Hold Fast # 4
Sin, I need not remind any Bible reader, consists in doing, saying, thinking, or imagining anything that is not in perfect conformity with the mind and law of God. "Sin" as the Scripture says, is "the transgression of the law." (1 John 3:4). The slightest outward or inward departure from absolute mathematical parallelism with God's revealed will and character, constitutes a sin, and at once makes us guilty in God's sight. The Ninth Article of our Church declares that sin is the fault and corruption of the nature of every man that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam; whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusts always contrary to the spirit; and, therefore, in every person born into the world, it deserves God's wrath and damnation.
Sin, in short, is that vast moral disease which affects the whole human race, of every rank and class and name and nation and people and tongue, the plague of rulers and statesmen, the divider of churches, the destroyer of family happiness, the cause of all the miseries in the world.
Now I am obliged to declare my conviction, that the extent and vileness and deceitfulness of sin are a subject which is not sufficiently brought forward in the religious teaching these days. I do not say it is ignored altogether. But I do say that it is not pressed on congregations in its Scriptural proportion. The consequences are very serious.
One result, I am persuaded, is the immense increase of that sensuous, ceremonial, formal kind of Christianity, which has swept over England and America like a flood in the last forty years, and carried away so many before it. I can well believe that there is much that is attractive and satisfying - in this system of religion, to a certain order of minds, so long as the conscience is not fully enlightened. But when that wonderful part of our constitution is really awake and alive, I find it hard to believe that a sensuous, ceremonial Christianity will thoroughly satisfy us. A little child is easily quieted and amused with gaudy toys and dolls and rattles, so long as it is not hungry; but once let it feel the cravings of nature within, and we know that nothing will satisfy it but food. Just so it is with man in the manner of his soul. Music and singing and flowers and banners and processions and beautiful vestments and man-made ceremonies of semi-Romish character, may do well enough for man under certain conditions. But once let him awake and arise from the dead, and he will not rest content with these things. They will seem to him mere solemn triflings - and a waste of time!
Once let him see his sin, and he must see his Saviour, in order to obtain rest for his soul. He feel stricken with a deadly disease; and nothing will satisfy him but the Great Physician. He hungers and thirsts; and he must have nothing less than the bread of life. I may seem bold in what I am about to say - but I fearlessly venture the assertion, that one half of the semi-Romanism of the last forty years would never have existed, if people had been taught more fully and clearly the nature, vileness and sinfulness of sin.
I believe the likeliest way to cure and mend this defective kind of religion is to bring forward more prominently, and expound more frequently, the Ten Commandments as the true test of sin. They really seem to me to have fallen into the rear of late, and, with the exception of the sixth and eighth, to receive less attention than they deserve. Let us try to revive the old teaching in nurseries, in schools, in training colleges, in universities. Let us not forget that "the law is good if a man use it lawfully," and that "by the law is the knowledge of sin." (1 Ti. 1:8; Rom. 3:20, Rom. 7:7). Let us bring it to the front once more, and press it on men's attention. Let us expound and beat out the Ten Commandments, and show the length and breath and depth and height of their requirements. It is the way of our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount. It was the way of great divines like Andrews and Leighton and Hopkins and Patrick, whose works on the Commandments are classics to this day.
We would do well to walk in their steps. We may depend upon it, men will never truly come to Christ, and stay with Christ, and live for Christ - unless they feel their sins, and know their need of a Saviour. Those whom the Holy Spirit draws to Christ are those whom the Spirit has convinced of sin. Without real conviction of sin, men may seem to come to Christ and follow Him for a season - but they will soon fall away and return to the world!
I commend this point to your private consideration. I suspect that the prevailing desire to make things pleasant to hearers, and the fear of giving offence by plain speaking, have much to say to the neglect of the law in this day. But the testimony of the Bible is clear - "By the law is the knowledge of sin." (Romans 3:20, 7:7). The words of Lightfoot are most deeply true, "The consciousness of sin is the true pathway to heaven.
~J. C. Ryle~
(continued with # 5)
A Proliferation of Christian Devotionals and Sermons
Saturday, November 24, 2018
Hold Fast # 3
Hold Fast # 3
How and in what manner this was done, I can no more explain than I can the union of two natures, God and man, in the Person of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. I only know that there is both a Divine and a human element in the Bible, and that, while the men who wrote it were really and truly men, the book that they wrote and handed down to us is really and truly the Word of God. I know the result - but I do not understand the process. The result is, that the Bible is the written Word of God; but I can no more explain the process, than I can explain how the water became wine at Cana, or how five loaves fed five thousand men, or how the Apostle Peter walked on the water, or how a few words from our Lord's lips raised Lazarus from the dead. I do not pretend to explain miracles, and I do not pretend to explain fully the miraculous gift of inspiration.
