When I have visited prisoners in recent years, I have seldom actually entered the area where the prisoners are kept. Usually, I sit down at a microphone and talk to the prisoner either over video or through a thick, glass window. Once long ago, I visited an acquaintance at the penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas. I was escorted by a guard who led me through two heavy, grated, steel gates. Each time, the gate closed with a solid, metallic clunk. An eerie feeling swept over me as I realized there was no way out without the help of a prison guard. Had I been taken in as a prisoner, the eerie feeling would probably have become despair. The reality would have been that I had no hope of escape.
The Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin….
-- Galatians 3:22 NIV
The whole world is a prisoner of sin because all have sinned, and all who sin are lawbreakers. Lawbreakers belong in prison. There is no reasonable hope of escape from our imprisonment. We cannot change the fact that we are sinners and have broken God's law. Even if we could resist every future temptation to sin, that would not change the fact that we have sinned and are lawbreakers. As lawbreakers, we are prisoners of sin. It is a reality we must accept.
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