Romans 3:10-18
10 as it is written:
“None is righteous, no, not one;
11 no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.”
13 “Their throat is an open grave;
they use their tongues to deceive.”
“The venom of asps is under their lips.”
14 “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 in their paths are ruin and misery,
17 and the way of peace they have not known.”
18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
The story is as old as man has been on this earth. Man and woman were perfectly created by God. He placed them in the garden of paradise where they had everything they could possibly need and desire. They were continually in God’s presence and they walked together with Him in absolute fellowship with the divine Creator God. God gave Adam one requirement: do not eat the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge that grows in the middle of the garden. For in the day you eat of it, you shall surely die. Very shortly thereafter, the tempter came along and deceived Eve. She ate the forbidden fruit. When she saw how pleasing the fruit was and how it would open her eyes to know everything, both good and evil, she gave the forbidden fruit to her husband. Adam was not deceived by the tempter; nevertheless, with all his mental faculties intact, Adam realized what Eve did, and he cognitively executed his free will to be like Eve in this great transgression. And so Adam rebelled and became an enemy against God. He was our representative as the first man created by God; therefore, Adam passed on to us his act of treason and rebellion, so that we also have now spiritually died, just like God said in the garden. And there is nothing we can do by ourselves, or by our own efforts, to gain any favor with our Creator God in this act of rebellion. Because in our fallen state, we have no inclination to have any relationship or fellowship with Him. We have no desire to worship and honor Him as the divine Creator God intended all men to do. We are in rebellion and our hatred is against the holy, Lord God Almighty. Our only desire is to gratify ourselves; and, if we seem to appear religious in our actions or in our speech, we do this to deceive ourselves and to deceive others, so they may think that we are okay with God and with them.
The Apostle Paul said in Ephesians 2:1-3, “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”
The backdrop of bad news like this, causes the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to shine the brightest. When we stop trying to save ourselves from God’s divine justice, then and only then is God able to save us from ourselves. The bad news is: that we cannot change and save ourselves from our evil, selfish desires. The good news is that God has a plan.