Sin. Sin is the problem. Whether we are up in arms over gun control or school shootings, whether we are battling critical race theory or systemic racism, whether we are side a, side b or just sideways, the problem is inside each one of us. Whatever strategy we might think best to fight whichever enemy is our own peculiar target, we will miss the right strategy unless we realize that we ought to be our own peculiar target. Any battle against their sin that is not a battle against my sin is my loss in my battle against my pride.
I’m not suggesting that some problems are not more grave than others. Nor am I suggesting that because we are all sinners that we are all equally sinful. I am suggesting this- we will always miss the target unless we aim near. Suppose I have a bug problem in my garden. Suppose I have an electric powered doodad that kills all the bugs. Now suppose that the same bug problem is impacting not just the few vegetables the Sprouls grow every summer but the potato crop in Idaho, the peach crop in Georgia, the wheat crop in Kansas, and the corn crop in Nebraska. Suppose I, recognizing that my small crop isn’t that important in the grand scheme of things, decide to gather all my extension cords. I talk to my neighbors about the struggle in Kansas and they lend me their extension cords. Some sponsor an extension cord fundraiser. The extension cord company offers to commit half its profits to providing me with more cords. So I start stringing them together, carrying my doodad on my walk to Kansas.
It’s not very effective is it? The current from my home will become but a trickle by the time I’ve left the neighborhood. I’ll get the cords tangled up with the Nebraskans worried about Georgia’s peaches, while the Idahoans will take to the streets to protest the nation’s indifference to their blight plight. In the meantime, people who could be using their doodads to kill the bugs are so concerned with the bugs that they spend their days on social media trying to raise awareness, while their crops are consumed. Doodads become the avatar of choice among the smart set. And the bugs continue on their way, eating our future.
Virtue signaling may be a relatively new phrase, but it is not a new problem. The Pharisees had it in spades, as do we, their heirs. As long as we talk about the bug problem out there we can avoid the bug problem in here. As long as we are battling against those who would tell us that we have a bug problem we don’t have to deal with our bug problem. In fact, we can, in screeching about the other guy’s bug problem, show the world what fine fellows we are.
It is all too easy to prophecy against Nineveh from the streets of Jerusalem, as easy as prophesying against Jerusalem from the streets of Nineveh. What we need is the courage to prophecy to the mirror.
I can agree what you are saying. Look at your sin (bugs) in the mirror. But the word prophecy almost made get the wrong isea. The apostlic charismatic movement uses this against the true gospel.