p. 421 | A FALLACY

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 14, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 27.

A FALLACY.

We were earnestly remonstrating with a friend who had been brought under deep conviction of sin, on her intended participation in a certain very common bit of worldliness, for the sake of which she was going to absent herself from the meetings in which she had become interested for her salvation. We tried to point out two things to her: First, the folly of trifling with the work of the Holy Ghost in her soul; and second, the sin of doing the thing she was proposing to do. To the latter of these she replied: "But I am not a Christian yet. I admit that it would be a sin for me to engage in the affair if I were a Christian. After I become a Christian, I know I will have to give it up, and many more things like it; but I thought so long as I was not a Christian, it would not be a sin."

We are sure that many others are indulging in this kind of sophistry. It is a devil's lie. Sin is sin. Worldliness is sin, whether indulged in by sinners or by professors of religion. It is a dreadful thing for Christians to be found practicing the sins of the worldlings, as so many of them freely do; but it is none the less sin for a sinner to go on sinning. What a monstrous delusion sin is! How desperately wicked and deceitful the human heart is! The whole world lieth in the "wicked one," and with him they are cursed, because the love of God is not in them. Let us utter this solemn warning to young people, if any such may read this paragraph, and older people also, that theft is a crime, even if it is committed by a professional burglar, no less than if it is committed by a church member. It is no doubt a shocking thing for a confessed disciple of Christ to be found defrauding his employer, but it is equally a crime for an unbeliever to do so. What an outcry is made when a Christian is found committing sin! Yet the act is not sinful because it is done by a Christian. God will not tolerate sin in his people, nor will he tolerate it in unbelievers. Sin is sin, by whomsoever it is committed, and must be forgiven or punished. —Words and Weapons.