The position I take up is, that while the Bible writers were not "machines" as some sneeringly say - they only wrote what God taught them to write. The Holy Spirit put into their minds thoughts and ideas, and then guided their pens in writing and expressing them. Even when they made use of old records, chronicles, pedigrees, and lists of names, as they certainly did, they adopted, used, and compiled them under the direction of the Holy Spirit. When you read the Bible, you are not reading the unaided, self-taught composition of erring men like yourselves - but thoughts and words which were given by the eternal God. The men who were employed to write the Scripture "spoke not from themselves". They "spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." (2 Peter 1:21). He who holds a Bible in his hand should remember that he holds not the word of man - but of God. He holds a volume which not only contains - but is God's Word!
In saying all this, I would not be mistaken. I only claim complete inspiration for the original languages in which the books of the Scripture were written. I admit fully that transcribers and translators were not infallible, and that occasional mistakes may have crept into the sacred text, though amazingly few. When, therefore, some critics object to a word or a verse here and there, reason would tell us - that we should bear with them patiently, and agree to differ. Difficulties about the meaning of many places in the Bible, apparent discrepancies, obscure passages, no doubt, there always will be. But the book, as a whole, contains nothing that is not true.
But unhappily the battle of inspiration does not end here. A school of men has risen among us, who boldly deny the inspiration of large portions of the Old Testament. The book of Genesis, for example, is declared by some to possess no Divine authority, and to be only a collection of interesting fictions. I can find no words to express my entire disagreement with such theories. I maintain firmly - that the Old Testament is of equal authority with the New, and that they stand or fall together. You cannot separate them, any more than you can separate the warp and woof in a piece of woven cloth. The writers of the New Testament continually quote the words of the Old Testament, as of equal authority with their own, and never give the slightest hint that these quotations are not to be regarded as the Word of God. The thrice-repeated saying of our Lord, taken from Deuteronomy, "It is written," when tempted by the devil, is deeply significant and instructive. (Matt. 4:5-10).
But this is not the whole of my objection to these modern theories. I contend that attacks on Genesis in particular involve most dangerous consequences. Then tend to dishonor our Lord Jesus Christ and His apostles. That they regard the events and persons mentioned in Genesis as real, historical, and true, and not fictitious - is clear to any honest reader of the New Testament. Now, how can this be explained if Genesis is, as some say, a mere collection of fiction? You cannot explain it except on the supposition that our Lord and His Apostles were ignorant, and did not know as much as modern critics do - or else that they secretly suppressed their knowledge in order to avoid offending their hearers. In short, they were either fallible or fallacious, deceived or deceivers. God forbid that we should adopt either one conclusion or the other! I frankly confess that my whole soul revolts from these modern teachings about Genesis.
When I read that our Lord Jesus Christ is "One with the Father," that "in Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge," that He is "the Light of the world," my mind cannot conceive the possibility of His being ignorant, as latter-day theories about Genesis certainly imply. That blessed Saviour to whom I am taught to commit my soul, in the very week that He died for my redemption, spoke of the Flood and the days of Noah as realities! If He spoke ignorantly, with Calvary in full view, it would shake to the foundation my confidence in His power to save me, and would destroy my peace. I abhor the idea of an ignorant Saviour! From all distrust of any part of the Bible - may you ever be delivered. How any English clergyman can read a lesson from Genesis in church, if he does not believe its inspiration, I cannot understand. And how after this he can gravely ascend the pulpit, select a text from Genesis, preach a sermon on the text, and draw lessons from it, when he does not believe in his heart that the text he has chosen was given by inspiration; this, I say, is one of those things which fill my soul with amazement, and make me tremble for the ark of God.
Well and wisely has this age been called "an age of downgrade theology." The man who only admit a partial inspiration of the Bible, has been justly compared to one with his head in a fog and his feet on a quicksand. From theories like these may you ever be preserved!
3. In the next place, let me charge you to hold fast the old doctrine of the sinfulness of sin, and the corruption of human nature. I can find no words to express my sense of the vastness and importance of this subject. It is my firm conviction that a right knowledge of sin lies at the root of all saving religion. The first thing that God does when He makes a man a new creature in Christ - is to send light into his heart,and show him that he is a guilty sinner. The material creation in Genesis began with "light," and so also does the spiritual creation. I have an equally firm conviction that a low and imperfect view of sin, is the origin of most of the errors, heresies, and false doctrines of the present day. If a man does not realize the extent and dangerous nature of his soul's disease, you cannot wonder if he is content with false or imperfect remedies. I believe that one of the chief wants of the Church in the nineteenth century has been, and is, clearer, fuller teaching about sin.
