I remember something that happened just after I moved to Texas from New Mexico in 1974. I was driving down a street in Alvin and was pulled over by a city policeman. He asked me if I was aware that I was driving over the speed limit in a school zone. Having just moved to Texas, I didn’t know enough about Alvin to know I was anywhere near a school. As it was, the school was about two blocks away and I had not passed by it yet. There had been a school zone sign, but I hadn’t seen it. (New Mexico school zone signs are accompanied by a yellow flashing light and cross hatching paint on the street – Texas just has a white rectangular sign and a car hiding around the corner.)
Anyway, that happened to me twice in the first month of my arrival in the state, which was enough to mess up my driving record and almost made me ineligible to drive the new church van the Arcadia Church bought for my youth ministry. The point is, that I arrived in the state ignorant of some of the laws of the State of Texas, and I paid a penalty for my ignorance of the law.
So try to imagine this: I’m driving carefully, just under the speed limit in a school zone when I see the police car light behind me and I pull over. The policeman gets out and walks up to my window with a big smile on his face and says, “Mr. Skidmore, thank you for driving so carefully at such a safe speed. You are a good man and the state of Texas just wants to show it’s appreciation by giving you this Good Driver certificate.”
How many of you believe that story? It doesn’t happen that way because the LAW only pays attention to us when we’re wrong. In the same way, the Old Testament Law only points out when we fall short.
James 2:10 points out the nature of the law when it says, “Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.”