Depravity produces in you an odious proclivity such that even though your guilt will swell all the more, you desire iniquity. Your whole being is corrupt through and through. It is not merely that you have done bad things, you are bad. Even now, why are you not swept away in the wrath of the Just One? How much longer will your punishment tarry? Should it not fall upon you like a snare this night? Yet even supposing you might find some means of acceptable sacrifice great enough to expunge these offenses, there remains another problem. Innumerable willed transgressions against your Maker since you left the womb and began to forge your way in the world will soon be due for fierce judgment. Wonder at how sad your condition, how grim your prospects, and how utterly impossible the problem of your sinful estate truly was.įirst, there is the problem of your guilt. Consider just how helpless and hopeless your sorry lot would have been. In other words, dare to ponder what life would have been like before the coming of the Christ our Lord.
Imagine, for a moment, if instead of living in the present hour of history in which we find ourselves, you had been born around 100 B.C. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope.(1 Tim.
