On that solemn night, nearly a year ago, I admitted to myself, and to my friends and loved ones, "Yes, I am a murderer." Today, as I look back to reflect on my life, I ask: how did I start down the path that led me to become a murderer?
It began as far back as I can remember. I grew up on the south side of Chicago, Illinois, as the eldest of two children born to an average American couple who tried their best to rear me. My well-meaning parents reared me to accept the world's ideas of right and wrong. They taught me the "glories" of Christmas and the "joys" of Easter. They sent me to schools that filled my vacant head with facts and figures, but also with the world's foolishness, which blocked out any knowledge of the true God. I was on my way to becoming another cookie-cutter copy of a typically deceived human being, with no idea of my destiny or purpose. I did not know why I was born, nor whether there was any reason for my existence. All I really knew is that I was supposed to "get" something out of life.
As I matured, my murderous tendencies grew, even though I did not yet recognize them. The realization that God's commandments could have helped me lead a happy and successful life had escaped me. Yes, I had heard of the "Ten Commandments," but they did not seem to have much to do with me. My parents said, and the pastor of the church just a few blocks from our home taught, that we would all go to heaven when we died, and that hellfire was only for the "really bad people"—whatever that meant. I was sure I was not one of those "bad people," so never really gave it much thought.
What was my first crime? Back then, I did not even think of it as crime, but I knew what I wanted from life. My flesh, my lust, my pride—surely the world could satisfy me if I worked hard enough at it—or so I thought (1 John 2:16). My parents did not agree, and looking back I must admit that they were fair in administering due punishment for my infantile tantrums when I did not get what I wanted. Though they might not have thought of it this way, they were doing what the proverb instructed: "Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; the rod of correction will drive it far from him" (Proverbs 22:15). As I grew older, when I committed some offense, my Dad would send me to get the hairbrush Mom kept on her dresser. What lesson did I learn? Did I give up my covetous ways? No. Mostly I just learned to keep my desires to myself. Childish rebellion had taken root in my mind.
Looking back, I realize that free moral agency in the hands of human beings, if we are not guided by God's Spirit, will almost always lead us to make bad choices. "But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death" (James 1:14–15). So, from an early age, I began to pile sin upon sin, unaware that my bad choices were earning me eternal death.
As a typically rebellious teenager, I had not been interested in religion, and I certainly had not read the Bible much at all. So, when—as a carnal 15-year-old—I heard a confident and compelling voice on the Prairie Farmer radio station, WLS, my attention was captivated. It was Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong. I was attracted, like iron filings to a magnet, by the power and simplicity and plain truth of the words he spoke from the Bible. Before long, I had sent away for the Plain Truth magazine and a booklet, The United States and British Commonwealth in Prophecy. I began to understand that I was being called by some unseen force. But what had I "gotten myself into"? What would now happen to me? "Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent" (Acts 17:29–30).
Weaned on the United States' military victories in World War II, I had already set my adolescent sights on a career in the U.S. Army. Though I continued to read the Plain Truth, and even to take the Bible Correspondence Course offered by the Radio Church of God, I had very little understanding. I entered the Army, just as I had planned from my youth. My Creator was not forcing me into His Church, and He certainly was not rushing me. He was allowing me to learn, bit by bit, that the way I had chosen was not the way He had chosen for me.
When I finally realized, at age 24, that I had to give up my selfish dreams of military success in order to obey God, I thought I was making a big sacrifice when I left the Army and went to Pasadena. But after I was baptized, and had the Holy Spirit working in me, I soon came to the awful realization that my sacrifices were nothing compared to what God had sacrificed for me, and that I still had a long way to go toward my distant goal of total submission to Christ.
True Surrender?
Having been trained as a soldier, I usually found it easy to submit to men in positions of authority in God's Church. But surrendering to God was another matter. Even though I could muster the external appearance of submission, I began to realize that jealousy, vanity, lust and greed were more deeply rooted in my life than I could begin to imagine. Though I had some "head knowledge" of God's laws and His ways, my understanding and appreciation of them—and of the tremendous value of my calling— was only superficial. The "old man" still manifested himself too much and too often, and I did not fight against him as vigorously as I should have. Thankfully, Christ suffered long in dealing with my carnal human nature, as He continued to work patiently with the clay He was fashioning into a future brother. Looking back, I understand the wisdom of Christ's warning: "Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak" (Matthew 26:41).
From my time in the military, I had thought I understood obedience. In God's Church, when my pastor needed someone to set up tables and chairs, I volunteered. When the widows needed to relocate into new homes, I was happy to help move their furniture. I served and served. Looking back, I was even a bit proud of my service. So, after 25 years on the Church's membership rolls, you can imagine my shock when a minister gave me the best piece of advice I had ever received on that subject. His words, paraphrased a bit, were: "Don, you have been 'serving' for all these years, but it's time you started serving God!" I was dumbfounded at first. Had all my "good works" been for nothing? But when I examined my life, I had to admit that my obedience to God had been seriously lacking in some important ways, no matter how "obedient" I had been to those ministers and brethren who requested my service. To this day, I still remember that minister's correction with gratitude; he smashed my prideful "obedience" with a spiritual sledgehammer. Christ was talking about people like me when He warned, "But why do you call Me 'Lord, Lord,' and not do the things which I say?" (Luke 6:46). Perhaps for the first time, I began to understand the importance of the scriptural injunction: "Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams" (1 Samuel 15:22).
