{"id":50012,"date":"2001-02-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2001-02-06T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/mistaking-grace-for-license\/"},"modified":"2001-02-06T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2001-02-06T00:00:00","slug":"mistaking-grace-for-license","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/mistaking-grace-for-license\/","title":{"rendered":"Mistaking Grace for License"},"content":{"rendered":"

D. A. Carson, a professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, used to meet with a young man from French West Africa for the purpose of practicing their German. He writes:<\/p>\n\n

\n

Once a week or so, we had had enough, so we went out for a meal together and retreated to French, a language we both knew well. In the course of those meals we got to know each other. I learned that his wife was in London, training to be a medical doctor. He was an engineer who needed fluency in German in order to pursue doctoral studies in engineering in Germany.
\n
\nI soon discovered that once or twice a week he disappeared into the red-light district of town. Obviously he went to pay his money and have his woman.
\n
\nEventually I got to know him well enough that I asked him what he would do if he discovered that his wife was doing something similar in London.
\n
\n"Oh," he said, "I'd kill her."
\n
\n"That's a bit of a double standard, isn't it?" I asked.
\n
\n"You don't understand. Where I come from in Africa, the husband has the right to sleep with many women, but if a wife is unfaithful to her husband she must be killed."
\n
\n"But you told me you were raised in a mission school. You know that the God of the Bible does not have double standards like that."
\n
\nHe gave me a bright smile and replied, "Ah, le bon Dieu, il doit nous pardonner; c'est son metier [Ah, God is good. He's bound to forgive us; that's his job].<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3386,4010,4088,4154,4313,4367,4805,5210],"tax_ctp_topics":[378,382,388],"class_list":["post-50012","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-adultery","tax_ctp_tags-forgiveness","tax_ctp_tags-grace","tax_ctp_tags-holiness","tax_ctp_tags-judgment","tax_ctp_tags-license","tax_ctp_tags-repentance","tax_ctp_tags-unfaithfulness"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"\nMistaking Grace for License - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/mistaking-grace-for-license\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mistaking Grace for License - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"D. 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