While sitting in a pizza shop this afternoon I picked up a newspaper that contained the local police blotter. I soon became aware of my naiveté. It took me a while to figure out what A&B and B&E meant. It was (for me) like reading something from a different planet. Maybe I ought to watch an episode of Law and Order and educate myself. I wonder if people are embarrassed to appear on this list of infamy. It would be very difficult to claim it was some other John or Jane Doe because birthdays and addresses were also published for all to see.
This is like the Book of Remembrance mentioned in Revelation 20. And “I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.” Talk about a police blotter! This book even has motives listed. I don’t know about you but I have to be saved not just to live forever but to keep you from looking up my heavenly obit. If we are saved all the bad stuff is blotted out. “Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.” Acts 3.
Can you imagine how juicily entertaining it would be to read all the records of the lost? This is better than gossip. This is true. Somehow I don’t think we will be passing our days by filling our idle curiosities with this material. There will be so much better ways to grow. I believe we would find it quite distasteful – even painful.
Written by Roger Bothwell on July 5, 2013
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