wonder about how much worse it will get. It will get very, very bad, as the past reveals, and as Paul in Romans 1 explained.

Romans 1:28-32
28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.
29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips,
30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,
31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. ​

 

[Tolworth John]

want to highlight right now is how greatly Christians have been silenced,

Have you any idea what the culture in the 1st centuary was like?
That the entire culture was pagan and hostile to God. Does that idea seem familiar to you?
It should for we live in a cultrure that is not Christian and like Christians living in the 1st centuary we have to live as Christians and gosip the gospel to our neighbours etc

 

[aiki]

Have you any idea what the culture in the 1st centuary was like?

Yes. Quite a good idea, actually. How about you?

That the entire culture was pagan and hostile to God. Does that idea seem familiar to you?

What does this have to do with my OP? I never suggested that the wickedness of today was unique.

...we live in a cultrure that is not Christian and like Christians living in the 1st centuary we have to live as Christians and gosip the gospel to our neighbours etc

Yes? And? Who said we weren't supposed to be sharing the Gospel? And anyway, part of the Gospel is declaring God's view of human wickedness.

I don't think you understood my OP. And you seem generally to be a bit...tense about my posts. Why is that?

 

[Tolworth John]

Yes. Quite a good idea, actually. How about you?



What does this have to do with my OP? I never suggested that the wickedness of today was unique.



Yes? And? Who said we weren't supposed to be sharing the Gospel? And anyway, part of the Gospel is declaring God's view of human wickedness.

I don't think you understood my OP. And you seem generally to be a bit...tense about my posts. Why is that?

Where are people in the west going to sit and listen to someone telling them that they are sinners?

As the early church spread they talked, debated where possible and lived their faith.
We are in the same situation as them, we don't have national pulpits to denounce sin, we do have the ears of neighbours, work colleagues etc and by the quality of our lives challenge them.

Telling Christians that the secular world is sinful is pointless.

 

[aiki]

Where are people in the west going to sit and listen to someone telling them that they are sinners?

??? Who said they are going to sit and listen to someone telling them they are sinners? I didn't. But this has nothing to do with Christians being salt and light to a dark and dying world. They are charged by God with the duty to expose and challenge sin, calling it what it is wherever they encounter it (see my OP).

As the early church spread they talked, debated where possible and lived their faith.
We are in the same situation as them, we don't have national pulpits to denounce sin, we do have the ears of neighbours, work colleagues etc and by the quality of our lives challenge them.

Not only by the "quality of our lives." That's a cop-out as far as I'm concerned. It's this "preach the Gospel and if necessary use words" stuff that is stifling the saltiness and light-giving power of Christians in the West. There is no way to properly, fully serve God and share His saving truth with people without using words. Yes, our words and our living ought to line up, but it is silly to think that, just by right living, the Gospel and its challenge to wickedness can be understood. You referred to the ears of one's neighbors and fellow employees, so I'm assuming you agree with me on this point. I hope you do, anyway.

Telling Christians that the secular world is sinful is pointless.

Tell that to God who says to us over and over again in His word, that we are all, apart from Him, desperately wicked, bound under the power of the World, the Flesh and the devil, corrupt, rebellious and heading to hell if we don't repent and turn to Christ. (Jeremiah 17:9; Romans 3:9-12; Ephesians 2:1-3; Titus 3:3)

In any case, I never urged anyone to say, "The secular world is sinful." This is obvious and uselessly over-generalized. What I said instead was that Christians ought to point to specific things that are sinful and call them what they are. Inside the Church, first of all, and outside it, too.

Again, you didn't really read my OP, apparently. I suppose this is why you are nit-picking things I never actually wrote. You seem, though, to find my posts generally irritating, which makes me wonder why you bother reading them and remarking on them.

 

[Tolworth John]

??? Who said they are going to sit and listen to someone telling them they are sinners? I didn't. But this has nothing to do with Christians being salt and light to a dark and dying world. They are charged by God with the duty to expose and challenge sin, calling it what it is wherever they encounter it (see my OP).



Not only by the "quality of our lives." That's a cop-out as far as I'm concerned. It's this "preach the Gospel and if necessary use words" stuff that is stifling the saltiness and light-giving power of Christians in the West. There is no way to properly, fully serve God and share His saving truth with people without using words. Yes, our words and our living ought to line up, but it is silly to think that, just by right living, the Gospel and its challenge to wickedness can be understood. You referred to the ears of one's neighbors and fellow employees, so I'm assuming you agree with me on this point. I hope you do, anyway.



Tell that to God who says to us over and over again in His word, that we are all, apart from Him, desperately wicked, bound under the power of the World, the Flesh and the devil, corrupt, rebellious and heading to hell if we don't repent and turn to Christ. (Jeremiah 17:9; Romans 3:9-12; Ephesians 2:1-3; Titus 3:3)

In any case, I never urged anyone to say, "The secular world is sinful." This is obvious and uselessly over-generalized. What I said instead was that Christians ought to point to specific things that are sinful and call them what they are. Inside the Church, first of all, and outside it, too.

