He was second in command in the hierarchy of an ancient orthodox church. He had the affection and well-earned respect of all who knew him. His morality was never in question. We were sitting in his living room. As if sensing that I would introduce the subject of salvation he blurted out, "If David is in Heaven I don't want to go there!" His face was kindly and his manner mild, but he appeared agitated at the thought that a man who deceived, committed adultery, and then murdered his paramour's husband could be acceptable to God.

Men have a tendency to believe that certain sins disqualify us for Heaven while others do not. I'm sure that this high-ranking cleric believed that his own sins weren't serious enough to keep him out of Heaven...David's were. David had murdered; he had not. David had committed adultery; he had not. David's sins were evidently terrible; this priest's by comparison were not.

"By comparison;" that's the problem. No man has ever become convinced of his lost condition by comparing himself with others less moral than himself. It only took the human race one sin to become lost...Adam's act of rebellion. The priest should have been considering his own sin viewed in the light of God's infinite holiness. David's sin was none of his business. It was David's business...and God's.

We are not acceptable to God because we are better than others, nor unacceptable because we are worse. God cannot accept the best individual that ever lived on the basis of that individual's human righteousness. Nor will He reject the worst individual who comes to Him through Christ. David did not become lost and undeserving of Heaven when he murdered Uriah. David was born lost and undeserving of Heaven. Nor did murder make him more lost. Uriah's integrity kept him from descending to the level of David's immorality, but human goodness did not save Uriah any more than it could save us.

God told Adam that he would die in the day that he ate of the forbidden fruit. He did not say that Adam would die if he murdered, or committed adultery. Adam rebelled against Heaven by deliberately disobeying a plain command. He knew in advance that this would bring instant spiritual death. He made a choice with his eyes wide open. Though Adam had been created "in the image of God," when he fathered a son, it was "in his own image" ...in the image of fallen Adam. Here is the first indication that the sin nature is trasmitted, not from the female parent but from the male. Through conception and birth you and I received a lost, fallen nature. Make no mistake: Romans 3:23 says, "All sinned." It is a reference to our fall in Adam. We were seminally present in Adam's loins, as much a part of him as hands and feet, as thoughts and actions. He was all of the human race that there was and when he sinned and died we sinned and died. Adam lost all claim on God and so did we. Our verse goes on to tell us that, as a consequence of our sin in Adam, we "are coming short of the glory of God." This is God's assessment of the human race...of you and me, that we are coming short. The constant proof of our original sin is our continued daily, hourly sinning. But sinning doesn't make us lost, it never did. It does prove the fact of our lost condition.

How lost was Adam after just one sin? Completely! How lost was King David at birth? Completely! How lost was the priest at birth? Completely! How lost were you and I at birth? Completely!

Now the question arises: Could God have saved John Gacy on his way to the death chamber? Many will say, No, and explain that his sins were too great for God's forgiveness. But if men are born lost, and Scripture says that we are, then John Gacy was as lost as he could be long before he committed his 33 murders. And no more lost afterward than Adam, or the priest, or you, or me! It took the death of the Son of God to save fallen Adam. It would have taken that death if Adam had died physically after having committed only one sin. Nothing less than Christ's death could save Adam, and nothing more than that was needed! The death of millions of sacrificial animals could not remove one sin for the sinner. The one death of the Son of God removed trillions of sins for millions of believers. Would Gacy's 33 murders have been harder for God the Father to forgive...Christ the Son having died for them, than David's one murder? Is it ever the amount of man's sin that makes salvation possible or impossible? Is it not always the efficacy of Christ's death?

Our problem is that we are slow to see the monstrous nature of even one sin. Once we do, and grasp the magnitude of our own lostness, it is not hard to believe that God's grace is sufficient for the sins of others. Even more sins. Even greater sins. I have yet to get over the marvel of God's grace in forgiving my sins. I cannot believe that, having forgiven me , he would have the least difficulty in forgiving others.

When Christ died for us on Calvary, He did the hardest thing that He will ever do in all of Eternity. He who is absolute deity and perfect humanity allowed the wretchedness of our sins to be judged finally and completely in Him. "He who knew no sin was made sin for us, that we, in Him, might be made the righteousness of God." God the Father did the most difficult thing that He will ever do in giving His Son to the cross for us. If it took God the Father giving His Son, and God the Son taking our sins upon Himself to cancel even one sin, then our lost condition came about through the quality, not the quantity, of our sin.

Gacy's problem was not that his sin was greater than God's grace, for Scripture declares the exact opposite. Gacy's problem was bringing himself to believe that God's grace is greater than Gacy's sin. The problem is not that God's salvation is not sufficient for great amounts of man's sin...it is sufficient for any and all sin. "God's arm is not shortened that it cannot save." If John Gacy could have brought himself to believe the good news, Christ died for sinners, he would have been saved as readily as Adam or the priest. Or you and I.

God filled that vat with the water of life at Calvary and since has invited all to come and drink. When God saves men and women, boys and girls now, he makes no judgment of individual merit or demerit. That is the meaning of grace. Grace is God's favor apart from any question of merit or demerit. God does not consider the extent of our sin when we trust the finished work of His Son. He considers only that finished work!

I do not expect to meet John Gacy in Heaven. Not because God doesn't love him, nor because Christ didn't express that love for him at Calvary. But because, to my knowledge he never came to a saving faith in Christ. Because I know that Christ died for me, I know that He died for John Gacy. Because I know that He died for Gacy, I know that He died for me. "For the love of Christ constrains us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again."