Nathan E. Lewis

I know a man who has become so sick and tired of his habitual sin that he has taken drastic measures. He has taken to wearing a blindfold. He cuffs his hands, wears a chastity belt (his wife is keeper of the keys) and he shackles his feet. He hires a retired mendicant (they work for almost nothing) to read the Holy Scriptures to him, as his blindfold prevents him from doing his own reading. He reports that as long as he is subject to these constraints, he has not fallen to his habitual sins. He tells me that the Word of God has been the cause of the cessation of his sin. When I mention his cuffs, shackles, blindfold, and belt, he quickly insists that the Bible has provided all of these for his prevention of his sin. He is wearing these in obedience to the Word of God. He listens to the monk read and he does his best to memorize as much as he can, hiding the very Words of God so that he might not sin against God.
He has even memorized Psalm 119:105, “Thy Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” I asked him if he had been doing much walking lately. “No, no I haven’t. When I get up and out of these shackles, I get into trouble. No I haven’t been on the path for a very long time. If I am going to stay away from sin, then I need to stay right here in my room, close to my Bible reading monk.” I told him I found it interesting that this memorized verse about the law of God enlightening our common life encouraged us to get up and out into the world where the Word of God could be applied to anything we might encounter. “Oh no! I am too sinful and weak for the world. I need to stay right here with my blindfold over my eyes, listening to the Word of God.”
“OK,” I said. “I am returning to the world now and when I return, I hope to find you in good health and spirits.”
On a subsequent visit I slipped into my friend’s room as quietly as I could so as not to interrupt the mendicant’s reading. He was reading well-known statements of Jesus including, “I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father except through me,” and “If the Son sets you free, you are free indeed.” After these two had been read I could not help my interruption. “Good morning, friend. Are you listening to the gospel this morning?”
“Indeed I am! “I am the way, the truth and the life!” “If the Son sets you free you are free indeed!”
“My friend, are you free in Christ?”
“I’m free from sin. I haven’t committed my pet sin for four years now.”
“How long have you been confined to this cell you call your room?”
“Four years.”
“Are you ready to step out into the world, upon the straight and narrow path, with the light of God shining upon you? Are you ready to live normally, freely, following Christ?”
His response caused a chilling shadow to fall across my soul.
“This is my life. This blindfold is my life; the cuffs, the belt, the shackles are my life. And I am content to live in this room where I am safe from sin.”
I rose from my seat, grabbed the Bible from the lap of the monk, turned to Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians and read with a volume inappropriate for the confines of the room: “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery!” After a pregnant pause I said, “I am going now; will you come with me?”
“My wife has the keys and she does not return home until after 4 p.m.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 17th, 2009 at 3:05 pm and is filed under Gospel, Parables. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.