Genesis

 It starts with one. Every corruption, perversion, or contagion begins with one individual. Follow the timeline far enough, and you will always discover a patient zero. We will never know who patient zero was in Sodom or Gomorrah, but one became two, two became four, and by the time God decided to destroy them, the corruption had consumed not only Sodom and Gomorrah but the cities around them.

Corruption and sin are not self-contained. They spread from town to town, from generation to generation, and their hunger to consume is never satiated. Sin is an infestation of the soul, and the longer it’s ignored, the worse it gets, and the worse it gets, the harder it becomes to pull it from the root and cast it into the fire.

As John Wesley so aptly stated, what one generation tolerates, the next generation will embrace, but he didn’t go far enough in his analysis. We are seeing the truth of it play out in our day and age, for once a generation embraces what the past generation merely tolerated, the next generation will normalize, celebrate, and insist upon it. A sin tolerated eventually becomes the standard, then the ideal, then a mandatory practice.

My talents are limited, and having a green thumb is not counted among them. Keeping a cactus alive is a stretch for me, but since I have a backyard and a patch of grass, I’m diligent in mowing it whenever the wife points out it’s above her shins. Since this year has been worse than others when it comes to tics, and my girls love running through the grass barefoot, I’ve increased my mowing sessions somewhat, but I still put it off more than I should.

A few weeks back, during the first mow of the season, I noticed one solitary musk thistle poking out of the grass. I did not dig it out of the dirt or pull it from the root; it was just one weed, after all, so I mowed over it. Two weeks later, the one had turned into three, and two weeks after that, into eight, and I ended up spending a solid hour digging weeds out of my backyard when less than a minute would have solved the problem had I dealt with it in the beginning.

Sin is invasive. It begins with one seed in your heart; if you don’t violently wrench it from the soil, it will take root and spread. Eventually, it takes over the heart entirely and, like the dandelion, turns into something carried by the wind and blown far and wide.

Sin is sin, just as a weed is a weed, and no amount of rebranding will change the fundamental truth of it. You can call it choice, preference, progress, or pride; it will still kill you in the end because the nature of it is absolute. Just as God’s nature is immutable, sin’s nature is likewise immutable.

Isaiah 5:20, “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!”

Since the woe Isaiah references seems ambiguous, many have talked themselves into believing that though sorrow may come upon those who call evil good and good evil, it may not be as bad as some think. What is woe, after all?

Fully aware of men’s deceptive hearts, God went on to spell out what the woe entailed just so no one could claim ignorance or say they didn’t expect such harsh punishment.

Isaiah 5: 24-25, “Therefore, as the fire devours the stubble, and the flame consumes the chaff, so their root will be as rottenness, and their blossom will ascend like dust; Because they have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. Therefore the anger of the Lord is aroused against His people; He has stretched out His hand against them and stricken them, and the hills trembled. Their carcasses were as refuse in the midst of the streets.”

I don’t care how you spin it, what doublespeak or double-tongued explanations or inferences you try to make; there’s no getting around the reality of what will befall those who would twist, subvert, and call darkness light or good evil.

It’s not the godless God’s anger is aroused against. Those in darkness have always been in darkness and could not differentiate between it and the light. It’s akin to being angry at a blind man for not appreciating a rose in bloom or a perfect sunrise. God’s anger is stirred against His people, for having known the light, they chose to call it darkness, and having known the difference, they chose to call darkness light.

1 Peter 4:17-19, “For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? Now “If the righteous one is scarcely saved, where will the ungodly and the sinner appear?” Therefore let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good, as to a faithful Creator.”

Truth and popularity are not intertwined; on the contrary, they often, if not always, diverge. Just because a teaching is popular does not make it true, and just because a teaching is unpopular, it does not make it a lie. The Word is the plumb line and the final authority. Believe the truth even when it’s unpopular. Believe the Word of God even if it contradicts the machinations of modern-day heretics.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.