Have you ever noticed that when disaster strikes, people seem to immediately lose their sense of priority? Tornado victims will comb through their shattered homes looking for pictures and valuables before taking care of where they will sleep or what they will eat. A family will be shattered by the unexpected loss of a loved one and the mother will go to the store to buy cleaning supplies because people will be visiting. Crime victims will often try to make it to school or work right after being victimized. It’s shock, I know, but it is very telling that when we are confronted with disaster our priorities seem to scramble.
It is also quite biblical. In the story of the fall (Original Sin) in Genesis chapter three, what was the first thing Adam and Eve did when they unleashed sin and death on the entire cosmos?
Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths (Gen. 3:7).
They just found out the serpent had lied to them. They realized they committed the very first act of disobedience against God. And what did they do? Sewed fig leaves together. Let that sink in. They knew they were going to have to answer to God for their disobedience but all they could think to do in preparation for that moment was to make the world’s first pairs of underwear? How long do you think that took? They had never worn clothes or for that matter even seen any. How long would it take you to make a wearable pair of underwear today with all you know about clothing and all the technology at your fingertips? Which one of them even knew how to sew? And how long do you suppose fig leaves would last?
How in the world did hiding their nakedness from God shoot to the top of their list of that horrible day's priorities?
Sin clouds.
Sin takes the clarity of a signal from a fiber optic cable into a LED LCD high-definition television and turns the picture into what we used to see with vacuum tube console TVs equipped with rabbit ear antennae: a snowy mess. The priorities that were once so crystal clear can barely be discerned and we spend so much of our time wrapping the antenna with aluminum foil and moving it around that we miss the entire show.
Sin separates. The cross of Christ reunites. It’s that simple. Or, at least it should be. But sin obfuscates.
Famed educator, author, and speaker Stephen Covey is credited with saying, “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” That is precisely what evil and sin prevent. This is why our lives are being flooded constantly with sin and its consequence (misery and death) by Satan: to keep us diverted from the main thing so that we will spend countless and fruitless hours sewing fig leaves together. Remember, after being confronted by God for their sin and judged, the first thing God did was to make “for Adam and his wife garments of skins…” (Gen. 3:21). All that time and effort to find fig leaves and figure out how to sew them together and get the size right was all for naught.
Think about the government today. What is supposed to be the top priority of any government? Isn’t it to protect and serve the people? Yet the focus of our government in America seems to be sex. That’s right, sex. Think of all the effort being spent by the government to legitimize and normalize homosexuality, gender fluidity, and transgenderism. Most states had their legislatures spend time and effort passing constitutional measures defining marriage as between one man and one woman. To which the Supreme Court responded by making same-sex marriage a “right” thereby overruling the states. The Obama administration forced public schools to adopt measures allowing boys who feel like they are girls to use girls’ restrooms and locker rooms. The Trump administration rescinded that policy. Biden tried to put it back in place.
Think about how much time, money, and effort is spent by our government to deal with issues related to sex. Same-sex marriage and the subsequent attack on religious freedom, bathroom bills, abortion (despite the Dobbs decision), school curriculums developed to foist alternative lifestyles on children going all the way down to the kindergarten level, sex scandals in various branches of the military, and even in our public schools. Talk about being distracted from what its top priorities are supposed to be! Our nation’s southern border is being flooded by illegal immigrants some of whom wish to do us serious harm and little is being done to stop it while year after year we are expending time and resources making sure men who feel like women feel safe, free, and welcome to use the ladies facilities? That’s taking priority over national security? All while Russia, China, and North Korea are rattling nuclear sabres in our face.
Is the Christian church in America faring any better?
What is supposed to be the top priority of the Christian? Is it not to know and love God and share Him with others? And yet what seems to be the top priority for the church? That’s right…again, it’s sex! Entire denominations are crumbling because they are engrossed with legitimizing any kind of sexuality that culture is embracing. In other words, people who claim to be committed to Christ have put their own personal sexual proclivities over everything else in the faith community.
Whatever happened to priorities in Christendom?
Jesus Christ affirmed the Shema of Deut. 6:4-9 in Mark 12:28-30 as the top priority for any believer part of which reads:
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might…
He then added loving your neighbor as yourself as second only to that (Mark 12:31). Later in His ministry He made obedience to His Word the requisite evidence of one’s embrace of those two priorities: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). And yet what is the church expending most of its effort on today? Is it preaching the cross of Christ (1 Cor. 1:23)? Is it making disciples (Matt. 28:19)? Is it proclaiming that all people everywhere ought to repent of their sins (Acts 17:30)? Hardly.
Instead, we’re busy, busy, busy sewing our fig leaves together to justify our evolving views on human sexuality. And just like Adam and Eve, we are going to find out that it is a colossal waste of time and effort.
When your demand for legitimization and acceptance supersedes what the Bible says is to be our top priorities…you’re just sewing together fig leaves. The moment you step into them you will realize just how foolish and wasteful it was to make them in the first place.
