It’s About Time!
If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you do well; but if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. For He who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. – James 2:8-13.
The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission should be commended! They have discovered an excellent place to find people who are in violation of the public intoxication statute. The Commission has started sending their agents into bars and so far, in 36 bars they have arrested 30 individuals for public intoxication.
The Commission’s spokesperson, Carolyn Beck stated, “Being in a bar does not exempt one from the state laws against public drunkenness.”
Beck also said, “We feel that the only way we’re going to get at the drunk driving problem and the problem of people hurting each other while drunk is by crackdowns like this. There are a lot of dangerous and stupid things people do when they’re intoxicated, other than get behind the wheel of a car. People walk out into traffic and get run over, people jump off of balconies trying to reach a swimming pool and miss.”
I have wondered for years if we are really serious about preventing drunk driving why there wasn’t a roadblock outside of every bar to check the alcohol level of those leaving. If society really wanted to do something about the problem of alcohol related crime and violence, it could be done. Who would have thought that a city would actually ban smoking in every public place but it has happened. Problems created by the abuse of alcohol are at a much more immediate and dangerous threat level than cigarette smoke.
Of course, it could be about time that we address our own problems. It is easy to point our finger and say look at those people and the terrible things they are doing. We might want to remember the old saying about pointing a finger meaning that there are three fingers pointing back to us. As James points out whether it is murder or adultery it is still sin and the whole law has been violated by those sins if you commit one or the other. The same reasoning would lead you to believe that whether you have told a little white lie, had one too many drinks, or you smoked in a public place where it is against the law that you have done the same.
In other words, we have all sinned just as the apostle Paul wrote in Romans 3:23 and we all deserve the spiritual death penalty as he states in Romans 6:23a. But thankfully, there is a “but”.
“For the wages of sin is death, BUT the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
The spiritual fact is that we all need a Savior, we have all sinned, and we will all sin again at some point or another in our lives. Thankfully, we have been provided a Savior, Jesus Christ. At the moment of salvation, we were forgiven for our sins – past, present, and future. He, however, is not only our Savior – He is also our advocate, our intercessor. When we fail, we can go to our Lord and confess, agree with Him about our failures.
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).” It may be about time for us to do that – “confess”.
(It is easy to point a finger at the problems of other people and to ignore our own problems.)