1 Timothy 1
Riley1 Timothy 1:8-17
THE LAW OF THE LAWLESS1 Timothy 1:8-17. Preached on Sunday following the killing by policemen, of Gilbert Peterson, a bandit, in the Pure Oil Co. holdup in 1929. THIS text is found in an unexpected connection. Paul, the experienced preacher, is writing to Timothy, his favorite though youthful co-laborer. He has no fears that Timothy will turn criminal; but entertains, rather, an anxiety to make of Timothy a sound and safe teacher and leader. In so doing he is compelled to call his attention to great principles of law and Gospel; and Paul finds no difficulty whatever in combining the two. In fact, he discovers it to be impossible to present one in any fullness apart from the other. He seeks, therefore, to show that we are not to identify the law with the Gospel, but to distinguish it from the same.In order to make this distinction clear, he defines the processes of the law, prescribes its objectives and finishes by showing how one may be free from the same.In treating this subject tonight we shall largely follow Paul’s outline; and yet, at the same time, present the newspaper theme, “Peterson, the Police, and the Parole Board.”Twice within the incredibly short time of two weeks our beautiful city has been shocked, yea even horrified, by two events: the murder of an innocent girl, and the killing by policemen of a bandit, who, while yet in his comparative youth, had deliberately schooled himself in criminal ways.The result has been the revival of interest in the whole subject of what to do for and with criminals, and how to control the crime wave that is deluging the entire land.It is not my purpose tonight to concentrate solely upon these two shocking incidents; but, rather, if possible, to discuss calmly the greater subject of crime, its causes and its possible cure.THE OF LAW Paul writes: “We know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully”.Certainly we know that fact! Only the lawless will deny it.The nature of man demands the making of laws. It is not necessary to debate the doctrines of creation and evolution in order to reach this decision. Whether a man is bad because his beastly nature still abides with him in the evolutionary process: or whether he is sinful because he is a fallen creature, as affirmed by the inspired Book, the fact remains that he is a sinner. His own experience teaches that; every observation upon his fellows reveals abundant illustrations of it. The most indisputable fact of human existence is sin; and regarding it the Apostle John wrote: “Sin is the transgression of the Law” (1 John 3:4).If there were no law there would be no sin; at least, no conscious sin!
Dogs fight one another; wolves pull down their fellow-beasts of the forest, murder them, feed on their blood, and feel no compunction of conscience!But man is made after another order; he has implanted within his mental and spiritual make-up, conscience—a power to discern between right and wrong, and even deeply to feel the difference; and the law, whether it is that written in his mental consciousness or that placed upon the statute books, makes him sensible of the same.Paul writes to the Romans, “I had not known sin, but by the Law: for I had not known lust, except the Law had said, Thou shalt not covet. * * For without the Law sin was dead. For I was alive without the Law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died” (Romans 7:7-9).In other words, he came under condemnation through the Law.
And yet it is in the same context that Paul takes occasion to justify the Law and condemn himself, saying, “The Law is holy, and the Commandment holy, and just, and good” (1 Timothy 1:12). “The Law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin”. The nature of man, then, demands law. His disposition to evil and his consciousness of right combine to reveal the necessity for a legislature to create the same.The interests of society are conserved, also, by law. America, when it was discovered, had a large Indian population, but it was without civilization. The law, so far as it existed at all, was largely that of the jungle; had no written form and but little recognition. The consequences were indolence, ignorance, barbarity, heathenism.
And, instead of that gradual growth in civilization of which the evolution theorists talk so grandly, there was a constant degeneration going on; so much so that the society of the North American Indians was a sad drop from that of their great Aztec ancestors. And, at this end of the third decade of the twentieth century, this time when it is possible by air-craft to travel around the world in a dozen days, it is known absolutely that the most civilized people to be found upon the face of it are the people among whom law has found fittest expression, and by whom it is held in highest regard.That is one reason why civilized society is so much interested in the subject of law-abiding, and so clearly and deeply disturbed by its abrogation or disregard.
