Romans 5:13: For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
Somebody may say, “I think God is obligated to save all of us.” No, He is not. Suppose that you could go down to an old marshy lake covered with scum where there are hundreds of turtles, and you take a turtle out of there. And you teach this turtle to fly. Then this turtle goes back to the lake and says to the other turtles, “Wouldn’t you like to learn to fly?” I think they’d laugh at the turtle. They’d say, “No! we like it down here. We don’t want to learn to fly.”
And that is the condition of lost mankind today. People don’t want to be saved. People are lost, alienated from God. Now, that’s a great truth that does not soak into our minds easily, because we have that lost nature. We just love to think that we’re wonderful people. But we are not, my friend. 1
Men do not die because of their own acts of sin; otherwise, babies would not die (Rom. 9:11). Men die because they are united racially to Adam, and “in Adam all men die” (1 Cor. 15:22). 2
Application
- How would you define the term: lawlessness?
- Are the uprisings in our nation rooted in law keeping or law breaking? We all play the “race card” because we are all sinful members of the “human race.”
Prayer
Lord, please convict us of our lawless rebellion from Your authority over our lives.
1. McGee, J. V. (1991). Thru the Bible commentary: The Epistles (Romans 1-8) (electronic ed., Vol. 42). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
2. Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary. Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.
