When Jesus compared the Pharisees to whited sepulchers, He wasn't paying them a compliment. He was saying that they may look good on the outside, but they were rotten on the inside. Not much has changed.

Today, thousands are dying from AIDS. Poor, sick, and alone, they are shunned and separated from society. Teenagers are killed by their classmates over a pair of expensive sneakers. Movies and television programs do all they can to promote the bankrupt value system currently in vogue, with a steady stream of characters blowing each other away or bedding each other down. Rappers like Ice-T have rocketed to the top of the charts with songs that extol the virtues of social anarchy and moral decay.

I could fill your ear with examples that make the ones I've mentioned seem almost inconsequential by comparison. However, instead of becoming mired in the symptoms, I prefer to search for the cause.

If I were an economist, I would search for new ways to carve up the American pie so that everyone would get a fair slice. Perhaps we could relieve the frustration of the have-nots who feel trapped and victimized by economic disparity.

If I were a politician -- and thank God I am not -- I would chase after legislative solutions. I would try to rewrite laws to make them more just and redraw district boundaries to assure equal representation.

However, I am neither an economist, nor a politician. I am, at the heart of my heart and at the essence of my humanity, a preacher of the good news of Jesus Christ.

Therefore, like all Christians, I have access to a perspective on the problem that is not universally recognized: the infallible, inerrant Word of God. When you bring the Bible to bear on the crisis in our country, you don't have to spend quite as much time in front of the television. You needn't pore over the paper or stay riveted to your radio. We are not limited to the moral relativism of our day; we have a sure word from God.

The Biblical Diagnosis

When you pass current events through the filter of faith and the screen of Scripture, it becomes painfully clear that they spring from a common cause. In fact, the symptoms of our society bear an uncanny resemblance to the onset of AIDS.

When a body is afflicted with AIDS, the immune system is rendered incapable of resisting the bacteria and viruses attacking it. Consequently, relatively minor ailments can mushroom into life-threatening diseases which do not respond to conventional treatment.

Our society has fallen victim to a disease I call Spiritual AIDS. The bacteria of sin and the virus of lawlessness seem to be spreading uncontrollably within our borders. Ordinarily, it should be relatively simple to overpower these dangerous organisms. However, our immune system has been rendered inactive. That immune system is the church.

Our nation's woes are not the result of corrupt politicians, violent police officers, militant feminists, or hateful racists. Our troubles can be traced directly to inactive Christians. The great tragedy today is not that sinners sin; that's what they're supposed to do. If sinners failed to sin, there would be no point calling them sinners. No one should be surprised when men who are shaped in iniquity do what comes naturally.

The real tragedy is that so many saints are out-sinning the most sinful sinners. Christians, as a group, have failed to act as salt and light within society -- a condition which carries devastating consequences we've only just begun to discover. Today's young people perceive Jesus as irrelevant and lay the blame squarely at the feet of the Christian community. Our failure to commit ourselves to the comprehensive application of biblical standards and to live holy lives has led many to dismiss the gospel as pie-in-the-sky religion.

The process is clear. When Christians fail to be Christian, their families fail to function as Christian families. The failure of Christian families renders entire churches ineffective. Inert churches make no impact on the communities they have been called to serve and change.

There's very nearly a congregation on every corner in our inner cities, yet those communities languish in poverty and despair. Isn't it obvious that the church has failed to be the church God created and intended it to be? If we are going to help, the judgement must begin with the household of God.

For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? (I Peter 4:17)

Pastor John