Expecting Failure - Why We Cannot Trust Each Other

As I look back on 2015 I think one of the saddest memories I have will be of the video of Bill Cosby coming out of court after having been arraigned on charges of sexual assault. For some time now the accusations have been pouring out of many women who claimed Cosby had drugged them and then sexually abused them. I am not naïve enough to have thought these allegations have no truth, there are just too many of them, but the pictures of this old man who was once considered a pillar of our society looking so old and broken down kind of hurt.

I think you had to be around in the 60’s and 70’s to understand why this one is such a let down. As a white boy who grew up in the 60’s in white suburbia I knew very little about black people. The “N” word was common use in my household; no actually everywhere I went white people usually referred to blacks by that name. I heard very little good said about blacks. All the stereotypes were thrown out. I won’t go into them here, but I can tell you black people were not given much respect here in the St. Louis area. Later on when I went to work at the phone company I was amazed at the hatred most of my co-workers had for blacks. Many of these men were older than me and held great contempt for the civil rights movement. Having worked in the worst ghettos of St. Louis some of the things I saw could have added fuel to the fire of racism I had been fed my whole life, but for me it had the opposite effect; I came to see that blacks are just people like me and you. Getting to work in their homes was an opportunity that God used to teach me that all people are just that; people. They are not all that different than you and me.

But white America didn’t see it that way. They viewed blacks in the stereotypical way. Bill Cosby was a huge part of the change of racial perception that the civil rights movement began. In 1968 there was a TV show called Julia in which Diahann Carol played a young black nurse. Other shows would come along that gave blacks a more prominent role on television but it was the Cosby Show that I believe really had an impact on the perception of the black family.

As Bill Cosby became well known he often spoke out against other black comedians who, like a lot of comedians white and black, used material that was more on the raunchy side. His show presented the family as important and in a culture that had come out of the sexual revolution of the 70’s worse for wear in terms of purity and morals, he was well respected. In the twisted and perverted world of Hollywood, Bill Cosby was a light in the darkness. So now to find out that Cosby was probably just one more pervert, well, it just kind of breaks one’s heart. Bill Cosby is a fake. He is a liar, an adulterer, and a phony.

But there is a great truth to be learned in this. You see the Bible predicted the fall of Bill Cosby. Oh, not specifically by name. There is no book of prophecy that predicted Bill Cosby would come along and let us all down. But the truth is there for all of us to see. Are you ready?

You cannot put your faith in men. You cannot hold them up as heroes or as great moral beings. Let’s start here.

Romans 3:23
 “…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…”

Men are liars. It is in our nature; our fallen nature. The psalmist said it in Psalm 116:11, “And in my dismay I said, "All men are liars." And Paul confirmed it in Romans 3:4 saying, “Let God be true, and every man a liar.”

The truth is that since the fall of man in the Garden of Eden man cannot be trusted.

Many years ago when I first received Christ into my life I was delivered from a couple of sins. The first many don’t consider all that important. I was delivered from cursing. Where I worked curse words were common and expected. Immediately I stopped. I was also delivered from lust. Totally. I could have visited a nudist colony and not had one thought of lust. Because of the environment I worked in, outside in the world of telephone repair, I suddenly stood out. I was different. I was light in the dark and perverted world of Southwestern Bell Telephone.

Sparing the details I had a horrible fall from my faith and got involved in an affair. I could see it coming and even prayed that God would remove the temptation. He did not. I failed God, my wife, and my family. During that time I knew I was failing them. What I didn’t realize was that I was also failing the lost people around me.

I learned later on that people I hadn’t expect to, had actually looked up to me when I was living the life of a Christian who had refused to follow along with the crowd. These hard-nosed cursing perverts actually respected the idea that a man could live a pure life. Then I fell.

There was a long time in my life when I wondered why God didn’t stop me from falling. It would be easy to ask the same question about Bill Cosby. Why would God use him to bring morality and goodness to our television sets only to later show us that this man we thought represented wholesomeness and purity was himself about as messed up as one can be?

Here is why. Because our faith is never to be in man, but must only find its direction to be in Christ. Jesus led a perfect sinless life and because of that He could go to the cross and be our propitiation for sin. The entire Gospel hangs on the sinless perfection of Christ.

The second reason why both Cosby and I were allowed to be used by God only to fall is to demonstrate His great mercy and grace. I don’t know what will happen to Bill Cosby. I have no idea what is in his heart. But I know that God restored me. I know that God forgave me. I know that I still fail Him daily yet His Word says that His mercies are new every day. That comes from Lamentations 3. Take a little time now and read that over. Meditate on it and make it real in your life. Read the entire chapter 3. I’ve been there. Have you? Has your own sin broken your heart? Have you ever looked back and realized that maybe you’ve let people down? You’ve let God down? Maybe you need to look at yourself.

The bottom line is this; people will fail you. You should expect they will but don’t let that sour you on them. Just stop making them your heroes. Your husbands and your wives are not perfect. So just love them as Jesus does. Help them get up when they fall. All of us fall short. All of us. Lamentations 3:22-23 says, “Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.  They are new every morning.”

Let us love each other that way. No we cannot excuse sin nor do we gloss it over. But what we can do is be builders instead of trash men who just haul the debris to a dump. When those around us fall let us help them put it back together. None of us are perfect, actually far from it; so let’s stop making ourselves out as heroes and stars of the faith. Only one man walked this earth in perfection. Make Him your hero.