In today's society, we hear a lot about remorse.In almost every court case we hear about on the news the word remorse comes up--he showed no remorse or he showed a lot of remorse.What do they really mean?True remorse is repentance, repentance means to turn away from, not to repeat a certain course if action again.Is that really what the victims or their family really want to see?It would be a perfect world if that were the case.What they really want to see is self -condemnation, without the understanding of what that means.They want the one who committed the crime to suffer, to regret what they did for the rest of their lives, to relive their actions every day, to never have another peaceful day as long as they live.The only problem with this is, that the victims don't realize is what self-condemnation leads to.Another victim!!What they will get, is someone who feels they have a need a be punished over and over again.As a result, the person, who committed a minor crime will re-offend, again and again, each time escalating their offenses, leading to more victims, in order to increase their punishment.This is a never ending cycle.It leads it leads to a self-fulling prophecy, I'm no good, I'm not worthy to be in society, see.
That's why THE BIBLE says,"there is no condemnation in CHRIST".This not only applies to the breaking of man's law but also GOD'S law.Far too many times we commit one sin, get full of self-condemnation and go out to prove we need to be punished, so we commit another and another, all the time trying to get what we feel we deserve--PUNISHMENT.We create situations, for ourselves, that we feel will give us what we deserve, but it never will, we just start the cycle over again.Each time we fall deeper and deeper into the trap.The only way out is through GOD'S forgiveness and for us to forgive ourselves, the longer we go down this path the harder it is to break out.
I've witnessed a few cases, were it lead to a complete breakdown,The first one was in Niagara, when I was in my early twenties.i was in hospital,when my roommate started to talk strange, he told me that he had too many things and I could have all his possessions if I could get them out of his house that day.He then stripped off all his clothes and went out into the hall, I never saw him again.The next one was I was inside, a young man, who was my cell mate, started chanting one day, covered up in bed and stayed there for some time.Finally, the chanting became screaming and he was jumping up and down on the bed, nude.The guards rushed in and took him out on a stretcher.These are only two of the cases I've seen.Cases where self-condemnation leads to a death of sorts, I've also had too many friends commit suicide outright, another kind of death.Far too many people are committing suicide, on the installment plan, one drink, one drug, or one more victim at a time, they have a death wish, like Ivor who was striking out hoping someone would strike back, someone finally did.
REMORSE=REPENTANCE--SELF-CONDEMNATION=DEATH