Life Without Law

Among those things for which we should be most thankful are commandments, standards, discipline and law. Without these there would be little that we could count on. Suppose there were no standards. Suppose that teachers, professors, academic institutions gave us no idea what was required of us to graduate or to qualify to practice a profession. How would we ever know what to begin to do, what to begin to be, or when we had fulfilled the qualification and requirements? Suppose that parents gave us no idea what is expected of us, but simply turned us loose to do anything, to act in any way we want: honest, moral, or otherwise. Suppose that God had given us no knowledge of what is expected of us⎯no purpose, no standards, no requirements, no commandments. What a loose and helpless life it would be not to know. One of the greatest blessings of life is law. Without it ownership of property would not be possible. Safety would not be possible. Civilization would not be possible. Life would scarcely be possible. Poorly as it sometimes is observed, badly as it may sometimes be abused and broken, it is law basically that holds us together, that assures pay for work, title to property, protection of person. Even the lives of the lawless would be intolerable without law. And so before being rebellious or abandoning commandments; before flaunting morals, ridiculing responsible conduct; before disrespecting those who enforce the law; before opposing parents, teachers, those who have concern and interest in us, stop and think what life would be like without law, how little we would have without law, how little incentive there would be to produce or to learn without law. Thank God for knowledge of what is expected of us, for parents who care enough to counsel, to discipline, to persuade; for teachers who care enough to establish and maintain standards; for a God and Father who cared enough to give us purpose, counsel, commandments. Without law, standards, discipline, we would be utterly loose and utterly lost.