Again, you didn't really read my OP, apparently. I suppose this is why you are nit-picking things I never actually wrote. You seem, though, to find my posts generally irritating, which makes me wonder why you bother reading them and remarking on them.

So how do you interact with your work colleagues, family members etc who are not christian and are living together, cheating on taxes, expensis etc and have heard you explain the gospel?

How do you continue telling them what they are doing is wrong?

Particularly when today to tell a homosexual they are a sinner can get you fired, how often are you telling sinners they are sinners?

 

[aiki]

So how do you interact with your work colleagues, family members etc who are not christian and are living together, cheating on taxes, expensis etc and have heard you explain the gospel?

How do you continue telling them what they are doing is wrong?

Particularly when today to tell a homosexual they are a sinner can get you fired, how often are you telling sinners they are sinners?

See my OP.

Or consider the example of Jesus. Repeatedly, he confronted the Pharisees with their hypocrisy and sin. As often as they sought to contend with him, he called them out for the religious tyrants and "sons of hell" that they were. Read Matthew 23, the crowning criticism Jesus gave of the Pharisees, or the behaviour of Christ in Matthew 21:12-13.

Concerning their sin, the apostle Paul, too, was extremely frank with the believers over whom he had spiritual leadership. Read 1 Corinthians 3, 5, 6 and 11. Ouch.

James, the brother of Jesus, also called it like it is in his letter, essentially telling his readers to put up or shut up (James 2:14-26), to watch their tongues (James 3:1-12) and that strife and contention among believers arises from wisdom that is not from above but is, instead, the product of thinking that is "earthly, sensual, devilish." (James 3:13-16)

And so on.

Paul gives the "standard operating procedure" for believers interacting with the lost:

2 Timothy 2:24-25
24 The Lord's bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged,
25 with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth,

As I said in my OP, finger-pointing pontification about sin isn't what God's word recommends. But where instances naturally arise in which to call sin what it is, the righteous are to speak up, not to condemn but to warn and expose. Calling sin what it is ought to be a demonstration of love, the believer challenging sin because s/he knows it always yields a harvest of death, as God has promised it will (Romans 6:23; James 1:14-16; Galatians 6:7-8).

The Christian who puts their own well-being before that of the sinner destined for hell, protecting their job rather than warn of the death-dealing "harvest" of sin, who avoids relational fall-out rather than exposing sin for the life-destroying poison it is, is a selfish coward, honestly. Am I saying, then, that the born-again believer should go around picking fights about morality as much as possible? Of course not. But they are to be salt and light always, after the manner Scripture prescribes. Again, see my OP.

My younger brother left home when he was fifteen, determined to live life as he wanted to. He got into dark, evil stuff and remained in it for nearly two decades. We saw each other very rarely during his time in the darkness. When we did connect, it was often very awkward because our lives were moving in opposite directions and there was little common ground on which we could relate. He tried a few times to tell me of his vile life, but I explained that I had no interest in hearing of the sordid details of his sin. This really incensed him at first but over time he came to accept that I wasn't going to be an audience to his life of evil. And when God finally broke through to my brother, guess who he called to come and remove him from the last drug party he was ever in? Right: Me.

Living a holy life is costly. Sinners generally hate the righteous. Even within the Church, compromised, immoral believers will rage against those who refuse to cater to their sin. But backing down before their umbrage leaves everybody in a local community of believers damaged. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. There is, then, no godly love in remaining quiet in the face of evil. It is not the loving thing to do to let sin proceed unchallenged within or without the Church. Sin deafens, blinds, sears, and hardens. Sin destroys. We ought, then, to hate it as God does and reject it carefully and constantly.

Psalms 50:21
21 "These things you have done and I kept silence; You thought that I was just like you; I will reprove you and state the case in order before your eyes.

Proverbs 24:24-25
24 Whoever says to the wicked, “You are in the right,” will be cursed by peoples, abhorred by nations,
25 but those who rebuke the wicked will have delight, and a good blessing will come upon them.

Ecclesiastes 7:5
5 It is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools.

Ephesians 5:8-13
8 for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light
9 (for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth),
10 trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.
11 Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them;
12 for it is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret.
13 But all things become visible when they are exposed by the light, for everything that becomes visible is light.

 

[aiki]

Bump.

 

[Jaxxi]

Romans 1:28-32
28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.
29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips,
30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,
31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

​

North American culture is demonstrating at this very moment the process of delusion and degradation the apostle Paul outlined in the first chapter of Romans. This process has played out in other cultures and times, of course, but now we get a front row seat to the moral collapse of our own nation (I'm Canadian, by the way, but Canadian culture is close enough to American culture to sustain lumping them together, I think). It's amazing, really, how accurately Paul has described what is occurring in this modern moral implosion of North American society.

