Hidden in plain sight

“Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper,
​but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy.”
Proverbs 28:13

Have you seen them? They are camouflaging cell phone towers to look like trees. No, I know this isn’t something new, but I thought it would make for an interesting column. The closest one that I am aware of is on Roxboro St. in Durham. A couple of weeks ago I drove with our son to Texas and we saw quite a few of them on our trip. They don’t even begin to look natural. Most of them are twice the height of any other tree nearby. It is like if Shaquille O’Neal were standing in a group picture with a kindergarten class! No matter how many artificial Christmas tree limbs they put on the cell tower, it is still a cell tower. I guess phone companies and neighborhoods have decided that if they can cover up the towers and they will look more appealing.  Don’t get me wrong, I am not knocking cell towers. I enjoy my i-phone as much as anyone, but a cell tower is still a cell tower no matter what you try to make it look like.

We live in a society that is doing the same thing to sin. We think we can cover it up or call it something else and that makes it ok.  Homosexuality is now considered” an alternate lifestyle” to some. God calls it sin. “If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act.” Leviticus 20:13. Many in our great Nation call abortion “a woman’s choice”.  God says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, Before you were born I set you apart; …” Jeremiah 1:5. God told the prophet that He was the one that made him in his mother’s womb and He had a plan for his life, before and in the womb. Job 31:15 says, “Did not He who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same One form both within our mothers?” We see more and more people in that are confused about what sex they are. “Well I feel like I was born the wrong sex”. Beloved pick up a Bible, God clears it up quickly. “So God created mankind in His own image, in the image of God He created them; male and female he created them.” Genesis 1:27. God made you the sex that you are! “ A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God.” Deuteronomy 22:5. The Bible is clear, be the sex that you were born. Today an alarming number of people are living together before or instead of getting married. They call it love or wanting to see if they are compatible. The Bible calls it sin. “Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled, but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.” Hebrews 13:4 

​Granted there are more sins that our culture is trying to camouflage than we can discuss here. But the Bible has not changed and will not change. If God defines something as sin, it doesn’t matter what we rename it, it is still sin.