We are not Good Guys!

Are you following the trend in America today of all the domestic violence and crimes that are being committed and the testimonies of the family or friends of the perpetrators? I just saw the mom of the guy that cut the head off a lady in Oklahoma in a news video and she said “That was not my son. There are two sides to every story and we have only one side.” Some of the friends of Ray Rice and former teammates, and even his coach have said, “He’s a great guy. He just made a bad decision.” Understand that I am just stating facts here and you can Google it yourself and find it to be true. I know it would be hard for a mother to believe that her son could do such a thing and I feel compassion for her; but he did it. I understand that Ray was a friend and teammate to many and may have never exhibited any such angry behavior toward them; but he did it.

Do you think maybe this is what Jesus was saying would happen in the last days when He said, “And because lawlessness will abound the love of many will grow cold.” The lawlessness He is referring to is not secular law, we have plenty of laws so we are not lacking in that area, He is talking about God’s Law not being obeyed. There will be less of His law in the last days. We are beginning to see that evil is not being recognized as evil but rather “good people making bad decisions.”

We cannot make excuses for evil actions regardless of who it is that carries them out. Jesus said that these types of thoughts and actions come from the heart, not from the mind. In order for someone to carry out an evil attack on someone else there has to be a violent nature in the heart first, and then it overrides the rational thought in the mind that “I should not do that!”

The devil likes nothing more than seeing people succumb to evil and somehow getting other people to believe that it was not evil at all; it was just a bad decision made by a good person. Do you remember that Jesus said to a young man; “No one is good, only God?” (Matthew 19:17). Mankind has no goodness within ourselves. We may do good deeds but that is not out of our own goodness but from the influence of the goodness of Christ that is in the world. That is why it so important that we allow our hearts to be changed by Christ. Only He can overcome the evil thoughts and deeds that evolve in the human nature; we cannot do it by our own accord. Dr. Billy Graham said, “No matter how good we are, we will never be good enough to win our way into heaven.”

Therefore let us recognize evil behavior for what it is: lawlessness, disobedience to God.