Yet I am not compelled to vent my disenchantment with Ravi. Instead I want to address the primary take-aways gathered from blogs, newsletters, and video posts of those responding to news of his fall. I believe that much in these responses may prove counter-productive in granting us hope that they may live as lights before a dark world. They may even perpetuate the underlying reasons that catastrophic moral failure among our leaders is all too common place.

I will share what seem to be the three most common responses. Then will offer what I think are the dangers in these responses, though each holds some value. I hope, through all, to point to a greater truth onto which we can take hold.

The top three responses of those processing this sad story seem to be:

1. A call to let this event remind us that we are all sinners. We are to take stock in our moral weaknesses and say, “But for the grace of God there go I.”
2. Instruction to take our eyes off people and set them on Christ instead.
3. Extensive consideration of the practical ways we can avoid falling into sin.

Unleashed under this third response are any number of speculations on how this failure came about—the stress of the limelight; the result of boredom often found in a type A personalities or burnout; the lack of accountability; the failure to set up guard rails against temptation etc.

Now here are my concerns with these responses.

As to letting this horrible revelation of gross sin in the private life of a very public Christian remind all of us of our own deep sinfulness, I say — I am concerned that this response has the unintended effect of making sin seem inevitable and at the same time reveals a deep insensitivity to it.

But before I make my point, we must acknowledge that Ravi Zacharias’s sin has cause those who hold an identity with Ravi to feel its defilement. Keep this in mind. No one sins to themselves. There is no sin that does not have victims. Your sin poisons the well of all who drink in fellowship with you. This is all the truer of leaders and teachers. But it is true for all. Our sins defile those around us. And when they become known the sensitive will feel a taint on their conscience.

We cannot make much of grace if we do not make much of sin. Romans 5:20 says, “Where sin abounded there did grace much more abound.” Thus, it is right when the failures of those around us awaken us to see our deep need to press into the open wounds of Christ, who suffered the punishment for our sins and pours himself out for our forgiveness. It is also right that in the face of evil we should want to be washed of residue of sin in our lives and to live by Christ’s grace in victory over sin.

That said I see at least two dangers a the response that says, “let this remind us all that we are sinners.” 1^st I am afraid that this immediate pivot to emphasize our universal sinfulness may underscore the idea that sinning is inevitable. And this in turn leads to minimizing it which then makes us more insensitive to it. The thought process goes something like this: He did this. We all do it after all. Some bigger, some smaller but we all sin. If you are alive you are sinning in some way because none of us are perfect. And at this point the doctrine of depravity can sound like we are just covering our tracks.

Keep in mind that it is possible to play off the unavoidable reality of our sinning as a kind of excuse for sinning. I have observed that if you ask people if they believe they are sinners, 99% will say it is so. But they do not say this with a note of grief or pain in their admission. More often it is with a smile. The vast majority of the human race tenaciously holds to the doctrine of the depravity of man. It is their only salvation. ‘Nobody’s perfect.’ Along these lines remember that the Holy Spirit is not the only one to remind us of our sins. Satan will as well. The Holy Spirit wants to drive us to confession and into Christ’s forgiving arms of grace. Satan wishes us to concede to sin’s prevalence in our lives so that we may get used to it. This is why an immediate response to a great sin in saying, “remember we all are sinners” can have the negative impact of actually leading us to conclude that sin as unavoidable and so we become insensitive to it.

2^nd to make this terrible discovery a teaching moment for identifying our own sinfulness seems to express evidence of a proper sensitivity to sin. We should not need the great moral collapse of some else to help us realize our sinfulness. If we do, we prove that we have wandered far from the presence of a holy God and we have merely been warming our hearts before little fires of our religious making. There is something, to my mind, quite ghastly about making such a connection. Might we as well stand before the genocidal atrocities Moa, and Stalin and Pol Pot and pointing to them out say, “Now look and let this remind us that we are all sinners.” Should we go before the back streets and alleys of population centers in South East Asia where trafficked children are sold as commodities to fulfill someone’s sick appetite and say, “Now here take note and let it remind us that we are all sinners.” If this is where we must go to be made aware of our sins, we have a problem. If this is what it takes to wake us up then you must wonder if God has already given us over to sin altogether. And I certainly hope that is not the case.

What is a better and more hopeful response? It is better to say before this evil exposed, “This is the course where all the little trickles of sin in your life are flowing. Every rivulet of sin in your life seeks the source of evil and wickedness illustrated here. So, hate your sin and flee from it when it is small and just raising its first desire in your heart.” Let this event teach us to pray as Charles Wesley’s taught us to sing.

I want a principle within of watchful, godly fear,a sensibility of sin, a pain to feel it near.

I want the first approach to feel of pride or wrong desire, to catch the wandering of my will, and quench the kindling fire.

From thee that I no more may stray, no more Thy goodness grieve, grant me the filial awe, I pray, the tender conscience give.

Quick as the apple of an eye, O God, my conscience make; awake my soul when sin is nigh, and keep it still awake.

Almighty God of truth and love, to me Thy power impart; the mountain from my soul remove, the hardness from my heart.

O may the least omission pain my reawakened soul,and drive me to that blood again, which makes the wounded whole.

The sensitivity to sin does not come to us by standing and gazing upon the defiling ground of another’s atrocities. Brother and sisters if you need to know of your sins go to Jesus and stand in the presence of His holiness. Meet a holy God in the Temple of worship and find your sin there before the light of His presence. Find in Christ’s wounds and His cross your rebellion. In the light of that cross and of His holiness find the subtleties of your pride and your tendency to make much of yourself and find there as well, your indifference to God’s love and God’s extended grace.

If you do this, sin’s dark hold on your life will not be inevitable. Its hold will be broken in your brokenness (not before a fallen man) but before the Man who took the fall for your sins. Then you will sing in celebration another of Wesley’s hymns.