It is a singular fact, however, that civilization, instead of marking progress, though moving around the world in a zeppelin, loses its best expression of inventive genius, because, like an elevator, it runs up to a certain point only to come down again.There was a time when it attained its highest expression in Babylon. But, alas, for the final and lawless fate of that land!There was a time when Rome became not only the mistress of the world, but the law-maker for all ages; yet Rome, though so capable in law-making, proved herself incapable of law-keeping.There was a time when Greece spun the philosophies of life by which men were supposed to find clear paths before their feet. But Greece also is gone; and while the name lives, as one writer puts it, “It is living Greece no more.”These nations have not perished by earthquake; they have not been wiped out by wars; they have not been extinguished through famine. Without exception lawlessness has finally reduced and degraded them. America has all that history before her, and yet is not greatly profiting by it. To be sure our University President, in an address delivered some two years ago before a city teachers’ institute, declared, “Education alone can improve the conditions.” But another educator, speaking later in Atlanta, differed from him.
He said, “It is a strange thing, that at the time when we have almost universal education in America, we have also universal crime.” The difficulty is that our education is not of the right sort and some of it is of the most vicious kind conceivable.Speaking on another subject sometime since, namely, “Is Society Rotting?” we called attention to the four outstanding features of social corruption in American life; and upon further reflection, it will be seen that every one of them is educational. They are these: the low theatre, the modern and murderous picture show, the pletheric purse of the American father, and the bestial theory of evolution.
Three of these at least play conspicuous part in American education; and the fourth makes possible the carrying out of the criminal tendencies to be found in the other three!If society is to preserve itself in any measure, it should protest the first, second and fourth, and plead for a sane use of the third, restraining it, in turn, by righteous law.The murder of the little girl that shocked Los Angeles was by a constant patron of picture shows. The murder of a little girl in Michigan immediately following the Los Angeles affair, was doubtless animated by the press reports that often incite to kindred crime rather than deter from the same. The holdups, bank robberies, and general banditries that are occurring, the country over, have first been portrayed on the screen; and the lust for money, on the part of the ignorant and poor, is a partial product of the extravagant use of the same on the part of the senseless children of the rich.The life of the State is dependent upon regard for law. As a matter of fact there is no clear-cut division between Society and State. However, there is a difference between the crimes that involve individuals and the crimes that involve the whole State. The crimes of lust and murder are commonly against individuals; the crimes of drink and dope are in a special sense crimes against the State.
The laws controlling murder and lust are local laws; the laws controlling dope and drink are now federal laws. Society has wakened up at last to the fact that there are moral influences that reach far beyond the individuals involved and give evil character to the State itself.In all of human history there has never been a more unholy alliance than that which the liquor traffic has been able to accomplish with the countries that have compromised with it.
These are days when the opposers of the Eighteenth Amendment in the U. S. are saying much about the “evil effect” of the same. But there are some hard facts that thoughtful people will not ignore. The employers of labor bear their testimony to the sobriety effected by it; saving bank deposits far exceed those of the days when legalized liquor lived; and the borrowing power of the entire country proves the success of this national attempt at sobriety.Judge Kavanagh in his volume, “Thirty Three Years on the Bench”, tells us that there are 350,000 people in America who are known to be leading lives of crime; in fact, “making their living wholly or in part by the same.” An appalling proportion of these are violators of the Eighteenth Amendment.Winifred Parker in a New York paper, February 23, 1928, declared, “Drugs are the cause of from fifty to seventy-five per cent of crimes in New York City, and through New York state.” Doubtless she meant to include in drugs, alcohol. There are those who object to the millions now being spent to control, and if possible stop the lust for liquor. All such seem to forget the multiplied millions that are lost through the sale of the same.
It is expensive for the Government to execute the Eighteenth Amendment even in part; but it is infinitely more expensive to abrogate the same. Even with the thousands of men and women who have been tried and convicted for illegal liquor selling, and the millions of dollars put into this law enforcement by the Government itself, we are, as a people, infinitely better off than in the old days of National connivance with the saloon.
