Two Noteworthy Obituaries
But if you will not do so, behold, you have sinned against the Lord, and be sure your sin will find you out.
(Num 32.23, ESV).
The most culturally significant obituaries in modern Western civilization are in the New York Times Obituary column. Two particularly noteworthy names received ink this week – Dennis Hastert[1] and Jim Bakker.[2] Hastert’s headline reads, “Dennis Hastert, Powerful Politician Disgraced by Child Sex Abuse, Dies.” In a similar fashion, Bakker’s obit is entitled, “Jim Bakker, Television Preacher Felled by Sex and Financial Scandals, Dies at 86.”
Dennis Hastert was a high school teacher and wrestling coach who became a most unlikely Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1998-2006 (the longest serving Republican to serve in that position in history). Of course, Jim Bakker was the notorious televangelist who founded PTL, along with his wife, Tammy Faye. Two men who wielded immense cultural power and influence – Hastert was third in line for the Presidency of the United States; Bakker ran a prosperity gospel empire, earning as much as $129 million annually (in the 1980s!), and was viewed by nearly 13 million households daily. Two men who died in scandal.
Hastert plead guilty to sexually abusing teenage boys he used to coach, spending 15 months in Federal prison for breaking Federal banking laws. Bakker was defrocked when, at 40 years old, he committed adultery with a 21-year-old church secretary who claimed he raped her. He tried to buy her off, embezzling $265,000 of PTL’s donations (roughly the equivalent of $825,000 in 2026 cash). He was sentenced to 45 years in prison but was paroled after serving five. Responding to Bakker’s scandal, Jerry Falwell declared Bakker to be, “the greatest scab and a cancer on the face of Christianity in 2,000 years of church history.”
Wealth, power, and fame are intoxicating incubators for sin in general and abuse in particular – there’s a reason the Lord Jesus preached it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven (Matt 19.24). Both men wielded incredible influence among conservative Christians, and both men came tumbling down in the most disgusting and devious of sex scandals. There is a sense in which the Christian church bears the public shame of men like these. Bakker was a pastor. Hastert was a graduate of Wheaton; there was even a building on campus bearing his name, until the scandal. The world mocks as leaders in the Evangelical community crash and burn and the name of Christ is besmirched.
But there is also a sense in which we are disconnected from these men and their places in public Christianity. The prosperity tradition led by men like Bakker stand in theological and historical opposition to the Reformed tradition. And while we stand firm with the social conservatism of the Republican Party – especially on issues of life, gender, sexuality, etc. – the Republican party and the Kingdom of Christ are not one in the same, and so Hastert’s fall is not necessarily our own. But these men claimed the name of Christ, and while only the Lord can judge the heart, we can hear the heed the warning.
My mom always used to quote Numbers 32.23 to us kids – be sure your sin will find you out. Of course, as a teenager it annoyed me. Having lived now for 38 years, and having pastored for 17, and parented for 15 (like Indiana Jones said, “It’s not the years, honey, it’s the mileage”), I have ears to hear the wisdom of God mediated through my faithful mom. These men believed their sin wouldn’t find them out. They were deceived into thinking that they could abuse women and children with impunity. They betrayed their wives, churches, the government and were arrogant enough to believe there would be no consequences.
Sin is no light matter; its wages are death (Rom 6.23; Gen 2.17). Sin is cosmic treason against the one true and living holy creator God, and He will not be mocked nor deceived (Gal 6.7). There will be justice rendered for our sin because God is just. The just verdict for sin will be eternal conscious punishment in a place called hell.
This is why the gospel is good news. On the cross the Lord Jesus endured God’s wrath against the sins of His elect. That’s why when we confess our sins [Jesus] is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1.9). So, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom 8.1). Our only hope for eternal forgiveness and life is faith and repentance in Christ alone, and thanks be to God that everything He requires, He provides in Jesus Christ.
Even so, that does not mean there aren’t natural consequences for our sin. It doesn’t mean that God doesn’t discipline His children when they persist in unrepentant sin (Heb 13). A murderer may confess Christ and receive forgiveness and salvation, but he is still accountable to the state for his crime and should be convicted in the name of justice. These two obituaries are a reminder and warning to us that our sin will find us out; nothing is hidden from the eyes of God.
Whatever else these men did with their lives, both obituary headlines announce their sexual sin, even in their death. Their lust marked them and they were known by their sexual deviance. Their sin found them out. No wonder the Lord Jesus taught us to pray, lead us not into temptation (Matt 6.13). We write our own obituaries every day. Lord, give us ears to hear.
[1]https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/05/obituaries/dennis-hastert-dead.html
[2]https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/05/us/jim-bakker-dead.html