Bound by Sin

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, Ephesians 2:1 NASB

The effectual work of God upon the soul of a man is a sovereign act of God’s grace.

The scriptures tell us, “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.”

In other words, a person can make every day decisions based upon certain principles of this lifetime, but apart from God’s grace his will is in bondage to sin and given over to corruption.

That is, he has no true desire for spiritual things or to know The Lord Jesus Christ as his personal Savior.

Paul speaking upon this subject in Romans tells us, “There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; There is none who does good, not even one.”

Oh, the wretchedness of sin, it has confined all humanity into a prison cell with no windows or doors and with no escape.

More than this, it has blinded him to the reality of his condition and his need for a Savior.

It is here he will sit glorying in his own shame, given over to his own fleshly indulgences, until he is cast into eternal perdition where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

The miserable estate of man, who can awaken his conscience to the reality of his darkened condition and set him free from this body of death?

Well, the answer is found in Holy Scripture. The Apostle Paul tells us in his first letter to the church of Corinth, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.”

So, God, with great love, “sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem us who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.”

“Jesus Christ, the righteous, is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.”

You see, though man is bound by the chains of sin, lost in eternal darkness helplessly awaiting to bear the wrath of an incensed God, God Himself sent forth His perfect Son into the world to satisfy His just anger against the sins of all humanity.

So now in Christ, the prison cell of death has swung open wide and those who come to Him in repentance and faith can be saved. So “Awake, O sleeper, rise from the dead; reach out and touch Christ’s nail pierced hands; humble yourself without any selfish thoughts, come and bow at the foot of the cross.”

May God the Father, through the work of the Holy Spirit, grant to you the grace to come to Him today.