From Glimpses of Grace, by William G. Johnsson.  Copyright © by Review and Herald Publishing Association, © Hagerstown, Maryland. Used by permission. All  rights reserved.

VER FEEL THAT THE WORLD has gone so far to the dogs that you can’t see how it could get any worse? That, as Billy Graham once said, if Jesus doesn’t come back soon He’ll have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah?

Recently I heard about school days in the 1950s. The biggest problems high school teachers faced were—guess what? Chewing gum, spit wads, and revving cars in the parking lot!

I think of what’s happening today, of the mayhem at midday in Littleton, Colorado, when two high school seniors went berserk, killing 12 of their fellows, a beloved teacher, and finally themselves. Shock waves from the massacre reverberated around America and the world. Although America and some other countries have suffered school shootings in recent years, this one made the blood run cold. Here were two boys who planned and prepared for a year to kill as many people as possible, who assembled an arsenal of weapons and bombs, and who giggled and laughed as they shot at point-blank range.

Then I think of the 1950s—spit wads? Whatever happened to us in just 40 years? Will this horrendous situation ever turn around? How can it go any lower when already it’s the pits?

No wonder that as we come to a new millennium so many thinking people are pessimistic. A world-renowned figure like Jacques Cousteau went to his grave forecasting doom for the human race because our insatiable greed and wanton abuse of the planet’s resources are driving us to mass suicide. Others predict that a rogue asteroid will slam into Earth with a force that will blanket the globe in dust, giving us a year-round winter that will destroy crops and cause us to starve. No wonder movies such as Armageddon fill the box offices, and Titanic makes the biggest hit of all time.

Evil seems everywhere pervasive. Every new invention, every advance in technology, becomes a tool for new manifestations of wickedness. Once men and women bought porn magazines and carried them home in brown-paper wrappings, ashamed to be seen looking at them. Today the Internet makes available the vilest material imaginable in the secrecy of one’s own home. That same Internet has become an instrument used by pedophiles and other perverts to lure and trap children.

Johnsson Speaks Out Grace: A Fresh Vision         (audio) Beginings         (audio) Central Message         (audio) Background         (audio) Fighting Grace Purchase this Book Online

I sometimes tremble at the odds stacked against young people today. How can young men and women act with integrity when all around them their peers—by their own admission—are lying and cheating? How can young persons stay pure when the media through images and sounds glorify promiscuity and mock virginity and when—even worse—their own parents are jumping in and out of bed with other partners?

We’ve reached a stage in history when evil rages unchecked. We feel numb as we learn of outrageous deeds—deeds we couldn’t imagine. A teenage girl gives birth to a child, suffocates it, throws it in a trash can, cleans herself up—and returns to the dance floor! The very young, the very old, clerics, nuns—no one is immune from assault and murder. Nothing is off-limits anymore; nothing is so vile, so sordid that it cannot be written about or viewed. Isn’t this humanity’s last gasp?

By the time you read this far, I can hear you saying, “Bill must be having a really bad day. I thought he was an optimist.” I am. All that I described above—and I could go on and write a book detailing the reign of evil in our society, except that I choose not to wallow in filth—would weigh me down except for one thing. You guessed it—grace!

I want to tell you this, and I want you to get it because I hang my life on it: As powerful a force as evil is in our world, grace is even more powerful.

Grace is no namby-pamby word, no feel-good catchcry. Grace has a strong, tough aspect that will surprise you. Grace is militant; grace fights.

Now you’re pushing it, you say. Fighting grace? Where do you find that in the Bible?

Right at the beginning, in the very first promise of Scripture. Here’s the picture: Our first parents fell because they believed the devil rather than God. They’d forfeited their right to life and God’s presence; they were now slaves to the evil one. But God gave them hope. Addressing the serpent, He said: “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel” (Gen. 3:15, NIV). Note that word “enmity.” It means “hatred,” and we usually don’t associate it with the Christian life. But here it’s a word that rings with hope and deliverance.

