A Natural Sense of
Shame
An Old Testament prophet wrote,
“The unjust knows no shame”
(Zephaniah 3:5).
We’re living in a society very
aware of psychology. Everywhere we
turn, people are being told,
“Don’t feel bad!”
Popular opinion says, “Guilt is
bad-its destructive.” Of course,
there is some truth to that, but we
ought to feel guilty when we are
guilty. We shouldn’t feel good
about doing bad.
The Lord wants us to feel guilt and
conviction long enough and hard
enough for it to motivate us to come
to Him for forgiveness. He
doesn’t want us to remain in a
state of perpetual mourning, but we
must become aware of our fallen
condition before He can cleanse and
restore us. And how can we ever be
sorry for our sins if we do not
recognize our wretched state? Once we
do see our lowly state and fall to
our knees for forgiveness, God can
activate His power in our lives.
“Humble yourselves in the sight
of the Lord and He will lift you
up” (James 4:10).
When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, the
light that clothed them was
extinguished. They were suddenly
aware of their nakedness and felt a
natural sense of shame (see Genesis
3:10). As we do when we sin, the fist
pair tried to cover themselves to
hide their guilt-in their case with
fig leaves. But they soon realized
that the fig leaves would not last.
After the couple acknowledged their
guilt to God, He gave them coats of
skins.
Did you catch that? Skins! Something
had to die to cover their naked
bodies, just as Jesus had to die to
cover our sins.
When the prodigal son returned home,
acknowledging his failures, his
father received him, embraced him,
kissed him, and then covered his
filth and nakedness with his own
“best” robe. Likewise,
Jesus is waiting to clothe us with
His righteousness, but we must first
come home as we are.
After Jesus delivered the demoniac,
we find that man sitting at
Jesus’ feet, clothed, and in his
right mind (see Luke 8:35). Author
Malcolm Muggeridge said,
“Psychiatrists require many
sessions to relieve a patient from
feelings of guilt which made him sick
in body and mind; Jesus’ power
of spiritual and moral persuasion was
over overwhelming that he could
produce the same effect by saying:
‘Thy sins be forgiven
thee.’”
He
fled from them naked.” -Mark
14:52
Naked Retreat
Each year the city of Pamplona,
Spain, hosts the traditional
“running of the bulls.”
Many brave souls tempt fate at this
dangerous festival, which results in
many injuries and even some
fatalities. Six bulls and six steers
chase some two thousand people
through the narrow, cobblestone
streets.
One year a news program broadcast
video footage from the event of one
bold fool who, in an apparent display
of machismo bravado, ran directly
toward a bull in an arena to taunt
it. He soon found himself, quite
literally, on the horns of a dilemma.
The bull managed to hook the
man’s pants and shook him as if
he was nothing but a rag doll-until
the fellow lost his pants and
underwear! The closing shot showed
the man fleeing away naked, no doubt
ashamed, as the spectators roared
with laughter. It is generally true
that when we toy with Satan, we end
up fleeing, naked and ashamed.
The Bible shares a very interesting
story in connection with the betrayal
and arrest of Jesus. As the mob
carried Him away, an unnamed man
attempted to follow, to observe
Jesus’ fate: “A certain
young man followed Him, having a
linen cloth thrown around his naked
body. And the young man laid hold of
him, and he left the linen cloth and
fled from them naked” (Mark 14:
51,52). Many scholars believe this
was Mark himself.
This depicts the nature of Satan and
sin, a deadly duo who will strip you
and send you running in shame. After
Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit
and their luminous robes faded, they
felt shame because of their
nakedness. When God came looking for
them, He found them trembling in the
bushes (see Genesis 3: 7,8).
A common practice in many ancient
cultures was to strip captives taken
in war and march them along the
streets naked (see 2 Chronicles
28:15). In the same way, Satan wants
to flaunt and humiliate his prisoners
by stripping them of their dignity
and parading their shame before
heaven.
The book of Acts tells of some young
men who recklessly attempted to
exorcise an evil spirit from a
possessed person. Their attempt
resulted in yet another naked
retreat. “The man in whom the
evil spirit was leaped on them,
overpowered them, and prevailed
against them, so that they fled out
of that house naked and wounded”
(Acts 19:16). The Bible records other
instances that fit this pattern in
which the devil disrobes the
disobedient. For instance, Noah got
drunk and then stumbled around naked
(see Genesis 9:21), and when the
children of Israel worshiped the
golden calf, they were naked (see
Exodus 32: 25, KJV).
“Nor
did he live in a house but in the
tombs.” –Luke 8:27
Sin Separates
Even emotionally healthy people are
prone to become eccentric when they
don’t have the social
interaction with others that helps to
keep our thoughts balanced. The
menacing evil spirits that possessed
the demoniac plunged him into false
perceptions of reality and frequently
left him muttering incoherently-thus
isolating him, like a leper, from
family, friends, and Norman society.
This only compounded his problems.
A simple and dependable law in life
is that love unites and sin
separates. Isaiah wrote, “Your
iniquities have separated between you
and your God” (Isaiah 59: 2,
KJV). Sin separates us from God. Just
as light and darkness cannot exist
coexist, sin automatically drives us
from God.
Sin separates us from one another.
The epidemic of divorce in our
culture provides us with plenty of
evidence for this. “Because
iniquity shall abound, the love of
many shall wax cold.” (Matthew
24:12, KJV).
