"Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." (1 Corinthians 6:9b-11)
I love these verses. The whole entire Bible is full of wonderful, profound, glorious verses, but we all have our favorites. For example, Psalm 116:15 holds a very near and dear place in my heart. One of the events in my life that God used to kick me to my knees, test my reliance upon him, and shake up the comfort I took for granted was the death of my grandmother rather suddenly due to lung cancer. The whole story deserves its own addition, so I will not share it this time. However, I will tell you that I was sitting in the same room as my dying grandmother, realizing that this was her last night with her family, I randomly opened up my Bible, and my eyes instantly landed upon these words, "Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints." I learned a lot about providence and God's sovereignty through that event, and it was the first time in my life where I recognized the comfort of the Holy Spirit. It was as if God was telling me, "It's okay, Matthew. She must die so that she can truly live as my precious daughter."
I am getting ahead of myself, however. That story shall come in time, but unfortunately, the story at present is not as lovely and precious. 1 Corinthians 6:9b-11 is a passage of Scripture that I keep coming back to, over and over again, whenever I cannot contemplate how a holy God could love such a sinful man as myself. Sexually immoral, idolatrous, adulterous, homosexual, thief, greedy, drunkard, reviler, swindler, etc. Such was I. Through and through. Although I was a sinful man long before 2001, my sinfulness took an all-time plunge into the depths of Sheol soon after I turned 14.
As I explained in my last addition, there were a lot of changes that took place in 2000-2001. My family moved out of the suburbs and moved into the rural country. My parents decided to homeschool my brother and me when I was in sixth grade, and in 2001, I was about to start my freshman year of high school. In 2000, my parents decided to leave the evangelical free church that we had been attending for over seven years, and at the beginning of 2001, we began to regularly attend Springs Reformed Church in downtown Colorado Springs.
However, much more than that was changing as well. My dad, who quit his full-time job of over 20 years to homeschool my brother and me, decided to start working part-time tuning pianos and reconditioning antique player pianos (the kinds of pianos that kids love because they play themselves). His part-time job had nearly full-time hours some weeks, and my brother and I spent many days all by ourselves at the home on the windy prairie. In 2001, my brother practically begged my parents to return to public school. To this day, I am thankful that one of the hardest parts for him about going back to public school was missing me. We had formed a rather close brotherhood during our years homeschooling, and he and I became the closest of friends. The Proverb that speaks about a friend that sticks closer than a brother confused me for the longest time, because my closest friend was my brother.
After some discussion, my parents decided that it was probably best for my brother to return to public school. They thought it might be good for me to go back to public school too, considering that with Ryan (my brother) out of the house too, I would be home alone all day, every day. However, I insisted, unlike my brother, that I had absolutely no desire to go back to public school. I got what I wanted. The beginning of my freshman year marked the beginning of a downward spiral that I would not recover from until God graciously intervened seven years down the road (not to imply that God did not intervene many times long before, though).
At first, it was really nice having the home all to myself all day long. Mom was working at the health department. Dad was working at the shop refurbishing millions of tiny pieces of player pianos. My brother was away at school, loving the social interaction with other people his age who were far more interesting and interactive than me.
My homeschool schedule was rather pathetic. So I thought, at least (you'll see why). Every week, my dad would create a scheduled syllabus for each subject that I had to work through day by day. I would wake up at six o'clock in the morning every day, and I would have my work done by one in the afternoon, typically. Although dad always scheduled work for Monday through Friday, I would always work a longer day on Thursday so that I could have Friday off. However, hitting the books rigorously was not as difficult as it may seem.
You see, ever since 7th grade, I found that I did not possess the willpower to overcome the temptation to cheat. My entire 6th grade experience was very difficult, I struggled to keep an A and B average, and I hated studying for tests only to get low grades on them. In our old house in the suburb, I did all of my work in the study. Conveniently, all of the answer books were kept in the study too. However, my brother and my dad were always home, so I would have to choose what I wanted to cheat on that day between six and seven in the morning. I knew my dad would know I was cheating if I started to ace every test and quiz, so I made sure to give myself B's and C's here and there. My overall grades didn't improve, but I saved a lot of time studying.
Well, someone who cheats on all of his homework would be appalled to find out that his parents were thinking about sending him back to public school. The gig would be up! Ever since we moved out to the country, it was harder to cheat because all of the answer books were kept in my parents' room. My dad typically left early to go to work, and my brother would often sleep in until noon. I actually had more time to cheat, and therefore, more opportunities to cheat. It got even better when I was home alone all day long! I would never have to study for a test again!
There was, however, one thing that I could never cheat on: research papers. However, that didn't stop me from trying. My dad assigned a research paper on any subject of my choice, and I decided to write about the battle of Midway in WWII. I didn't know how to research, I didn't know what I was writing about, and honestly, I knew there had to be an easier way to get this assignment finished. I came across an article online about the battle of Midway, and I loved how well researched it was. I didn't know how to start my paper, so I just started with the same first sentence as the article. The second sentence was good too, so I used that one as well. Then the third, fourth, fifth, and so on and so forth. I never copied and pasted the article into my paper because that would be cheating! Instead, I painstakingly re-typed word for word, and instead of saying that my report was "by" me, I wrote "written by" as if it were more truthful.