~J. C. Ryle~
(continued with # 4)
How and in what manner this was done, I can no more explain than I can the union of two natures, God and man, in the Person of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. I only know that there is both a Divine and a human element in the Bible, and that, while the men who wrote it were really and truly men, the book that they wrote and handed down to us is really and truly the Word of God. I know the result - but I do not understand the process. The result is, that the Bible is the written Word of God; but I can no more explain the process, than I can explain how the water became wine at Cana, or how five loaves fed five thousand men, or how the Apostle Peter walked on the water, or how a few words from our Lord's lips raised Lazarus from the dead. I do not pretend to explain miracles, and I do not pretend to explain fully the miraculous gift of inspiration.
The position I take up is, that while the Bible writers were not "machines" as some sneeringly say - they only wrote what God taught them to write. The Holy Spirit put into their minds thoughts and ideas, and then guided their pens in writing and expressing them. Even when they made use of old records, chronicles, pedigrees, and lists of names, as they certainly did, they adopted, used, and compiled them under the direction of the Holy Spirit. When you read the Bible, you are not reading the unaided, self-taught composition of erring men like yourselves - but thoughts and words which were given by the eternal God. The men who were employed to write the Scripture "spoke not from themselves". They "spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." (2 Peter 1:21). He who holds a Bible in his hand should remember that he holds not the word of man - but of God. He holds a volume which not only contains - but is God's Word!
In saying all this, I would not be mistaken. I only claim complete inspiration for the original languages in which the books of the Scripture were written. I admit fully that transcribers and translators were not infallible, and that occasional mistakes may have crept into the sacred text, though amazingly few. When, therefore, some critics object to a word or a verse here and there, reason would tell us - that we should bear with them patiently, and agree to differ. Difficulties about the meaning of many places in the Bible, apparent discrepancies, obscure passages, no doubt, there always will be. But the book, as a whole, contains nothing that is not true.
But unhappily the battle of inspiration does not end here. A school of men has risen among us, who boldly deny the inspiration of large portions of the Old Testament. The book of Genesis, for example, is declared by some to possess no Divine authority, and to be only a collection of interesting fictions. I can find no words to express my entire disagreement with such theories. I maintain firmly - that the Old Testament is of equal authority with the New, and that they stand or fall together. You cannot separate them, any more than you can separate the warp and woof in a piece of woven cloth. The writers of the New Testament continually quote the words of the Old Testament, as of equal authority with their own, and never give the slightest hint that these quotations are not to be regarded as the Word of God. The thrice-repeated saying of our Lord, taken from Deuteronomy, "It is written," when tempted by the devil, is deeply significant and instructive. (Matt. 4:5-10).
But this is not the whole of my objection to these modern theories. I contend that attacks on Genesis in particular involve most dangerous consequences. Then tend to dishonor our Lord Jesus Christ and His apostles. That they regard the events and persons mentioned in Genesis as real, historical, and true, and not fictitious - is clear to any honest reader of the New Testament. Now, how can this be explained if Genesis is, as some say, a mere collection of fiction? You cannot explain it except on the supposition that our Lord and His Apostles were ignorant, and did not know as much as modern critics do - or else that they secretly suppressed their knowledge in order to avoid offending their hearers. In short, they were either fallible or fallacious, deceived or deceivers. God forbid that we should adopt either one conclusion or the other! I frankly confess that my whole soul revolts from these modern teachings about Genesis.
When I read that our Lord Jesus Christ is "One with the Father," that "in Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge," that He is "the Light of the world," my mind cannot conceive the possibility of His being ignorant, as latter-day theories about Genesis certainly imply. That blessed Saviour to whom I am taught to commit my soul, in the very week that He died for my redemption, spoke of the Flood and the days of Noah as realities! If He spoke ignorantly, with Calvary in full view, it would shake to the foundation my confidence in His power to save me, and would destroy my peace. I abhor the idea of an ignorant Saviour! From all distrust of any part of the Bible - may you ever be delivered. How any English clergyman can read a lesson from Genesis in church, if he does not believe its inspiration, I cannot understand. And how after this he can gravely ascend the pulpit, select a text from Genesis, preach a sermon on the text, and draw lessons from it, when he does not believe in his heart that the text he has chosen was given by inspiration; this, I say, is one of those things which fill my soul with amazement, and make me tremble for the ark of God.