And ultimately, sin causes divisions
within our own selves. The medicated
masses, burdened by guilt springing
largely from a low self-esteem, are
evidence of this.
Jesus came to end all this
separation. His love is the
ladder, the link that bridges heaven
and earth. It is His love that brings
reconciliation to relationships
broken by sin. “In Christ Jesus
you who once were far off have been
made near by the blood of Christ. For
He Himself is our peace, who has made
both one, and has broken down the
middle wall of division between
us” (Ephesians 2: 13, 14).
He
was “bound with chains and
shackles.” –Luke 8:29
Adorned With Chains
In the Middle Ages, a blacksmith
was imprisoned for a serious crime
and was chained to prevent any
attempt at escape. The blacksmith had
made many chains himself, so he began
to examine with anxious interest the
one that bound him. His experiences
taught him that chains form other
blacksmiths made often were flawed,
and he hoped to discover a flaw in
the one that bound him. But suddenly
his hope faded. Marks on the chain
revealed that he had made it-and he
had worked hard to earn the
reputation of making flawless,
unbreakable chains. He had no hope of
ever breaking free.
The shattered chains that adorned the
hands and feet of the demoniac
represent the sins that bind each
sinner and his or her ability to
resist. * Like the blacksmith,
most of us are bound with chains of
our own forging. “His own
iniquities entrap the wicked man, and
he is caught in the cords of his
sin” (Proverbs 5:22). Samuel
Johnson echoed this proverb when he
said, “The chains of a bad habit
are too weak to be felt until they
are too strong to be broken.”*
_____________
*These chains also represent the
approaching judgment that will cause
Satan, his angels, and all who follow
him to tremble. “The angels who
did not keep their proper domain, but
left their own habitation, He has
reserved in everlasting chains under
darkness for the judgment of the
great day” (Jude 6; see also 2
Peter 2:4).
I have a radical theory. I think that
God created all humans to be addicts.
That’s right each of us is an
addict, and God designed us that way!
That is, the Creator made us to be
addicted to Him. So, when people
reject Him, they struggle in vain to
fill that cavernous black hole with
some other obsession. As a result,
people become subject to a broad
spectrum of addictions. Some become
workaholics. Some become addicted to
food, and suffer bulimia, anorexia,
or obesity. Some choose alcohol,
drugs, or cigarettes. For others, it
is sex, or music. For still others,
it is fashion and outward appearance;
they consume themselves with
materialism and vanity. There are
also those who become addicted to
other people in twisted, co-dependant
relationships.
All these addictions are misguided
attempts to fill a void designed for
God. However, it is only in
God’s love that we find true
joy, peace, and satisfaction.
_____________
*I imagine that the ten cities of
Decapolis might have had an ongoing
contest to see who would capture and
control the local madman. Those ten
cities might be seen as a type of the
Ten Commandments that the demoniac
refused to keep. These commandments
work like chains and fetters to
restrain sinners from their wicked
course. Like the demoniac, though,
sinners stubbornly break those bands
asunder.
A story in the Bible offers a great
illustration of encouragement. The
apostle Peter was hopelessly
imprisoned held by two chains and
bound for judgment. However, when he
obeyed the simple instructions of an
angel, the chains miraculously fell
from his hands. The Bible records it
like this:
The night before Peter was to be
placed on trial, he was asleep,
chained between two soldiers, with
others standing guard at the prison
gate. Suddenly, there was a bright
light in the cell, and an angel of
the Lord stood before Peter. The
angel tapped him on the side to
awaken him and said, “Quick! Get
up!” And the chains fell off his
wrists (Acts 12: 6,7, NLT).
The beauty here is that God pursues
us, meeting us where we are-with
whatever chains bind us. As Jesus
came to the demoniac’s cemetery
and the angel came to Peter’s
death-row cell, so the Spirit comes
to us, held captive as we are by
Satan. “The people who walked in
darkness have seen a great light;
those who dealt in the land of the
shadow of death, upon them a light
has shined” (Isaiah 9:2).
We see this gospel message when Peter
was cleaning his dirty nets, when
Matthew was counting his dirty money,
and when Mary Magdalene was in the
temple after being caught in a dirty
act. Jesus meets us in our prison as
He met Peter, Matthew, and Mary, and
He invites us to leave our chains
behind and follow Him-not by
compulsion but as willing servants.
On July 31, 1838, a large company of
slaves gathered on a beach in Jamaica
for a solemn yet joyous occasion.
Slavery was to be abolished the next
day. These slaves had constructed a
large mahogany coffin and placed it
next to a deep grave that they had
dug. That evening, they placed
symbols of their slavement in the
coffin-chains, leg-irons, whips, and
padlocks. A few minutes before
midnight, they lowered the box into
the grave. Then, as these slaves
pushed sand into the hole, they
joined their voices to sing the
doxology: “Praise God from whom
all blessings flow.” Now they
are free. The next day, many of these
returned to work in the fields or on
the docks-but this time as free men
and women.
Similarly, people who accept
Christ’s death are freed from
their slavery to sin. And like those
former slaves, when they are in
heaven, they will be free from the
very reminder and presence of sin.
“God be thanked that though you
were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed
from the heart that form of doctrine
to which you were delivered. And
having been set free from sin, you
became slaves of righteousness”
(Romans 6: 17, 18).
He
was “exceeding fierce, so that
no man might pass by that way.”
–Matthew 8:28
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