There’s no smell quite like the sickening stench of self-justification. Shortly after his 2015 murder of nine precious souls in a church in Charleston SC the twisted thinking of Dylann Roof spread across the world as his “manifesto” was discovered and shared online. It is the raving of a maniacal mad man. It combined the general hopelessness of atheistic humanism permeating our current culture with one or two facts about crime and a lot of historical and modern day fiction about racial differences so Mr. Roof could feel justified in murdering black people. It is a sickening attempt at self-justification.

Go back a few decades and one might confuse Roof’s manifesto with the ravings of Margaret Sanger and her work to start Planned Parenthood. Filled with righteous (?) indignation at the overpopulation of the world by the “inferior classes”, determined by religion and race, she was determined to enforce “negative eugenics” by either segregation or abortion. Preferring abortion as more pro-active she founded the American Birth Control League which became Planned Parenthood. Since its founding Planned Parenthood has participated in the systematic murder of millions of unborn children, predominantly among minority populations. But Sanger is praised by many people today, including some who were her targets for elimination as inferior. Yet those same people justly condemn Roof as a racist murderer. Can you smell the stench of self-justification?

This event connects easily with the work of David in justifying the death of Uriah the Hittite. After all David was the King, chosen by God to lead Israel, and Uriah was just a soldier, and a foreign one at that. Yes, David had committed adultery with Bathsheba, and yes she had conceived a child (pre-Planned Parenthood) by that illicit act, but as king his life was more important than Uriah’s. His note to Joab was just one sentence (2 Samuel 11:15), but was very effective at “negative eugenics” with respect to Uriah and his fellow soldiers. But David’s reaction to the report is where we find the stench of self-justification. David’s anger over the needless loss of life was immediately mollified by learning Uriah had died too. His response to Joab reeked of self-justification: “Do not let this thing displease you, for the sword devours one as well as another” (2 Samuel 11:25).

Before we get all holier than thou on David let’s all take a good long sniff in case we’re covered in the stench of self-justification. We may need to cleanse our hearts in the blood of Christ just to make sure it’s gone.