Hello to the one in the choir up there or just up there spouting off....;)
I just want to share my view on only one passage you raised in your post here, not to engulf you with many...Romans 3:11
Paul speaks of Psalms 14:2 as his backdrop into this subject...
Paul was strongly conveying to his audience that all Jews and non-Jews are under the curse of sin and they lived their lives like they did not understand the gravity of it or did not care, or obey the Law and the priests was good enough.
No one then understood their sinful state and what this means to their life, as none looked for God to rectify this deadly disease they have call sin. They have no understanding of spiritual things and zero spiritual knowledge of God. And more importantly they did not know how to rectify their sinful nature, their way to salvation. They thought they have no problem. No knowledge of Christ and the gospel. And therefore no one sought God because being carnal, natural and unspiritual did not realize they needed a new regenerated heart.
And finally in verse 20 Paul say the Law does not make us righteous before God. We must realize we are sinful in the flesh and God demands justice along with mercy. So we should now look to God for this mercy and become his righteousness through Christ - Christ himself our Savior is now our righteousness acceptable to Father.
And every genuine believer already knows and experiences this righteousness today this..amen.
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Yes I agree with you, the passage of Patriot Act did a number on this country for sure.. a permanent stain and a real move to totalitarianism.
Two points. (and then some more....)
First, the corrupt post-modern church teaches that SIN is a disease. It isn't. SIN is offense against God. SIN is no more a disease than bank robbery is a disease or battlefield killing is a disease. SIN is what is DONE against the LAW of the Most High. In that we have all committed violation of God's LAW we are SINNERS. SIN is more of a verdict than a sickness, for the consequence of the verdict is imprisonment and death. The consequence of an illness is a doctor's bill.
Second, I continually hear arguments about the LAW from people who KNOW IT NOT. Everyone who's heard the reiterations of some backwater Biblically illiterate preacher echos the same thing. The LAW cannot save. WHY? Nobody seems to know, but they wail and rant and parrot empty phrases about licentious grace even as they seek to justify their own SIN.
Again - everyone parrots scripture, as satan did to Jesus, to justify their ignorance or their willful desire to justify their guilt.
Why doesn't the LAW save? It doesn't save
because it says it doesn't save. Can we move past this point? Apparently not.
Everyone wants to justify their position - right or wrong.
Nobody knows the LAW. Everybody hates the very mention of it. Even a large number of Jews have rejected it (Torah - the 1st 5 books of the Bible known as the LAW). Did you know that? Church types can reject the LAW and tell themselves they've got licentious grace to justify every filthy thing they touch. Jews have their tradition - similar to the church's pagan traditions I may add.
Matthew 24:12 is one of many scriptures that predict the rise of lawLESSness in the last days. This doesn't refer to crime and violence although such things are predicted as well. It speaks to a general DISREGARD and REJECTION of God's Holy LAW. Guess what, dear reader.......we have arrived in the days of lawLESSness. The fact that many now argue against the LAW is proof positive. The fact of widespread ignorance of the LAW is proof positive. The fact that many disregard it and justify SIN by calling it a sickness is proof positive of the work of satan in the hearts and lives of Christians and Jews alike.
The church has followed the pharisees into the same spiritual self-righteous muck that Jesus warned us about - the leaven of the pharisees (Mark 8:15) - religious TRADITIONS that become self-important to the point the Bible, Jesus and salvation itself are thrown to the wind.
Why doesn't the LAW save? It doesn't save, in and of itself, because the purpose of the LAW is to instruct the man as to his condition before God - as in offense of SIN, not a disease. Nobody is excused, even if they're Jewish. Nobody is excused even if they're self-righteous church types. Nobody is excused because SIN is as much a part of the man as his head and his heart. The man IS SIN and that's why the man must DIE.
What hope then do we have? There is no real hope in traditions, lovely and important as we think they may be. There is no real hope in the LAW because it leaves us by the roadside when we refuse to walk in it. There is no real hope in religion because it has become shallow and empty and devoid of anything worthy of attention, much less respect. THIS IS WHY the church has become a joke. The people inside don't really know why they're there. The people outside don't know either and they laugh because they understand the joke is on us all.
The LAW tells us the way to go and what we'll find at the end of the road. It is for us to walk in it. Somewhere along the way we may encounter the cross if we don't get distracted by something. The LAW tells us what the cross is for and the LAW begins to teach us how we should walk on the rest of the journey,
as we carry our cross with us. (Luke 14:27) For those who walk in the LAW, the sight of the cross isn't the end of things, but the beginning of a conscious desire to follow Jesus.
Paul wrote chapters 6, 7 & 8 in the book of Romans, but nobody seems to have the intelligence or the intestinal fortitude to read it. These chapters have been described by some as the Grand Canyon of the Bible (to which I would personally add Genesis 3). These chapters discuss in great detail the process of SANCTIFICATION, which some here deny. Apparently these brain dead morons believe they're better at writing scripture than St. Paul.
WHY READ THE THING when all we wish to do is dispute it?
If one doesn't understand scripture then one tends to interpret it.
Including God's Holy LAW, which has NOT been abolished at all. (Matthew 5:17)
that's me, hollering from the choir loft...