The Din Of Iniquity

No. That is not a misspelling.

Although yesterday Jacksonville police raided a whorehouse not far from here (see news report at http://www.news4jax.com/news/16903466/detail.html ) I’m not writing about that den.

The word din I’m using means “a continual noise, a welter of discord, a noise which annoys with insistent repletion”.

It’s something you hear.

And yesterday I heard plenty.

It started with our Neighborhood Watch’s tire drive.

The streets in our neighborhood from a giant horseshoe. Fifty-seven houses line this horseshoe. For various reasons nine of those houses sit empty at the moment. That leaves 48 occupied houses.

Many of us have accumulated old tires in our backyards because you have to go through such a rigmarole to get rid of them.

So, as a public service, our Watch group plans to collect old tires around the neighborhood and arrange for the city to haul them away.

To notify folks about this project I printed up a flyer and yesterday I delivered it, going from house to house all around the horseshoe.

As I walked, a number of people stopped to talk with me.

I heard and saw a lot.

No one stipulated that what they were telling me was told in confidence, but by it’s very nature, I feel I should not repeat specifics, but speak in generalities.

Mostly I heard the din of iniquity.

Tale after tale of sin in the world, in our little horseshoe, and its dreadful, awful repercussions—the widespread, indirect, unforeseen effects of our actions.

No, I heard no tale of murder or bank robbery or child molesting; the iniquity I heard about were the common, everyday evils that form the whitenoise in the background of our lives.

I encountered homes stricken by cancer, stroke, heart disease, alcoholism, or drug addiction. I came across cases of agoraphobia, people terrified of leaving their houses. I encountered squalor and poverty and unemployment. I encountered an old woman terrified of dying. I heard tales of couples breaking up—one guy left his wife to shack up with her grown daughter from a previous marriage. Tales of backbiting and bitterness; of elderly grandparents being saddled with raising bastard kids; of rebellious teens stealing their parents blind; of bickering and squabbling, of bipolar disorders and insurance policies being canceled, of car wrecks and gas prices and …

I encountered human misery.

Man that is born of woman is few of days and full of troubles.

We live in a fallen world that is still falling; we haven’t hit bottom yet.

Somehow, we have the idea that wickedness originates from some super villain. We think of wicked being like the Joker, Batman’s nemesis, or of Blowfeld (that’s not spelled right), the archfiend enemy of James bond. We think of Hitler or Attila as being wicked and full of iniquity.

But the big guys have no corner on sin.

The truth of the matter is that sin is in the world, in my city, in my own little horseshoe, in me.

Christ came to save us not only from sins but from sin, the underlying condition of the world.

I know that.

I know that the Gospel message is that the love of God is shown towards us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

I know that in my own life, He has blessed me with a quiet life of love with my books and my wife, that He gave us a home in this horseshoe as an island in the tar pit.

I know that I represent Him here where I live even though I am in no way a worthy representative. My own overall sin and sins disqualifies me from that honor; yet, here I am.

But yesterday’s walk house to house in the neighborhood listening to strangers who confided in me just because I’d listen, this walk confronted me with the fact that I do little to alleviate the daily misery that seethes around me.

People might think I’m a religious fanatic.

So I say little and watch them suffer.

Instead of proclaiming the love of God and the delivering power of the Lord Christ here in the horseshoe, I plant trees, give history talks, and collect old tires.

My friend Wes, who is much more evangelistic than I am, says , “John, we’ve got to cure you of this social activism; all you’re doing is trying to make the world as nice a place as possible for people to go to Hell from”.

He says that most human misery comes as a natural consequence of our rebellion against God.

He’s probably right..

But as for me, I hear the din of iniquity all around me, and I turn the TV up louder to drown out the sound.