"The children of your people say, 'The way of the Lord is not fair.' But it is their way which is not fair!" (Ezekiel 33:17).
THEME
BLAME
Rose Cipollone smoked for forty-three years and died of lung cancer at the age of fifty-eight. Her husband blamed the cigarette manufacturer and brought suit against it. A federal jury awarded her estate four hundred thousand dollars from the Liggett Group, the manufacturer of L&M cigarettes. James Kilpatrick, commenting on the case, wrote, "We have reared a generation of whiners and buck passers. . . . Nobody is at fault for anything."
Ezekiel, himself a captive in Babylon, must have tired of hearing the excuses of the exiles. They blamed their bondage on their parents, saying that God was judging Judah because of past sins. Ezekiel refuted this thinking. He said that people are individually responsible for their actions. If God punished the third and fourth generation of children, these sons and daughters brought God's wrath on themselves for following the corrupt ways of their predecessors.
The Jews in Christ's time had not changed; they were still making excuses for themselves. In the Parable of the Great Supper, they used family responsibilities and business transactions as excuses for neglecting spiritual service (Luke 14:l5-24).
God knew from the beginning the minds of snivelers and whimperers, so He designed an excuse-proof plan. Creation itself reveals God and leaves us without excuse (Ro 1:20).
God's people don't make excuses; they always draw themselves with faultlines.
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JUL 29
EZEKIEL 18:1-18
"Behold, all souls are Mine; . . . the soul who sins shall die"
(Ezekiel 18:4).
When salmon travel hundreds of miles up rivers and streams to spawn where they were hatched, they act on instinct. In a sense, they are driven by an uncontrollable force. People, on the other hand, are different. We cannot blame instinct for our actions. We are responsible. Even though we may feel driven, we make the choices that lead to our downfall.
A young convict who escaped execution through a last-minute decision from a Supreme Court Justice considers human conduct and animal instinct the same. Referring to the murders he committed and to his own fate, he said, "Things just happen." He apparently thinks some kind of force was responsible for his pulling the trigger and killing the two people who happened to be at the scene of the crime.
More than 2,500 years ago, some Israelites said essentially the same thing. They quoted a well-known proverb that placed the blame for their sins on their ancestors (Eze 18:2). But Ezekiel told them they were all wrong. He said that a good man will not be punished for the sins of a wicked son. Neither will a godly son be punished for the sins of his evil father.
No matter what our situation, we are responsible for what we do. We might as well stop making excuses for our sins and take the first step in exercising individual responsibility--acknowledge our guilt and then put our trust in Jesus Christ.
--H.V.L.
Many people excuse their own foolishness by calling it fate.
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JUL 30
EXODUS 15:22-16:5
Then the whole congregation . . . murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness (Exodus 16:2).
Fred Grimm, a Christian probation officer, told of a father who made a scapegoat of his son by blaming him for family conflicts. Although the man and his wife had been fighting for years, the father told his son, "It's always because of your big mouth that your mother and I fight. If I leave you and your mother, it will be your fault." The youngster's problems were compounded when the father died suddenly from a stroke and the mother accused her son of having caused his father's death. The boy was devastated.
Blaming others for our problems is not only unjust and cruel, it's displeasing to the Lord. The children of Israel did this in the wilderness shortly after their deliverance from the land of Egypt. When food and water were short, they panicked and blamed Moses and Aaron for getting them into their predicament. They made scapegoats of their leaders. Yet God mercifully overlooked their lack of faith and unfair criticism of His servants in those two incidents. Later, though, when the Israelites committed the same sin again, He judged them severely (see Numbers 16).
Scapegoating can do great damage. Instead of looking for someone else to blame for our problems, we need to analyze our situation, acknowledge our failures, and ask God for forgiveness and help.
--H.V.L.
We won't get closer to God by passing judgment on others.
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JUL 31
PROVERBS 30:5-13
Every way of a man is right in his own eyes
(Proverbs 21:2).
In an experiment years ago, researchers fitted people with special prismatic glasses that made things appear upside down, straight lines appear curved, and sharp outlines seem fringed with color. Even though the subjects continued to wear the glasses, within just a few days the unnatural shapes, tinted edges, and inverted landscapes gradually disappeared, and the world began to appear normal again. Their brains had overcome false data coming through the lenses. This adaptability in the physical realm is indeed a blessing.
Proverbs suggests, however, that the mind doesn't function very well in the spiritual realm. In fact, we are sinners whose deepest imaginations are evil, and our thought-life produces a world of illusions. We think of ourselves as pure, when in reality we are guilty before God. That is why, for example, many people shift the responsibility for their behavior to environmental factors or to faulty upbringing. They fail to see their own rebellion and selfishness and imagine themselves to be the helpless, innocent victims of circumstance. In this way, they justify thoughts, feelings, and actions that are obviously sinful. Their way is right in their own eyes.
As Christians, we should be aware of the deceptive nature of our hearts and allow the Holy Spirit to correct our vision through a knowledge of God's Word.
