A California Highway Patrolman shoots herself after leaving a note, “I’m no good.”
If ever a prominent person had reason to think he was no good, it was great King David who committed two monstrous crimes at once in committing adultery and then murdering the lady’s husband and keeping mum about it all for about a year, deceiving everybody in the kingdom. It took a prophet from God to wake him up.
His reaction was not suicide, for he did frankly confess that he felt he deserved death—the real kind, the eternal death of being “cast ... away from Thy presence [of God]; and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me” (Psalm 51:11). What he felt he deserved was what the New Testament speaks of as “the second death.”
The full realization of his true guilt was necessary before his self-respect could be built. No one can think of himself with genuine self-respect unless he knows the full dimension of his unworthiness and guilt—that’s just Reality; and that dimension? Guilt for the crucifixion of Christ. That is the sin of the human race; when the Bible says “all have sinned,” and “there is none righteous, no, not one” (Rom. 3:23; 10), that is what it means. Let’s not try to argue out of it saying, “If I had been there I would not have voted to crucify Him! I’m innocent of that!” You don’t know what you would have done, for “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9).
Your true and genuine self-respect that nothing can overthrow is built on that realization and confession. It is a corporate sin that is universal but universally (almost) unrecognized.
What this CHP suicide needed was that corporate realization plus the understanding that Christ’s forgiveness of those who crucified Him extended to her also (Luke 23:34); if your load of unconscious guilt is lifted by that faith and knowledge of truth, it will be impossible for you ever to say to yourself or to anyone else, “I am no good.”
Every baby born into this world comes with a deep conviction of judicial condemnation “in Adam” (Rom. 5:18); but at the same time he also comes into the world under a blanket of the Father’s judicial forgiveness with His verdict of acquittal “in Christ” (same text).
That’s what the Father says about you “in Christ.” But of course you can rebel and refuse to receive the gift. But believing the truth puts a smile on your face forever.
It’s a pity no one told the CHP suicide in time.
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
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