Proverbs of a 38 yr old man
Spirit of lawlessness. Keep the spirit of lawlessness far from you. You will be accepted if you do what is right. But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. But you must subdue it and be its master. Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. And it starts in the home when children start to disobey their parents. Then in communities as violence causes desperate riots to break out. Soon lawlessness takes over a nation and a country. Where laws are enacted against the very law of God. When there is moral rot within a nation, its government topples easily. But wise and knowledgeable leaders bring stability. A ruler who oppresses the poor is like a driving rain that leaves no crops. To reject the law is to praise the wicked; to obey the law is to fight them. Evil people don’t understand justice, but those who follow the LORD understand completely. Everyone who sins is breaking God’s law, for all sin is contrary to the law of God. We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. For the law was not intended for people who do what is right. It is for people who are lawless and rebellious, who are ungodly and sinful, who consider nothing sacred and defile what is holy, who kill their father or mother or commit other murders. The law is for people who are sexually immoral, or who practice homosexuality, or are slave traders, liars, promise breakers, or who do anything else that contradicts the wholesome teaching that comes from the glorious Good News entrusted to me by our blessed God. Because of the weakness of our human nature, I am using the illustration of slavery to help you understand all this. Previously, you let yourselves be slaves to impurity and lawlessness, which led ever deeper into sin. Now you must give yourselves to be slaves to righteous living so that you will become holy. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. Look how righteousness exalts a nation! Also see how sin condemns any people.
Study 2 Thess. 2:7
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