Still, even before the
sun rises tomorrow, the proud man can stick a pin in his swollen ego; the narcissist
can begin to learn empathy; the drunkard can put the bottle down before his
liver finally packs it in; the liar can start telling the truth; and the thief
can commit himself to making his victims whole. John the Baptist taught wholesale, on-the-spot
lifestyle modification to all he baptized. When you just stop doing certain things and start doing the
opposite, all kinds of wonderful stuff can happen.
Then there are the “broken window” sins.
No Chance to Repent
The writer to the
Hebrews lists a couple of broken window sins Christians are best to steer clear of:
“See to it that … no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.”
Bear in mind these are words to professing
believers.
Now don’t get me wrong. Sexual immorality
and unholiness can certainly be forgiven. “Such were some of you,” says the apostle, the implication being that you’re not that now. A betrayed wife may take back a cheating
husband, and God may hear his confession and restore him.
But don’t think there are no ongoing
consequences to such an act.
Ongoing Consequences
The wronged wife will not be quite so naïve
the second time. She pays a price. And the erring husband, even if forgiven,
will be on a short leash for a long, long time. More importantly, he may find
his sin has changed his perceptions in a fundamental way: he now suspects
everyone else of the same sort of lack of self-control and willful
self-indulgence to which he fell prey. If he could slip, why couldn’t they? And
if his sin is exposed within his family, he may find some among his relatives who
will not forgive him no matter what he says or does.
The window has been broken, even if you
managed to keep some of the bad weather out.
A Unique Problem
Teenagers often attach little significance
to their ‘romantic’ assignations, assuming that when they decide to settle down
everything will all just sort of “work out”. Perhaps, they think, being
sexually experienced may even provide them with some useful wisdom to bring
into their marriage.
But there’s something unique about what we
do to one another with our bodies. Paul says:
“Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.”
Sexual immorality breaks a window. It
has consequences you can’t roll
back even with all the goodwill in the world. Sure, you can stick a piece of
plywood up there in place of the shattered pane, and you can eventually replace
the glass. What you can’t do is glue the broken pieces back together. You may
have a window again, but you sure won’t have THAT window.
A Bowl of Lentils
Esau’s sin was not sexual, but it was every bit as life-affecting, and then some. He had been set apart to God as firstborn of the patriarch Isaac for something
incredibly special (the Messianic line, in case we’re forgetting) and he didn’t
know it, or forgot it, or just plain didn’t behave like it. That’s unholy, says the book of Hebrews.
Boy, that analogy just wrote itself, didn’t it.
You will remember that he sold his birthright to his brother for a bowl of lentils, if we have the Hebraism
right. Bad choice, and unfortunately irrevocable. I believe this is what is
meant by “he found no chance to repent”, particularly when we look back to the
original account. It is not that Esau was in anguish over the guilt of having
despised his own birthright, and that he struggled to find it deep within
himself to confess to God and his family the sin of having apocalyptically terrible priorities. Not a chance. He was just trying to un-break the broken window:
“Esau said to his father, ‘Have you but one blessing, my father? Bless me, even me also, O my father.’ And Esau lifted up his voice and wept.”
To paraphrase: “Dad, isn’t there ANY way we
can roll this back and pretend it never happened?” Answer: No. It’s going to
affect and reframe almost every remaining moment of your life.
How about them apples?
What Now, Huh?
So you broke the window. Hey, me too. What
exactly do we do now?
Well, for one, we admit we broke the
window. We don’t pull an Esau. We don’t waste what remains of our lives trying
to imagine what they would have been like if we hadn’t done That Awful Thing (whatever
it is in your case), blaming other people for our own choices, or wishing and trying
to make things like they once were. We let go of the past and accept where we
are now, and determine to go forward honoring God with what we have left.
There’s nothing more pathetic than a man or woman in denial. Let’s not be that.
Secondly, we let ourselves be used as
object lessons if that’s what the situation requires. Why not? Have you got something
better to do than help a fellow believer avoid the same pit you fell into? I don’t.
“Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.” That means
being frank about what you did and why, and just as frank about all the
miserable consequences that followed.
Thirdly, we learn the lesson we didn’t the first time out. That is to say, don’t do it again. This should be obvious, but the Lord contemplates the case of a brother who sins and repents seven times in the same day, so we must conclude the obvious is not equally obvious to everyone. God graciously forgives whenever we repent, but there is no guarantee his disciplinary regimen will not escalate when we repeatedly fail to learn from his forgiveness.
Finally, let’s not give the Accuser an
inch. One mistake (or even ten) do not define a man, any more than
thrice-righteous Lot was forever defined by his choice to make his home in Sodom. (Yes, I’ll concede
that was an epically bad call.) If you want to lie there in the dust, you
certainly can, but doing so will only serve the agenda of one individual.
Let’s be clear: it’s not God.
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