We become so accustomed to our sins we sometimes lapse into a state of peaceful coexistence with them, but God never ceases to hate them.

In times of adversity Satan will seek to plant the thought in our minds that God is angry with us and is disciplining us out of wrath. Here is another instance when we need to preach the gospel to ourselves. It is the gospel that will reassure that the penalty for our sins has been paid, that God's justice has been fully satisfied. It is the gospel that supplies a good part of the armor of God with which we are to stand against the accusing attacks of the Devil (see Ephesians 6:13-17).

Sin is a spiritual and moral malignancy. Left unchecked, it can spread throughout our entire inner being and contaminate every area of our lives. Even worse, it often will "metastasize" from us into the lives of other believers around us.

Sin, in the final analysis, is rebellion against the sovereign Creator, Ruler, and Judge of the universe. It resists the rightful prerogative of a sovereign Ruler to command obedience from His subjects. It says to an absolutely holy and righteous God that His moral laws, which are a reflection of His own nature, are not worthy of our wholehearted obedience.

when we think the curse for violating God's Law is too severe, it's because we don't understand God or the nature of sin. God

all sin without distinction — is lawlessness.

Only as we come to grips with the fact that we truly were objects of God's wrath do we begin to appreciate this good news of the gospel.

George Smeaton wrote, "[The apostle Paul] exhibits the two great counterparts of sin and righteousness as equal realities — the one as the world's ruin, the other as its restoration. The one is a completed fact as well as the

views our disobedience.

Furthermore, even a deep, penetrating sense of our sinfulness does not do justice to the reality of our predicament. Our need is not to be measured by our own sense of need, but by what God had to do to meet that need.

Not only has the debt (of our sins) been fully paid, there is no possibility of ever going into debt again.

One of the most damning indictments of mankind is found in Isaiah 53:6: "We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way" (Niv). Going our own way is the very essence, the very core, of sin. Your way may be to give money to charity; another person's way may be to rob a bank. But neither is done with reference to God; both of you have gone your own way.