No Excuses

From the beginning mankind has been making excuses for his transgressions. And I mean the VERY beginning: “And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat” (Gen. 3:11-13). That excuse is otherwise known as passing the buck. The woman made me do it. The serpent made me do it. No, the truth is that everyone involved transgressed the commandment of God on their own. And the judgment for their sins came upon each of them regardless of their excuses. That is why we have the prevalent theme throughout the Bible that everyone will stand before God and be judged according to their OWN works (Eccl. 12:13,14; Rom. 14:10-12; etc.). Passing the buck isn’t the only excuse for sin that man has come up with. There is the excuse of blaming circumstances for your failures. When Samuel instructed Saul to wait seven days for his return to Gilgal, and did not return within that time, Saul took it upon himself to offer a sacrifice to the Lord on his own; which was out of order with the commandment of the Lord. Upon arriving, Samuel saw that Saul had transgressed his word, and he questioned him on the matter: “And Samuel said, What hast thou done? And Saul said, Because I saw that the people were scattered from me, and that thou camest not within the days appointed, and that the Philistines gathered themselves together at Michmash; Therefore said I, The Philistines will come down now upon me to Gilgal, and I have not made supplication unto the LORD: I forced myself therefore, and offered a burnt offering” (I Sam. 13:11,12). But the plain truth of this matter is, Saul just didn’t keep the commandment of the Lord. Period. His excuse was not accepted by Samuel or by God, and subsequently the kingdom was rent from him; though it did was not apparent immediately (I Sam. 13:14). And there are other kinds of excuses for sin as well, but the point is sufficiently made, that being that God DOES NOT accept excuses of any kind. He only accepts honest confession of sin, and repentance therefrom.

The faithful and elect of God simply have no excuses for any failure on their part. They are too conditioned to honestly and humbly righting any wrongs on their part, to even have time or space to LOOK for excuses. Proverbs 28:13 tells us, “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.” The elect of God are fully and actively dependent on the mercy of God by faith in that mercy. They cannot retain sin in their lives because they just love the righteousness of God too much to do so. John said it this way: “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God” (I Jn. 3:9). And because they refuse to retain sin, they continually “purify [themselves] even as he is pure” (I Jn. 3:3). This is why they are known as those who “have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Rev. 7:14). The only way we can “purify [ourselves] even as he is pure,” and “wash our robes… white in the blood of the lamb,” is if we are being completey honest about the reality of true holiness and about the condition of our hearts and spirits before God. If that is our focus then there simply is no room for looking for excuses for our failures. Having excuses for falling short of the holiness of God is for those who are determined to hold on to sin. Excuses of whatever manner are for those who are not resigned to “endure to the end” in the perfect love of God (Mat. 24:12,13). It takes some doing to “keep thy heart with all diligence,” and that is why the apostle Paul gave us the following exhortation: “Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it… Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief” (Prov. 4:23; Heb. 4:1,11). So there are no excuses friend, only the exhortation which the elect alone will truly heed and understand: “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14). Amen.