Remember, God was speaking to that ancient enemy, Satan. He made a fantastic prophecy: One descendant of the woman, Eve, would crush the serpent’s head. Yes, the serpent would hurt that “seed” (singular)—he will bruise the heel. And so, in the fullness of God’s time, a Child was born, a descendant of Eve after hundreds of generations. No ordinary baby boy this: He was Emmanuel, God with us, God Himself taking our flesh and coming to live among us.

And to die! After a life of gentle and noble deeds, a life given wholly to healing and helping others, He was cut off at 30, pinned to a Roman cross just outside the city of Jerusalem.

The ancient enemy exulted that day. He’d dogged Jesus’ footsteps all along the way. He’d tried to get Him killed as a babe; he’d tempted Him to short-circuit His saving mission in the wilderness; he’d tried to make Him turn back as the woes of the human race pressed upon Him in the garden; he’d taunted Him as He hung upon Calvary. And he saw Him expire, saw Him laid in Joseph’s rock-cut tomb.

But the serpent only bruised Jesus’ heel. On Sunday morning before first light He rose from the dead, burst its bands, and went forth a mighty conqueror, Lord of heaven and earth, Lord of life and the grave. Praise God for our mighty Deliverer!

One day, however, the other half of the prophecy will reach fulfillment. One day the ancient enemy will receive his due. One day he who has brought death to so many will himself die under God’s hand as the serpent’s head is crushed forever. The book of Hebrews tells us: “Since the children have flesh and blood, he [Jesus] too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death” (Heb. 2:14, 15, NIV).

These words assure us that one day evil will be no more. No more pain and suffering, crime and destruction, war and weapons, refugees and starving children, lust and greed, violence and rape, filth and lies. All these things will pass away, along with their father, the devil.

But what about the meantime? How do we get from here to there, from now to then? How can the flood of evil ever be dammed up?

Genesis 3:15 tells us how, with that little, wonderful word “enmity.” God promised to put hatred between the woman and her descendants (that’s us) and the serpent. We don’t put it there, because we cannot. We’re bent toward evil. We’re born that way. “As the twig is bent, the tree will grow.” It’s easier for us to lie than to tell the truth, to lust than to love, to follow the devil than to hate him.

But God does what we cannot. He puts within us a divine capacity to do what doesn’t come naturally, to follow Him rather than the serpent. That divine capacity, that hatred, that enmity, is grace. Grace fights. Grace enables us to do what is humanly impossible. Grace changes us from children of evil to children of righteousness.

Grace fights, and grace wins. Grace is stronger than evil.

Without grace, the whole world would lie like pawns in evil’s hand. Without grace, not one person would honor God. Without grace, every vestige of beauty, truth, and nobility would vanish. Without grace, you wouldn’t be reading this book, and I wouldn’t have written it.

Notice how my favorite Christian writer puts it: “It is the grace that Christ implants in the soul which creates in man enmity against Satan. Without this converting grace and renewing power, man would continue the captive of Satan, a servant ever ready to do his bidding. But the new principle in the soul creates conflict where hitherto had been peace. The power which Christ imparts enables man to resist the tyrant and usurper. Whoever is seen to abhor sin instead of loving it, whoever resists and conquers those passions that have held sway within, displays the operation of a principle wholly from above” (The Great Controversy, p. 506).

The writer, Ellen White, titled her book The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan. That title is accurate, but the conflict rages far wider. Not just Christ and Satan, but people—we—are part of the struggle. Because of the enmity-fighting grace, we have a choice. We can cast our vote and our life on one side or the other.

So, no matter how dark the night, it is never without stars. For every atrocity there’s an act of heroism; for every act of cowardice, a deed of bravery. Fighting grace takes possession of men and women, and they refuse to let evil roll on unchecked. They stand up and fight back. A William Wilberforce rises up to expose the slave trade and fight it to the death. A Florence Nightingale goes to the Crimea to minister to the wounded and dying. A Rosa Parks refuses to sit in the back of the bus.

