To Jail!

When I was a mere lad of six, my mom went away for a couple of days. When she returned home, she did not come alone. She brought with her a little baby boy. That began my relationship with my little brother. For the most part, we had a good relationship. Although at times it was a pain to have him tagging along with my twin brother and me (especially when we hit our teenage years!), we still had a lot of fun with him. One activity we did a lot of was playing board games. His favorite game was Monopoly. We played it so much (and there were many times my mother informed me that I had to play with my brother - I had no choice in the matter) that I got sick and tired of the game. Knowing that Mom would enforce her "Play with your brother" policy, my twin brother and I threw the game out. When the game came up missing, my mom went out and bought a new one! To this day I refuse to play Monopoly. I have been scarred for life!

I played the game so much ... I can still read portions of the game from memory. For instance, there is the Go to Jail card. It reads, "Go to jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200" (I just double checked on the Internet ... and I nailed it!). Now what brings all of this to mind is an article I read yesterday on the Internet that gave the following staggering statistic: today over 7.3 million American adults are in the U.S. corrections system. That is 1 out of every 31 adults! This includes those who are in prison and those who are out but on probation or parole. Now, this has some significant implications for our society (eg: the cost to government of such a load is HUGE!). But it is not my design to discuss the implications of this sorry situation. Rather, I want to answer the question: What does this tell us about human nature?

I think what it tells us is that man is basically evil. Left to his own heart, man will do bad things ... even so far as to break the civil law and end up in prison. Now this is not what many people believe. Many prefer to think of humanity as being inherently good. And man becomes "bad" due to external circumstances leading him astray. But this is not the view of the Bible! Really? Really! Consider the following:

Romans 3:10-12 - "As it is written: 'There is no one righteous, not even one; ¹¹there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. ¹²All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one."

Jeremiah 17:9 - "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick; who can understand it?"

Matthew 5:19 - "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander."


You see, humanity has a heart problem. And only a heart transplant performed by the Divine Surgeon will be able to remove our bondage to evil that all of us suffer. If you are in need of a new heart ... let me encourage you to click on this link and read what it has to say: http://www.matthiasmedia.com.au/2wtl/.

Thanks for stopping by . . .

pj