Matthew 10:16-28
Up to this point, murder is still unacceptable. 26 out of 50 states still have an active death penalty. Believe it or not, only four states have abolished the death penalty. The remaining 20 states have a governor imposed moratorium on the law including West Virginia.
But as a society we have become very used to sinning and very comfortable with sin. As a result, society has very few consequences that it places on people for sin. Even those states that have an active death penalty for capital murder use the law very sparsely. So when people grow up in a world where things that once were defined as sin are no longer defined as sin, and behaviors have no consequence; well, you have anarchy as we are seeing every day in the news where people are allowed to riot in the city streets, loot, plunder and burn other people’s property and cry death to the police, mocking the very front line of the defense for law and order, harmony and peace.
Now, keep in mind our text as we begin to talk about that place called “HELL.” Isaiah 5:20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! People tend to become more sympathetic toward sin when someone close to them becomes involved. Rape is an outrage if it is your daughter, but when your son is the rapist you find ways to justify it. When a son or daughter announces to his mother that he or she is gay. The mother then becomes a homosexual advocate. There are no consequences for that kind of immoral behavior in our society. Our American society used to take a very dim view of adultery, but it is so common place today that it is accepted as normal. It used to be a horrible thing for teenaged children to engage in fornication, but now it is encouraged. I can remember when public profanity and especially the “f” word was against the law, but now it is in common conversation everywhere. That kind of speech is not included in the First Amendment. The point is there is a warped sense of good and evil and a twisted concept of justice.
It doesn’t take a very high level of intelligence to understand that when a culture imposes no consequences, the family imposes no consequences, and the society places no stigma or shame on people for sinful behaviors, people get so used to sinning without consequences that when you preach that they will pay IN FULL, forever for every sin, it simply doesn’t process in the mind. There is no fear of God before the eyes of people today like there used to be. So, when people sin without immediate consequences or even impunity and you preach that there is coming a judgment when every single sin will be judged in a burning hell fire, people laugh because they cannot relate to punishment of that degree.
Now, go to Romans 2:1-6. In verse one of this passage Paul lists a number of moral violations of the law of God and concludes by saying that human nature being what it is, He “will render to every man according to his deeds:” Romans 1:32 states, “Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.” You’re not getting away with any part of the moral law; no act of adultery, or murder, or lying or robbing or cheating or any kind of fornication whether outwardly or in the mind. No sin in the behavior will be overlooked. You’re not going to get away with any of these things; you’re just accumulating iniquities, which you will answer for and be judged for. You are simply storing up wrath against the day of wrath, “In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.” (Romans 2:16). I shall continue these thoughts in our next lesson. E-mail, johnpruitt@frontiernet.net