Hal David and Burt Bacharach composed a song in the late '60s titled, "What the World Needs Now." The famous tag line of the song resonates, "What the world needs now is love, sweet love." While the song discusses our abundance of mountains, oceans, meadows, and cornfields, its time-appropriate and culture-relevant message was that we have too little of love. I think another commodity that we are lacking in our culture today is God's law.
In recent times, the Ten Commandments have become one of the most controversial issues that our country has seen. Should they hang in the courtrooms and the city halls or would these commandment displays be too offensive to someone's definition of separation of church and state? Regardless of where you stand on this issue, the fact remains that God's law serves a vital purpose in us being able to know Him.
Psalm 19:7 declares, "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul," and Galatians 3:24 states, "The law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, that we may be justified by faith."
We might say that the purpose of God's law is to demonstrate our need for His Son, Jesus Christ. The bottom line is that we have all offended at least one and most all of the Ten Commandments. Is there any of us that would say we've never told a lie (white ones do count)? Have you ever stolen anything? We have all broken God's law, and if He judges us based on that standard, we would all be found guilty and sentenced to eternity without Him in Hell.
Being a perfect and just judge, God cannot just overlook our wrongdoings, but He has made a way for us to be released from the spiritual consequences of our sin. In John 14:6, Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me."
How could Jesus make such a claim? In His divine humanity, Jesus never offended God's law. He lived a perfect life, yet suffered, as the Bible says, for the sins of the world. In this sacrificial death, God's wrath is satisfied for our sin, but it is not automatic. Because we have broken God's law, our only hope is to surrender our lives to Him by turning away from self and sin and turning to a Savior, allowing Christ to live in and through us. The world may have needed more love in 1967, but I think the world needs more of God's law in 2007.
-- Pastor Travis Walker of Smith Valley Baptist Church is a member of Carson Valley Ministers' Association.
