I saw a clip a while back of AC/DC playing in front of a huge crowd at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. As the band launched into the chorus of their mega hit, “Highway to Hell,” the crowd joined in lustily, treating damnation like a punchline. With smiles on their faces and hands raised, thousands chanted along without a pause or reservation. The music carries. The moment covers. The audience didn’t seem to think it mattered or applied to them at all.

“C’mon, it’s just a song.” Until it’s not.

We are watching what happens when borrowed cover fails.

In recent days, that has played out in the political world in a rather stark way. Eric Swalwell basked in the applause and skated past his critics. When applause or criticism (or even the lack of it) becomes the measure, conviction is replaced with performance.

But borrowed cover always gives way.

Swalwell now stands without it and must give an account. What we are watching is not just a political moment. It is a reminder of what happens when the cover we trust fails, and why we need one that does not.

No one wakes up one morning and decides to collapse his life. It happens in smaller decisions that felt manageable at the time, especially when nothing seemed to break right away.

Many think they’re watching a single man’s plummet.

They’re not.

They’re watching a pattern.

This pattern has not spared those who profess Christ, preach Christ, or lead in His name. Titles, platforms, and ministries have proven to be just as thin as fig leaves when truth finally stands. If anyone thinks they’re incapable of a fall like this, deception already has them in its grip.

Things build long before they’re seen. By the time they are, the damage is already done.

Many watch a moment like this and think one of two things.

Either:
“That’s what happens when you live like that. He’s getting what he deserves.”

Or:
“I’m glad I’m not that man.”

Both responses feel safe.
Neither one is.

If this feels like someone else’s reckoning, it hasn’t been understood yet.

It is easy to mock. Easy to shrug and say, “He got what was coming to him.”
Scripture warns against it. “Do not rejoice when your enemy falls.”

Not because it is impolite.
Because it reveals something.

The same instinct that wants justice for him while assuming mercy for oneself is the same instinct that blinds anyone to the need for repentance.

The warning here is not that political life is messy. It is that none of us are exempt.

Judas Iscariot’s tragedy did not start at the end of a rope. It started long before that, in smaller compromises he assumed he could carry without consequence. All while walking daily with Jesus.

That is the lie: that guilt can be managed and carried without cost.

I saw a clip a while back of AC/DC playing in front of a huge crowd at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. As the band launched into the chorus of their mega hit, “Highway to Hell,” the crowd joined in lustily, treating damnation like a punchline. With smiles on their faces and hands raised, thousands chanted along without a pause or reservation. The music carries. The moment covers. The audience didn’t seem to think it mattered or applied to them at all.

“C’mon, it’s just a song.”

Until it’s not.

Every chorus ends. Every voice fades. And there comes a point when there is nothing left mask the truth.

Scripture describes the first time that happened. No one had to explain it.

They knew.

And they tried to cover themselves.

They sewed fig leaves together. It was the first attempt to manage guilt without God. It was immediate, instinctive, and completely insufficient.

Nothing about that has changed.

We still reach for something to cover us. Reputation. Position. Applause. Even religious language. Something we can hold up and say, “This will keep me hidden.”

It does not.

When we select our own covering, it will always fail and leave us exposed.

Then came the first act of mercy.

God made a covering for them. Not one they fashioned. One He provided.
Yet, something had to die to provide that covering.

That was not the end of the story. It was the pattern.

Covered, or exposed.

Clothed in one’s own efforts, we are naked and exposed. No fig leaf. No platform. No political party. No pulpit. No denomination.
No borrowed cover will hold.

But there is an Advocate.

He does not argue innocence.
He calls us to repent and believe.
He does not improve our covering. He replaces it. Under His covering, we are not rehabilitated. We are resurrected.

He gives His righteousness.

When we receive what God has provided, we are covered in a way that does not fail.

“Clothed in His righteousness alone,
faultless to stand before the throne.”

There is no third option.

Peter Rosenberger hosts the nationally syndicated radio program, Hope for the Caregiver. He’s published four books, and his most recent is A MINUTE FOR CAREGIVERS – When Every Day Feels Like Monday. PeterRosenberger.com | @hope4caregiver