their fellow human beings. It is like the family who told the psychiatrist, “We hope you can do something for Uncle Mike, because if your treatment fails, our only resort is prayer. Of course, we pray for him daily but, knowing how Uncle Mike won’t stand for God, we aren’t able to do it with much optimism.” Could there be a better description of our attitude to ward some sections of this world’s population? We will pray for them, but we carry the attitude indicating that God doesn’t think any more high ly of them than we do. What better place than to start right here now and confess our own sins? I learned something valuable from our converted former alcoholics. Their testimonies will characteristically be gin, “I’m an alcoholic.” They say this even though personally they may not have had a drink for years. Such a man knows, however, that without constant vigilance such an enemy will get the better of him. We Christians should admit, without hesitation, “I am self-righteous.” We need to know that this is a battle which has to be won over and over again. That is what the hymn writer meant when he wrote, “I need Thee every hour.” This is what Paul meant when he said, “Those things that I would not, I do; and the things I do, I would not.” No wonder he so adequately expresses our similar frustrations in the words, “0 wretched man that I am.” Victory can only come, he pointed out, through our Lord Jesus Christ. The third reason why “the success ful man” is an enemy is because he is disconnected. Nothing to him is less important than the shape of things to come. Talk of the legacy of the past will leave him cold. The most obvious fact about the rich young ruler was the one thing he missed. He was told to sell everything he had and to give the money to the poor. Christ was talking about his symbols of success. The Lord wanted him to get involved in the sufferings of others. Loving without giving is impossible. The Saviour taught how difficult it is for those who have great posses- 24
obviously felt this way. I t was the way of tragedy and sorrow. He came to Jesus, asking how he could be bet ter. It wasn’t because he thought he was particularly sinful, however, for he believed that he was a model of circumspection. There was the sad aspect of egotism and pride in his claim. After all, he had kept the com mandments since he was quite young. He had never borne false witness; he had never said anything about an other that wasn’t quite true; he had never coveted the possessions of an other. (Could a man of his age really reach t h i s position of prominence without now and then casting an en vious glance at someone who possessed something he hadn’t yet attained ? Ask your own heart.) This young man, to be quite sure, figured he had “the world by the tail.” That doesn’t mean to say society could have found any thing bad about him. He strikes me as the type who would dare others to tell him what might be wrong with his life, knowing that they would be un able to do so. Why he could have been complimented for the humble attitude of his humility. After all, even the humblest person has a strong tempta tion to consider himself superior to others. This is the way the devil has worked from the beginning. It seems to be the norm of our American heri tage. We are prone to boast of this land in which most of us were bom while we actually obtained citizenship through no virtue of our own. Yet we treat it as though we were personally responsible for the country’s great ness. Our tendency in life is to locate the enemy outside of ourselves. If we can just be convinced that the real culprit is the Jew or the Nazi, or the Com munist, or the boss, or the union lead ers, or the “great society,” then a tre mendous load has been lifted from our own conscience. One woman com plained of her husband, “He married me to get a ‘scapegoat’.” Yet, we all have this same dire tendency to seek for an "out.” We want to find some one else responsible for our own sins. Most people have little respect for
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