A person is driving through beautiful country on a major highway. He reflects on how safe and pleasurable an experience it can be when posted speed laws and other traffic rules and warnings are obeyed. He notes that many other drivers are alert but relaxed, obviously enjoying their travel too.
Then a car hurtles past him at alarming speed, illegally and dangerously darting from one lane to another, weaving between the cars and disappearing in the distance. But a few miles farther he sees that the car has been stopped by the police. The very laws that most of the drivers are obeying with pleasure are protecting them from the carelessness and willfulness of the disobedient.
Traffic laws are not just restrictive; they not only put demands upon drivers but also keep them from danger. Whenever human laws justly and impartially protect as well as prohibit, they are patterned on divine statutes, and their basic motivation is love, the love that Christ Jesus counseled us to show for the supreme Lawgiver and for our fellowmen as well as ourselves.
