At
the commencement of a New Year people often make resolutions as to what they
are going to do or not to do in the coming year. They take stock as to where
their life is going and what changes are needed to provide a better quality of
life. Many of these promises made to oneself are like piecrusts, they are made
to be broken. Before January is out so are the resolutions.
I did the same
in January 1957, it was when God was working in my life convicting me of my
sin, so I decided to stop drinking, stop swearing and stop gambling, and I
thought that if I did reform, that God would have different thoughts about me.
How wrong I was because though I tried hard to do it, after three days I was
back in the card school and swearing again! The Apostle Paul had that problem
too, he said in Romans 7:18, “For I know that in me
(that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me;
but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I
do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would
not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a
law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the
inward man: But I see another law in my
members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to
the law of sin which is in my members. O
wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death I
thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Paul
discovered what we discover, that there is a law in our members, our flesh,
that is dominated by sin, I will tell you later what he says in the next
chapter, which is brilliant.
There are currently in the UK, opposing views being
made public by two Law-Court Judges. Sir James Munby is a British judge and
President of the Family Division of the High Court of
England and Wales. He said in a speech, reported by Guardian newspaper
columnist Andrew Brown, ‘Judges no longer concerned
themselves with the promotion of virtue and the discouragement of immorality –
and nor should they: Britain is now a secular society, he said, and religion
has no special privilege beyond what it is granted by human rights.’ This judge is stamping his secularist views on his office and pronouncing
rebuke on any judge who holds the opposite view that Law has a responsibility
to determine what is right and what is wrong, therefore making a moral
judgement.
The judge that Munby has censored is High Court Judge Sir Paul Coleridge.
The Christian Institute’s website carries this piece. ‘Sir Paul, speaking
about same-sex marriage, told The Times in 2012: “So much energy and time has
been put into this debate for 0.1 per cent of the population, when we have a
crisis of family breakdown….. Stability is the name of the game and
comparatively speaking that means marriage.” He supports The Marriage
Foundation and was rebuffed by Munby for his pro-marriage stance. Coleridge
said, “I strongly disagree with the overall conclusion of
the JCIO, which underlies this announcement that my occasional comments on the
huge social problem of family breakdown or my public support for the Marriage
Foundation amounts to misconduct or brings the judiciary into disrepute. Indeed
I think the contrary is true.”
These two Judges
views illustrate the moral slide of society, Judge Munby’s superior official
position and atheistic attitude shout down people like Judge Coleridge who
maintain the moral law, that “Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is
a reproach of all people.”
The religious bigot, Saul of Tarsus,
struggled in his conscience about the law of sin and death that was working in
his life. He held the coats of those who stoned Stephen to death; he had
letters in his pocket when he traveled to Damascus authorizing the imprisonment
and sometimes death of Christians. The Lord Jesus halted that murderous journey
when He spoke to Saul from Heaven, and Saul was converted to Christ. His life
was changed; his name was changed to Paul. He wrote in Romans 8:1, “There
is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk
not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in
Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law
could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in
the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.”
Saul
of Tarsus discovered in reality, the liberty of another law, not now according
to man’s corrupt thinking, but an unshakable, unchanging Law from God, the Law
of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus. The joy in my heart as I write these
words wants me to shout out loud, “FOR THE LAW OF THE SPIRIT OF LIFE IN
CHRIST JESUS HAS MADE ME FREE FROM THE LAW OF SIN AND DEATH.”
Saul
of Tarsus needed Christ to save him, and so does everyone who is clutching to
the law of sin and death. People hold on to the ‘live as you like, do as you
please’ attitude, thinking that they are accountable to no one, but the fact
remains that everyone will give account of their life to God. To stand before
Him in the loathsomeness of sin and an unbelieving heart is the height of
folly. God sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin,
condemned sin in the flesh.
When Christ was on the cross at Calvary, God laid
on Him the sin of the world, your sin and my sin, but do you believe that?
He died in your place
bearing all the guilt of your sin, because He loved you?
It will be a Happy New
Year if you do.
