"You Sin, You Win"
Not really. Nobody wins by sinning. But this is the title of a paragraph that appeared in the February 25, 2018 column of the Orlando Sentinel. Each week the newspaper prints blurbs from some of the 100 leaders of the Orlando area. One lawyer and former member of Congress made the "You Sin, You Win" comment with respect to Florida being ranked Number One in a report of "2018's Most Sinful States in America." Apparently, we beat out California and Nevada, although one wonders how. Could it be that all of those who moved down here from New York and New Jersey are tipping the scale?
Historically, college students come down on Spring Break to drink and commit fornication, but other places are in the running for that "honor" nowadays. The state does license various Indian groups to operate gambling casinos, but how could that compare with Las Vegas? In fact, Florida is not even in the Top Ten for gambling, although Indiana and Mississippi are. Isn't Reno still the divorce capital of the world? No, actually Panama City, Florida is ahead of Reno. Three other Florida cities, including Jacksonville, are in the Top Ten. That's not good. However, Florida is not known for sanctuary cities, like California is. So, how did we get this ranking? Florida attracts many families here as tourists, which is probably not the case with Nevada. While tourism is important to the state, we are not aware of sin as being one of the major attractions—except for homosexual week in June at Disney.
Are people really looking for sinful activities when they plan their vacations? It's a horrible thought that a significant portion of the population might be thinking in those terms. But then it is worse for them to think that you are the locale they are searching for. Perhaps the state of Florida needs to work harder at establishing a better image.
What this mainly means, however, is that Christians need to be doing more to convert people. The more people who obey the gospel, then the fewer there will be seeking evil entertainment. Evidence is available that suggests that many of our churches are dwindling in numbers and dying out. Why is that? A number of reasons could be cited, but the chief one is a lack of evangelistic thinking on the part of the members. The temptation is to so enjoy our own salvation that we neglect to express our thanks to God for making salvation available by reaching out to others still lost in sin. Either we grow, or we die; it's not complicated. Are we speaking effectively to visitors? Are we calling them on the telephone or in person? Are we inviting others to have a Bible study or attend worship? Let's shed this #1 sinful state image!