[We] were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. Ephesians 2:3
Imagine Pastor John, wise and warm, the kind of man you want to talk to when you’re in trouble.
One day Ben comes into Pastor John’s office to talk. “Pastor John, how can I be a more generous person?”
“That’s a great question, Ben. Why do you ask?”
“I am responsible for managing other people’s pension funds at work,” Ben says, “but I’ve been taking some of the money. Maybe I need to give more.”
Ben had been asking about becoming a more generous person. But now there is a bigger problem. Ben is guilty of a crime that could put him behind bars for years.
Just then the office door flies open. “Pastor John, Pastor John, there’s a bomb in the basement, and it’s about to go off! You’ve got to get out of the building.”
Ben says he wants to be a more generous person. But there’s a bigger problem. He has stolen millions of dollars from his company’s pension fund. And the biggest problem is that there is a bomb in the building, and if they don’t get out quickly, all of Pastor John’s wisdom and all of Ben’s fears will be supremely irrelevant.
You may have come to the Bible today wanting to become a better person. You may have come feeling that there is stuff in your life that needs sorting out. But towering over the stuff we need to deal with and the growth we would like to see is a problem of altogether different proportions. Most people are not even aware of it. We are children of wrath. We are under the wrath of God.
What is your response to God’s assessment of the greatest human problem?
