Wednesday Bible Blurb “The Shadow” 6 11 2025
The radio was on, and an evil mysterious music began to play, soon an evil laughter came over the airwaves and then the voice, “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows.” Starting in the 1930’s live, on-air radio shows were the evening entertainment for millions of families. The Lone Ranger, The Green Hornet, Molly and McGee and Dragnet captivated the nation each evening. Radio, the theater of the mind was in full bloom. Orson Wells broadcast of “The War of the World’s” was so well-done people thought Martians had truly invaded earth. There was an element of how evil mankind could be in most of the old radio shows. Thus, “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows” was relevant and scintillated people to listen to the radio.
God knows what “evil lurks in the hears of men.” It takes more than The Shadow to fool God about the heart and intent of mankind. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Rom. 3:23 [NKJV]). Mankind is evil through and through, there is no getting around it. The ancient prophet Jeremiah confirms how evil the hearts of men are. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.” The “fruits of” our doings is death. Without the saving grace of God, we are doomed to die.
We lie to ourselves when we think we are righteous. We are not. We can search our heart and look deep into our soul but in the end, we are dead to our sins. (Rom. 6:11). Solomon informs us, “The spirit of a man is the lamp of the LORD, searching all the inner depths of his heart.” (Pro. 20:27). God knows our hearts, and The Shadow knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men and so did Paul. “10 As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one; 11 There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. 12 They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.” 13 “Their throat is an open tomb; With their tongues they have practiced deceit”; “The poison of asps is under their lips”; 14 “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.” 5 “Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 Destruction and misery are in their ways; 17 And the way of peace they have not known.” 18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” (Rom. 3:10-18). Not one human is righteous, we all deserve death. “For the wages of sin is death.” (Rom. 6:23a). The Pharisees scrupulously kept the law and not one was righteous.
Sin and evil as portrayed by The Shadow is not new to humanity. Sin and evil were so bad in the great distant past that God said, “5 Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. 7 So the Lord said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” Every thought was evil continually. God, who gave His only Son looked down and chose a man named Noah to build an ark and save the world. It was very gracious of God to do so.
Noah did nothing to deserve the gift of salvation from God as he too was a sinner. Remember how after the flood waters receded, Noah got so drunk he was unaware of what was going on around him? “The gift of God is eternal life.” (Rom. 6:23b). God gave Noah the gift of life and God is giving us the gift of life too. Life forever more with God is a gift, not something we can earn as our hearts are deceptively wicked.
We all sin, “4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
There is not one thing we can do to be saved from our eventual death from our sins. We have no false righteous merit to hang our salvation hat on. Grace, as defined by Webster is, “unmerited divine assistance given to humans for their regeneration or sanctification.” That’s it. Grace is the bottom line. Any other view of grace must change the definition of grace and therefore is not grace.
God knows what “evil lurks in the hearts of men”. Fortunately for us, God loves us so much He was willing to send His son to live, die and be resurrected for our salvation-to forgive us of sin. Nothing we can do will add one day to our life; we will all die. It is God and His loving free unmerited pardon of our sins called, GRACE that saves us. Now we know what evil lurks in the hearts of men and what love lurks in the heart of God.
P.S. One final scripture:
“And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work. (Rom. 11:6).
