George W
ashington once said that it is better to offer no excuse than a bad one. He was right! Our world is filled with bad excuses. We hear them from church members missing church on Sunday, politicians explaining their flip-flopping, and kids trying to blame anyone to avoid a scolding. The Web has many humorous lists of excuses from all walks of life. Here are a few that were dreamed up by kids for breaking Mom’s vase:
■ We had a brief shaking of the ground. I think it was one of those ten second earthquakes.
■ I tripped over a piece of lint and knocked into the vase. That piece of lint was enormous.
■ A huge spider went on top of the vase and shook it all up. The spider caused the problem. Good news! I killed the spider.
■ My teddy bear left my room and got angry with me because I was ignoring him. He threw down your vase in disgust. I put my teddy in a time-out.
We might get some laughs from foolish children thinking someone would actually believe their excuses, but it also shows us the influence Satan has over those who try to fend off guilt by passing their mistakes onto someone else.
People in the Bible had this same weakness. There are many instances in which people were caught in the act of sinning and offered up an excuse to try and avoid the blame. One of the best examples goes back to the Garden of Eden. God said to Adam, “‘Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?’ The man said, ‘The woman you put here with me—she gave me the fruit from the tree’” (Genesis 3:11,12). And if that excuse wasn’t bad enough, “Then the Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate’” (3:13). It took very little time for God’s first people to begin passing off blame and offering up excuses for their sins. The very next recorded excuse came from Cain, who was the first to prove the acorn doesn’t fall far from the oak tree.
Perhaps the most prize-winning excuses came from Israel’s first high priest, Aaron. While Moses was on a mountain receiving God’s Ten Commandments, down below the Israelites were reveling and partying. When the people felt that Moses would probably never return, they begged Aaron to make a god of gold for them to worship—much like the gods they remembered in Egypt. Aaron foolishly agreed. When Moses finally came down, he saw what Aaron had done and angrily demanded an explanation. Aaron’s first excuse was, “You know how prone these people are to evil” (Exodus 32:22). But then he dreamed up an even better one: “They gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!” (32:24). How shameful for Aaron to blame anyone but himself. Moses knew the truth for he “saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control” (32:25).
The Lord’s ears must be filled with excuses. There are countless ways that we pass off the guilt of our sins just like Aaron did. However, Jesus reminds us, “They have no excuse for their sin” (John 15:22).
There will come a day when all people will stand before the throne of God. The unbelievers will offer up every excuse they can think of for their unbelief. But Scripture tells us, “Since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse” (Romans 1:20).
Making excuses can be a dangerous game to play. It is Satan’s way of getting us to claim innocence when we are truly guilty. God does not accept excuses. But “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins” (1 John 1:9).
Prayer thought: Thank the Lord for providing a ready ear to hear our confessions and a merciful heart to offer us forgiveness.
Recent Comments