Fallout is defined as a secondary and often lingering effect, result, or set of circumstances. Consequences are primary. They describe what you suffer personally as the result of your own bad choices. Fallout is secondary. It describes what everyone around you suffers because of your bad choices.
Note: This article is in a series called Two Roads. Previous articles are always available at http://www.webbweekly.com.
Fallout is a technical term that came into use in the aftermath of nuclear testing in the 1940s. After the detonation of a nuclear bomb, radioactive particles released into the upper atmosphere would drift with wind currents. In time, they would fall back to the ground as radioactive dust or black rain. Victims living hundreds of miles away from the detonation site were said to be suffering from radiation fallout — because the radiation was literally falling out of the sky.
When God exposed Achan’s sin, the fallout was devastating for his family. Everything directly connected to Achan went up in smoke, Then Joshua, together with all Israel, took Achan, son of Zerah, the silver, the robe, the gold bar, his sons and daughters, his cattle, donkeys and sheep, his tent and all that he had, to the Valley of Achor. Joshua said, “Why have you brought this trouble on us? The Lord will bring trouble on you today.” Then all Israel stoned him, and after they had stoned the rest, they burned them. Over Achan, they heaped up a large pile of rocks, which remains to this day. Joshua 7:24-26
The hard truth about fallout is that the damage caused by our bad choices extends far beyond us. It affects everyone around us — even people we don’t know — and people who haven’t even been born yet.
The fallout from Adam’s bad choice affected the entire human race, including you and me. We are born traveling the road to death because of Adam.
That’s the trouble with fallout — it often involves good things that might have happened but didn’t. How much good has passed from existence because a good man failed? It is a haunting question.
The fallout of David’s bad choices involved Bathsheba suffering the loss of a husband and a newborn son. Any good that Uriah or the baby would have accomplished in life was snuffed out by David’s bad choices.
Like Moses, the fallout from Peter’s denial was the loss of what might have been. Had he stood his ground and openly said, “Yes, I am a disciple of Jesus!”
Jesus may have received comfort from Peter’s bravery. Maybe Peter would have been arrested and thrown in jail with Jesus, keeping Jesus from being alone during that fateful night. Peter could have been there for Jesus in his darkest hour. He wasn’t. Imagine how many of us would be encouraged to take a stand for Christ if Peter had given us that example. Whatever lasting benefit could have been produced by Peter’s bravery went up in smoke when he made a bad choice.
Some fallout can be predicted, but much of it cannot. If you got caught having an affair, how would it affect your wife? How would it affect your children? You know the basic answer to those questions: The fallout would be devastating. What you don’t know is the long-term effect your choices will have on your children and your grandchildren and their future relationships and marriages and children. Fallout travels far and wide and remains radioactive for a very long time.
This is why the rationalization and blackout stages are so dangerous. If a good man loses the ability to predict the consequences and fallout that will be unleashed due to his bad choices, then there is nothing to restrain him from acting on those bad choices.
The serpent said to Adam, “You will not surely die.”
The removal of the consequences and the fallout made the failure easier to commit. Had David been able to consider the awful fallout suffered by Bathsheba and Uriah, he would have left her alone.
Don’t you wish Adam had considered the fallout you are suffering today due to his bad choice? That’s how victims feel. They don’t understand why their well-being was not taken into consideration. That’s how Sierra felt.
Sierra was a sweet and kind Christian woman. She loved God, and she enjoyed worshiping and serving at church. She always had a big smile and a boisterous laugh. She was a joy to be around.
Sierra came to my office because she felt I should be aware of something that very few people knew. That day, Sierra told me she had AIDS. She contracted it from her husband, who had contracted it from another woman during an affair. It was an awful story. She served Jesus and loved and served people until an underlying condition complicated by AIDS took her life. She was only in her fifties. She was the victim of a radioactive cloud of fallout created by her husband’s evil choice.
Sierra had many years left to serve Jesus and to love people. How much good was snuffed out by her husband’s choices? We will never know the full extent of the fallout.
If you are contemplating a bad choice today, take a moment to consider the fallout your actions could produce. Do you really want to send that cloud of radioactive dust into the atmosphere? We are praying you will make the right choice.
