Keep Good and Evil Secret

January 9th, 2009

Reading: Matthew 17-18 and Matthew 6

I think I have done a lot of talking about my time in Las Vegas, and I’ve pretty much used it as this like domain of evil illustration. I remember the first time I visited this town, I described it as “a Sodom and Gomorrah sequel just waiting to be made”.

When Abraham talked with God about Sodom and Gomorrah in Chapter 18:20-21, he says: “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.”

When I read that verse, I was thinking: “I’m sorry, but is God saying that he’s heard so much about Sodom and Gomorrah, that he is thinking about destroying it? I mean, doesn’t God know how bad Sodom and Gomorrah is?”

That would be like God not knowing how bad Vegas is. The posters of scantily clad women not enough for you? Yeah, God knows, and the whole delay on Sodom was actually more for Abram and Lot’s benefit and not his.

Well, the truth is, most of evil things we do we do in secret. More than likely, a secret place is where most sinful acts occur. After all, doing evil in public will insure that you get caught. Unless people are complete idiots, most evil things usually don’t happen in public.

This is one thing that good and evil things have in common: both of their actions usually don’t occur in public. In fact, Jesus seems to frown on public acts of goodness. His advice in today’s New Testament reading is simply: “If you are going to do good, just do it, don’t expect any good things to happen to you because of it.”

You know that really annoying comparison that I keep making between Vegas and Sodom? Well, I think the reason why God is not destroying Las Vegas. It is because there are quite a few righteous people here. The issue is, they are doing their good needs in secret, probably saving one soul at a time. They don’t have their piety lit up on neon signs.

I remember thinking that there were no churches in Vegas, but I was wrong. I found one today while I was in a bus going down the Boulevard, or the Strip. Near the gargantuan hotel/casinos of the Wynn and the Encore was a church.

I can’t help but wonder what this church has to deal with on a daily basis. I wonder who are the people who come back and repent weekly over their gambling and other problems. Nice to know good things happen, even in supposedly bad places.