Excuses, !
By C. H. Spurgeon
All a man’s ways seem right to him, but the Lord weighs the heart. To do what is right and just is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. Proverbs 21:2-3
A traveler in Venezuela illustrates the readiness of people to lay their faults on the locality, or on anything rather than themselves, by the story of a hard drinker who came home one night in such a condition that he could not for some time find his hammock. When this feat was accomplished, he tried in vain to get off his big riding boots. After many fruitless efforts he lay down in his hammock, and made a speech to himself, “Well, I have traveled all the world over. I lived five years in Cuba, four in Jamaica, five in Brazil. I have traveled through Spain and Portugal, and been in Africa, but I never yet was in such an abominable country as this, where a man is obliged to go to bed with his boots on.”
We are commonly told by evildoers in excuse for their sins that no one could do otherwise in the same position, that there is no living at their trade honestly, that their workplace must be open on a Sunday, that their health required a trip to the beach on the Sabbath because their work was so difficult, that nobody could be religious in their workplace, and so on, all to the same effect—and about as truthful as the soliloquy of the drunkard of Venezuela.
