I Fought the Law and the Law Won
Older ones among us will recognize the title of this post. There was a song with this title sung by the Bobby Fuller Four in 1966 and reprised later when Sam sang it on “Cheers”.
The title is universal, because we are all lawbreakers, lawbreakers who have discovered—the law doesn’t break, we do!
The notorious lawbreakers includes Billy the Kid and Jesse James from cowboy days; Al Capone and John Dillinger from the roaring twenties; and from more modern times there’s Ted Kaczynski and Richard Speck. But in biblical terms a lawbreaker doesn’t have to exhibit Godfather cruelty or have Mafia credentials to be labeled this way.
A lawbreaker may never stand before a court judge.
He may never appear before a prison warden.
He may never check in weekly with a parole officer.
His name may never appear in a crime report.
His picture may never be found on a mugshot.
What he did may never be a scandal.
Yet, in the eyes of God, though his sins are secret and private, he is a lawbreaker.
There’s no need for grandmother to gasp and look so surprised! Deeper down, everyone knows they have broken at least one of God’s law, right? And the more honest we are, we know we’ve done that hundreds of times.
Some people feel bad about it. Most people got over that a long time ago.
But no matter how they feel—remorseful or apathetic—apart from salvation, people will stand before the Judge of all the earth to face what they chose to forget.
And on that terrible and frightening day they will then realize that whatever benefit they thought they gained by skirting the law didn’t amount to much. Zero, zilch, nada are on the bottom-line. Then, seeing how foolish they have been, the weeping will begin and the hammer of justice will come down hard!
Yes, the law won!
There is this tendency for some people to chaff against the law, to resent its standing, to revile its standards, to rebel against its purpose. But God’s laws are not capriciously imposed against us to take the fun out of life.
No, every one of those laws are reflection of God’s nature. So to break them is to go against who he is. This is why David said, “against Thee and Thee only have I sinned.”
God’s laws were never meant to ruthlessly rule us, but, quite the opposite, were designed to provide the boundaries which bless. If we’ll just live within those boundaries, our safe, saved, and sacred life will find joys no lawbreaker will ever find. This is really the best way to live!
There is a story that fits in here that I want to share. It’s is story of civilization on the brink of ruin. Desperate to avoid the consequences that comes from flaunting God's law, red eyes stared in motionless shock and beads of sweat populated the faces of those who, in their rebellion, had extended adolescence way too long.
The countdown had begun. Fingers were nervously poised over the very buttons that could unleash a nuclear holocaust upon all the habitable earth.
But then ... just moments before the “awful awful” ... the two sides hesitated. Sobered by a prospect neither side had ever faced before—the end of all life: plant, animal and human—national leaders called for a forty-eight-hour truce.
Recognizing both the shortage of time and the enormity of the problem, they summoned the most brilliant minds available to see if there was some way this impending destruction could be averted.
At the disposal of these sage contemplators of the geopolitical scene—men and women of exceptional genius whose expertise extended to many spheres of knowledge—was a gigantic computer that could be programmed with the most advanced wisdom known to man
Finally, after contemplating the most cutting-edge insights, these intellectual elites completed their computer programming; and, when finished, they submitted the following questions:
How can we save our world?
How can we live in peace?
How can we live with purpose and pleasure and increasing respect?
These were not academic questions, to be sure, but were the questions asked of desperate men.
Slowly, the calculations were made until finally—with television broadcasting this event to the entire world—the following printout was given:
I am the Lord your God.
You shall not make any graven images.
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
Honor your mother and father.
You shall not kill.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not lie.
You shall not covet.
The Ten Commandments!
Think of it: Thirty-five hundred years ago, slaves from Egypt went traipsing off into the desert; and in less than three months they came to possess a document so free of national peculiarities and so articulate of human responsibility it has emerged as the only good sense way for men and nations to live.
Friend, you need not wait until doom descends; wise up now (translation: stop being stupid). If you’ll honor the law, obey the law, and walk in its ways, you will win!
