More Killing Fields

(Continuing from The Killing Fields)

To the natural mind it may seem like a miscarriage of justice that a mass murderer should be forgiven by the Great Judge who surely knows everything.

"After all he did to destroy the lives of so many people! How can God possibly forgive someone like him?" That thought process, however, betrays an element — a crucial and tragic element — of personal dishonesty which says, "Look at me, I'm so innocent!"

Why tragic? Because that hard core of inner dishonesty which says "I'm OK" in the face of all evidence to the contrary, and in the face of God's pronouncement against rebellion, has such awesome and awful eternal consequences. It's that inner prideful rejection of God which ultimately leads to eternal rejection by God. It's the saddest lie of all.

According to the Bible every man woman and child who has ever lived is guilty, unless forgiven by God. They're guilty of crimes — not crimes against humanity but crimes against God Himself. (Rom 3:23; 2 Pet 2:9) Of course, if we see Mankind as more important than God then that will appear to be a trivial matter. But once you acknowledge that Mankind was created by God and owes his very moment-by-moment existence to Him, then it's clearly not so trivial after all.

The ultimate 'crime' then becomes, not the rejection and abuse of human beings, but the rejection and abuse of God. That crime, if not settled before the case comes to court, inevitably results in the rejection and eternal abuse — even torture — of the perpetrator.

To the unbeliever this may seem like harsh and unfair justice indeed! A mass murderer apparently get's off scot-free while ordinary folk who live ordinary 'decent' lives find themselves in an eternal torture chamber, for no obvious reason.

Why should this be? What's the difference between the Kaing Guek Eavs of this world, and these 'ordinary' folk, which can result in such wildly different eternal outcomes? The answer is simple, but for many hard to understand. It's that magic word I've already mentioned: Repentance.

OK, so what's so special about repentance? Anyone can say "I'm sorry" and not really mean it, and even if they do mean it what makes it such a big deal?

That's not actually an easy question to answer using verbal arguments alone, so I'll look for something which carries the weight of human experience behind it.

Two images come to mind. One is of Christ hanging on the cross between two thieves, and the other is of a mother or father faced with their weak-willed wild-child who is always getting up to serious mischief, but who frequently comes back looking for pardon and grace from their parent.

Let me look at the second analogy first. No parent who genuinely loves their child can possibly reject that child for ever if they express genuine sorrow over what they've done. Even if the child has to go to prison for their crimes the loving parent will inevitably want to reach out the hand of love and support, while hoping and praying for a permanent change of heart and mind in their offspring. If that's true of morally weak and fallible human beings, how much more is it true of the Heavenly Father who has no moral weakness to cloud His judgment, and no hardening of heart to make Him lose compassion for His erring child.

The other picture carries the potent element of mutual suffering, in the midst of which we see something truly remarkable — compassion for a deserving criminal from the one who was suffering so undeservingly by his side. One of the criminals who died next to Christ verbally abused Him while the other asked to be remembered when Jesus came into His Kingdom. To the latter Jesus said: "This very day you will be with me in Paradise."

If you are ever tempted to ask God why he allows suffering (I frequently do), just look at that picture and see God Himself suffering along side the one in pain. If you're the one in pain (I frequently have been) realise that God is not standing aloof watching you from a distance. He's there beside you, feeling what you feel and suffering what you suffer. Since He knows everything how could He possibly not know intimately what you're experiencing, down to the molecular level? And since our emotions are based on his (Gen 1:26,27) how could he possibly not feel what we're feeling?

Now, it's probable that both of the criminals were as bad as each other. But at the end of their lives one saw who Jesus really was and sought forgiveness from Him, while the other piled up even greater condemnation onto his own head. One reached out the hand of desperation in his dying moments and asked to be rescued, spiritually, even though he knew he could not be rescued in this world. The other saw no need for spiritual rescue and continued in his abusive ways, even going to the extent of abusing the very One — the only One — who had the power to pull him out of the moral quicksand which was just about to utterly destroy him.

As I write I remember an event which happened to me about two and a half months ago, which tugs at my heart strings and which illustrates for me this wonderful principal — the principal of the desperate and spiritually dying seeking and finding the Great Rescuer of the soul.

I was staying with a friend in Wisconsin, USA. She had a large boxer dog puppy which I took for walks every day. Her house was next to a sharp bend in the Wisconsin river and I got used to letting the dog off the lead on a large flat sand bar situated on the inside of the bend. As December rolled around the snow rolled in and everything became covered in a thick layer of white. It wasn't long before the river froze over, apart from a thin channel on the outside of the bend where it was flowing fast.

Not deterred by the weather I wrapped myself up warmly and found to my delight that the dog — who was called Tyson — enjoyed being out in the deep snow as much as I did. Even where it came up to his belly he would bound in and out of it on his long legs and have a whale of a time. I in turn took numerous photos and video clips of his antics. He and I became best pals!

