Revolutions have the common theme of freedom. Whether American, French, Russian, Texan, or Cuban, they all claim they want political freedom. Three of the five became the nightmare of millions when they discovered that freedom could have an ugly face.

There have been famous and infamous national revolutions whose battle cry has been "Freedom Now!" And there have been personal revolutions that shouted the same. In the name of personal freedom the youth of the ‘60’s formed communes, took to the streets, and sometimes brought whole universities and communities to a standstill until authority caved in to their demands for freedom.

A child of the ‘60’s, Gary Condit is a case study of a personal moral revolution. In the scheme of things, Congressman Condit made certain moral choices that were his own moral revolution against right and wrong. Whether it crossed his mind or not, whether he would say it or not, his choices were acts that kicked against the goads of moral boundaries, restraints, and absolutes.

Don’t forget that Gary Condit in his mind, to his way of thinking, had every right to make such decisions. His choices were as old as Eden’s faded leaves and withered trees.

Yet there were warnings. In the Bible he often carried to the regular congressional Bible studies, the book of Proverbs contained many caveats. Surely he knew something of these warnings.

We often forget the axiom: we have the right to make rebellious choices, but we never have the right to the control of the consequences of those choices. And there is the Shakespearean rub.

A firestorm has erupted to engulf Gary Condit. As a result of his choices, this storm has rolled inexorably, bringing its lightening into the lives of hundreds and hundreds of people now directly involved against their wills. By his choices, he’s napalmed his own family. His private revolution has become a never satisfied black hole that’s taken into itself a police department, cadet trainees, part of the FBI, a couple of distraught parents, a battery of lawyers, television networks, newspapers, the entire U. S. Congress, and a particular congressional district in California.

Like a giant paper shredder, the uncontrollable consequences of his choices have torn into lives, ripped families and left those people closest to the storm with only their raw emotions.

In the movie, "The Perfect Storm," proud fishermen decide to enter the vortex of colliding Atlantic storms that coalesced to form the perfect storm. They did it all for the sake of their catch of fish. They were free to make that choice, but they weren’t free to control the results of their choice. They sailed the Andrea Gail into the teeth of a meteorological killing machine.

As the perfect storm rains its havoc over Gary Condit’s every hounded and harassed move, we just know that he never thought it would be this way. He may be a very smart fellow, but neither his mind nor his congressional power, nor an entire public relations firm can stop, handle, or even direct the path the storm will take.

There’s a Cross that once stood on a hill. The old story says that the Cross is ground zero for decision. Was what took place there the full payment of the sin-debt you couldn’t pay? Was the aftermath of that event a full physical resurrection, so that not only was the Cross empty, but so was the tomb? Do you believe that? Do you trust that there your enormous debt was paid in full?

You can say, "Yes, I believe that," and you can then watch as God begins a transformation process of your life, just as He’s done for previous Condits in history from Mary Magdalene, to Saul, to Augustine, to Newton, to Colson. Until grace grabs us and changes us, we’re only so much moral and religious clutter that remains untransformed on the inside.

But God has set it up so that you have the right to be wrong, and say, "No, I don’t believe that." You have a right to choose, but no right to control the consequences of that choice. The Bible says that the greatest of those consequences is the perfect storm prepared for the devil and his angels—hell itself.

Whatever happens, Gary Condit’s life is presently a media- documented-soap opera disaster. On the one hand there is the storm of the right to choose wrongly. On the other hand there is the storm of the consequences over which one has no rights. When these two storm systems collide, they catch Gary Condit in the perfect storm.

The sad thing is that his life has now become pathetic, one that’s grist for the mills of mass media entertainment, just one more consequence he can’t control in the perfect storm.

………Dr. Mike Halsey, Pastor

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