NY Congressman Anthony Weiner is resigning today. I am glad for this.
Weiner has spent the last three weeks battling for his job, which is representing the people of his constituency. It might be said that he definitely failed the moral standard of proper representation. On May 27th, he posted a prurient photo of himself on his Twitter timeline, apparently making the mistake of publishing it to all 47,000 of his followers instead of to the young woman to whom it was intended privately. Oops.
Weiner’s first response was that his account had been hacked. Then attempts were made to shift the blame to “conservative bloggers.” Two days later, when reporters were pressing Weiner on the point, he refused to answer, even calling one reporter a ‘jackass.’ On June 1, Weiner went on national television and said that the photo was not of him. The boom was lowered on June 6th when Breitbart published more photos of Weiner sent to different women. He finally admitted that he did the deeds being reported. It turns out that he had contacted an underage girl, many times, and police investigated. A photo of his naked genitalia surfaced he’d sent to someone and was published on the web. He had sexted a porn star and then asked her to lie. Other women were coming forward to say that he sexted them also, one from the local area.
He said he had an “addiction.” His colleagues said he needed “help.”
The country was transfixed, giggling like junior high school boys and pointing fingers. An ethics investigation was ordered by the Speaker of the House. Allegations were made amid growing calls for a resignation.
Finally, three weeks after it began, it was over. Weiner quit today. Now he will return to the home that he shares with his pregnant wife, and try to pick up the pieces. All he ever knew was politics. No one knows what fallback plan Weiner has. I dare say, no one cares.
Let’s list the sins: adultery, lying, lewdness, profanity, abuse of power, child endangerment, dereliction of duty. Wow. That’s, that’s…just like a sinner. The default condition of all unsaved people is a sinful heart, mind, and soul. We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. “[T]he mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God” (Romans 8:6) and ““But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised” (1 Corinthians 2:14).”
What are we to expect from one who is dead in his sins? It is struggle enough when we have the aid of the indwelling Holy Spirit to avoid sin, as Paul well knew. (Romans 7:14-25). Without the Holy Spirit there is no hope to avoid the ever deepening descent into the pit of sin.
One wonders about the coming tortured silences inside the Weiner home tonight, as his embarrassed wife, pregnant and bulging with their child, considers her options. Without Christ, there will be almost 100% certainty of a divorce, adding another sin to the pile. With Christ, it will be hard enough for that couple…and their child.
We know the famous line in the bible, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” (John 8:7). Even those of us who have the Spirit in us because we repented and were forgiven, are sinners. I don’t like what he did, not one bit. I was disgusted personally and embarrassed nationally. But there is a cure for the sin nature, we can be cleansed and made a new creature in His likeness. Having so recently been on the side of the reprobate mind, at open hostilities with the Lord, I remember well the perplexing and unwanted draw of sin for a season, so sweet at first then so bitter. Yes, Weiner needs help. Yes, he has an addiction. His addiction is to sin and satan, and the help he needs is Jesus. I pray that many will pray for him and not mock him. Let he and his wife be bathed in prayer and let those Gospel seeds take root in them for a magnificent regeneration.
As John Bradford sat in his Tower of London jail cell in 1553, a reformer against the Pope, he looked down at the courtyard and saw a prisoner going to his execution. He famously uttered, “There, but for the grace of God, goeth John Bradford.” That phrase is an idiom now, shortened to “There but for the grace of God, go I.” At one time we Christians were all in chains, all being led to the execution and death of our spirit. But for the Grace of God we all go. But it is His grace that saves us. I pray that the grace of God shines on Anthony Weiner, a flawed, sinning, reprobate person in need of Jesus’ intervention as much as we all do, and did. So go easy on the chortles, and pray for the man instead.
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