Insight for Today
A Daily Devotional by Pastor Chuck Swindoll

From Depraved to Saved

(?)

WHOEVER IS SOFT ON depravity should watch Schindler's List.

It's not for the fainthearted, I should warn you. It is a raw, harsh, shocking exposé of unbridled prejudice, the kind of anti-Semitic brutality spawned in hellish hate among the Nazis prior to and during World War II.

How could such hatred fill the minds of those wearing swastikas? How could they walk back into their barracks or offices or homes wearing blood-splattered uniforms and forget what just happened?

The answer is simple. Depravity. It's ugly, unashamed, uncovered, unrefined, unrepentant depravity. It's the blackness, the filthy cesspool of the unregenerate heart. Here's what God says about the evil of the human heart:

God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. . . . And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles.

So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other's bodies. They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen.

ROMANS 1:18–19, 23–25

Gripping words, those. As one theologian put it, "If depravity were blue, we'd be blue all over." Given our own way, with no help from above and no restraints from within, we are capable of the most heinous acts imaginable. That's why we ought to offer heartfelt praise for this corresponding truth: "God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners" (Romans 5:8).

How could God possibly give His Son for such hopelessly lost and depraved sinners? How could He look past the hate and horror of our wickedness? How could you and I have found our name on the Savior's list? Again, the answer is simple. Grace. Receive it. Embrace it. Share it. Never forget it.