The Web Of Evil

Some months ago, he asked me if I would like to come and visit Angola prison in baton rouge. And you know, in a busy life, you say yes to things because you know the people are asking you, and yes, I will do that. Just a week before we went to Angola, we were together at the United Nations prayer breakfast, where I was delivering a brief talk. And Peter just looked at me afterwards. He said, "Are you prepared for this"? He said, "Be prepared for a life-changing experience".

It is very hard for me to still process what happened that day. You get off the plane. The chaplain receives you. You drive for about an hour. The last 20 mile stretch is a narrow single road with nothing around you 'til you arrive in this massive acreage which is larger than Manhattan Island and you've got 5.300 prisoners in Angola prison, 85% of whom are on life without parole. We had the opportunity to speak to the staff and the leadership. We had the opportunity to minister to individuals on death row and then to do a plenary session where the message was piped into all of the cells where the prisoners could listen to the message at night.

And when you think of 5.300 of them there, over 4.000 of them who will never walk out of those prison walls, and just to be sure, there's somewhere between 50 and 100 hound dogs. Some of them are a special crossbreed between a wolf and a dog because the wolf has a seven times more intensity, capacity of smell so that if they ever escape and have to run that 20 mile road all alone, those hounds will get a hold of them before they will ever escape. A few years ago when this chaplain, Burl Cain, came there, it was such a blood-spilling prison that every prisoner checked in was given a knife along with his bedding to go into his cell because they were told "You will never survive without this".

And one of the chaplains told us, blood splattered on the walls, on the ceiling, on the carpet, and there was so much of murder and strife going on in there 'til this one man came and decided to change it — the man who I just mentioned to you by the name of Burl Cain. And I remember, as I walked past death row, and I know I say this tongue in cheek, but there's a seriousness to it. You know, if you have to sit in a plane that's not going to open its doors for 40 minutes because there's no Jetway available, we start complaining: or if a door gets, the elevator door gets jammed or whatever... Think of being a young man in your 20s and 30s and you're never going to walk out of that prison the rest of your life.

And as I walked along death row and we put our hands between the bars, Peter with his buddies and I, one by one, we'd shake hands with them. One guy from Argentina reached my hand and said, "I listen to your radio program every day, as much as I can do it. Will you please sign one of your books for me"? He's there on death row. And after we visited death row and spoke to them, I remember going... We went into the death chamber. I have my ideas on these things and I was not prepared for the emotions that swirled within me. You walk into the room where they have their last meal and see where it is served. Then you walk into the room where they are strapped in and where the injection is going to be given to them.

And beside that are two tiny little booths for the members of the family and the victim's family and one observing member of the law to see when this injection is going to be put in and properly done and that lethal dose is given and they are gone within seconds once that injection is given in. And the chaplain told us the last time he was there, he saw the man who had raped his daughter and murdered her and the mother was sitting there behind glass, watching the execution about to take place. And there happened to be a political leader was a mess himself at that time, a lawless man. And on the wall hangs a phone and that phone is there so that the governor of the state can call seconds before the execution and call a stay for this.

And he said a minute or two before the execution, the phone rang. The guy releases, thinking he's going to get a stay. And the politician calls just to say, "How's it going"? How's it going? The web of evil, the web of evil is our own corrupt hearts and our inability to even change these lives. You walk away from there, there was a six foot six guy with us who is a chaplain to the University of Virginia, basketball and football teams - a good friend of Peter: giant of a man. And he phoned Peter the next day and Peter said he just sobbed and sobbed on the phone, recollecting the emotions of the previous day.

Ladies and gentlemen, the web of evil just gets deeper and deeper and deeper in history. And sometimes it can be in the highest offices and most corrupt settings and the world desperately needs historical leaders whose lives can get us out of this web of evil. But before looking into that web of evil, I want you to back up for just a moment and ask yourself where the church is in all of this. How do we address these issues?

It was the poet Bacon who said, "There are three stages", Byron, "In the declination of religion".

Listen very carefully, please: three stages in the declinations of religion, how religion declines. I want you to hear carefully. This is what Byron said.

The first is heresy, when true God is worshipped with false worship: when the true God is worshipped with false worship. I ask you to look around the landscape of the church today and ask yourself how much heresy really dominates worship today.

Number two, it's idolatry, where false Gods are worshipped while we suppose them to be true. Think of all that happened in the new age movement that came about, from heresy to idolatry.

And the third he calls witchcraft, when we adore false Gods. Knowing them to be wicked, we still worship those false Gods.

- Ravi Zacharias (The Skeptic's View III)