Sins of Commission or Omission?

“I will stretch out my hand against Judah and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and I will cut off from this place the remnant of Baal and the name of the idolatrous priests along with the priests, 5 those who bow down on the roofs to the host of the heavens, those who bow down and swear to the Lord and yet swear by Milcom,[b] 6 those who have turned back from following the Lord, who do not seek the Lord or inquire of him.” 

Zephaniah 1:1-6

In 1744 Louis XV of France was sick and all the nation was weeping and in prayer for his recovery. The people lived in hope that the young king would bring happier days to them, for they had lived under the heel of a cruel tyrant. In 1774 after 30 years of his reign he was again lying ill, but there were no tears and no prayers for his recovery, because he had done nothing for the people to fulfil their hopes. Doing nothing good makes you an evil king, even if you do nothing bad. The Golden Rule is, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." It is active and not passive. It is not enough to not do wrong. You must do right to be right with God.

Zephaniah is one of the last twelve books of the Old Testament that we traditionally call “The Minor Prophets.” In fact, in Hebrew, these are considered one book, and they would call them “The Twelve.”

In these verses God is talking about why a judgment is coming. When you punish someone, you want them to learn something from it. God too wants that the people may know why they are being punished.

God lists a number of kinds of sins they were involved in, which were bringing about His punishment. This is a warning to us today also as the things that angered Him against Judah and Jerusalem back then, are still offensive to Him today. What were the sins that God was judging them?

He says in v. 4, “I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this place” (Baal was the name of the false god that many of the Israelites were worshiping) “and the names of the Idolatrous priests” - so many even of God’s priests were involved in this idolatry with Baal! We see it again in v. 5, “Those who bow down on the housetops to the host of heaven.” So idolatry - worshiping other gods, was one of the sins they were being judged for.

But then notice the second part of v. 5. It says: “and those who bow down and swear to the LORD and yet swear by Milcom”. Now here’s a slightly different type of sin. God says, there are some of you who are worshiping Me. He says, “you bow down and swear to the LORD” — “and yet swear by Milcom.”

“Milcom” was another false god. God is saying that there are some who are trying to have it both ways: they want to worship Yahweh and the other gods of the nations around  as well. But God says He’s not having any of it. You can’t have it both ways.  And of course, this speaks to a lot of us today, who are trying to “sit on the fence” and live half your life for God, and half your life for the world. You can’t do that. You can’t have it both ways. Like Joshua told the people of Israel: “Choose you this day whom you will serve.” You can’t serve God and anything else.

In v. 6 we find a different kind of sin. It was not the sin of “committing” anything; but rather the sin of “omitting” the worship of God. He says: You have “turned back” from following Me – You have not sought Me – You have not inquired of Me

This is a very convicting word from God. Because lot of times we think of “sin” as particular acts we “commit”: murder, adultery, stealing, cheating, lying, lusting, drinking, gambling, and so on. And those things are sins.  But James 4 reminds us that there is also another category of sin: not just things that we “commit,” but also things that we “omit.” James 4:17 says, “Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.” James says it is not just sins of “commission” that offend God, but sins of “omission” - the things that we do not do that we should be doing.

There are many “sins of omission” that we could be convicted of: of not doing good things that we should have done: not caring about people and helping them. Maybe we didn’t hurt someone, but weu didn’t help them either. Like the priest and the Levite on the Jericho Road. They didn’t beat that guy up and rob him, but they didn’t help him either; and that was also a sin. Not being faithful in our ministry. Not giving what we should have. Not going on mission or witnessing when we should. Not praying regularly as we should do. Not reading and studying the Bible regularly.

Dear Friends, we can go through life being so self-centered that we can plan our life with little attention to the purpose of God and boast in our success. And the end result of all our success is that we  fail to do what God's will is for them, and totally mess up by living a life of sinful omission of the good they might have done in life had they been open to God's leading.

This Lenten Season, may we be able to understand that Sin is sin, and God hates any and all sin. Let us guard ourselves from the temptation to sin in all areas of our lives and ensure that we are walking blamelessly before the Lord. 

God Bless You