Well and wisely has this age been called "an age of downgrade theology." The man who only admit a partial inspiration of the Bible, has been justly compared to one with his head in a fog and his feet on a quicksand. From theories like these may you ever be preserved!
3. In the next place, let me charge you to hold fast the old doctrine of the sinfulness of sin, and the corruption of human nature. I can find no words to express my sense of the vastness and importance of this subject. It is my firm conviction that a right knowledge of sin lies at the root of all saving religion. The first thing that God does when He makes a man a new creature in Christ - is to send light into his heart,and show him that he is a guilty sinner. The material creation in Genesis began with "light," and so also does the spiritual creation. I have an equally firm conviction that a low and imperfect view of sin, is the origin of most of the errors, heresies, and false doctrines of the present day. If a man does not realize the extent and dangerous nature of his soul's disease, you cannot wonder if he is content with false or imperfect remedies. I believe that one of the chief wants of the Church in the nineteenth century has been, and is, clearer, fuller teaching about sin.
~J. C. Ryle~
(continued with # 4)
Saturday, November 17, 2018
Hold Fast # 2
Hold Fast # 2
C. The third fact is the effect which Christianity has produced on the world. If Christianity is a mere invention of man, and not a supernatural, Divine revelation, how is it that it has wrought such a complete alternation in the state of mankind? Any well-read man knows that the moral difference between the condition of the world before Christianity was planted, and since Christianity took root - is the difference between night and day; the difference between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of the devil. At this very moment I defy anyone to look at the map of the world, and compare the countries where men are Christians - with those where men are not Christians, and to deny that these countries are as different as light and darkness, black and white. How can any infidel explain this on his principles? He cannot do it. We only can who believe that Christianity came down from God and is the only Divine religion in the world.
Whenever you are tempted to be alarmed at the progress of infidelity, look at the three facts which I have just mentioned, and cast your fears away! Take up your position boldly behind the ramparts of these three facts, and you may safely defy the utmost efforts of modern skeptics. They may often ask you a hundred questions you cannot answer, and start clever problems about geology, or the origin of man, or the age of the world, which you cannot solve. They may vex and irritate you with wild speculations and theories, of which at the time you cannot prove the fallacy, though you feel it. But be calm and fear not. Remember the three great facts I have named, and boldly challenge them to explain them away. The difficulties of Christianity no doubt are great; but, depend on it, they are nothing compared to the DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY.
3. In the next place, let me charge you to hold fast the authority, supremacy, and Divine inspiration of the whole Bible.
About the authority of that blessed book I need not say much. I am addressing men who have answered the solemn questions of the Ordination Services, and subscribed to the Thirty-nine Articles. By so doing you have declared your belief that the Scriptures are our Church's rule of faith and practice. The clergyman who preaches and teaches anything which flatly contradicts the Bible, appears to me to forget his own pledges, and deals unfairly with the Church of which he is a minister.
About the inspiration of the Bible I feel it necessary to speak more fully. It is,l unhappily, one of the chief subjects of controversy in the present day, and one about which you have a right to know what I think.
The subject of inspiration is always important. It is the very keel and foundation of Christianity. If Christians have no Divine book to turn to as the warrant of their doctrine and practice, they have solid ground for present peace or hope, and no right to claim the attention of mankind. They are building on a quicksand, and their faith is vain. If the Bible is not given by inspiration throughout, and contains defects and errors - it cannot be a safe guide to heaven. We ought to be able to say boldly, "We are what we are, and we do what we do, and teach what we teach - because we have here a book which we believe to be, altogether and entirely, the Word of God."
The subject without doubt is a very difficult one. It cannot be followed up without entering on ground which is dark and mysterious to mortal man. It involves the discussion of things which are miraculous, supernatural, above reason, and cannot be fully explained. But difficulties must not turn us away from any subject in religion. There is not a science in the world about which questions may not be asked which no one can answer. It is poor philosophy to say we will believe nothing - unless we can understand everything! We must not give up the subject of inspiration in despair, because it contains things hard to be understood."
One cause of difficulty lies in the fact that the Church has never defined exactly what inspiration means, and consequently many of the best Christians are not entirely of one mind. I am one of those who believe that the writers of the Bible were supernaturally and divinely enabled by God, as no other men ever have been, for the work which they did, and that, consequently, the book they produced is unlike any other book in existence, and stands entirely alone. Inspiration, in short, is a miracle. We must not confound it with intellectual power, such as great poets and authors possess. To talk to Shakespeare and Milton and Byron being inspired, like Moses and Paul, is to my mind, almost profane!
