Covering Your Tracks
During the years of “Prohibition” (1920 - 1933), when the manufacture, sale, or use of alcohol was illegal, moonshiners and bootleggers would go to great lengths to evade police notice and capture. One of their more creative strategies was to wear cow “hoof” risers attached to the bottoms of their shoes to throw law enforcement off their trail.
Nothing to see here, folks. Just a bunch of cows wondering around in these woods.
The ploy was, at least initially, fairly effective, until Law Enforcement caught on and begin taking a closer look at all those meandering cow tracks. A 1922 article published in the Florida Evening Independent reported the following
Tampa, May 27 [1922].—A new method of evading prohibition agents was revealed here today by A.L. Allen, state prohibition enforcement director, who displayed what he called a "cow shoe" as the latest thing from the haunts of moonshiners. The cow shoe is a strip of metal to which is tacked a wooden block carved to resemble the hoof of a cow, which may be strapped to the human foot. A man shod with a pair of them would leave a trail resembling that of a cow. The shoe found was picked up near Port Tampa where a still was located some time ago. It will be sent to the prohibition department at Washington. Officers believe the inventor got his idea from a Sherlock Holmes story in which the villain shod his horse with shoes the imprint of which resembled those of a cow's hoof.
Ingenious, really. But clever as they thought they were, their sin was eventually found out.
To what lengths will you go to evade being found out in your sin? In what ways are you attempting to cover your tracks? Rest assured, you too will eventually be found out.
“For all that is secret will eventually be brought into the open, and everything that is concealed will be brought to light and made known to all” (Luke 8:17, NLT, cf Luke 12:2).
“Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight; everything is uncovered and exposed before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:13, NIV).
The Devil's Work
There was a time in this country when blacks were forced to feel ashamed because of the color of their skin. That was pure evil.
But now another race is being pressured to feel ashamed because of the color of their skin. This is equally evil.
If you have ever been guilty of racism toward another person, you must, for the sake of your own soul, go back and apologize. But if you’ve stood against racism your whole life, then have more respect for yourself than to confess to sins you’ve never committed.
False guilt and false shame are the Devil's work.
God’s work is redemptive, releasing us from our actual shame and guilt.
God doesn’t hold us accountable for sins we haven’t committed, but the Devil does. God doesn’t hold us accountable for the sins of previous generations, but the Devil does. God doesn’t seek to keep us locked under the bondage of shame and guilt, but the Devil does.
But God does hold us accountable for the sins we have actually committed. And by the power of Jesus' blood, He promises to wash them away.
In your search for redemption, make sure you seek it at the right altar.
"There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28).
"God does not show favoritism" (Romans 2:11).
The Sins of the Father
The niece of Hitler's deputy Hermann Goering has had herself sterilized rather than risk giving birth to 'a monster.' This, and other revelations are a part of a documentary about the forgotten children of the Third Reich, called 'My Family, the Nazis and Me.'
Allan Hall, with MailOnline, reports:
Israeli Chanoch Zeevi, director, said he found 'fascinating similarities' between the emotions of those related to Holocaust perpetrators and those of survivors, some of whom meet the children of their tormentors in the programme.
'I have made a powerful dialogue between the children of the perpetrators and the children of the survivors,' he said. 'Both live out the Holocaust daily, unable to move forward with their lives.'
... Niklas Frank remembers seeing concentration camp prisoners tormented as his father chuckled. 'Thin men were mounted on to a wild donkey and the donkey bucked and the men fell off, and they could only pick themselves up again very slowly, and they didn't find it as funny as I did,' he said.
'And again and again they got back on and the donkey was given a slap and again they fell off and they tried to help each other; it was a fantastic afternoon. Then we had cocoa. These are the … images I carry around of my father … I have never managed in my life to get rid of the memory of him,' he said. 'I live with this deep shame about what he did.'
... Monika Hertwig cannot accept anything about her own father. As commandant of the Auschwitz sub-camp of Plaszow, he was hanged in 1946 for the murder of tens of thousands of people, 500 of them by his own hands.
'He liked to shoot women with babies in their arms from the balcony of his house, to see if one bullet could kill two,' she said. 'How much of the murderer is in me? These are the things that torment me.'
The Hebrew prophet Isaiah declared God’s heart when he wrote, “Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool” (Isaiah 1:18, ESV).
Notice, God speaks of your sins, not your parents' sins. We are not responsible for what our forbearers have done, only for what we have personally perpetuated. And even in that case, the shame and guilt can be made “white as snow” by the blood of Christ.
What a tragedy that anyone would continue to live in the shadow of the sins of others, when they don’t even have to live under the burden or shadow of their own.
Ironically, it’s a Jew, a member of the race so hated by their parents, who offers to remove the shame placed on them by those same parents.