“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?”
- Jeremiah 17:9
Troubled young men walk through school buildings shooting randomly at anyone they see. Other men fashion bombs and detonate them where they can kill or maim the most people. Another man telephones his ex-wife and taunts her as he murders their two daughters. Still another man allegedly shoots down at a crowd of concertgoers, indiscriminately killing as many people as he can before taking his own life. And the question screams to be answered, why?
One particularly astute and intelligent woman declares that “men” are the problem, that it is in our nature as the males of the species. This is apparently one time when there is no confusion about gender identity. Another crowd of impassioned individuals insists that the weapon of choice is at fault. Still another crowd maintains that all we really need to stop the slaughter are more laws; as if we currently have no laws against wanton murder! But still, we all seek the motives behind these stunning displays of madness, as though the answer is that elusive. Yet in truth, we know the juggernaut of human depravity is the locomotive that drives this unending chain of death. We know but we refuse to acknowledge the truth! “Professing to be wise, they became fools . . .” - Romans 1:22.
For every explanation that enlightened man hangs upon his kindred beings for their murderous behavior there are others who passionately disagree, insisting the motivation lies elsewhere. All the while these proverbial prophets and their colleagues blindly ignore what rises insidiously right before them: simple slithering human depravity. “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” - Genesis 6:5. This and this alone is the perditious pedigree of man.
Perhaps Arthur Pink, a contemporary of Martin Lloyd-Jones and one of the most influential Christian writers of the 20th Century, put it best, “Look at human nature as it now is: depraved, wretched, subject to death. Ask philosophy to account for this, and it cannot do so. None can deny the fact that men are what they ought not to be, but how they became so, human wisdom is unable to tell us.”
There has never been a better and more definitive answer to the whys of man’s evil ways. It explains the condition of human suffering better than any of the psycho-babble we are continually bombarded with. Total human depravity explains it all, yet advocates for other excuses can’t seem to grasp the reality. From attorneys to jurists to law officers to psychiatrists to social engineers, they all close their eyes, ears, hearts, and minds to the answer that looms before them yet eludes their simplistic thinking. “But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart.” - 2 Corinthians 3:15.
Clearly, two can come from the same household and while one lives in humble obedience to the law, the other disdains the law and continually acts against it with derisive contempt. Why?
The emptiness, idolatry, hatred, and culture of death in the world will not go away, ever! The world, like any void, will always be filled with something. It will be either the darkness of sinful tragedy or it will be filled with Jesus Christ. All the pain, heartache, and darkness we witness and experience is what the world is in the absence of Jesus Christ. Until all that we are becomes subject to Him as Lord and Savior, this is what we are and this is what we remain. We can never be more without Him. Why? Because of our total depravity and its vanguard: sin!
Humankind does not have the power in itself to become more than the corruption and decaying corpse that we are without Christ. The dead cannot raise themselves. We are all dead in our transgressions against God. Everyone is and remains guilty without Christ! Even innocent children must be taught right from wrong because the stain of depravity exists from birth. “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.” - Psalm 51:5.
Mankind will stay on this road to perdition as long as we continue to reject the Biblical God who created us and sustains us. He is the only God who can complete us. We must all remember the words of Jesus Christ - “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.” - Mark 1:15.
No amount of misguided hope or social engineering will ever change the blackness of the human heart. It has been tried and it has failed ignominiously! The pervasive darkness that we exist in without Christ cannot and will not be legislated away. Our hearts must change or we will forever remain in this contemptible darkness. Why?
Jesus Himself has already given us this seemingly elusive answer - “Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word. You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.” - John 8:43-44.
The world will continue in its own ways as long as we continue in ours. And thus the world is the flesh and the devil. And so we will continue to ask, “Why?” Never recognizing that Christ and Christ alone is the answer to that perennial question - “Jesus answered them, ‘Do you now believe? Indeed the hour is coming, yes, has now come, that you will be scattered, each to his own, and will leave Me alone. And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me. These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.’” - John 16:31-33.
We know the answer to why. Let Christ be our response.
No comments:
Post a Comment