When I first responded to God's call, I thought I had repented. But as each year passed, I came to understand more deeply my need for further repentance. This is true for most of us when we are first called; we can often see others' sins more easily than our own. But if we ever stop seeing ourselves as sinners, we are declaring, in effect, that we do not need Christ's sacrifice. Yet we read that, "all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). Our Savior knew He was coming to save sinners, not the self-righteous. The scribes and Pharisees complained about this, asking Him, "'Why do You eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?' Jesus answered and said to them, 'Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance'" (Luke 5:30–32).
Indeed, God is now calling the weak of the world— not the wealthiest, not the wisest and not those who are relatively more righteous (1 Corinthians 1:27). Why is He doing this? He wants to prove that if Christ can save you and me, He can save anyone! God did not call me because I was righteous, or obedient or successful. He called me precisely because I was none of those things, so He could prove that He can make something out of nothing. Without His holy and righteous character in me, I am nothing, yet Christ loved me so much that He was willing to die so I could join our Father's family as His younger brother. "For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For as you were once disobedient to God, yet have now obtained mercy through their disobedience, even so these also have now been disobedient, that through the mercy shown you they also may obtain mercy. For God has committed them all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all" (Romans 11:29–32).
Who Does God Want?
You may sometimes find it hard to believe that God could actually want the likes of you and me in His family. As Groucho Marx once joked, "I don't care to join a club that accepts people like me as members!" No, God in one sense does not want "people like me" in His family. He wants people like Him—and we become like Him as we yield more and more perfectly, as each year goes by, to His Spirit in us, as we take on His holy and righteous character as our own. Some of us have had 50 years or more to learn submission to, and love of, His will and His way. Others have had only a few years, or even less. God is still calling new brethren to become His firstfruits. These brethren are taking the "crash course," and must learn more quickly than some of us have. But if they endure to the end, they will receive the same reward as the "old-timers"— they will reign in the Millennium under their Savior, Jesus Christ, helping Him show the whole world the true way of life that brings peace and prosperity, and that prepares human beings to become part of His family.
God tells young Christians and newer brethren to look to the example and instruction of those who are older in the faith. Peter wrote: "Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for 'God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.' Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you" (1 Peter 5:5–7). But it is not that an "old-timer" is more righteous than a new brother or sister in Christ; if we think we have "made it" because of our years "in the Church" we are deceiving ourselves. Some of our newest brethren, who were baptized since the Living Church of God began, are to me wonderful examples of great faith and godly character. As for me, God seems to have given me more than 50 years to pursue His calling because He knew I would need that much time to lay a foundation on which He could build His holy, righteous character within my stubborn self.
As Paul warned: "Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you. Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind" (Philippians 3:12–16).
"I Did It…"
As another Passover approaches, I remind myself once more: I am personally guilty of murdering Jesus Christ—my Elder Brother, my Savior and my God! If I had been the only human being on Earth, Jesus would still have given His life to pay the penalty for my sins. By my sinful actions, I was in the mob shouting for Jesus' crucifixion. By my selfishness, I was the lictor who lashed His body to a bloody pulp. By my carnal desire to please myself and gain favor in the eyes of men, I was the soldier who drove the nails into His hands and feet. By my wretched human nature I was the legionary who plunged a spear into my Savior's side. I cannot blame anyone else: Christ's death was my fault. I am a murderer—and the One I murdered is the One who is saving me by His death and resurrection!
Did I consciously murder Him? No. But that is no excuse. Like all my accomplices—others who have come to realize that they, too, murdered Christ—I can be eternally and tearfully grateful to God for the words Jesus Christ spoke as I crucified Him: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do" (Luke 23:33–34).
Each year, when the Passover comes, I hope I understand this truth a little more deeply than before. Scripture tells us that the Apostle Paul understood it well. "This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. However, for this reason I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering, as a pattern to those who are going to believe on Him for everlasting life" (1 Timothy 1:15–16). Paul saw himself as a sinner, but more importantly as a sinner whom Christ had come to save, not only for Paul's own benefit, but to show others His power to save.
Paul understood what we all should: "If Jesus Christ can save me, He can save anyone!" Not one of us is "righteous enough" not to need Jesus Christ's sacrifice. "But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; we all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away" (Isaiah 64:6).
A year ago, at the Passover, I joined many brethren who, by taking the Passover, were confessing their own guilt as murderers—and who, having repented of the evil act, were able to rejoice that their Savior had forgiven them! This year, as you prepare for the Passover—which in 2008 we will take shortly after sunset on Friday evening, April 18—I hope my confession will help you see that even though you are a murderer, just like me, you have a Savior who loves you and will not give up on you, as long as you do not give up on Him!