Posted by
ValiantForTruth on Friday, July 16, 2010 6:40:37 PM
In Romans 1 Paul gives a list of the foul and ugly sins of which men and women were guilty and in which they gloated. Along with the sexual perversions are included these: “fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful.”
The ugliness and the foulness of this horrible list is seen just as much in covetousness, maliciousness, envy, deceit, malignity, whispering, backbiting and pride as it is in the grosser forms of sexual licence and perversion.
How futile and ridiculous it is to try to make light of sin when we think of the passion and the lust which are displayed in temper and malice, in jealousy and envy, and the way in which men and women plot and scheme to destroy each other.
This list is as accurate a description of life today as it was when written. What more perfect account is possible of our sex-ridden mentality, leading as it has done to promiscuity, infidelity, divorce and the moral muddle of present-day society?
Life has become loud and ugly; decency and chastity are regarded as signs of weakness and incomplete development. Everything is justified in terms of self-expression. The moral sense itself is atrophied. What Jeremiah said of his generation can be said of ours…
“Were they ashamed when they had committed abominations? Nay they were not at all ashamed neither could they blush.”
What an indictment! Beyond blushing, sunk and wallowing in the mire!
Such is the problem with which we are confronted. There is in man this terrible, mighty power called “sin” which alienates us from God and leads us to hate Him, and at the same time debases us and leads us to thinking and acting in ways which can only be described as disgusting. How idle it is to think of these matters and to discuss them theoretically. It is only as we face the facts, and realise the true nature of the problem, that we shall come to see that one power alone is sufficient and adequate to deal with it--the power of God displayed in the Gospel. [Martyn Lloyd-Jones – The Plight of Man and the Power of God]