James 1:14-15 “but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.”
When our son Josiah was young, he and his sister Bethany got into a tussle and he said something verboten in our house. When I asked what it was, he put his hand over her mouth in an attempt to silence her. Not wanting to rat him out, she wisely left him with the responsibility to confess. Turns out confession was the last thing on his mind. Even when I sent him to his room until he decided to co-operate. Even when his dad threatened him with a spanking. Even when dinnertime came….and went. Finally, he said he was ready to confess. Yes! Victory! “Ok, Josiah, what did you say to Bethany?”
“Nuts in the light bulb.”
“Nuts in the light bulb?”
“Yep.”
“That doesn’t make sense. Why would we discipline you for saying nuts in the light bulb?”
In a desperate attempt to escape his lonely prison and fill his empty stomach, he came up with the only thing that came to mind. Lying on his bed, gazing at the ceiling, his 6-year-old eyes had evidently fixated on the light fixture. He figured admitting what he really said would definitely land him in trouble, so why not try a complete, total fabrication?!?!
All his efforts to escape the inevitable only dug him in deeper. The consequences for uttering those forbidden fateful words—shut up—to his sister would have been far less grim had he just confessed and repented in the first place.
Human nature….
Have you ever noticed how sin leads to more sin? Once we choose to ignore the do not enter sign, the path back to the highway runs through an awful lot of detours. I guess we think, like Josiah, that we can find a less painful route. Instead we find ourselves slogging from one pothole to the next.
Rationalization for sin may initially appear harmless, but be assured it strangles the truth and with it any hope of redemption. Kind of like those potato chip ads that tell us we can’t eat just “one.” Unrepentant sin always leads us to another sin…and another.
Best to ‘fess up before we start calling on nuts in the light bulb to save us.