But recently a Canadian, interested in this liquor question, asked one hundred business men in his city their opinion of the present Canadian law. He found twenty of them satisfied with the present arrangement, which gives the government a monopoly of liquor selling. He found eighty dissatisfied with it, saying that the government received all profit from it, and the losses, in unpaid bills, they—the merchants—were compelled to carry, and the whole arrangement was iniquitous.Banditry is the present criminal outbreak in America. But a sober constabulary can cope with it if it will. If that constabulary is not conscientious in the discharge of duty then the voices of the people should at once demand and effect reform.THE OF LAW Paul is singularly clear upon this point. He says,“But we know that the Law is good, if a man use it lawfully; Knowing this, that the Law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, “For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine” (1 Timothy 1:8-10). There are here three valuable suggestions:First, the original intention of the Law is to guide to right.“The Law is good, if a man use it lawfully”. There are many points at which men would not know right from wrong were it not for the law. Hunting is not wrong in itself, but it is wrong to hunt on “posted” ground. The “posted” sign is the voice of the law telling you that fact. It is not wrong to fish, but it is wrong to fish out of season and the fisherman’s license will make known that fact to him. Inexperienced youth may often be tempted to do wrong; and the law shakes it up, and like a chastisement from the father, makes an ineffaceable impression.In the instance that so shocked the city this week, the law had spoken more than once to young Gilbert Peterson.When, as a lad, he broke into a church in St. Paul, the law charged him with disorderly conduct, convicted him of the same, and placed him on probation.When sometime later he stole a bicycle, the law again reminded him that his behaviour was bad, and, unfortunately, again placed him on probation.
When next he laid his hand upon another man’s overcoat and carried it away, once more the law reminded him that theft was not right, but with maudlin sentimentality, the judge placed him on probation. When later he was charged with assault, disorderly conduct, speeding, carrying concealed weapons, the law was talking to him, and when finally it sentenced him to the Red Wing Training School, it looked for a moment as though it would impress iniquity by punishment.
But alas for the lack of intelligence in dealing with such cases, once more he was placed on probation. As the Minneapolis Journal said a few days since, “Little wonder that by the time this lad reached his maturity, he was ready to be a bank burglar.” When caught at that and convicted, the judge did his duty and sent him to the state penitentiary for an indeterminate sentence of from ten to twenty-five years. On account of his youth, he was transferred to St. Cloud Reformatory, and here the Parole Board stepped in and blundered by releasing him at the end of a little more than three years.Personally, I have a great deal of sympathy for the parole board. They have a delicate and difficult task. They are besieged by relatives and friends in behalf of both the unfortunate and the infamous, and it is difficult for them to discern always between the two.
However, their condemnation in this instance is just! When a boy has been guilty of breaking into a church, stealing a bicycle, stealing an overcoat, guilty of assault, speeding, carrying concealed weapons, guilty of bank-robbery, jail-breaking, and charged with other even more serious crimes, he is not worthy of a parole, and the board that voted it invited censure!The death of Peterson, accomplished at the hands of police, will certainly prove, among other things, a valuable suggestion to the parole board and will naturally result in more careful as well as conscientious consideration of future appeals to leniency.The most important function of law is the restraint of evil.As Paul says,“The Law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, “For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine”. Both sacred and criminal laws recognize the difference between accidental and deliberate crime. Every judge of the court, every parole and pardon board, and every governor of every state, is cognizant of that fact and is moved to action by the same. For instance, when a few years since in Wisconsin, a farmer shot down the hunting dogs of a young man who did not even know that, in his search for game, he was trespassing upon “posted” property, and in the heat and excitement of the moment, he raised his gun, it blazed, and the farmer fell dead, the neighbors naturally moved heaven and earth to secure for him a reprieve from lifetime in the penitentiary. When, on the other hand, a man goes deliberately from one iniquity to another until it becomes evident that his conscience has been silenced, his character, wilfully crooked, and his determination, criminal, then the law has a right to lay its hand of restraint upon him even to the point of capital punishment. Minnesota is being rudely awakened not alone to that fact, but to that absolute necessity, as is the entire land!I clipped sometime since from the “Minneapolis Morning Tribune”, the following: “In an unnamed city in Switzerland, the World Congress of Bandits was recently held and reports were read. The English delegation pronounced business in Britain not only bad but growing worse.