There are a number of tempting lines to follow in the parallels of modern North American culture to the first chapter of Romans, but what I want to highlight right now is how greatly Christians have been silenced, or have been forced to be very...careful in their reference to moral evil.

A fellow in a podcast I was watching yesterday observed how that the cessation of public censure of wickedness, the alleviation of a general condemnation of, and shame in association with, sin, has encouraged moral evil, helping it to expand and deepen. It hasn't been that evil has remained hidden, private, touching no one beyond the one engaging in it. Instead, what the sexual pervert wanted to be left alone to do in the privacy of his or her bedroom has now oozed out into the public domain. No longer do sodomists practice their vile sin in private, but now parade their moral degeneracy down the avenues of major cities all across North America, enacting their heinous perversion before the eyes of onlookers that include children as well as adults. And if you don't applaud their evil (for an entire month), you'd better not offer any criticism. Forget the bedroom, these people will display their sin out in the open, celebrating it, challenging any to denigrate their moral corruption, using rage, threats, even assaults and prosecution in court to silence detractors!

And the labels. Wow. It turns out, labels scare the wits out of Christians. Even the hint of the possibility that they might be called a homophobe, or transphobe, or racist, or misogynist, or whatever, has cowed Christian believers into shivering silence. Certainly, never call sin, sin. That's not nice; it isn't polite; it's a micro-aggression. Christians are supposed to be loving, aren't they? Where's the love in calling someone a sinner, or their conduct immoral and evil? Noble action, virtuous conduct, is open-minded, tolerant, flexible and embracing, not condemning and judgmental. You don't want to be narrow-minded, do you? You don't want to be a bigot, do you? You don't want to be a self-righteous prig, do you? Shut up or you'll get a label slapped on you, hard.

By this means, the voices of the righteous have fallen silent. The declaration of God that the sin of Man is abominable, vile, evil and death-bringing never reaches the ears of the wicked these days through the lips of the children of God. Free of the shame and condemnation that their sin deserves, sex perverts, deluded drag queens, demonic child-predators strut about, flaunting their sin, grooming children in book readings at the public library, or drag queen dance parties, or in lessons in kindergarten about masturbation and homosexual acts. The stuff we refuse to call sin isn't staying hidden, or prowling about only on the margins of society. It's a regular part of Disney's child-programming; it's common subject matter on Netflix for kids and adults; its pushed on children in every grade of public school. And this expansion of evil will only continue AND WORSEN as Christians remain afraid of labels, frightened of the scorn and rage of the wicked, muted by the threats of the morally-degenerate.

To the silence of the believer, the Bible replies:

Psalm 50:17-21
17 "For you hate discipline, And you cast My words behind you.
18 "When you see a thief, you are pleased with him, And you associate with adulterers.
19 "You let your mouth loose in evil And your tongue frames deceit.
20 "You sit and speak against your brother; You slander your own mother's son.
21 "These things you have done and I kept silence; You thought that I was just like you; I will reprove you and state the case in order before your eyes.

Proverbs 24:24-25
24 Whoever says to the wicked, “You are in the right,” will be cursed by peoples, abhorred by nations,
25 but those who rebuke the wicked will have delight, and a good blessing will come upon them.

Ecclesiastes 7:5
5 It is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools.

Ephesians 5:8-13
8 for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light
9 (for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth),
10 trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.
11 Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them;
12 for it is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret.
13 But all things become visible when they are exposed by the light, for everything that becomes visible is light.

Matthew 23:15
15 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.

Titus 1:10-13
10 For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party.
11 They must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach.
12 One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.”
13 This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith,

1 Corinthians 5:1-2
1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife.
2 And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.

I am NOT espousing angry, finger-wagging, high-horse, moral pontificating, some sort of frothing-at-the-mouth tirade against the wicked; but I AM pointing out that the Christian has an obligation to call sin what it is, to rebuke it, reject it, and to refuse to let it go on in public without public censure. So long as we neglect to fulfill this obligation, we ought not to complain in private about how morally far gone North American society is, nor wonder about how much worse it will get. It will get very, very bad, as the past reveals, and as Paul in Romans 1 explained.

Romans 1:28-32
28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.
29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips,
30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,
31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. ​

This is very true. The Word of God does not change, but when the Pope becomes so scared of labels that even he is waving a rainbow flag, what are we really supposed to do? I am in the U.S., and it has been shocking to say the least to see the level of moral decline that has occurred since the eighties. We have exploited our freedoms to be gluttoneous, violent, lustful, greedy, envious, seductive, fashionable, proud, arrogant, self-indulgers. Everything God HATES! So has it been " Freedom from God" all along? Satan is behind it since the White house is at the seat of a pentagram on the map. Its all so obvious from a birds eye view...