Sin is Like a Golf Ball Through a Window (Sermon Illustrations)
It is easy to compare your sin with the sin of another. Well, at least I am not as bad as him. She is far worse than I am. We feel somehow justified because overall we are pretty good. But we must understand that all sin, no matter how small, results in the same consequence.
Suppose I play golf. I stand on the first tee, hit the ball, and put a hook on it so that it leaves the golf course and goes through a huge window in a department store across the street. The manager comes out and says, “Who broke the window?” I respond, “Sir, I broke your window.” He says, “That will cost you six thousand dollars.” I counter, “Sir, I do not have six thousand dollars.” He answers, “You broke the window, you pay.”
“How big was the golf ball?” I ask, and he answers by lifting his hand to show me the size. Pleased with where my argument is about to carry me, I suggest, “I put the ball through the window one time. I will buy you one piece of glass that big, and then we are even.” His predictable response is, “No, you broke the window, you buy the whole window.” We argue about it and go to court. Any objective jury would award the case to the manager.
God’s law is like that plate-glass window. Some people put only a few holes in it, others put many holes in it. Some periodically put a hole here or there. Others destroy it with a howitzer. Still others seem to delight in jumping up and down on the pieces of broken glass until they grind them into sand. But one hole is all it takes; the window is broken, and the one who broke it is responsible for the purchase of the whole window.
In our relationship with God, as James said, “whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it” (James 2:10). Sin is sin, and only one sin is necessary to require Jesus Christ’s death on the cross in payment.
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