The French delegation took a gloomy view of the future of banditry in France. The delegations from other countries turned in pessimistic accounts.
Hard times had overtaken their profession and they declared that their ranks were constantly being depleted; that deserters in desperation had taken to honest work. The atmosphere of the session had become funereal, when the spokesman of the American delegation arose and said, “Gentlemen, and fellow-bandits, it gives me great pleasure to report flourishing conditions in America. As you know, banditry has always been profitable in United States, but of late, business has been getting better and better. While I lack precise figures, I think we must get away with at least 50,000 jobs a year, and our hauls average anywhere from $100 to $1,000,000 each! Conditions are ideal I We work by day or by night, equally safe. We scarcely trouble any more to cover our movements.
Our records show that banditry in America is more profitable than in any country since the beginning of time. We operate on scales unknown to past history.
The element of hazard exists of course, but it is so low as to be practically negligible. You foreigners seem to have the idea that Americans are smart people; but that, we assure you, is nonsense. They are the biggest collection of Dumb Doras ever gotten together under a single flag. They know that we reap a tremendous harvest week in and week out, for they are a newspaper reading people, but they refuse to trouble themselves about it. Oh, once in a while, to be sure, if we bump off somebody, one or two editorial writers make a few remarks about it, but that concludes the matter. Their legal system is adapted to facilitate our escape, in case we do get caught, but we have few worries; in fact, unlike other big money-makers, we don’t even have to worry over income tax. 1925 has broken all records in the history of the bandit business, and we are looking forward to a period of even greater prosperity in 1926.”Now, to be sure, this Minneapolis article may have been born in the brain of some enterprising reporter, but who will deny that he stated things as they are?
Who even will question that they might have been stated more strongly still, and yet have been in perfect accord with fact?He might have called attention to the fact that some years ago Governor Altgeld of Illinois practically emptied the prisons of that state by the pardon of criminals. He might even have reported how Governor Miriam A.
Ferguson of Texas pardoned 105 prisoners on a single day and in a brief term of service as state governor, 1126 convicts.It is high time that America should wake up, and it is high time that Minnesota should be shaken from center to circumference over criminal conditions now existing and that increase daily. It is high time that judges should have their attention called to the Bible teaching, namely, “that the Law is not made for a righteous man”, and that its ends are not conserved upon some poor old egg and butter seller hauled into court and fined $45 for fast driving, when his automobile looks as though it couldn’t make twenty-five miles an hour under any conditions, and the only testimony against him is that of one of those impolite policemen who characterize too many corners of Minneapolis, and who make such arrests in order to save their jobs from the appearance of utter uselessness and to give some justifications to the drawing of a month’s salary. The amount of money that has been looted from; individuals and banks during the last year, and the unthinkable millions that have been coerced by the racketeers, raise a question as to whether we have a police force, and impress a third truth suggested by Paul’s statement that “the law is” made “for the lawless”.But the law is only efficient when its provisions are executed. The utter failure to find the murderer of Dorothy Aune; the inability even to overtake a man caught in the very act of a kindred attack, and chased by an ordinary citizen who reported his car number; the uncertainty of police of a neighboring village as to whether they have the torturer of a little lad, in spite of the lad’s clear identification—these things raise the question whether it is police stupidity or willing indifference, and the public will not be content with the continuance of such a force.This pulpit has taken occasion when policemen have done their duty, as they did in the filling station at 14th and Harmon; as they did in the drug store at 12th and Hawthorne, and as they did a few days since in the Essex Building, to laud those particular officers for their bravery and marksmanship. But a few brave officers, and a few gentlemen in uniform as traffic policemen, cannot save the reputation of scores of dubs in criminal secret service and other scores of non-intelligent men appointed to traffic duties.I have lived in this city for thirty-three years, and in that time, I have had multiplied occasions to travel in St. Paul.
