Gospel Prism

How terrible is sin? John MacArthur writes:

What is sin like? And I told you sin is defiling; that is to say, it is a disposition of the heart that corrupts everything we think, everything we say, everything we do. So that we have to say: “The heart is deceitful above all things, desperately wicked.” We have to say that there is in us “no good thing.” Even the best about us is “filthy rags.” It is a deep defiling in our very nature that corrupts everything we do. Secondly, sin is not only defiling, it is rebellious. It is by nature the despising of God. It is by nature the dethroning of God, and the enthroning of self. Thirdly, sin is not only rebellion, it is ingratitude. It is like the nine lepers who were healed by Jesus and never came back to say thanks. Sin is to take everything that God has given us in his created world and never return thanks to Him. It is utter ingratitude. So we said to you last time, sin is defiling, rebellion and ingratitude. And then I think we stopped at this point. Sin is hard work. Did we mention that? Sin is hard work. You know, most people go to hell sweating, because there’s a furious effort to — to really consummate as much sin as they possibly can. It produces pain and death, and yet, people work very hard at sinning successfully. They, in their lusts, “conceive of sin,” as James says, and then they work out the fulfillment of the conception. Jeremiah 9, Jeremiah says: “Oh, that my head were waters and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!” He’s weeping about the sinful people who are being punished by God. He said: “Oh, that I had in the desert a wayfarers’ lodging place; that I might leave my people and go from them! For all of them are adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men. They bend their tongue like their bow; lies and not truth prevail in the land; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not know Me, declares the Lord.”

Or as Louis Berkhof notes:

At present many substitute the word ‘evil’ for ’sin,’ but this is a poor substitute, for the word ’sin’ is far more specific. It denotes a kind of evil, namely, a moral evil for which man is responsible and which brings him under a sentence of condemnation. The modern tendency is to regard it merely as a wrong done to one’s fellow-beings misses the point entirely, for such a wrong can be called sin only in so far as it is contrary to the will of God. Sin is correctly defined by Scripture as “lawlessness.â€?

And finally, John Calvin notes how terrible are the depths of sin and its implications:

For, did the Lord let every mind loose to wanton in its lusts, doubtless there is not a man who would not show that his nature is capable of all the crimes with which Paul charges it, (Rom. 3 compared with Ps. 14: 3, &c.) What? Can you exempt yourself from the number of those whose feet are swift to shed blood; whose hands are foul with rapine and murder; whose throats are like open sepulchres; whose tongues are deceitful; whose lips are venomous; whose actions are useless, unjust, rotten, deadly; whose soul is without God; whose inward parts are full of wickedness; whose eyes are on the watch for deception; whose minds are prepared for insult; whose every part, in short, is framed for endless deeds of wickedness? If every soul is capable of such abominations, (and the Apostle declares this boldly,) it is surely easy to see what the result would be, if the Lord were to permit human passion to follow its bent. No ravenous beast would rush so furiously, no stream, however rapid and violent, so impetuously burst its banks.

The view of sin is so hideous that it is frightening beyond imagination. It produces the unthinkable and the unthinkable is a man having dreams of sexual perversion and then going to an Amish schoolhouse killing 5 girls execution style.

This story has so troubled me that I had to reflect on its terror to come to understand again the glory of the Gospel even in the midst of such horror. If you don’t know the story, a milk-truck driver by the name of Charles Carl Roberts stormed an Amish schoolhouse, had the men and boys leave, and then killed five girls execution style before killing himself. There have been even more troubling revelations, if that were possible.

It seemed this man had molested some relatives 20 years ago and now had a longing to do so one more time before going out in a blaze of wicked and perverse glory. Fox News reported:

The attack on the one-room schoolhouse in Lancaster County was “well thought-out,” “scripted and pre-planned,” Miller said, and Roberts became panicked when police arrived on the scene. Roberts brought with him to the school items that made police think he was planning on being holed up in the school for a long period of time.

Some of those items included: KY Jelly, plastic flex-ties, three guns, a stun gun, two knives, a pile of wood and a bag with 600 rounds of ammunition, a change of clothing, toilet paper, bolts, hardware and rolls of clear tape.

In his evil thoughts, haunted also by a Satan that loves such evil, he carried out this dastardly deed upon an Amish community. I have a few thoughts regarding all of this.

1. The Deception of Sin and Satan

Sin is everything that John Calvin writes about it. It frames all people to “endless deeds of wickedness.� And surely, this man is a clear example of how wretched sin is, taken to its final extremes. But perhaps what is equally as horrifying as the actions of sin are the deceptions of sin. Take for instance the man’s wife, Marie Roberts. Here is what she said when asked about her husband and his deeds:

“In a statement released to reporters, the gunman’s wife, Marie Roberts, called her husband “loving, supportive and thoughtful.” “He was an exceptional father,” she said. “He took the kids to soccer practice and games, played ball in the backyard and took our 7-year-old daughter shopping. He never said no when I asked him to change a diaper.”

Look at what made Mr. Roberts an “exceptional father.� He never said no when he was asked to change the diaper. And yet, it was known that he had sexually molested his relatives. How can there be such a dichotomy, unless sin has blinded the minds of unbelievers (2 Cor. 4:4)? And this has surely happened in this case.

