Festival of Booths
48" x 36"
Acrylic on Panel
$2,680.00
Imagine that you're walking through the courtyard of some magnificent buildings in a great European city. You are admiring the architecture of past generations, when a strange sight appears before you. There is a small crowd of people gathering around a booth--no, not one, but two booths--one has a glowing Vegas style "XXX" sign on the top. A porno booth. And the other a glowing neon cross, with the two doors. A confessional.
"What in the world is going on out here?" you think to yourself. People line up hurriedly into the little porno booth to pop in a coin and feast their eyes on some sleazy film. Once they exit, they look a little disappointed, even ashamed. Then they start forming a line to go into the confessional booth. They put some money in the box, and get their sin of their chest as quickly as they can. What's this? You do a double take. After leaving the confessional, they start towards the porno booth again, as if almost by a magnet!
This is the picture that I see. People confessing their sins in a shallow ritual, as if going through a revolving door with a mud pit on one side and a sprinkler on the other--dirty, clean, dirty, clean, dirty, clean, dirty--no true repentance.
Now I'll admit that those who act like this probably never knew Christ in the first place. They are trusting in a ritual to save them. However, the Bible speaks to some of us, even true believers, warning us to be careful so that we do not abuse the grace of Jesus. In Hebrews 10:26-27 and 29 it says, " If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God...How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him and who has insulted the Spirit of Grace?"
The Bible says, "God will not be mocked." Even though He slow to anger and forgives sins graciously, He is just and will not allow people to take advantage of Him. But if we are truly in Jesus, we will know it and should not worry, because "perfect love casts out all fear."
