Human Depravity

I see a lot of it. I work in the legal field and so, I've seen mothers 6 months pregnant hooked on crack and heroin. I've seen murderers laugh at their actions of which they stand accused. As one grand juror was heard to remark after hearing and returning "true bills" for a round of 70+ indictments, "I've lived here more than 30 years; I had no idea there was this much crime here!"

Are we really all that surprised? I didn't think I could be. I thought I was more calloused.

Today, a couple of news stories caught my eye. The first is entitled "Harlem Baby Dies After Falling In Bucket of Vomit". If you follow the link, you'll see a story about how an 18 year old mother, left her daughter (in the care of an unknown or, worse, no one) and went out for a night of partying. Coming home drunk, she wisely placed a barf bucket beside her bed and, unwisely, fell asleep on the bed with her 3 month old baby girl. She awoke to find that her daughter had drowned in mommy's vomit.

The second, also from abcnews.com, is "Mom of Boys Tossed in Bay Pleads Insane". I'm not making this up, click the link! Apparently, the mom, Lashuan Harris who, according to the news report, suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, tossed her kids in the San Francisco Bay because God told her to do so. The reporter says it better than I could:

In her videotaped confession to police, Harris described how she struggled with two of her boys as she stripped them and plunged them from Pier 7 in an area where tourists stroll along the waterfront. Her youngest boy laughed, thinking it was a game.

A game? Are you kidding me?

Another report out of St. Louis, I heard on the radio (but I can't find the link to the story). It was of a woman who cut her cousin -- her cousin -- open and removed the baby developing within. She then attempted to pass the baby off as her own. No mention was made of how the mother - the real one - is doing now.

Anyone want to argue that man is generally good? Didn't think so.

We are lost, we have been since Adam and Eve sampled the wrong fruit at the insistence of a slimy serpant. As the Bible says, our "heart is deceitfully wicked, above all things." What wretched humans we are!

We appear to be horrible beings, but wrap your cabeza around this: In comparison to the evil that has been banished to hell, this is nothin'! By the grace of God, we are kept from experiencing the onslaught of evil that our wicked hearts deserve. Evil cannot entertain God and so is eternally separated from him. Eternally separated from him - can you imagine that?

Think of a lifetime and add infinity to that, then you're close to how long eternity is. And, apart from the saving work of Christ, we would spend that length separated from the only Good that there is. No, that wasn't a mis-spelling. God is THE only true good in life; to be separated from good means that we we are in the company of its antithesis: evil.

What's that? You say that you've lived your whole life as a human here, but you had no idea there was this much evil around you?

What is being done about your depravity?