Nor must we confound it with the gifts and graces bestowed on the early Christians in the primitive Church. All the apostles were enabled to preach and work miracles - but not all were inspired to write. We must rather regard it as a special supernatural gift, bestowed on about thirty people out of mankind, in order to qualify them for the special business of writing the Scriptures; and we must be content to allow that, like everything miraculous, we cannot entirely explain it, though we can believe it. A miracle would not be a miracle - if it could be explained! That miracles are possible, I do not stop to prove here. I never trouble myself on that subject, until those who deny miracles have fairly grappled with the great fact, that Christ rose again from the dead. I firmly believe that miracles are possible, and have been wrought, and among great miracles I place the fact that men were inspired by God to write the Bible. Inspiration, therefore, being a miracle, I frankly allow that there are difficulties about it which at present, I cannot fully solve.
The exact manner, for instance, in which the minds of the inspired writers of Scripture worked when they wrote - I do not pretend to explain. I have no doubt they could not have explained it themselves. I do not admit for a moment that they were mere machines holding pens, and, like type-setters in a printing office, did not understand what they were doing. I abhor the mechanical theory of inspiration. I dislike the idea that men like Moses and Paul were no better than organ pipes, employed by the Holy Spirit, or ignorant secretaries - who wrote by dictation what they did not understand. I admit nothing of the kind. But I do believe that in some marvelous manner the Holy Spirit made use of the reason, the memory, the intellect, the style of thought, and the peculiar mental temperament of each writer of the Scriptures.
~J. C. Ryle~
(continued with # 3)
C. The third fact is the effect which Christianity has produced on the world. If Christianity is a mere invention of man, and not a supernatural, Divine revelation, how is it that it has wrought such a complete alternation in the state of mankind? Any well-read man knows that the moral difference between the condition of the world before Christianity was planted, and since Christianity took root - is the difference between night and day; the difference between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of the devil. At this very moment I defy anyone to look at the map of the world, and compare the countries where men are Christians - with those where men are not Christians, and to deny that these countries are as different as light and darkness, black and white. How can any infidel explain this on his principles? He cannot do it. We only can who believe that Christianity came down from God and is the only Divine religion in the world.
Whenever you are tempted to be alarmed at the progress of infidelity, look at the three facts which I have just mentioned, and cast your fears away! Take up your position boldly behind the ramparts of these three facts, and you may safely defy the utmost efforts of modern skeptics. They may often ask you a hundred questions you cannot answer, and start clever problems about geology, or the origin of man, or the age of the world, which you cannot solve. They may vex and irritate you with wild speculations and theories, of which at the time you cannot prove the fallacy, though you feel it. But be calm and fear not. Remember the three great facts I have named, and boldly challenge them to explain them away. The difficulties of Christianity no doubt are great; but, depend on it, they are nothing compared to the DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY.
3. In the next place, let me charge you to hold fast the authority, supremacy, and Divine inspiration of the whole Bible.
About the authority of that blessed book I need not say much. I am addressing men who have answered the solemn questions of the Ordination Services, and subscribed to the Thirty-nine Articles. By so doing you have declared your belief that the Scriptures are our Church's rule of faith and practice. The clergyman who preaches and teaches anything which flatly contradicts the Bible, appears to me to forget his own pledges, and deals unfairly with the Church of which he is a minister.
About the inspiration of the Bible I feel it necessary to speak more fully. It is,l unhappily, one of the chief subjects of controversy in the present day, and one about which you have a right to know what I think.
The subject of inspiration is always important. It is the very keel and foundation of Christianity. If Christians have no Divine book to turn to as the warrant of their doctrine and practice, they have solid ground for present peace or hope, and no right to claim the attention of mankind. They are building on a quicksand, and their faith is vain. If the Bible is not given by inspiration throughout, and contains defects and errors - it cannot be a safe guide to heaven. We ought to be able to say boldly, "We are what we are, and we do what we do, and teach what we teach - because we have here a book which we believe to be, altogether and entirely, the Word of God."
The subject without doubt is a very difficult one. It cannot be followed up without entering on ground which is dark and mysterious to mortal man. It involves the discussion of things which are miraculous, supernatural, above reason, and cannot be fully explained. But difficulties must not turn us away from any subject in religion. There is not a science in the world about which questions may not be asked which no one can answer. It is poor philosophy to say we will believe nothing - unless we can understand everything! We must not give up the subject of inspiration in despair, because it contains things hard to be understood."