I tell you this because I find it peculiar that I had spent almost three years in school cheating on every test, quiz, and assignment, but my moral compass felt it would be wrong to cheat on a paper by copying someone else's work and taking credit for it. I was a cheater, but I was not a thief. However, cheaters are always thieves, stealing something that they have not worked for. In my case, I was stealing grades, free-time, and my parent's admiration. Not only was my cheating dishonest, but it was thievery. Looking back, I can see that my heart was beginning to look more and more like a white-washed tomb. I prided myself by the fact that I had never knowingly stolen something my whole life. I was more than happy to admit to this to others during Sunday School. I was a good boy, and I kept the eighth Commandment. I was righteous in my own eyes. I committed little sins, but never any big ones. I was grossly deceived, and it only got worse as I grew up.
My dad caught me. He sat me down after he googled my paper, and discussed the sin of plagiarism with me. I acted like I felt awful, but the most awful part of the whole situation was that I was probably going to get a zero for the assignment. I was quite accustomed to fixing my grades and giving myself whatever I wanted. However, I couldn't give myself an A for this paper. I felt so powerless, and it was annoying. It was distressful. Dad, however, graciously allowed me to redo the assignment for at least a C+ grade. By the time I finished the paper, I wished that Dad had just given me the zero.
If only cheating my way through middle school and my freshman year of high school was as bad as it got. However, I had much bigger problems and temptations that I dealt with that year, staying home alone all day long almost every day of the week. The temptation to cheat was small potatoes compared to another temptation that nudged me constantly, persistently plaguing my every thought.
Perhaps cheating my way through middle school and my freshman year of high school does not seem like a terrible problem to you. If you know me personally, then you know that I eventually overcame my addiction to cheating. In fact, when I returned to public school the following year, I got much better grades than I ever stole with cheating. I learned to work hard, study, finish all of my homework assignments (which was never hard for someone who was used to doing all work at home), and applying myself to my studies. Ironically, had I not cheated my way through the 9th grade, I would have more than likely earned a 4.0 GPA. However, it was more important for me at the time to steal a grade, be lazy, and through a C or low B in every once in a while to through my dad off while he graded my papers.
For anyone that has read Augustine's Confessions, this was my stealing-from-the-pear-tree experience. They are undoubtedly sins, but nothing that would cause many adults to even shrug their shoulders. My sinful thievery in the form of cheating does not seem like a heinous crime to many, but like the radiant sun during noon, it all begins with a little light at sunrise. Augustine wrote, "These same sins grow worse as we grow older: first it is offenses against pedagogues and teachers, or cheating over nuts and balls and sparrows; then later it is crimes against prefects and kings, and fraud in gold and estates and slaves, just as a schoolboy's canings are succeeded by heavier punishments" (Boulding, 1997). It all starts with the small things. I disregarded the small sins in my life as if they were not even worth counting. I still considered myself a Christian, even though I was a Christian that didn't honor his parents, cheated on his school-work, lied about it often, and lived as if nothing was remotely wrong with the picture he was painting of himself.
Cheating on schoolwork was the spark that ignited an inferno of debauchery, licentiousness, and sinful destruction in my life. You see, sins that seemed terrible, the ones I abhorred as a child, the ones that my parents really guarded me from, started to seem less and less big. There was a condition occurring in my heart. I was starting to enjoy letting myself be deceived. It's really not that big of a deal was my heart's deceitful comfort, and I had shut-up my conscience so that I could truly believe my heart. A little white lie, a really big lie; it made no difference. I was beginning to enjoy being sinful. I was beginning to enjoy experiencing the things this world has to offer those who are just willing to reach up and taste the nectar of the forbidden fruit. Better yet, I was beginning to think that I was getting away with everything! If I sin in secret, then everyone will be none the wiser, I thought. I ate and I ate and I ate again. I'll never put myself on a pedestal above Adam and Eve, thinking that if I were in their shoes, I would have done so much better. They only ate one bite. I consumed the whole tree.
You might be wondering, what could a 14 year-old experience that is so bad? I hope you are not, however. But sadly, too many are ignorant of the ticking time-bombs of sinful addiction laying all throughout their house. When I was 14, we had two computers with dial-up internet. One was in my parent's bedroom and the other one was downstairs in our unfinished basement. Today, it seems everything is connected to the internet. They even sell appliances that connect to the internet, and they do so at lightning-fast speeds. Any parent that prides themselves with having the most sophisticated, fail-safe internet security software should read on. My childhood was about to be stripped from me handedly, and at the age of 14 I was about to jump head-first into a pool that I would continue drowning in years later. You know what's coming, and I am going to tell you just how bad it is and how easy it is to get addicted to a sin that will alter everything in your life.
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