Slowly, slowly, against terrible odds, the clouds of exploitation and injustice and racism roll back. Grace fights, and grace wins.

The most deep-seated pride of the human heart, I believe, is that of our ethnic identity. This pride is a two-edged sword that cuts with terrible force for good or ill. It cuts one way and gives us a healthy sense of who we are; it gives us dignity and self-respect. But it cuts the other way and leads us to dehumanize or even demonize those whose origins differ from ours. When we no longer regard persons of a particular ethnic group as truly human, we feel free to kill and maim them without reason and without mercy.

That’s what happened in Rwanda. Peoples who had lived harmoniously side by side for several generations turned on one another in mass destruction. For the majority it made no difference that they were professedly Christians. The evil of ethnic hatred exploded and made the land a bloodbath.

But grace is greater than the evil of ethnic hatred. The killing will not stop because the Tutsis wipe out the Hutus, or the Hutus the Tutsis. The killing will stop only as grace in its quiet power leavens enough human hearts.

Listen to this true story, which I share just as it was first published.*

“She got into our van as we headed for an orphanage in a nearby town. The bus would take forever, and Carl Wilkens and I were going her direction, so it was no problem to take another passenger. As we bumped over the potholed road, I noticed a deep scar across her forehead and another on the back of her head. Carl noticed too, and being curious, he asked her about them. She spoke in her native language, with a local pastor interpreting her story into English, as we drove past the deceptively green hills of Rwanda.

“During the recent political upheaval in which thousands of people were killed, a man attacked her, she said. The man killed her pastor-husband and left her for dead, with machete slashes across her face and head. But when all was safe, her son came from his hiding place and rescued her, saving her life.

“But the story she told only began there. She spoke with emotion as she continued. ‘During the terrible slayings I saw the man who killed my husband and wounded me. I had known him well. He had once been a member of my husband’s congregation. Of course, the man did not know that I was not dead when he walked away.’

“Then months later, while shopping in a busy, crowded outdoor marketplace, she came face-to-face with him. They each stood still, staring at each other for a moment, unable to move. The man was shocked to see her alive—this pastor’s wife whom he was sure he’d killed in the fury of the massacre. He never expected to see her face again. Would her husband also appear before him now?

“He began to sweat profusely, thinking he was seeing a ghost. But she did not disappear—she just stood there in the market, looking back at him, her scars deep from his own machete.

“The horror of it all rushed over him. He trembled at what her response would be to him now. Would she turn him over to the police to be tried for his crime? He had seen that happen so often since the terrible killings had ended, and many were now in prison for their part in the slayings.

“His eyes seemed glued to her expression of recognition. He was unable to run. There was no escape. Other people in the market became aware of the confrontation and watched to see what would happen as perspiration continued to roll down the criminal’s face and chest. He knew he’d been caught.

“The crowd began to ask, ‘Why is he acting like this? What is wrong with this man?’

“Turning to them, the pastor’s wife said calmly: ‘This man saw me in the hospital when I was very sick, and he did not think I was going to live. That is why he is so surprised to see me today.’

“Then she walked up to the man and spoke his name, saying, ‘Come with me.’

“She took him to her home and exchanged his sweat-drenched shirt for a clean one from her own son’s closet. Then she said words that must have been the hardest words that she’d ever spoken: ‘I don’t know what else you have done or who else might accuse you, but as for me, I forgive you.’

“And the man went his way. She doesn’t know where he went. But she now goes from house to house selling books as a literature evangelist, telling others of God’s love and forgiveness.

“As Carl and I took the woman to her small house in the nearby town, I knew something inside me had changed. Her story of the ultimate forgiveness would remain with me forever. I still see her scars when I close my eyes really tight.”

I believe grace is constantly fighting the good fight, constantly working to roll back the darkness and bring hope and new life.

