“The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind" - Jeremiah 17:9-10
I was listening to the news this evening. There was another mass killing. This time in California. People are lost for answers. How to stop the needless killing of innocents. Is the answer to take the guns away and any other instrument someone might use to kill another person. If you take away the guns and knives, then they will use sticks and stones. Why? Because the heart of man is desperately wicked. The police look for a motive. People want to know why. This is why.
"All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" - Romans 3:23
"There is none righteous, no not one!" - Romans 3:10
The problem not the lack of laws, it is a spiritual problem. Most people will deny that as a possibility. They are convinced the way to control the wrongs people do, the expression of our sin nature, is by making more rules. To say it is a spiritual problem is to speak spiritual truth. Here is the dilemma.
"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. .... Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks [Gentiles or non-Jews] foolishness" - 1 Corinthians 1:18, 20-23
The solution is spiritual, but the world apart from salvation through faith in Jesus is incapable of understanding and embracing the truth. Rules that are meant to constrain behavior do not change the heart from which that behavior springs. In fact, more laws only make the problem worse. Why - this is what the Bible says about the law and sin.
"For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law....For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do....O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus. Christ our Lord!" - Romans 7:5-7, 14-15, 24 - 25
The natural man - those people who are lost in their sinful nature, prove that they are incapable of fulfilling the laws of man, let alone the laws of God. So many mourn the loss of others while rejecting the solution which is faith in Jesus. It saddens me to watch the news and listen to the struggles that others face - all the while rejecting the only viable answer. Do you remember King Agrippa listening to Paul?
"Then Agrippa said to Paul, “You almost persuade me to become a Christian.” And Paul said, “I would to God that not only you, but also all who hear me today, might become both almost and altogether such as I am, except for these chains.” - Acts 26: 28-29
King Agrippa was almost persuaded but lost. There was a song by that name sung by Tennessee Earnie Ford years ago.
Almost persuaded” now to believe;
“Almost persuaded” Christ to receive;
Seems now some soul to say,
“Go, Spirit, go Thy way;
Some more convenient day
On Thee I’ll call.”
Think about it – Pray about it – Believe it – Walk in it. Let your light shine and give God the glory.
By Faith Alone By His Grace Alone And For His Glory Alone
No comments:
Post a Comment