“The lady doth protest too much.”
A line from the play Hamlet, by William Shakspeare, spoken by Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother. She is watching a play, and a character in it swears never to remarry if her husband dies. The play is making Hamlet’s mother uncomfortable, because she herself remarried almost immediately after the murder of her first husband.
The lesson here is about a measure of truth that can often be found in fiction. Yesterday I said that those bound firmly in sin will protest the loudest. We hear it every day because of the advent of social media. Now with the onset of the latest social helper, AI, the invention of intelligent answers, the real danger is allowing others to do the thinking for us.
Isaiah 1:18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
When we allow the internet, phones, apps, tweets, and everyone influence our thinking, we will find ourselves less likely to seek God’s help. I have reasoned with God and I have never won an argument. No one wants to be wrong all the time. Those clinging to sin because it controls every aspect of their thoughts and actions will never admit they are wrong.
No one repents until they know they are wrong. Reasoning with God will always expose sin for what it truly is, unholy. It is a comparison. God is holy and being in His presence will always make us feel small and insignificant. Those are human feelings associated with past behaviors.
“Once a woman has forgiven her man, she must not reheat his sins for breakfast.” –Marlene Dietrich
That is good advice, good secular advice, but is it based in godly wisdom?
Colossians 1:14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Forgiveness is tied directly to redemption.
International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia
Redeemer; Redemption:
re-dem’-er, re-demp’-shun (paraq, “to tear loose,” “to rescue,” padhah, ga’al; agorazo, referring to purchase, lutroumai, from lutron, “a ransom”):
We do not think of forgiveness as being set free ourselves, but we should. Unforgiveness has a hold on us that keeps us from loving one another. The secret to forgiveness is putting love first rather than retaliation. There is a little of Marlene’s wisdom in that. Just a little.