Police officer Kelly Benitez was driving around in his cruiser in Los Angeles. He noticed a car with expired registration tags and pulled it over. He approached the driver and asked to see his license. Benitez stared at it for a long time—Paul Benitez!

“What do you know?” he said. “You and I have the same name.”  The older man behind the wheel looked hard at him and then exclaimed, “You’re my son!”

Yes, it was his son whom he’d last seen when Kelly was only 4 months old and the parents separated. Police officer and offender, son and father, experienced a strange, joyful reunion.

What are the odds of this encounter happening in a city the size of Los Angeles? Coincidence—or just one more glimpse of grace? And by the way, the father didn’t get a ticket that day.

I was in Iguaçu at the southern end of Brazil for a church council, and Mack Tennyson called me over. Mack teaches accounting at the University of Charleston in South Carolina, and we’ve had interesting conversations in the past. That day his face was beaming, and he was bursting to tell me something.

It was about his little girl—his new little girl. A year earlier he and his wife, Sharon, had made arrangements to adopt a child in China. Without seeing her they decided to name her Alexandra Mae after Mack’s maternal grandmother.

My blood ran cold as Mack described their visit to the orphanage where they were to pick up their child. Mack and Sharon saw 50 1-year-old children lying in little beds. None of them had been held close by adults; all were kept tied down. The staff of the orphanage didn’t have the time to give the children individual care, so they kept them secure in bed.

They took Alexandra Mae and held her close. She could not hold her head up straight, let alone sit, crawl, or walk. Her normal development had been arrested as she lay day after day tied down in bed.

As Mack carried her from the orphanage, he looked back and saw the long rows with little faces looking up from where they lay. One bed was now empty.

Mack and Sharon usually don’t choose five-star accommodations when they travel, but this time Mack had asked for the best hotel in town in order to minimize health risks. He carried little Alexandra up to their room and laid her between the fresh white sheets. As he saw her lying there, one child out of the 50 plucked out and given a chance for love and life, it struck him—grace! Alexandra had done nothing to deserve it; she didn’t have any natural beauty to distinguish her from the others; she’d simply been picked up and set free.

At that moment Mack himself had an overwhelming sense of being blessed, that this was a special child given him by God. He decided that her name wouldn’t be Alexandra Mae but Alexandra Grace.

They brought the baby back to the United States and began to watch a miracle unfold. Alexandra Grace developed like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. All the stages arrested from her first year of life came marching by at fast-forward speed: She soon could hold her head straight, then sit up, then crawl, then walk.

Grace set her free to be all that God made her to be.

Early on, however, Sharon and Mack noticed that Alexandra seemed to look straight past them instead of focusing on them. When they placed her down on the rug she didn’t pick out little bits of fiber as other babies do. They took her to a doctor, who held her close and pronounced, “This child can’t see!” He fitted her with thick lenses, and immediately she began to focus.

Mack proudly showed me pictures of his girl, who was then 2 years old. She was about the cutest, happiest-looking miss you could find anywhere. “She wears her glasses all day, right up to bed,” said Mack. “Then she’ll give a big yawn, take them off, rub her eyes, and hurl the glasses at full force. Sharon and I have learned to be ready to make a dive for them—after all, they cost $400 to replace!”

Just one reminder, one scar from the past, remains. Like the other babies tied to their beds, for her first year Alexandra Grace had only one “toy” to play with—the end of the string tying her down. She still likes to suck on her bib string in her bed as she falls asleep.

Yes, friend of mine, I’m still an optimist. I’m not naive, not blind to the surge of evil that threatens to engulf society. But I think of Alexandra Grace Tennyson, of Kelly and Paul Benitez, of the nameless widow in Rwanda—and I take courage.

Evil is strong, but grace is stronger.

^*Eric Guttschuss as told to Heather Guttschuss, “Left to Die,” Adventist Review, Jan. 8, 1998.

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