“If I had decided to say these things aloud, I would have betrayed Your people” (Psalm 73:15).
I fear for the souls of those who write and speak of their hostility to the Christian faith, to declare their atheism, and to denounce Scripture.
What if they change their minds?
It has happened.
And yet, that “thing” they wrote is out there, wreaking its havoc, doing its damage, spreading its slander. Meanwhile, the author would give anything to have not written it and to get it back.
What some do, I fear is, rather than going public with their regret and asking for forgiveness, they compound the error.
Once they have gone public with their unbelief, even when they begin to have serious doubts about positions they have taken, since they have been championed and lionized by the pagan community, they feel locked in. Pride will not let them recant. So, they write and speak with more intense hostility, but this time it’s a) out of the fear they could be wrong and b) an attempt to convince themselves.
Taking a public stand for a falsehood often locks us in to that position. Thereafter, we compound our iniquity by piling lie and slander atop lie and slander..
“O what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.” (–Sir Walter Scott)
It’s a miserable situation..
The front page of New Orleans newspaper for Tuesday, November 18, 2014, is giving great embarrassment to a local fan of the Saints, our NFL team.
In last Sunday afternoon’s game in our Superdome, after Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Jermaine Gresham scored a touchdown, he flipped the ball to a Bengals fan in the stands. That ball, however, was intercepted by Tony Williams, identified as “a longtime Saints season ticket holder.” A photograph shows Williams grabbing the ball intended for Bengals fan Christa Barrett.
“(The ball was) fair game to me,” Mr. Williams said. He was thinking of his grandson, he said, intending to give him the ball.
Pardon me if I doubt that. I have a hard time imagining anyone grabbing for a ball tossed into the grandstand and thinking of anything other than the need to get his hands on it.
Youtube has made Mr. Williams’ act well-known and he is being almost universally criticized for a selfish act. In his defense, the Saints fan says this is what people do down here in New Orleans. True, at Mardi Gras parades, the crowds compete for the “throws.”
Later, the Saints gave Ms. Barrett a football.
May I tell you what I think happened?
I think in his heart of hearts, Mr. Williams regrets what he did. His snatching that ball was a reflex action understood by every fan who has ever sat in a stadium. In baseball, let a player on the field toss a ball into the stands–to a kid, let’s say–and everyone around him will try to grab it. Most will then hand the ball to the child, but not everyone.
I’m thinking Mr. Williams quickly wished he had handed the ball to the Bengals fan, but because of the furor that had erupted and the criticism he was receiving almost instantly, it became almost impossible for him to do so. Had he contacted Ms. Barrett later with an apology and offered her the ball, she would have refused since his motives would be suspect. Anyway, she already has a football.
Surely no one wants this kind of notoriety; surely the Saints fan regrets his act.
Recently, I read a western novel about Hopalong Cassidy which was written by the great Louis L’Amour. This western fictional hero was a creation of Clarence Mulford in the 1920s and 1930s. Mulford wrote a libraryful of books on the man. However, about the time Mulford retired, actor William Boyd brought Hopalong Cassidy to the big screen and the character became popular. The publisher realized they needed to get more Hopalong books on the market quickly, and so asked the young Louis L’Amour to write them.
By that point, L’Amour had written stories for pulp magazines but no books. Eventually, his vast output of western novels would sell into the hundreds of millions and make him the most popular author in his genre as well as a rich man.
His son Beau tells what happened.
Back then, his dad was earning only about $3,000 annually, Beau says. This was a way to pay the rent. So he quickly turned out three books on Hopalong Cassidy.
Then he denied for the rest of his life that he had done so.
In the appendix to “Hopalong Cassidy: Rustlers of West Fork,” Beau L’Amour tells how his father repeatedly denied, vehemently even, that he had written those books and never wavered from that position. And yet, after his death, material in his files clearly showed that he had indeed penned them.
Beau thinks the first time his father was asked about those books, he was embarrassed by them, and denied writing them almost without thinking. From that time on,, because he had denied writing them once, he kept to that line.
To admit he had written the books would mean he had lied all those times he had denied it. So, he kept on lying.
Only those who have been there/done that know how hard it is to come clean and admit that a lie we have told repeatedly is just that, a lie.
We think of President Bill Clinton’s repeated denials concerning Monica Lewinsky, President Richard Nixon’s insistence that he had nothing to do with Watergate, and a hundred other politicians who lied, then lied about the lie.
Only those who have done it know the terrible burden of compounding lies on top of lies, and then trying to maintain the charade.
And, only those who have humbled themselves and confessed and come clean know the mind-boggling joy of being loosed from that bondage.
King David lied about his affair with Bathsheba. Then, in order to hide that treacherous act, he betrayed her husband, his faithful warrior Uriah, an act which led to his death. On and on he lied. Then one day, the prophet Nathan confronted him with the truth. 2 Samuel 11-12 contain the story.
Later, David was to write the 51st Psalm as a prayer of penitence.
Be gracious to me, God, according to Your faithful love; according to your abundant compassion, blot out my rebellion.
Wash away my guilt, and cleanse me from my sin…. My sin is always before me…. Do not banish me from Your presence or take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore the joy of Your salvation to me, and give me a willing spirit.
There is no joy like being clean after wallowing in your own filth and iniquity. There is no liberty like having stopped the coverup and admitted to your wrong-doing and knowing you have nothing to hide any longer.
Ask the Prodigal Son, he who had been down there with the pigs because of his foolishness and pride. One day it occurred to him that he could get up and come home and humble himself. (Luke 15:11-32)
The greatest day of your life is the day you are made clean and whole and set free. If you’d like a photo of just such a grateful worshiper–one with a history who had been set free by Jesus–may we direct you to Luke 7:36-50. It’s just about as good as it gets.