Even Nickelback Gets It...

‘No one is righteous- not even one…..No one does good, not a single one.’ Romans 3:10,12

Christians seem to have a bad rap for saying things like that. We’re always telling people that they sin and we’re told that we’re hateful for doing so. That is the predominant thinking of our time is it not? Isn’t it hateful to tell someone that what they are doing is wrong? Very few people are able to recognize the difference between hate and calling the darkness for what it is.

Yet, if you are honest with yourself, when I say that no one does good, it really isn’t a foreign concept. I am going to give you some quotations from a couple of nonbelievers in my life, and tell me if you have either heard or thought of something similar.

“You just can’t trust anybody these days.”
“Nobody helps anybody anymore.”

Neither of these men are Christians, so don’t get all offended thinking that I’m spewing out some hate filled Christian rhetoric. You’d have to have your head in the sand to not notice how the world is going to hell. Even the Godless musicians of our day know what I’m talking about if they do a small amount of reflecting on what they actually sing about in their songs. You hear it in words such as this, “If everyone cared and nobody cried. If everyone loved and nobody lied.” There is so much about our world that isn’t right, and I am convinced that we really don’t intend to do anything about it.

Very few people are surprised to know that there is a whole lot which is wrong about the world. What we find offensive, is the notion that it has anything to do with us personally. Sin tends to be somebody else’s problem. We make ourselves to be gods in our own eyes, being deceived into thinking that we have it together and if everyone just listened to us, the world would be such a better place. Those words are also present in the Nickelback song. You may have missed them. Here they are, just in case you didn’t notice.

“We’ll show the world that they were wrong.”

I once heard a pastor say that, ‘the best sermon is the one that flies just over your head and hits the person behind you.’ I’ve been there. I remember listening to messages thinking, “My friend really needs to hear this one.”

Unless God is working on your heart, your sin likely doesn’t bother you. The same can be said for me. As we contribute our part to the decay of our world, we’re surprisingly fine with it. It tends to be the people around us who aren’t all that thrilled with our action or inaction. We lie, but strangely enough, we don’t like being lied to. Isn’t that weird?

Perhaps you have heard stories such as these. Have you ever known children who didn’t like their mom leaving their dad for another man? I forgot. The kids just need to adjust. Right? Or have your known women who got upset when their husband came home drunk? I know it hardly ever happens, but you might have friends of friends who have done that type of thing. Have you heard of husbands who lied to their wife about what they were doing online, because the wife ‘just wouldn’t understand’.

I’ve got to be honest with you. I’m not the one to show the world how they were wrong. No one is righteous. That would include me. No matter how sanctified you think you are, it also includes you. It’s ironic in a way. It was before I came to know Christ that I used to think that I had that special knowledge and if everyone just followed my example, the world would be a better place.

So if I sound like I’m being all judgmental and setting myself us as some kind of oracle, you really don’t understand these pages that you are reading. You’re probably much more of a Nickelback fan.