God Has Bound All Men Over to Disobedience

2008-03-08 21:35

God hates the one who does not obey Him, but loves the one who obeys Him. The one who does not obey God is from below, but the one who obeys God is from above. Therefore, it is written, "But he continued, 'You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world." (John 8:23).

There are two kinds of men in the world: the one who does not obey God, and the one who obeys God. The Bible refers to the one who does not obey as the first man, and refers to the one who obeys as the second man. Therefore, the Bible says, "So it is written: 'The first man Adam became a living being'; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven." (1 Corinthians 15:45-47).

Therefore, the natural cannot inherit the kingdom of God, but the spiritual do. The Bible calls it salvation.

The Bible confirms it, "For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous." (Romans 5:19).

All the people who are descendants of the first man Adam under the sun are children of disobedience, and they are by nature children of wrath who fall short of the glory of God. Therefore, the Bible surely says, "In reply Jesus declared, 'I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.'" (John 3:3).

God gave birth to the man of disobedience first, and after that the man of obedience; this was the Providence of God to have mercy on us. "For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all." (Romans 11:32).

Therefore, the Bible says, "For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light." (Ephesians 5:8).

The man of disobedience cannot by nature obey God because he does not have obedience. The first man was by nature born a child of wrath by God. It is written, "All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God." (Ephesians 2:3-8).

Therefore, the Bible says about the man born of the will of the flesh, "I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it." (Romans 7:18-20).

However, the Bible says about the man of obedience, "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit." (Romans 8:1-4).

Therefore, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born again a man of obedience. I hope that many people will be born again a man of obedience and become eternal joy and praise for God in Christ Jesus. Amen. Thank you, Lord.