Guilt Is the Corrosion of the Soul

Many people deal with guilt by drowning it. Some drown it in alcohol and drug abuse. Marijuana use among teenagers increased 37% between 1994 and 1995. The use of LSD and other hallucinogens was up 54%.

And the use of cocaine increased by 166%. Over fourteen million Americans are in 12-step programs. Why are Americans drinking and drugging themselves to death? We’re trying to escape ourselves and drown the pangs of our own guilt.

Marlon Brando was once young, trim, and handsome. A million girls dreamed of having him. But now he weighs over four hundred pounds, and he told someone, “I’m sorry for all the harm I’ve done and for all the troubles I’ve brought to others in my life.

I’ve never been a good parent or a good husband. I’ve been too busy with my own life to have time for others. Now I’m a guilty old man who’s ashamed of the kind of life I’ve led. There’s nothing left for me except eating.”

Other people deal with guilt by denying it. As our society has become increasingly secular, it has lost respect for the authority of the Word of God, and that has led to a dangerous and destructive moral and spiritual chain reaction. If there is no authoritative Word of God, then there are no moral absolutes.

If there are no moral absolutes, there are no ultimate standards of right and wrong. If there are no ultimate standards of right and wrong, then we can base our rules and standards on societal consensus.

If we base our rules on societal consensus, then we can adjust them to our own shape and size. We can adjust them downward. We can live any way we want to, and there is no such thing as genuine guilt before God.

Guilt is just a nagging relic of Puritanism, a Victorian antique, a psychosis to be denied. Some people deal with guilt by deflecting it. They blame other people for their failures and faults and shortcoming. They blame their parents or their environments.

This technique goes all the way back to the garden of Eden when Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the serpent. But sooner or later, all these techniques fail, and we find we can’t escape the consequences of our own sinfulness and guilt.

Jeremiah 2:22 says, “’Although you wash yourself with soda and use an abundance of soap, the stain of your guilt is before me,’ declares the Sovereign Lord.” Guilt is the corrosion of the soul. How can we get rid of it? We can’t drown it, deny it, or deflect it.

We can only dissolve it in the blood of Jesus Christ. 1 1 From a sermon by the author. 2 Anhur T Pierson, The Gospel, vol 2 (Grand Rapids, Ml: Baker Book House, 1978), 8. 1 A.

W. Tozer, “Four Ways To Find God’s Will,” HIS Magazine, May 1969.