One cause of difficulty lies in the fact that the Church has never defined exactly what inspiration means, and consequently many of the best Christians are not entirely of one mind. I am one of those who believe that the writers of the Bible were supernaturally and divinely enabled by God, as no other men ever have been, for the work which they did, and that, consequently, the book they produced is unlike any other book in existence, and stands entirely alone. Inspiration, in short, is a miracle. We must not confound it with intellectual power, such as great poets and authors possess. To talk to Shakespeare and Milton and Byron being inspired, like Moses and Paul, is to my mind, almost profane!
Nor must we confound it with the gifts and graces bestowed on the early Christians in the primitive Church. All the apostles were enabled to preach and work miracles - but not all were inspired to write. We must rather regard it as a special supernatural gift, bestowed on about thirty people out of mankind, in order to qualify them for the special business of writing the Scriptures; and we must be content to allow that, like everything miraculous, we cannot entirely explain it, though we can believe it. A miracle would not be a miracle - if it could be explained! That miracles are possible, I do not stop to prove here. I never trouble myself on that subject, until those who deny miracles have fairly grappled with the great fact, that Christ rose again from the dead. I firmly believe that miracles are possible, and have been wrought, and among great miracles I place the fact that men were inspired by God to write the Bible. Inspiration, therefore, being a miracle, I frankly allow that there are difficulties about it which at present, I cannot fully solve.
The exact manner, for instance, in which the minds of the inspired writers of Scripture worked when they wrote - I do not pretend to explain. I have no doubt they could not have explained it themselves. I do not admit for a moment that they were mere machines holding pens, and, like type-setters in a printing office, did not understand what they were doing. I abhor the mechanical theory of inspiration. I dislike the idea that men like Moses and Paul were no better than organ pipes, employed by the Holy Spirit, or ignorant secretaries - who wrote by dictation what they did not understand. I admit nothing of the kind. But I do believe that in some marvelous manner the Holy Spirit made use of the reason, the memory, the intellect, the style of thought, and the peculiar mental temperament of each writer of the Scriptures.
~J. C. Ryle~
(continued with # 3)
Hold Fast! # 1
Hold Fast! # 1
"Hold fast for that which is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21).
My trumpet ought to give no uncertain sound. With abounding temporal prosperity, we seem, as a nation, to be sitting on the edge of a volcano, and at any time may be blown to pieces, and become a wreck and a ruin.
Worst of all, the air seems filled with vague agnosticism and unbelief. Faith languishes and dwindles everywhere, and looks ready to die. The immense majority of men, from the highest to the lowest, appear to think that nothing is certain in religion, and that it does not signify much what you believe. Even in our universities, the tendency to multiply the doubtful things of Christianity, and to diminish the essentials, appears to grow and increase every year. All the foundations of faith are out of course.
In times like these, I shall make no apology for charging you to beware of losing, insensibly, your grasp of Christian truth, and holding it with slippery and trembling fingers, I ask you, therefore, to hear me patiently this day, while I try to set before them a list of cardinal points on which I think it of essential importance to "hold fast that which is good." Of course I do not expect you all to agree with some of the things I am going to say. Far from it! I lay no claim to infallibility. But at any rate you will not be left in ignorance of my opinions.
1. First and foremost, let me charge you to hold fast the great principle that Christianity is entirely true, and the only religion which God has revealed to mankind.
In reviews, magazines, newspapers, lectures, essays, novels, and sometimes even in sermons, scores of clever writers are incessantly waging war against the very foundations of Christianity. Reason, science, geology, anthropology, modern discoveries, free thought, are all boldly asserted to be on their side. No educated person, we are constantly told nowadays, can really believe supernatural religion, or the plenary inspiration of the Bible, or the possibility of miracles. Such ancient doctrines as the Trinity, the Divinity of Christ, the Personality of the Holy Spirit, the Atonement, the obligation of the Sabbath, the necessity and efficacy of prayer, the existence of the devil, and the reality of future punishment, are quietly put on the shelf by many professing leaders of modern thought, as useless old almanacs, or contemptuously thrown overboard as lumber! And all this is done so cleverly, and with such an appearance of candor and liberality, and with such compliments to the capacity and nobility of human nature, that multitudes of unstable Christians are carried away as by a flood, and become partially unsettled, if they do not make complete shipwreck of faith.
