Sin

As I look back at the last few weeks, this three letter word seems to have been impressed on my mind in various ways. In the first place, I am going through, Thomas Watson’s thorough “A body of divinity” and I’m now on the topic of original sin. In his own brilliant way, he grabs a theme and simply milks it for all its worth looking at it from various angles and various texts of scripture.

In the second place, I have been watching legal television series. The courtroom especially as depicted in television and movies is very interesting to me. However, I hope and pray that the judicial system in the US is inaccurately depicted in most of these television series. I hope and pray even more sincerely that the judicial system in my beloved Zambia is not as corroded as that which I see. Lawyers and law firms are depicted as accepting to defend men and women accused of murder then wondering whether they are innocent later. Others defend people who are murderers and get them off the hook knowingly. Still others manipulate the system to get judges who have been defrauded in their divorce settlements to preside over divorce suits so as to have them inclined to rule in the favour of the wealthy party they are representing. As if that isn’t enough others, rather than argue with facts, manipulate jurors by encouraging accused individuals to appear innocent or emotional.

I have wondered whether there is any way to make a judicial system completely free of such immoral behavior and occurrences but that is simply not possible. No matter how many checks and balances are put in place to ensure the integrity of a judicial system, it will be manipulated the root of the problem being of course, sin. The only way to have a clean judicial system is to have a clean, i.e. sin free, society. Such a one does not exist.

In the third place, not too long ago, one evening, I spent quite a lengthy amount of time with a dying man. He told me about his life at length. His was a story filled with guilt, regret and remorse. He had messed up big time. I asked him what his wish would be if he was offered just one. He replied almost instantly as if premeditated, “Another life.” This man, who has since passed on, was merely reaping the harvest he had sown. He told me how he had lived a life, basically, of sin and how he had let down his family. “I feel guilty every time I look at them,” He said. Only one thing kept ringing in my mind as I walked home after being with him, “It just doesn’t pay.” Sin does not pay.

Unfortunately, due to the shackling effect of sin the Apostle Paul called slavery, I have no doubt that if that poor man was indeed granted "another life" knowing what he went through in this life, he would still end up in misery and six feet under minus God’s common and saving grace. And as I point a finger at him I deliberately point three back at myself being fully aware that I am still prone to sin. Even though I know its devastating effects, I still find myself sinning and can only pray to God, that he would give me grace and keep me from that ugly and destructive foe. How many have fallen? The very worst and very best have all been claimed. May God help me. May God help us.