Written by Dr. Steve Whitaker, Head of School
Who comes to mind when you think of the worst sinner imaginable? Perhaps you think of Kim Jong-un. Maybe your first thought is the madman who killed Heather Heyer in Charlottesville. My first thought was Osama Bin Laden. Their acts so heinous. Their eyes so full of hate. When you see their picture, your skin crawls.
Eric Metaxas, Editor of BreakPoint Commentary, once asked Chuck Colson why human beings perpetrate evil in our world. Colson responded with a powerful story.
“A dramatic event took place thirty years ago, when Israeli agents captured Adolph Eichmann, one of the masterminds of the Nazi Holocaust, and brought him to Israel to stand trial for his crimes.
“Among the witnesses called to testify against Eichmann was a small, haggard man named Yehiel Dinur. He had survived brutal torture in the death camp at Auschwitz. Dinur entered the courtroom and he stared at the man who had presided over the slaughter of millions— including many of Dinur’s own friends.
“As the eyes of the victim met those of the mass murderer, the courtroom fell silent. Then, suddenly, Dinur literally collapsed to the floor, sobbing violently.
“Was he overcome by hatred? By memories of the stark evil that Eichmann had committed?
“No. As Dinur explained later in a riveting interview on ‘60 Minutes,’ what struck him was that Eichmann did not look like an evil monster at all; he looked like an ordinary person. Just like anyone else. In that moment, Dinur said, ‘I realized that evil is endemic to the human condition—that any one of us could commit the same atrocities.’
“In a remarkable conclusion, Dinur said: ‘Eichmann is in all of us.’
“This is what the Bible means when it talks about sin. In our therapeutic culture, people cringe when they hear words like evil and sin. We’d prefer to talk about people as victims of dysfunctional backgrounds. But there are times when it becomes obvious that those categories are simply insufficient—times when the evil in the human heart breaks through the veneer of polite society and shows us its terrifying face.”
So what’s the remedy for you, me and the worst sinner imaginable? Grace.
When we look honestly in the mirror and recognize our complete inability to solve our own sin problem, we must turn to Jesus in repentance. In humility, we accept the free gift of salvation and enter into a personal relationship with the One who gave His life for us all. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave his only Son, so that whosoever believes in Him might have eternal life.” We don’t deserve forgiveness, but God provided it when Jesus died on the cross. That’s called grace.
If you’ve never prayed to receive Christ as your personal Savior, you can do that right now right where you are. If you would like someone to pray with you, I would be honored to do that. Give me a call and we can find a time to visit. Thank you for the opportunity to serve your family at The First Academy – we are putting First Things First (Mt. 6:33).