While to me, Minneapolis is the city of these Twins, and I love and am proud of her, it has always been an inexplainable circumstance that I have never seen nor heard one St. Paul policeman curse out a violator of the traffic ordinances, and with the exception of a few gentlemen, who are in the services of the downtown district of Minneapolis, I have seldom seen one of our policemen talk civilly to one of the thousands of tourists that elect to visit our city and are unfortunate enough, on occasions, to unconsciously violate traffic rules.
We evidently need, therefore, in Minneapolis not so much more men, but more man. It is my candid judgment that a policeman ought to be paid a much higher salary than he receives and the highest class of men ought to be demanded for the office. There are few offices filled by men that demand more keenness of intellect, more natural courtesy and higher competence than that of policeman; and every “Nick” from Ireland and every “Ole” from Sweden is not adapted to this job.Personally, I am not enamored of that eternal English boast of law-abiding as compared with lawless America. I think there is something to what Judge Marcus A. Kavanagh had to say in his eighth article on “The Rising Tide of Crime”, and his words were these, “Within a block of Piccadilly, the heart of London life of amusement and fashion, run side streets which openly all the time, day and night, fester and offend the sight of God and man.“Creatures more repulsive in appearance than can be found any other place in the world show themselves in the light of day. The London police allow this situation to exist.
The chief of police of any American city would not hold his job a week if he permitted the occurrences which are permitted, unopposed, in the heart of London. Before the hopeless poverty, the blackness of vice, the depth of degradation in London city, an American grows almost unashamed of the crime conditions in the United States.
Beside the unspeakable immorality which is so common, laughed at, and almost tolerated by the police of Berlin, Vienna, Paris and Rome, Americans consider the ordinary murder a manly, clean, and decent occurrence. So far as the average morality of the American people is concerned, taking the land over, country and town, there is no large nation in the world and only one or two small ones that can compare with ours for morality.”And yet this fact remains that Scotland Yard, headquarters of the Metropolitan police, over on a short street off Whitehall, London, now removed to the bank of the Thames, has a detective bureau of such intelligence and capability that few criminals ever commit a murder or kindred outrage in England, Scotland or Ireland, and escape them. When sixteen years ago we were in England, it was our privilege to be considerably with that great minister of the Gospel, Sir Robert Anderson, who had been the head of Scotland Yard; and when one comes in touch with such a man, it is easy to understand why gross crimes are brought certainly and speedily to justice in that land.There was a time when Pinkerton in America employed men of kindred caliber, and few criminals escaped them. But the connivance of the police force with criminals themselves, the evident sharing of the spoils as in New York and Chicago, if not in Minneapolis; the lack of justice pronounced by judges from the bench, and the sentimentality of parole boards—these all combine to render the law, which by nature is capable, inefficient through the failure of its executors, and the result is a nation in the horror of universal rapine, plunder, banditry and murder!But Paul is not a pessimistic prophet. He passes from considering the necessity of law and the object of law, toTHE ESCAPE FROM THE LAW and his method of escape is not that employed by Peterson.He doesn’t look to the dotage of the judge on the bench to be compassionate toward youth of repeated crimes. He doesn’t turn his eyes to the parole board and trust that they will be soft and sentimental. Paul knows that these things, instead of eventuating in escape from the law, will finally bring the vengeance of law itself as it did with Peterson, and death, not life, will be the result. Listen to the Apostle while he presents a better way. He says, “There was a time when I myself was under the Law, for I was a ‘blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious’. But I escaped.” How?
There are three ways with which I want to conclude this address:First, obedience to the law’s behest.Paul says that he was ignorant in his violation of law. I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief”.
Through an illumination that came to him from above, Paul saw himself a sinner as well as a violator of the law, and set about to walk in another way, and the law never bothers a man who walks in the right way. The law is not made for a righteous man. In a sense it does not exist for the righteous man. The law against murder means nothing to a man who has no intention of murder. The law against holdups means nothing to a man to whom the thought of highway robbery is a veritable abomination. The law against running the red light in the street never bothers the man who willingly obeys it. The law fixing a season for hunting and fishing only troubles those who will not be confined. The fact is that the good man is grateful for law.
