Rev. David Holwick
First Baptist Church
West Lafayette, Ohio
August 3, 1986
Holy Overkill
Judges 20
George and Liz Hunt were starting to enjoy the fruits of success. After years of hard work, they now had a beautiful home in an exclusive suburb of Houston. Their four kids were doing well in school, so they thought they had it made.
But gradually they noticed a change in their oldest son, Paul. At times he seemed drunk, but they never smelled alcohol on his breath. They began finding what they thought was drugs in his clothes. Paul was hanging with a rough looking group of kids, and soon his own appearance changed. He gradually became dirty and sickly looking.
One morning when Paul was in the shower, his dad yelled to him that he was going to move his car out of the driveway. Just as George was unlocking the door, Paul flew out of the house dripping-wet, and pushed his dad aside. He grabbed a baggie filled with drugs and jumped out again. Right there in front of the whole neighborhood, George Hunt started beating on his son with his fists. But Paul was able to get away and raced naked into the woods.
What does a parent do? If you feel that someone close to you is doing something wrong, how are you supposed to react? At many points in our lives we will face this dilemma. Often it involves someone in your family. But it doesn't have to. What if you knew someone in the church was having an affair? Or getting blasted every Saturday night? What do we do? In the 20th chapter of Judges the people of Israel had to deal with this issue. What triggered it was the events of Gibeah. That's where the inhabitants raped and killed the Levite's common-law wife. The Levite let the rest of Israel know about it. How did they respond?
First of all, they recognized sin as sin. In verse 3 they ask, "Tell us how this awful thing happened." This seems obvious, but it's really something you can't take for granted anymore. Many people no longer recognize sin as sin.
The famous psychiatrist, Karl Menninger, has written a book called, "Whatever Happened to Sin?" As a psychiatrist he found that many of his patients felt no guilt for things they had done. They had no sense of absolute values. Instead they felt they were just ill or different. Menninger believes this attitude has contributed to the moral rot of our nation.
If we haven't taken sin and explained it away, we have at least become jaded to it. It's harder to shock people anymore. Hollywood keeps pushing back the limits of decency, but we just take it in stride.
Even in West Lafayette we show a lot of complacency. There's a drug problem right here. But we say it's just beer and pot. Our kids don't use the bad stuff like cocaine. So what if a drug is a drug. Alcohol kills more people than every other drug combined, and we accept it. Probably because it's the drug of adults.
Sin must be recognized as sin. God calls us to be pure in sexual matters. What is today's standard of purity? One sexual partner at a time. It's unseemly to string 2 or 3 along at once. But if you limit yourself to one person for awhile, you're decent. No one will criticize you.
The Bible sees it differently. You can be intimate with the one you're married to. Everyone else should be treated like a brother or sister. Or you are sinning.
Christians shouldn't just have a concern about sin because it offends us. We are concerned because we can see what it does to people. Every time we disobey God, part of us erodes away. If enough people sin, it erodes away the community. You won't be able to point your finger at one event and say, "This is what did it," but you'll know things are different.
Many times people won't recognize sin till it hits close to home. George Hunt probably never gave much thought to drugs. Until he saw what they did to his son. Then he became very concerned.
To see how you really feel about something, think about someone that you love doing it. As a young person, you may have sowed your wild oats. It drove your parents crazy, but it didn't have any effect on you. Then a young man wants to sow wild oats with your daughter. You feel differently about it then.
We have this tremendous capacity to excuse our behavior. Newsweek magazine this week had a cover story on Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy. He is in the news because the recent publicity over pornography has focused on his kind of magazine. It has also come to light that the circulation of Playboy has dropped by fifty percent in the last six years. It's not much of a victory, though – the former readers are turning to raunchier stuff.
In this article, Hefner's lifestyle was described. He estimates he has slept with over a thousand women. When he met his long-lasting girlfriend, she hesitated to date him, because she had never gone out with anyone over 24. He said that was O.K., because neither had he.
Hefner never had just one girl friend. Besides the one night stands, he has one mistress in his Chicago mansion and another in his Los Angeles mansion. He had only one requirement for them: fidelity. They were never allowed to see another man. As he put it, "I guess I'm just a puritan boy at heart."
Mr. Hefner does not practice faithfulness, but he expects it. God holds us accountable for what we expect. Don't ignore sin just because you are susceptible to it, or because it hasn't touched your home yet. Learn to recognize God's standards, and try to live them. After the Jews recognized the sin of Gibeah, they confronted it. In verse 8 it says: "And all the people arose as one man." They were determined not to go home until the sin was punished. We have a right to get involved. Kid's lives are not just their own. People in church have an obligation to one another.
Confronting sin is easier said than done. By the time Israel was done confronting Gibeah, they had just about wiped out an entire tribe.
As Christians, we need a clear sense of what is holy and right. But we also have to know how to react. It's too easy to get upset and produce Holy Overkill. This is when you confront sin by condemning the person and cutting them off from fellowship. Such an approach can not only destroy the person, it can also divide a church. Baptists have a reputation for doing this.
There is only one main reason for confronting someone – love. Always keep in mind how the sin is affecting that person, even more than how it may effect you. A pitfall of many parents is that they give their kids the impression the only thing they are concerned about is the family's reputation. Be concerned about the person themselves and show it by how you treat them.
Galatians 6:1 is one of the best verses for this. Paul says, "Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted."
A concerned, but direct approach can do wonders. It can be costly. After Paul Hunt ran off naked into the woods, a few days later his father confronted him at home. He told his son to enroll in drug therapy or leave the house. His son left. Thanksgiving came and went. So did Christmas. But Paul finally saw the truth in what his parents said. He was admitted to a hospital program and eventually kicked his habits. If his parents had not confronted him in love, he may never have changed. Trying to beat it out of him wouldn't have worked either. It was their love and firmness that persuaded him.
You may know someone who is headed for trouble. Maybe it's nothing drastic, but it doesn't honor God. Do you have the guts to do something about it? Some people complain that the schools are too lax, or the church doesn't get on people's cases like it used to. But should it? The Christian way has always been to try and persuade the other person one-on-one. Get involved in other's lives before it is too late!
Copyright © 2024 by Rev. David Holwick
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