The Wreckage of One Sinner

I have a serious and solemn message to bring before you this evening, friends, that is based upon a verse of scripture. Let me give you the verse, and then I'll give you my sermon. The verse is found in Ecclesiastes 9.18, which declares, Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroyeth much good.

I want to bring a great many instances before you this evening, friends, of how one sinner might destroy much good. The bad influence of one person can wreak havoc on a great many souls. The title of my message this evening, friends, is The Wreckage of One Sinner.

I want to look at this theme as it's seen nationally, as it's seen corporately, and as it's seen personally, of how one sinner might destroy much good, and I will give you several examples of how just one sinner can injure a nation, how one sinner can bring much hurt and destruction to their community, and how one sinner can destroy much good in a family. First, I will demonstrate how one sinner can pollute a nation and cause great evil in it. This past year, a wealthy pimp by the name of Hugh Hefner died and dropped into hell.

When I was a little boy growing up in Chicago in the 1960s, I would walk down Michigan Avenue and look up and see a big tall office building with a big black Playboy bunny symbol on the side of it signifying Playboy Enterprises. Before Hugh Hefner, it was taboo in society to print photos of nude women and sell them publicly, but he spent his career making that not only not a taboo anymore, but a thriving multi-million dollar enterprise. The influence of Playboy Magazine upon men and society would have a deep corrupting influence that would destroy barriers of common decency and pollute a nation with immorality.

Why, you could not go into a barbershop in Chicago in the late 1960s without seeing a stack of Playboy Magazines there on a bench for you to read while you waited to get your hair cut. One man, one sinner, in the person of Hugh Hefner, was used of the devil to pollute an entire nation, but one sinner destroys much good. Playboy was the poster child for the love-ins and hippie free-sex culture of the 60s that tore down the moral barriers of an entire nation.

When Hugh Hefner died last year, I didn't see the typical fanfare in the news media from Hollywood that praises all the entertainers and movie people who die. In today's Me Too culture, he was just an embarrassment. Secondly, I want to explore how one sinner, just one sinner, can destroy much good in a community.

I used the recent example of the tragedy of the madman that gunned down all those people in the Texas church this past year. One sinner destroyed so many lives and left ruin and wreckage behind him. That community will feel the impact of that tragedy for years to come.

That's just one example of mass murder in this country that destroys much good. I used to live in a southern town where one man, one man, built an empire of bars and night clubs all over that city during the course of several decades, and the ruin and wreckage of alcohol-related deaths from patrons of his establishments was staggering. The influence of one sinner destroyed many families because of alcohol that he sold to them, and he was one of the first in town to host happy hours and sell booze cheaply to get you drunk quickly.

The broken homes and car wrecks and unwanted pregnancies that were a result of this one man's booze empire affected that entire town to the great hurt of it. Lastly, I want you to see friends how one sinner can bring much hurt personally into their family. I can still see his face right now, for he was one of my closest friends at church.

He was a leader in church, and he had a fine home and a successful business. He was blessed with a loving wife and several beautiful children. But one sinner destroys much good.

As this man's business grew, and as his wealth grew, he hired a new young pretty secretary who was married, and it wasn't long that my good church friend was having an adulterous affair with his young married secretary. When the news broke, as it always does, for sin cannot be covered for long, there was ruin and wreckage brought on two families that each ended in divorce. One sinner divided their family and destroyed it.

He brought ruin and wreckage on his whole household. The children that were raised in a Christian home turned away from Christianity as they grew up because they saw their father was nothing more than a hypocrite. The daughter, as she became a teenager, became pregnant by the Muslim man she was dating and ended up having to give the child away in adoption.

My friend's Christian testimony was forever ruined, and he hasn't been back in church since that time to my knowledge, and he has moved from one woman to another without ever settling down with one of them. His wife has remarried. As she strives to put the pieces back in her life, one sinner destroys much good.

Let this message be a warning to some of my hearers who have one foot in church and the other deep in a hog wall of sin. Repent and clean yourself up and get back into a right relationship with God before you end up being the one sinner that destroys much good. King Solomon was right when he said, Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good.

The devil will present sin to you in a pretty package with a bow on top, but when you open it and unwrap it and indulge in it, you are left with a box of sting and vipers that poison many. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, he will abundantly pardon. Let us pray.