The existence of this plague of unbelief must not surprise us for a moment. It is only an old enemy in a new dress, an old disease in a new form. Since the day when Adam and Eve fell, the devil has never ceased to tempt men not to believe God, and has said, directly or indirectly, "You shall not die, even if you do not believe." In the latter days especially, we have warrant of Scripture for expecting an abundant crop of unbelief - "When the Son of Man comes, shall He find faith on the earth?" Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse. There shall come in the last days scoffers (Luke 18:8; 2 Tim. 3:13; 2 Peter 3:3). Here in England skepticism is that natural rebound from semi-popery and superstition, which many wise men have long predicted and expected. It is precisely that swing of the pendulum which far-sighted students of human nature looked for, and it has come.
But, as I tell you not to be surprised at the widespread skepticism of the times, so also I must urge you not to be shaken in mind by it, or moved from your steadfastness. There is no real cause for alarm. The ark of God is not in danger, though the oxen seem to shake it. Christianity has survived the attacks of Hume and Hobbs and Tindal; of Collins and Woolston and Bolingbroke and Chubb; of Voltaire and Paine and Holyoake. These men produced no more real effect than idle travelers produce by scratching their names on the great Pyramid of Egypt. Depend on it, Christianity in like manner will survive the attacks of the clever writers of these times. The startling novelty of many modern objections to revelation, no doubt, makes them seem more weighty than they really are. It does not follow, however, that hard knots cannot be untied, because our fingers cannot untie them, or that formidable difficulties cannot be explained, because our eyes cannot see through or explain them. When you cannot answer a skeptic, be content to wait for more light; but never forsake a great principle. In religion, as in many scientific questions, said Faraday, the famous chemist, "the highest wisdom is often a judicious suspension of judgment."
When skeptics and infidels have said all they can, we must not forget that there are three great broad facts which they have never explained away; and I am convinced they never can, and never will. Let me tell you briefly what they are. They are very simple facts, and any plain man can understand them.
A. The first fact is Jesus Christ Himself. If Christianity is a mere invention of man, and the Bible is not from God - how can infidels explain Jesus Christ? His existence in history they cannot deny. How is it that without force or bribery, without arms or money, without flattering man's pride of reason, without granting any indulgence to man's lusts and passions - He has made such an immensely deep mark on the world? Who was He? What was He? Where did He come from? How is it that there has never been one like Him, neither before nor after, since the beginning of time? They cannot explain it. Nothing can explain it but the great foundation-principle of revealed religion, that Jesus Christ is truly God, and that His Gospel is all true.
B. The second fact is the Bible itself. If Christianity is a mere invention of man, and the Bible is of no more authority than any other uninspired volume, how is it that the book is what it is? How is it that a book written by a few Jews in a remote part of the earth, written at distant and various periods without concert or collusion among the writers; written by members of a nation which, compared to Greece and Rome, did nothing for literature - how is it that this book stands entirely alone, and that there is nothing that even approaches it, for high views of God, for true views of man, for solemnity of thought, for grandeur of doctrine, and for purity of morality? What account can the infidel give of this book, so deep, so simple, so wise, so free from defects? He cannot explain its existence and its nature on his principles. We only can do that - who hold that the book is supernatural, and is the book of God!
~J. C. Ryle~
(continued with # 2)
"Hold fast for that which is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21).
My trumpet ought to give no uncertain sound. With abounding temporal prosperity, we seem, as a nation, to be sitting on the edge of a volcano, and at any time may be blown to pieces, and become a wreck and a ruin.
Worst of all, the air seems filled with vague agnosticism and unbelief. Faith languishes and dwindles everywhere, and looks ready to die. The immense majority of men, from the highest to the lowest, appear to think that nothing is certain in religion, and that it does not signify much what you believe. Even in our universities, the tendency to multiply the doubtful things of Christianity, and to diminish the essentials, appears to grow and increase every year. All the foundations of faith are out of course.
In times like these, I shall make no apology for charging you to beware of losing, insensibly, your grasp of Christian truth, and holding it with slippery and trembling fingers, I ask you, therefore, to hear me patiently this day, while I try to set before them a list of cardinal points on which I think it of essential importance to "hold fast that which is good." Of course I do not expect you all to agree with some of the things I am going to say. Far from it! I lay no claim to infallibility. But at any rate you will not be left in ignorance of my opinions.
1. First and foremost, let me charge you to hold fast the great principle that Christianity is entirely true, and the only religion which God has revealed to mankind.
