"You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”
[Exodus 20:16]
To the Writers of The Middlings,
I’m asking for some help. Here’s my problem—I can’t relate to certain people and their sin.
Folks these days are just so messed up. I know we have all sinned, but many today just seem like they are on a whole other level.
Now, don’t get me wrong, my sin was definitely sinful. I needed forgiveness and Jesus in my life as much as the next guy. But I don’t think I was ever as far gone as some of these people.
I would have never once thought about some of the things people actually do where I live. They seem chained to their sin with no possible way of escape. They seem so devoted to their flaws that they are willing to do anything to stay in their lifestyles. Lifestyles so full of death if you ask me.
I guess I’m just writing to see if you can help in any way.
Help me relate. Help me understand. Help me to believe there’s hope for a society that seems so much more lost and sinful than I ever was.
Sincerely,
Daemon
Gadara of Decapolis
Could you ever imagine the Demoniac of Gadara actually writing something like this? The same man who was living in a graveyard, cutting himself with stones, and possessed with thousands of demonic hosts (cf. Mark 5:1-20). Of course you couldn’t. Yet you might hesitate with your answer because maybe, like me, you have had a very similar attitude towards others we ourselves have deemed “too far gone.”
The truth is we are all sinners before God. Which, in turn, makes us all in need of a Savior. Our sin might be different and take various forms, but it is all counted the same before the same holy God. And all those sins will send us all to an eternity in hell.
As Christians, we know these things. But maybe, like this guy, we struggle to believe that repentance is possible for one of those sinners we judge “too far” because we fail to remember the sinfulness of our own hearts before accepting Christ. Never forget that “respectable sins” is a label we provide, not God.
“I was in a bible study and a pimp walked through the door.
And I said to the pimp, ‘You can’t do that kind of work no more.’
He begged for forgiveness and his knees hit the floor.
With his eyes to the sky, he asked forgiveness from the Lord.
However, I was sitting in church and a predatory lender walked through the door,
The leaders said to him, ‘Would you like a seat on the elder’s board?’
With a smile on his face and accolades galore,
We celebrated this man even though he exploited the poor.”[1]
Whether we were the pimp or the lender, a selfish businessman or transgender, we were all equally “too far.”
We were all equally lost.
We were all equally sinners whose righteousness was as “filthy rags.”[2]
Sure, we could “whitewash” the outside but, as Jesus would say, the inside would still be filled with “dead man’s bones.”[3]
To convey anything else would be to “bear false witness against your neighbor” to the detriment of the Gospel, not its advancement.
So, let’s not whitewash the memories of our own repentance at the cross. Instead, let’s be honest about the filthiness of who we were before Christ so that equality after the cross can be imagined by all. Like the Demoniac, the scars of our sin, literal or mere recollections, are left to remind us of that very thing.
May we not allow ourselves to ever forget that it wasn’t the thief being crucified, the adulterous woman at the well, or this man bound by chains possessed by demons in the audience when the hope of John 3:16 was originally proclaimed—it was a religious leader.[7]
“For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”
[Romans 3:23]
And that is where equality “for all” begins.
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