Paul Derengowski, ThM
If it has not become transparently evident just how rotten human beings can be lately, with all of the sexual abuse accusations and confessions being tossed about like popcorn in a hopper, something else is transparently evident as well: how self-righteously hypocritical many are amid all accusations and confessions.
Case-in-point, the New York Post ran an article exposing the rottenness of a former Oklahoma Republican, caught in a hotel room, smoking dope and getting ready to have homosexual sex with a 17-year-old boy.
He was summarily arrested and charged with hiring the 17-year-old for sex. The 17-year-old was a prostitute, in other words.
While all of that is disgusting, immoral, and reprehensible, the advertisements and commentary by some Facebook members were every bit as much disgusting, immoral, and reprehensible.
They were the pot calling the kettle black.
Right below the NY Post article were three additional articles under the Recommended for You subtitle, all dealing with sexual perversion, all written with the intent of enticing the senses.
“Porn star in suspected suicide after being trolled online.” “Ex-official filmed performing oral sex on ‘unresponsive’ men.” “Sex with micropenis can be a mind-bendingly good experience.”
No, I did not take the time to wade through the swill. I had to go vomit.
As for the commentary from the Facebook hypocrites, they were equally as bad, if one understands what the Bible has to say about the human condition and how we all stand just as guilty before God for committing the same sins as the politician in the motel room.
Corbly Shaffer had this to say about the politician’s exploits,
Welcome to the real, fallen world of humanity, Corbly. The Bible makes that clear: “Both Jews and Greeks are all under sin…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:9, 23).
We’re all perverts, including you Ms. Shaffer. What makes you think you’re not?
Then there was this gem,
Mr. Campbell, it’s not just the government that is “full of Dirty People.” It is the whole of the human race that is “Dirty” before God.
Solomon wrote, “Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who never sins” (Eccl. 7:20). Paul wrote, “There is none righteous, not even one” (Rom. 3:10). John wrote, “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 Jn. 1:8).
Substitute “dirt” for sin and it becomes quite clear that everyone, including you, Mr. Sheldon, are dirty.
Last, but not least, were these acute insights from “Jimmy Joe,”
What Jimmy fails to see, because of his spiritual blindness, is the fact that human depravity is not confined to a political party—just look at all the Democrats being “busted” for their sexual escapades—nor are they attributable to where a person lives geographically.
Al Franken is from Minnesota. John Conyers is from Michigan. The Republican in this story, who although he served in Oklahoma, was caught in New York.
There are 235 lawsuits that have been settled for Congressmen in Washington, D.C., that we may never know the full details about, because they are living above the law, not abiding by the law.
The only way any human being will ever get a grip on all the perversion, the sin, and the debauchery either going on around them or in their own lives is to first realize just what kind of pervert he or she is.
James, the half-brother of Jesus, wrote, “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all” (James 2:10).
That means that even though a person may not have committed an act of sexual perversion with a 17-year-old boy or girl in a motel room, because of the unity and continuity of God’s law, if that person ever told a lie, thought an evil thought, or said an untoward comment, he or she is as guilty as the person who did commit the act of sexual perversion.
After a person comes to the realization of just how perverse he/she is, and does not attempt to sugarcoat it—”The heart is more deceitful that all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it? (Jer. 17:9)—he/she needs to know that there is forgiveness.
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8).
That is the good news! It is news that you will never see accompanying all the tawdry and salacious news stories on the Internet, television, or radio.
It is certainly not what anyone is going to read or hear from the self-righteous hypocrites writing their comments or producing their videos for all the other self-righteous hypocrites on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and elsewhere.
But, it is what God has to say about the human condition; that even though we, as the human race, continue to wallow in our rebellion against God and invent all kinds of ways to behave like the reprobates that we are, God loves us, is willing to forgive us, and will set us free from our past.
That is only possible because of Jesus’ willingness to die in our stead.
And as we are forgiven, we develop the capacity and character to forgive others, who are still walking about in the dark, committing acts that were once a part of ourselves (1 Cor. 6:11).
The solution is not finger-pointing, as if to say, “I am not like that putrid piece of human flesh over there.”
The solution is admitting our own depravity, acknowledging God’s love for us, as found in His willingness to forgive and forget, which was only made possible in the sacrifice of His Son on the cross to pay for our sins, and then doing as Jesus said, “Go…and sin no more.”
There is no other way. There are no other options. There are no alternatives. It is either God’s way or the way of the hypocrite.
You will know which way you are following by the direction your fingers are pointing the next time you see another news story involving another act of human sin.