By now the sand bar was covered in a thin layer of ice underneath the snow. As long as we were on the sand it didn't matter if my boots went through the ice because I knew there was something solid underneath it. Most of the time, however, the ice was strong and I could walk on it without trouble. Tyson, on the other hand, was light enough not to be in danger of going through the ice — or so I thought!

At first I was reluctant to get anywhere near the boundary of the ice and the flowing water, for fear of the obvious. But as my confidence in my ability to handle the conditions grew, so my fear of them subsided, and our walks took us closer and closer to the 'edge'. One day I was absorbed with the camera settings and wasn't watching where Tyson was and what he was doing. Suddenly I heard a splash followed by the sound of frantically thrashing paws. The inexperienced dog has run onto an extremely thin layer of ice covering the running water, and fallen through!

Thankfully the water wasn't flowing fast enough to sweep him away and by swimming hard he kept close to the edge. But though he tried to clamber out there was nothing for his paws to get a purchase on, and it was only a matter of time before he would have tired, slowed down, frozen up and drowned.

My first reaction was to panic slightly. I was scared to get too close to the edge myself because I couldn't see where the sand under the snow ended. I guessed that there was probably a layer of thickish ice extending beyond the sand bar into the water but I had no idea how strong it might be. So, getting as close to the edge as I dared, I held out to the dog a long stick which I had been using as an ice tester, in the hope that he would grab it with his strong jaws enabling me to pull him out. But his mind was on swimming for dear life and he couldn't guess what I wanted him to do.

I quickly saw that there was only one course of action to take. I had to lie down across the ice at the edge of the sand bar, spreading my weight as much as possible, and reach out my hand towards the swimming pooch. I knew there was a risk involved, but I also knew I'd never be able to forgive myself if I just stood by and watched him freeze and drown.

So, that's what I did — and as I lay down on the ice some very pertinent words from the Bible came into my mind:

"Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13)

Like Jesus laying down his life for the criminal — and for you and I — yours truly lay down across the ice at the edge of that cold cold river and reached out his hand towards Tyson.

I guess the Wisconsin river in winter is a good analogy for the 'river of death'. The Greeks called it the Styx, and Negro spirituals called it Jordan and celebrated it as the boundary between the misery of slavery in this life, and paradise in the next.

For those who've lived selfish lives that river spells nothing but disaster. According to the Bible the self-centred are already in the river of spiritual death and desperately need rescuing from it, and from themselves.

Their plight is like that of the proverbial monkey which has inserted its hand into the jar of nuts and now can't remove it without letting go of its fistful of booty, even though it sees it's enemy coming to capture and slaughter it.

But Tyson wasn't like that. As I reached out my hand towards him he instantly reached his paw towards me over the ice, and I was able to pull him closer, grab his collar and yank him out! He knew his plight and gratefully accepted the help that was offered to him, in much the same way that Kaing Guek Eav received the gift of salvation from Jesus Christ.

As well as the obvious there are other parallels in that wee story from my American adventure. The sand beach represents areas of our lives where we feel secure. Even though they may get covered in ice and snow at times we have no fear of danger because we've been there so many times before. The problem is, like the sand under the ice we often aren't aware of where safety ends and danger begins. We take risks thinking we're invulnerable only to find, too late, that we're not as invulnerable as we thought we were.

Let's look at some examples. A young woman in a night club is offered a dose of ecstacy, and in her state of heightened adrenalin she fails to see the risk to her health which it represents. If that drug doesn't get her the next stronger one might, and all the time she's moving closer to the edge of the sand and the cold cold river.

The confident driver knows he can talk on his mobile phone and drive at the same time. He's been doing it for years. What he can't see is the hazard just around the corner which will demand all of his concentration and two-handed reactions to negotiate safely. When he wakes up in hospital and is told that his lungs, liver and kidneys are punctured and that he might not make it, he wonders where that misplaced sense of confidence came from.

Spiritually speaking we're even worse. Most people have no idea where sand ends and water begins. Indeed many really don't care. Many don't believe there is any water under the ice. They sail as 'close to the edge' as they like, and even knowingly go onto thin ice daring the fates to do their worst. Time and time again they hear a faint but clear warning call from a shadowy figure on the far bank, but they ignore it and continue blithely in their way.

Well, like Tyson, it's only a matter of time before they'll go through thin ice and find themselves in the Styx. When that happens will they see the Saviour's hand reaching out to them, or will they find that they've ignored Him too often for that to be possible? I don't know. All I know is that that hand is reaching out to every man, woman and child on this planet right now and that we all have the possibility of reaching back to Him.

I don't know about you but I feel the need for his strong arms around me every day. Life has enough struggles without my going and creating more of my own! It's only with His help, and by his power, that I can live the kind of life that's part of the solution and not part of the problem. Won't you join me in reaching out and taking hold of His hand? If we allow Him to, He'll take us on a life-long journey of courage and discovery, which eventually will bring us to the Promised Land on the far side of the river. There we'll never be on thin ice and every moment will be the best yet!

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