"You Are Evil"

“If you, being evil, know how
to give good gifts to your children . . .”
Mt. 7:11

“O generation of vipers, how can you,
being evil, speak good things?”
Mt. 12:34

What kind of relationship would you be able to have with someone who told you to your face that you are evil? What would your attitude be toward that person? Jesus told his disciples they were evil, and yet they kept following him. In fact, one day when they asked him who would be saved in the Final Judgment, he told them that they and all other people were so hopelessly evil that there was nothing they could do to escape the coming wrath of God (Mk. 10:26-27). And they still followed him.

Every man sent by God from the foundation of the world has told fallen man that he is evil, and the only people who have ever escaped from their fallen human nature are those who have believed those servants of God and cried out to God for help. If you are too proud to confess your sinfulness, you will never escape it.

Jesus gave Brother Earl a dream a couple of years ago in which he heard his former pastor, now with the Lord, calmly and gently talking to a brother who had done wrong. I will change the name he used, but here is what that man of God spoke to the backslidden brother: “Do you know how to get out of it, Sam?” Then after a short pause, he said very gently, but with authority, “You own up to it.”

We all “have sinned and come short of the glory of God”, and Jesus has made for us a way out of our sin. All we have to do is humbly bow before him and “own up to it.”