Jimmy Saville, Lance Armstrong - not a time for faith in human nature

I remember Sir Jimmy Saville on TV as I was growing up. Jim’ll Fix It was a show that I tuned into every Saturday evening, eager to see what wonders he was going to work for lucky children. He seemed kind, jolly, genuinely happy to be making kids smile. And one of the great things about him was that he used his fame and celebrity status to raise money and raise awareness for children’s charities and hospitals – things that he never got paid for.

But now (October 2012) barely a year after his death at the age of 84 his reputation is in tatters because of growing accusations of sexual abuse involving teenage girls. How let down we feel, those of us who looked up to him in our youth. There is a temptation to deny the truth of the allegations, I don’t want it to be true, but the evidence (whilst not yet tested in court) seems too overwhelming.

And then there is Lance Armstrong, the winner of seven Tour de France between 1999 and 2005, the guy who conquered cancer to come back to the top of cycling, the co-founder of the Livestrong Foundation, which has raised around $500m for cancer research and support. A living legend so we thought.

And then came the US Anti-Doping Agency investigation, which found that he had been the ringleader in the systematic distribution and taking of performance enhancing drugs in his team, throughout his time at the top. Many of us didn’t want to believe it, even the International Cycling Union at first didn’t want to believe it, but 1,000 pages of evidence, including 26 detailed witness statements have forced the truth out. Armstrong has now been stripped of his Tour de France titles. And such was the pervasiveness of the doping culture in cycling at the time that those titles cannot be handed down to anyone in the second and third place positions, because most of them have questions hanging over them too.

What are we to think? If our heroes turn out to be, well, less than heroic, what hope is there for us? And do their bad deeds cast a shadow over the good that they brought about? Does that good – the progress in cancer treatment, the happiness and healing brought to children - become tainted because it came from people tainted with evil?

October 2012 definitely is not a time to have faith in human nature. Human nature, it appears, if we measure it by those we think are at the top of their game, is a pretty horrid mixture.

Sometimes we’ve taken a much too optimistic view of the progress we’ve made as human beings. Not in scientific knowledge and technological advances, which are undeniable, but in our capacity for making the right moral choices. Sometimes we have tried hard to believe that we were making progress there too, with humanity getting better, giving more, caring more, persecuting less, tolerating more, living more peacefully. But it’s all self-deception. It’s less than a century since the bloodiest war the world has ever known. It’s less than a century since Stalin’s genocide in the name of progress and equality. We’re still processing the war crimes from the civil war in the Balkans twenty years ago. We’re still reeling from the atrocities uncovered in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. We had Idi Amin in Uganda, Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Syria now takes its turn in showing how brutal human beings can be. And lest we forget, our troops are still in Afghanistan to try to suppress terrorist extremist groups that would threaten our hard-won peace. And in the West, we have riots and looting, widespread sexually transmitted disease, and increasing social fragmentation. How is the 21^st century any better than the 1^st century or 1,000 years before that? The same evil is perpetrated, but with TVs and communications technology that enables us to see it wherever it happens in the world.

And on top of that we know deep down that we too are capable of some horrible, evil things too. We can’t sit and tut-tut as we watch the news, thinking how much worse other people are, much as we like to. In fact we love to. And we love to do that because it allows us to place the blame for all of humanity’s woes onto somebody else – the uneducated, the lazy, the sexually stupid (not that they are more promiscuous or adulterous or perverse, but they don’t take adequate protective measures), the religious fanatics, the fundamentalists, the psychologically unstable. But if we’re honest, we have the same flaws.

Jimmy Saville and Lance Armstrong are examples of people who make us feel uncomfortable, because they were as good as we liked to think of ourselves, and we can’t ignore the good that they’ve done. They were not religious fanatics, psychologically unstable, lazy or uneducated. They were just like us, but they had the opportunity to indulge some of the things that we can’t. And they went for it big time.

I don’t know why, but modern non-religious Westerners, even in the face of all that, still do not like to talk about the concept of sin. They are quite content to talk about evil, because evil is an extreme word for extremely bad people, not people like us.

And this is the crucial point for the non-religious West. We have to grasp the reality and pervasiveness of sin, around us and within, affecting each and every human being. Far from having faith in human nature, we need to recognize that human nature is tainted irreparably. Michael Jackson was right when he pointed the finger at the ‘man in the mirror’. We are all much less than perfect.

Why do we need to face these facts? Why do we need to feel the guilt and despair of seeing the reality of our sin? Because without that we will know nothing of our need for salvation. And without knowing our need we will not cry out for salvation. And if we don’t cry out for salvation, God – who alone is able to save – will not give us salvation. We need to know that sin is the core of all the problems of the world, all the problems of our relationships, our temptations, our failures and all the problems of our own personality.

God graciously gave His Law so that we would know both His hatred of sin and the reality of sin in our lives. But He also gave us His only Son to save us from our sin if we repent and believe in him. Mary was told by the angel before his birth, “you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21)

Jesus Christ is celebrated and worshipped by His people because He has saved them from the worst enemy, the thing that would have resulted in their eternal damnation under the wrath of the holy God. Sin is what separates us from God. And the gospel of Jesus Christ – the good news – is that Jesus took to the wrath of God upon himself, the penalty that we deserved, for the sins of his people, so that we might be reconciled to Him.

So let’s face facts. Humanity is fallen. Humanity cannot save itself. Humanity on its own cannot build a better future. Everything we do is tainted with sin. And let’s turn to Him who alone has the answer – not Lance Armstrong, not Jimmy Saville, but Jesus Christ the Son of God, our suffering saviour.