But I think this is not so uncommon and it is not merely left to those who commit such dreadful acts of rebellion against God. How often it is the case that Christians deem their works of ‘goodness’ or ‘righteousness’ as works that make us exceptional? It is far too easy to think that because outwardly a person “changes diapers without question� automatically qualifies a person as an exceptional father. But deep inside, such a person is still horribly wretched capable of the most horrific acts of violence. Why should we be so shocked when a faithful milk truck driver, or a person who faithfully sings in the church choir like the BTK killer in the Midwest, does such unthinkable deeds? Why are we surprised when church elders who can recite Scripture so easily and then at home abuse their children in fits of rage are not as uncommon as we might think? This is the horrid deception and evil of sin. And unless this sin is dealt with, it will tragically be more commonplace than uncommon.

Oh and Satan, he isn’t called the father of lies by Jesus (John 8:44) for nothing. He takes the implanting of sin that is in every human soul and speaks his sweet nothings into every ear. For this man’s lustful and evil heart, Satan with his demons was at work telling him how he could end his days, his nightmares, his cravings (1 John 2:15-17) with one fell swoop at the Amish school house. This is the power of sin and Satan.

2. The Amish

I think most people are unaware of exactly who the Amish are. The Amish are the ultraconservative branch of the Mennonites, an Anabaptist (literally, those who believe that one can be robotized) group. They essentially believe that followers of Jesus must be careful to avoid the sinful world or be else they will be tainted by it. There are other tenets of the Anabaptist faith, but the Amish essentially take this one to the extreme. They have set up a world where they live set apart from the world to protect themselves against the evil of it.

Well, there are obvious theological problems with this position if one reads texts like Matthew 5 where Jesus tells us that we are to be the salt and light of the world. But what is interesting is that no matter how hard they try to avoid the evil of the world, they can never set themselves apart from it. First, this example is a clear indication that the world’s sin cannot be avoided. Second, and this is far more important to grasp, is that their own sinfulness will make it impossible to escape the evil of the world.

3. The Reach and Consequences of Sin

When I first heard this story on the news, I couldn’t help but think not of the families of those killed, but the family of this man. He had three children. They would live their days knowing full well that their father was a child molester and a murderer. They would be haunted by it and Satan will do everything in his power to help them keep this act of their father’s at the forefront of their world.

It makes me think of David. His one act of committing adultery and killing Uriah had a ripple effect of tainting so many other lives with the consequence of his sin. Uriah was obviously effected, and so too Bathsheba. But then, in David’s ploy to kill Uriah, so many men were killed in battle. Obviously, they had families who would mourn over their lives. And then, there are David’s children such as Amnon, Tamar, Absalom. What would their lives have been like if David did not commit such sins? Sin has lasting consequences and it destroys lives. This man’s family, wife, children, not to mention all of the families of these girls, will be forever devastated and affected by this sin.

4. Suicide

Mr. Roberts committed this final act, taking his own life. Many wonder whether those who commit suicide can be saved. But I need only look at the Bible to see two instances of suicide, one by Judas and the other by King Saul. Both will never see the glory of Christ because of their evil hearts before God. And both did not persevere to the end when Paul says that God will carry to completion those He calls (Phil 1:6). Suicide is the person’s final statement to God that he or she will control his own destiny. It is the final act of rebellion and the final act of idolatry in the sense that a person will not relinquish their lives, even the horror of their lives to Christ.

5. No Hope, Unless…

All of this is pretty dreary, sin, Satan, suicide. Is there any hope for such darkness? The answer of course is a resounding, “Yes!� Sin is horrific, but isn’t this why Jesus bore such agony on the cross when He said, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?� Jesus Christ, God’s precious and beloved Son, died for the horrors of the darkest of sins. Imagine if somehow (ok, we cannot even come close to imagining this) Jesus took the essence of Mr. Roberts’ sin, and all of such sins like it, upon His shoulders at the cross. I read a story like this and it makes me sick. I have three daughters. What if they were at that schoolhouse and if they were the ones shot? How much more I would feel the existential reality of such horror. But even I cannot come close to grasping that reality, even if it were my daughters! But Jesus can, because He is God. He bears the full weight of such horror emotionally, spiritually. And He took this horror and so many others and walked up the long hill of Golgotha. He took God’s righteous anger and wrath against such horrors, upon Himself, alone, despised, and rejected upon the cross. This is what our Lord did. And this is how sinners, like us, and if Mr. Roberts had truly confessed his wretchedness, even a person as vile as him, could be saved. Jesus Christ flips death, sin, destruction, on its head.

Jesus then, at the cross, crushed Satan’s power. As deceptive as Satan is, Jesus is the Truth. And so when we believe in Him, Satan has no sway over our souls. But we must believe Christ as Lord.

Also, in Christ, God can take even the evil of a situation and use it to His glory. If Mr. Roberts’ children somehow could see their hopelessness in light of the cross, then yes, there is absolutely hope for them. If Saul the killer and David the murderer and adulterer and yes, even we who also have the same heart, can be saved from this sin, then so too Mr. Roberts’ family. Marie Roberts asked for prayers for their family. I hope more than praying for their ease and adjustment during such a time, Christians lift up prayers for God’s mercy and God’s glory to be revealed to Mr. Roberts’ family. They would turn to Christ as their only hope. In Christ, there is still hope even when it seems hopeless.

I could not process such events without the hope of Jesus Christ. But knowing this wondrous truth shows me that even when times are dark, Jesus is exalted because God lifted Jesus up from the cross to heaven and now Jesus reigns supreme.

Or as Charles Wesley sang so gloriously:

And can it be that I should gain
An interest in the Savior’s blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain—
For me, who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?