--M.R.D.II
Salvation gives spiritual vision to sin-blinded eyes.
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AUG 01
LUKE 6:37-42
There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. Who are you to judge another? (James 4:12).
The seventeenth-century French churchman Fenelon said, "It is often our own imperfection which makes us reprove the imperfection of others; a sharp-sighted self-love of our own which cannot pardon the self-love of others."
Sometimes our own faults and imperfections make us see faults in others that don't even exist. A woman complained that her neighbor's windows were always dirty. One day, after complaining about them to a friend, the visitor encouraged her to wash her own windows. She followed the advice. The next time her friend visited, she exclaimed, "I can't believe it. As soon as I washed my windows, my neighbor must have cleaned hers too. Look at them shine."
Criticism also blinds us to the good that others accomplish. A man who built a large drinking fountain in a public square drew derogatory comments from an art critic about its design. Though somewhat hurt, the builder asked, "Is anyone drinking from it?" The builder was happy to learn that the fountain, even though the critic didn't like its design, was doing its job--and doing it well.
Instead of calling attention to others' imperfections, we should examine ourselves. What we don't like in someone else might be the same thing that's wrong with us. And instead of judging others, we should look for the good in them and love them in spite of their faults.
--R.W.D.
When criticizing, don't forget: God is listening.
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AUG 02
1 KINGS 21:17-29
Ahab . . . tore his clothes and put sackcloth on his body, . . . and went about mourning (1 Kings 21:27).
John and Joe stole some money, but they reacted differently when confronted with the evidence. John broke down immediately, confessed his guilt, and offered to repay the money. But Joe refused to take any responsibility and blamed his companion. Later, with his parents supporting him, Joe claimed he was forced into this conduct because some of the young people in his church had never accepted him.
After more than thirty-five years of giving spiritual counsel, I can testify that people who try to cover their sins will not prosper, and that those who confess and forsake them find mercy (Pr 28:13). Many people never realize that they become their own worst enemies by blaming others instead of facing up to their own faults.
In 1 Kings 21, we read that King Ahab wanted a vineyard belonging to Naboth, but the owner refused to sell it. So Jezebel, Ahab's wife, had Naboth executed. Although Ahab merely allowed her to use his name in signing the orders, he didn't blame his wife when confronted with his evil deed. Instead, he acknowledged his crime, expressed grief over it, accepted responsibility, repented, and received a merciful reprieve.
Whenever we do wrong, we are wise to face up to it, take responsibility for our actions, and ask God to forgive us. We will be better people when we learn to say, "I'm to blame."
--H.V.L.
Only those willing to take blame can ever be trusted with responsibility.
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AUG 03
MATTHEW 7:1-6
"Judge not, that you be not judged" (Matthew 7:1).
For some reason, it is easier to jump to negative conclusions about people than it is to assume the best about them. When we do this, we ascribe to them bad intentions and evil purposes that may not be true. We also reveal something about ourselves, for the faults we see in others are usually a reflection of our own.
Bishop Potter "was sailing for Europe on one of the great transatlantic ocean liners. When he went on board, he found that another passenger was to share the cabin with him. After going to see the accommodations, he came up to the purser's desk and inquired if he could leave his gold watch and other valuables in the ship's safe. He explained that ordinarily he never availed himself of that privilege, but he had been to his cabin and had met the man who was to occupy the other berth. Judging from his appearance, he was afraid that he might not be a very trustworthy person. The purser accepted the responsibility for the valuables and remarked, 'It's all right, Bishop, I'll be very glad to take care of them for you. The other man has been up here and left his for the same reason'" (H. A. Ironside, ILLUSTRATIONS OF BIBLE TRUTH).
We need to make sure we have all the facts before we speak and guard ourselves against making snap judgments about people. The standards we use to judge others will be used to judge us.
--D.C.E.
It is much easier to be critical than to be correct. --Disraeli
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AUG 04
1 SAMUEL 15:1-23
"But the people took of the plunder . . . to sacrifice to the Lord"
(1 Samuel 15:21).
People come up with some very creative excuses for disobedience. A friend sent me the following list of statements made by motorists trying to explain their involvement in accidents:
The other car collided with mine without giving warning of its intentions.
A pedestrian hit me and went under my car.
Coming home I drove into the wrong house and collided with a tree I don't have.
I pulled away from the side of the road, glanced at my mother-in-law, and headed over the embankment.
The pedestrian had no idea which direction to run, so I ran over him.
These excuses show how prone we are to evade responsibility for our wrong actions, but weak attempts to justify mistakes, errors, or blatant disobedience will not absolve us of blame.
We also make excuses when we fail to do God's will. If we could view our rationalizations from His perspective, we would see that they are as ridiculous as the statements of those motorists. Saul told God that the people would use the animals they had taken from the Amalekites as sacrifices. But he was merely covering up for disobeying God, who had told him to destroy everything.
If we seek every way possible to do God's will, we won't need to make excuses.
--P.R.V.
Reasons that sound good aren't always good sound reasons.
