The mightiest can fall, and the most fallen can rise again:
Many people have been deeply impressed with the writings of a man called Gordon MacDonald. Billy Graham said of one of his books: “It struck me right between the eyes with conviction and I wish that I had read it many years ago.” Another prominent Christian leader described him as “one of the most Godly men I have ever met.”
He was the pastor of the largest church in New England and taught at my seminary. He became the president of the InterVarsity evangelistic organization, one of the biggest in America.
Then it came out. A sin from a few years previously was exposed, and MacDonald was forced to resign. The sin was adultery. My wife Celeste was so shocked she has never trusted him since, and it’s been over ten years.
He was forced to step down as president of Intervarsity. It made most pastors aware of our own spiritual frailty. If this man, with all his much vaunted spiritual discipline, could fall so hard, then no-one was immune from danger, ever.
Last week MacDonald appeared on TV with Tony Campolo, because both of them have been meeting on a weekly basis with President Clinton. Do you know how the commentator introduced him? “Gordon MacDonald, a leading pastor who was exposed after committing adultery.” He will never live it down.
After his fall from grace, Gordon MacDonald recalled an encounter with a friend that had taken place some time before: “My friend asked a strange question: “If Satan were to blow you out of the water,” he asked, “how do you think he would do it?” “I’m not sure I know, I answered. “All sorts of ways, I suppose; but I know there’s one way he wouldn’t get me.” “What’s that?”
“He’d never get me in the area of my personal relationships. That’s one place where I have no doubt that I’m as strong as you can get.” A few years after that conversation my world broke wide open. A chain of seemingly innocent choices became destructive, and it was my fault. Choice by choice by choice, each easier to make, each becoming gradually darker. And then my world broke – in the very area I had predicted I was safe – and my world had to be rebuilt.
“My perception is that broken-world people exist in large numbers, and they ask similar questions over and over again. Can my world ever be rebuilt? Do I have any value? Can I be useful again? Is there life after misbehavior?
“My answer is yes. That is what grace is all about. A marvelous, forgiving, healing grace says that all things can be new. The escape route from sin is Jesus. The wellspring of forgiveness is Jesus. The power to mend broken lives and set us on our feet again is Jesus. The one who can guard us against the devastation of sin is Jesus.”
[see also #585 and #2343]