Hardships to make you holy

I have taken recently to reading books by Christians past and present, who suffer and suffered in some way. I guess it's because I consider myself to be suffering with my illness and the constant battle to stay employed. I know I'm not suffering to the same degree as the people I’m reading about - Joni Eareckson Tada, Corrie Ten Boom, Helen Roseveare, William Tyndale, John G. Paton, Adoniram Judson, C.S. Lewis - but I want to learn from the way they handled their greater suffering, so that I can learn to better bear and understand my own smaller hardships.

One thing I used to think, having a strong view of God's sovereign providence, was that God uses hardships to prepare us for greater service, for some great ministry, or some great success in the future (a bit like the great examples named above). I then came to wonder what happens when we come to that greater ministry or that great success. What does God do in our lives then? Well, I supposed He must prepare us for even greater things… until the logical conclusion, when we die, are we prepared for heaven? So perhaps the whole of our lives is a preparation for our place in the New Creation.

But what does that mean?

I have come to learn that that means holiness, and that holiness and sanctification are the most important purpose behind all that God does in our lives. Yes, He is working to spread the gospel. Yes, He is using His people, using their suffering, to call attention to the glory of Christ. But what He wants most from us in response to everything that He brings into our lives – hardships and happiness - is holiness.

Sure, God is making things happen. Nothing happens that is not part of His sovereign purpose and plan. But in everything He purposes to happen, His fundamental purpose is for our holiness, so that we may bring Him greater glory.

J.I. Packer said in A Passion for Holiness, ‘We must be clear in our minds that whatever further reasons there may be why God exposes us to the joys and sorrows, fulfillments and frustrations, delights and disappointment, happinesses and hurts, that make up the emotional reality of our lives, all these experiences are part of his curriculum for us in the school of holiness, which is his spiritual gymnasium for our reshaping and rebuilding in the moral likeness of Jesus Christ.’ (1992, Crossway Books, pp16-17)

And that is hard! It’s is the hardest thing I find about the Christian life. I am so incredibly imperfect, more than any human being will hopefully ever fully know – even my wife… and she knows all of my imperfections very well! I don’t give up on my sin easily. But hardships tend to focus the mind somewhat on what really matters.

But even my suffering authors find it difficult too. Helen Roseveare, in 'Give Me This Mountain', writes of when she first went to be a missionary in Congo in the 1950s. She recalls being told by an experienced colleague, “If you think you have come to the mission field because you are a little better than others, or as the cream of your church, or because of your medical degree, or for the service you can render the African church, or even for the souls you may see saved, you will fail. Remember, the Lord has only one purpose ultimately for each of us, to make us more like Jesus. He is interested in your relationship with Himself. Let Him take you and mould you as He will; all the rest will take its rightful place.”

So God does not just care about getting more people into church. He cares mostly about the way that we follow Him in our day-to-day lives, and how that overflows in love to those around us, whoever they may be.

Now, some may be unconvinced that God has any purpose whatsoever in hardships. They don’t see Him as being in control of everything, so, to me at least, that means there cannot be purpose in anything that happens. In general terms a person can only have a purpose for something that they consciously do. So if we don’t see God causing/allowing things happening in the world, then there cannot be a divine purpose in the things going on in the world.

So I just want to give a couple of examples of where the Bible speaks in that way.

First, 2 Corinthians 1:8-11, “For we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.”

Here Paul is saying that God allowed them to be “utterly burdened” beyond their strength, but that burdening, that despair, had a purpose. And that purpose was “to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.” I suppose you could argue that Paul doesn’t explicitly say that God purposed their hardship, only that it occurred to make them rely on God. But I don’t buy that! When we say that something has a purpose, or something happened for a reason, then there must be a person behind it. And who else would want the apostles to rely on God more? Satan? Their Roman or Jewish persecutors? No! God is the only one who would have that purpose.

And then, Hebrews 12:7, “Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?”  This is explicit. God is the one doing the discipline, the training, and the training is in the form of hardship. And what purpose does this training have? Vv10-11, “God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace…”

And with utmost clarity, Paul tells us in Romans 8:29 that we were “predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.” That’s what God’s chosen people are for – not firstly to do, but to be – to be conformed to the image of His Son, Jesus Christ, who went through the ultimate suffering.

God has a purpose in the hardships of His people, and that purpose is holiness. And that brings me almost to tears.

Firstly to realize that all this difficulty, the emotional turmoil, the seemingly constant unsettling lifestyle adjustments, are purposed by a loving God, my God, my Father. And not just purposed so that I can be part of a church, part of a kingdom, involved in a work. But purposed so that I may share in the holiness of the Creator, the only Real God. This is like a king saying to an adopted son, “I don’t just want to bring you to live in my house. I want you to share in the character of the royal family.” God is infinitely good, perfect, beautiful. And so sharing in His holiness is sharing in all these perfections. It’s like being called to be nestled in God, part of His royal family, sharing not just in His creation, but in God Himself. That is truly wonderful.

Finally, it upsets me to know the corruption of my heart, that I am so resistant to this good purpose. God wants for me to have the best in the world, to share in His holiness. He has, at great cost, adopted me as one of His sons, to make me part of His family. And He is willing to get serious with me, putting me through some tough training, to bring me up to standard. I should be thrilled with that. But I’m not. I continue to cherish my sin and bad habits, like a footballer who knows that the coach just wants to make them a better player but hates the hard training sessions and prefers to continue in laziness and bad practice.

May God give me grace to accept the discipline, and to rise to the training, and to rely more fully on Him, my wonderful God and Father.