A small smear of sin

by Bill D. Hallsted

The astronauts snuggled more deeply into their launch seats. The engines were all prepared to fire. Relays and diodes and myriad silicone chips transmitted their electronic impulses. Launch minus two minutes.

Suddenly red lights lit up the control centre's consoles like Christmas trees. Emergency safety switches snapped open to break all the electrical circuits. Fuel valves slammed shut and locked. Fire control systems leaped to full alert. The inhuman electronic voice monotoned, "Abort, abort, abort," in a mindless litany of failure. The launch was scrubbed.

The failure cost several million dollars. It also cost a two-month delay in the mission. An extra million and a half dollars were spent just to find the malfunction. When the component that had failed was located, an investigation was launched to determine why it had failed. It was such a small part. The part itself was perfect. One worker, pressed for time, handled that part, just once, without a glove. His hands were dirty. Not really dirty, just a little sweaty. They had just a little oily film, invisible to his own eyes. He didn't want to bother. He had enough "common sense" to know that handling one tiny piece of a multi-million-dollar space launch without gloves wasn't going to make any real difference.

He was wrong.

It took only a very small impurity to destroy the whole mission. It took only a few minutes of selfish haste to destroy months of work.

A church was brought by God through a very long period of preparation and planning. The members studied church growth techniques and essentials. They spent a great deal of money and countless hours making the facility warm and inviting and functional. They carefully geared their services to reach the unchurched. They worked tirelessly to learn how to reach their community. They geared their programs for evangelism and growth. They bathed everything they did in prayer. They did everything right.

Almost. In spite of their very best efforts, they sat there on the launch pad. There was no fire of ignition. There was no power of the Holy Spirit. God was silent in the heavens. Nothing happened.

Instead of launching an investigation to find out what went wrong, they just collapsed in a surrender to failure. Oh, "church" still went on. They went through the motions. Services went on as scheduled. The programs continued to be carried out. But it was all done in empty, sterile futility. There was no growth. There was no mighty outpouring of God's Spirit. They just kept going through hollow forms of routine activities.

The empty hulk of the dream they had dared to dream so boldly, slowly deteriorated into a neglected shell of indifference. It stood there, like a rusting shuttle on a deserted launch pad, mute testimony to a grand failure.

The reason? Just a small sin. Just a member of the leadership team of that congregation who had enough "common sense" to know that his very private sin would never make any difference in the grand scheme of God's will.

A key young person who "knew" that having sex with her boyfriend wasn't "really that bad". Besides, her friends all did it. Anyway, nobody really thinks anything about that anymore in our society.

A Sunday school teacher who "knew" that his enjoyment of those pornographic magazines or that channel on cable--especially in the privacy of his own home--was a personal and private thing that couldn't possibly have any effect on the rest of the church.

A woman youth sponsor who "recognized" that she couldn't possibly be held to her marriage vows. After all, he had hurt her so many times! Why should she have to worry about whether he might hurt her again? She "knew" God would understand. Besides, what she did with her marriage was her business, and it wasn't going to make any difference to the rest of the church, or to God's kingdom.

A businessman on the church board who "knew" that falsifying his tax records just a little didn't have any connection to the work of the church. Actually, it might even help the church. Why, if he could avoid having to pay so much tax, he would have more money left to contribute to the church! So it was really for the sake of God's purposes that he was cheating on his taxes. He really felt quite righteous about it.

The married children's department head who "knew" nobody was ever going to find out about that affair. It was, after all, between two consenting adults, and it didn't have anything to do with anyone else, least of all the church.

The litany of rationalization from all of them had so many of the "key words" that sin and Satan always use: