Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. (James 1:21)
The old King James says, “Lay aside all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness,” and I sort of like the rhythm of that translation. God wants us to lay aside all the things that hamper us from absorbing His free gifts to us; we are to study His words and let them become part of us, implanted, as it were, into our minds and hearts and souls. You never know when a verse, a word, a principle, will come into your mind just as you need it.
I can’t describe how many times it’s happened to me, but one time I recall with clarity. I was waiting to go on the witness stand on a case involving a child who was being brought in by his parents for being unruly. He had shot out the windows of their entire house while the family was away at a prayer meeting. He’d had nothing to do, he had gotten a new BB gun, there was no one to ask or stop him, and glass sounds pretty when it breaks and falls to the ground. Fifteen windows were broken out that day by a bored kid, as I recall. The neighbor had heard the breaking, immediately thought burglars or thieves, and called the police. They arrived just in time to see the last window shatter from inside. He had gone from room to room, taking aim and shooting until the glass was totally out of the windows.
He had not gone to the prayer meeting that night, having faked a cold and convinced Mom to allow him to stay home and rest and drink juice and get better before school tomorrow. She set out a half-gallon of orange juice and some toast and left for church after cautioning him to lock all the doors. He was fifteen and old enough to stay home. He had a superfluity of naughtiness about him. The police confiscated his BB gun on their arrival.
The child’s parents were called. They did not want to press charges; they wanted to take him to a counselor. Hence, I got involved. I did some tests to be certain I was not dealing with an actual illness; I was not. I was dealing with parents who did not think a person needed to have their natural impulses subjected to rules. All his life, the child had been able to “make his own decisions” with little to no input except his overtaxed babysitter and social media. And what they raised was a person who never understood that his freedom had boundaries. He thought if he wanted to indulge in destruction, fine. If he needed to lie, fine. If he didn’t want to do his homework fine, his mom and dad would take care of it for him. They had stunted his moral growth through what amounted to indifference.
I came into the courtroom with the child, his parents, his newly appointed probation officer (PO), and a layer of upset in the room thick enough to cut.
The bailiff tried to swear the child in.
“Do you swear that the evidence that you shall give shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you unto God. ?” he was asked.
“I guess so if it seems like the right thing to do,” was the kid’s reply.
It somewhat flummoxed the bailiff. “Son, you do know if you lie on the stand, it’s called perjury and you can go to jail for it?”
“Why?” he asked. He was not being facetious. It simply never occurred to him.
And through my mind, the old verse went, “Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.” He was breaking a law; he didn’t know it. His parents were good church-going people; they simply didn’t know how to apply the Bible they were taught to the child they had made. His parents had failed to civilize him. They had raised him to be a most excellent excuse maker and never to take responsibility for himself. He had mischief in his heart and he was going to do it.
That year the PO and I worked with that child. The court insisted the parents take not one but three parenting classes. At the end of the year, I’d like to think we made a difference. He earned his way off probation, and I completed what I could do. Yet in the back of my mind, the verse from James rings in my head; “lay aside all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness and receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save your souls.” Obey the law.
Obey the Word and learn it and it will enable you to avoid sin. It will make your life a lot easier and it will make you a good citizen here and in the world to come.