02/25/2026
A very prideful religious man walked into church on Sunday morning. He sat down in the pew with his wife as the service began. He and his wife and sat in the same spot for years. Never missing a Sunday. He was certain of his goodness and his favor from God. He wondered what the sermon for the day would be.
As the sermon began, he heard “do not judge, lest you be judged.” He thought how excellent he had been in all his years of showing others how good he was. He just knew that certainly God would favor him.
Suddenly he began to smell an odor that disturbed him. As he searched for the source, he looked and before him in the pew was a family that obviously did not have the economic means that he had. They were not wearing stylish clothes but were wearing the best they had.
He began to think how sad it would be to live like them. How they must be so poor that they couldn’t even shower before coming to church. He began to think how embarassing it must be for that family to be emanating such a horrible odor. He thought how nasty their home life must be. They surely had been emanating the odor for so long that their nose had become numb to it.
He totally ignored the sermon as he thought how much better he was than these poor pitiful people who sat in from of him were.
Of course being such a good Godly man he didn’t want to bring attention to these poor people. How embarrassing. So he chose to endure. At the end of the service. He didn’t say anything to them, not wanting to embarrass them. So he quietly walked out of the church. Totally ignoring the people.
However as he began to drive home he noticed the odor had lingered. He thought as soon as he got home he would need to shower to get the odor off of him. This odor that emanated from these people that were certainly less than him.
As he walked through the front door he began to take his shoes off. As he did he was struck with horror.
It appears at some point prior to walking into the church he had stepped in dog droppings. It was fresh and odorific. There it was all over his shoes.
He had been the source of the odor and the people in front of him were innocent.
Have you ever been this man?
Psalm 51:1-3
1 The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, doing abominable iniquity;
there is none who does good.
2 God looks down from heaven
on the children of man
to see if there are any who understand,
who seek after God.
3 They have all fallen away;
together they have become corrupt;
there is none who does good,
not even one.
Work out your own salvation. The plan of salvation doesn’t save you, the man of salvation does!
