“They have all fallen away; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.” Psalm 53:3

A few years ago we had a terrible, terrible tragedy in Roseburg.  Murders don’t happen very often in our town, but when they do, it is more often than not, a family dispute or someone passing through murdering someone passing through.  The details of the crime were utterly horrendous.  Lori, a 37 year-old mother of four  worked the graveyard shift in our local fast-stop.  By all accounts, she and her husband were both working hard to make ends meet and to provide a good home for the kids who ranged from ages 11 to 17.   A 27 year-old man who lived  near the fast-stop went into the store, stabbed the woman and then bludgeoned her with a hammer.  The police recognized him from video footage, went to the house and arrested him.  He only told them a couple of things.  One, he did not know Lori, but he hated her anyway, and two, he said he stopped beating her so he would have enough energy to walk home.  He didn’t even take anything- it was killing for killing’s sake.

He had no other ulterior motives.  There wasn’t some kind of jealousy or drug deal.  It was just a thoughtless, heartless act of evil.  How do these kind of things happen?   How can people who purport to belong to the human race be capable of such cruelty?   How is that some even use god as their excuse for wearing bombs and blowing up innocent women and children, or flying planes into buildings killing thousands, or beheading innocent journalists and videotaping it for the world to see?  Everyone has his own theory/excuse.  Some talk about culture and economics and religion, and others talk about mitigating circumstances, misunderstandings, and miscommunication, but there is only one real answer and it is found in Psalm 53:3: “They have all fallen away; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.” 

We can look at this verse and say that not all people are corrupt.  After all, it is only a small percentage of our population who can do the cruelest of acts without blinking.  But it is not because we are good and they are not.  It is because we are restrained and they are not.  Some people are restrained by law, some by fear, some by logic and some by society, but the only true restrainer is the Holy Spirit.   Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:17,  “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away, and look, new things have come.”  Our natural hearts are dark and we will, if given the choice, too often pick the darker way of doing things.    Solomon tells us in Proverbs 12:10 that  “A righteous man has regard for the life of his animal, But even the compassion of the wicked is cruel.” The man who killed Lori had abandoned any semblance of rightness by joining the forces of evil.

There was a line in the movie “The Giver” that I mentioned a few weeks ago.  “When man has a choice, he always chooses wrong.”  There is much truth to that statement.   We can say that murder is cruel, reprehensible, and unbelievably  disturbing, but unfortunately we cannot say it is inhuman.  We have seen too many humans do too many horrible acts to classify the acts as inhuman any longer.  They are acts that humans are capable of doing if they have no reason not to.   Someone once said, “imagine the worse thing a person can do, and make it ten times worse, and you can be assured that someone, somewhere, is probably doing it.”

We look at others who do such cruelty and think, how did they get there?  One day at a time, I would say.  They allowed more and more evil to creep into their lives.  They rejected God more and embraced goodness less.  They took our natural inclinations and moved them to a place where few will go, but they are just an extension of our own hearts.   How did they get there?  The same way we would if took the restraints off and lived as our evil hearts could.   I am not giving us excuses for our evil behavior.  Satan, the world, and our flesh constantly war against the “hope which lies within us,” but we still have a choice which influence we decide to heed.   But by God’s grace we could be committing acts that would seem horrific to the civilized world. Remember, even though we are being tempted by Satan, the world, and our own fleshly lusts, we cannot use that for an excuse because ultimately we still have choice.  On the other hand, if we deny the influences around us and erroneously believe that none of our choices are swayed by the three afore mentioned influences we will go along like the “unsinkable” Titanic, and we will sink.

We all need the strength of the Holy Spirit to experience righteousness.  In Proverbs there is a verse that I feel can be extrapolated  to encompass even more things than the verse calls for.  I put my additions in parentheses.  “He who oppresses the poor (weak, lonely, dependent) taunts his Maker, But he who is gracious to the needy (weak, lonely, dependent) honors Him.”  Proverbs 14:31  We must not taunt our maker because He is not one to be taunted.  Not only do we need to armor up everyday, but we need to unsheathe our sword and fight against the forces that would see us give in.   If not,  we might look into the mirror and see the person we have always despised staring back.  The only way to avoid seeing that image stare back at us is to stay close to our Lord.  If we can no longer restrain ourselves than we must retrain ourselves through the power of the Holy Spirit.  We must follow the one who did all things right, so that we might not do all things wrong.   To steal a line from Uncle Sam,  God is looking for a few good men (and women).  We have more than our share of cruel, selfish, and unfeeling people out there. The world could  sure use some loving, obedient, spirit-filled Christians to offset the mess this world is in.