He walks in its ways with pleasure. He can say with the Psalmist, “I will walk at liberty: for I seek Thy Precepts”. He finds all the liberty he needs within the law, and discovers that the law not only gives him all the liberty he wants, but protects him in the enjoyment of the same.There are people, and hundreds of them, who are utterly opposed to the reading of the Bible in the public schools. The State Board of Education in Minnesota and the Minnesota State Attorney, without the backing of law, have forced it out of the schools of Minnesota. This question was settled some years ago in Virginia, Minn., when no law was found on the statute books denying the right to teach the Scripture in public schools.When no less an authority than Supreme Court Justice Louis L. Fawcett of Brooklyn says that of 4,000 boys of less than twenty-one years, arraigned before him charged with various degrees of crime, only three were members of Sunday School at the time of the commission of their crime, and even these three were exceptional cases, of a technical character devoid of heinousness, scarcely worth mentioning, he is justified in remarking, “In view of this significant showing, I do not hesitate to express the conviction that attendance by young men upon Sunday School or other regular religious work, with its refining atmosphere, is signally preventive against crime and worthy of careful study by those who are dismayed by the increase of crime on the part of young men in America.”And yet we haven’t the intelligence in America to keep before our youth the very teaching that turns them to right and makes the keeping of the law not only daily practice but even a delight.However, Paul also tells us how this change came about.
It was through his meeting on the way to Damascus Jesus Christ, the Lord. By the grace of the Lord, and the love which is in Christ Jesus, he was changed.
For 2,000 years the greatest antidote to crime in the world has been true Christianity. When men read, through God’s revelation in Christ, the history of Divine love, their hearts are touched; sin is repented, crime becomes disgusting, and righteousness is the new desire.Some years ago Governor Warren McCray of Indiana was convicted by the Federal Court and incarcerated in the Atlanta Federal prison. There were many of us who knew him, and who believed him rather the victim of misfortune than even of immorality, much less intentional crime; and who were also fully convinced that his political enemies were more than ready to take advantage of the financial misfortune that befell him following the close of the World War.Whether we were right or wrong, Chase S. Osborne, former governor of Michigan, wrote to President Coolidge and said, “If you will permit me, I would like to go to Atlanta and take the place of McCray, and serve out the balance of his sentence. I have no family and am used to more hardship than a prison entails, and appeal to you to let me stand in his stead.” That request was necessarily denied by President Coolidge, but herein is grace, that God has permitted a kindred request for every sinner and criminal on the earth, if only that sinner and that criminal will accept the provision of the same. Christ has stood in his stead.Christ has met the end of the Law.
Christ has made possible pardon; yea, more, He has made provision for cleansing and keeping, and the individual alone can determine whether that substitute for sin shall be accepted of him. For Christ is able to save from the penalty of the Law—death—all them that come unto God by Him.Some years ago one of those grand old men whose characters seem to be akin to their occupation, a railroad engineer of sixty-seven years, Eugene May, sat, with the throttle of a Milwaukee fast mail train in hand.
As he neared Lake City, at seven o’clock in the morning, on a Sunday, a stroke of paralysis smote him. He realized his condition and recognized instantly the complete paralysis of his left arm. But with the right he held the throttle still, and when his fireman, John W. McDonald, offered to take the engine, he objected and said to him, “No, John, I will take her clear to Minneapolis.” McDonald then turned and picked up a cup of water and handed it to him to drink, thinking that it might revive him; but when he took it in his right hand, he suddenly discovered that he couldn’t lift it to his lips, whereupon his colaborer held the can to the lips of the sick man and he drank from it. But as he swallowed, he said, “Shut her off, Jack; I am done.” He was three miles out of Lake City. At that point they took him off the train and sent him to the St.
John’s Hospital at Red Wing! Eight hours later he died.
Such is the fate of the finest, and the most conscientious of men. He tried to bring those who had committed themselves to him to their destination. He failed! But he who commits his soul to the Christ of God, commits to One who will complete what He has undertaken. He will bring that soul home; in other words, He is the deathless Redeemer. That is why Paul could say, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him”. He will bring me home!