Godly Sorrow
Sometimes, because we seek joy in sin, we are just sorry that we got caught.
“10 For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.” (2 Corinthians 7:10)
Many sincerely repent in prison because they are removed from the exquisitely decorated enticements of the orchestrated lights of the outside world; however, being forced to change because of incarceration, though it causes one to temporarily postpone behavior, does not automatically bring repentance. Postponing behavior and repenting of behavior are two separate issues. Like old Ben Gunn, while marooned on Treasure Island, who piously abstained from alcohol, but lost his fortune on drink the moment he was rescued, so it is with many who are forced by circumstances to live in seeming rectitude and to adopt the appearance of repentance without putting on the whole armor of God. It is not until one is tried in the fires of freedom that he or she knows whether they have truly repented.
The Garden of Eden was a form of incarceration. Adam and Eve were not truly tested until they were cast out. It is opposition that challenges the soul and forges wisdom. One may halt the act of sin for a time because he was caught; but, even in the safety of incarceration, in imagination, one may nurture natural desires and remain in temptation’s path until the opportunity to sin finds him.
I had a friend who had a highly addictive nature. He was in and out of jail for he supported his habits by stealing. He confided in me that he was entirely free of drugs and alcohol while in prison. The day of his release he would overdose. It was a pattern. One overdose nearly cost him his life.
Pretention merely suspends our conscience while we lie in wait for opportunity. Even in freedom, some avoid the seat of sin to assuage a drowsing conscience, grumbling in unquiet sleep, but linger in the familiar path so that stalking temptation will catch them by surreptitious surprise, thus tricking their conscience and exonerating themselves of guilt. It isn’t sin they shun; it is guilt. Guiltless sin is the saccharine that Satan sells to sweeten temptation. Those who run from sin in the light but wait for opportunity in the dark are like a spider that weaves her web in the path of the most treasured traffic.
“Oh, how crafty we must be to keep conscience from disrupting equanimity.”
As a ship that sits in salty water often collects barnacles, good works corrupted by idle intentions often turn to evil. Beware the seductions of charity. Many an innocent girl has lost her virtue through guileful charity.
Anonymous says:
“Woe to those who pass the time with noble thoughts, but gorge on whatever guileful chance has wrought.”
False repentance is a gorged lion idly lying beside the unwary lamb. True repentance comes only when we change our desires, and in turn help the helpless, not prey off them. It is from the inside out, not the outside in. Enforced virtue, like holding one’s breath under water, endures only until the end of the sentence. Repentance requires a change of heart more than a change of place. If the heart does not change during times of distraction, no matter how long, then one runs back to sin at the first opportunity.
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