In reviews, magazines, newspapers, lectures, essays, novels, and sometimes even in sermons, scores of clever writers are incessantly waging war against the very foundations of Christianity. Reason, science, geology, anthropology, modern discoveries, free thought, are all boldly asserted to be on their side. No educated person, we are constantly told nowadays, can really believe supernatural religion, or the plenary inspiration of the Bible, or the possibility of miracles. Such ancient doctrines as the Trinity, the Divinity of Christ, the Personality of the Holy Spirit, the Atonement, the obligation of the Sabbath, the necessity and efficacy of prayer, the existence of the devil, and the reality of future punishment, are quietly put on the shelf by many professing leaders of modern thought, as useless old almanacs, or contemptuously thrown overboard as lumber! And all this is done so cleverly, and with such an appearance of candor and liberality, and with such compliments to the capacity and nobility of human nature, that multitudes of unstable Christians are carried away as by a flood, and become partially unsettled, if they do not make complete shipwreck of faith.
The existence of this plague of unbelief must not surprise us for a moment. It is only an old enemy in a new dress, an old disease in a new form. Since the day when Adam and Eve fell, the devil has never ceased to tempt men not to believe God, and has said, directly or indirectly, "You shall not die, even if you do not believe." In the latter days especially, we have warrant of Scripture for expecting an abundant crop of unbelief - "When the Son of Man comes, shall He find faith on the earth?" Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse. There shall come in the last days scoffers (Luke 18:8; 2 Tim. 3:13; 2 Peter 3:3). Here in England skepticism is that natural rebound from semi-popery and superstition, which many wise men have long predicted and expected. It is precisely that swing of the pendulum which far-sighted students of human nature looked for, and it has come.
But, as I tell you not to be surprised at the widespread skepticism of the times, so also I must urge you not to be shaken in mind by it, or moved from your steadfastness. There is no real cause for alarm. The ark of God is not in danger, though the oxen seem to shake it. Christianity has survived the attacks of Hume and Hobbs and Tindal; of Collins and Woolston and Bolingbroke and Chubb; of Voltaire and Paine and Holyoake. These men produced no more real effect than idle travelers produce by scratching their names on the great Pyramid of Egypt. Depend on it, Christianity in like manner will survive the attacks of the clever writers of these times. The startling novelty of many modern objections to revelation, no doubt, makes them seem more weighty than they really are. It does not follow, however, that hard knots cannot be untied, because our fingers cannot untie them, or that formidable difficulties cannot be explained, because our eyes cannot see through or explain them. When you cannot answer a skeptic, be content to wait for more light; but never forsake a great principle. In religion, as in many scientific questions, said Faraday, the famous chemist, "the highest wisdom is often a judicious suspension of judgment."
When skeptics and infidels have said all they can, we must not forget that there are three great broad facts which they have never explained away; and I am convinced they never can, and never will. Let me tell you briefly what they are. They are very simple facts, and any plain man can understand them.
A. The first fact is Jesus Christ Himself. If Christianity is a mere invention of man, and the Bible is not from God - how can infidels explain Jesus Christ? His existence in history they cannot deny. How is it that without force or bribery, without arms or money, without flattering man's pride of reason, without granting any indulgence to man's lusts and passions - He has made such an immensely deep mark on the world? Who was He? What was He? Where did He come from? How is it that there has never been one like Him, neither before nor after, since the beginning of time? They cannot explain it. Nothing can explain it but the great foundation-principle of revealed religion, that Jesus Christ is truly God, and that His Gospel is all true.
B. The second fact is the Bible itself. If Christianity is a mere invention of man, and the Bible is of no more authority than any other uninspired volume, how is it that the book is what it is? How is it that a book written by a few Jews in a remote part of the earth, written at distant and various periods without concert or collusion among the writers; written by members of a nation which, compared to Greece and Rome, did nothing for literature - how is it that this book stands entirely alone, and that there is nothing that even approaches it, for high views of God, for true views of man, for solemnity of thought, for grandeur of doctrine, and for purity of morality? What account can the infidel give of this book, so deep, so simple, so wise, so free from defects? He cannot explain its existence and its nature on his principles. We only can do that - who hold that the book is supernatural, and is the book of God!
~J. C. Ryle~
(continued with # 2)
Sunday, November 11, 2018
There Has Been Too Much Trifling With Jehovah!! (and others)
There Has Been Too Much Trifling With Jehovah! (and others)
"Then I answered and said: Amen, O Lord!" (Jeremiah 11:5).
Perhaps there is a secret contention going on between you and
God. God has spoken to you - but thus far there has not been Jeremiah's response of "Amen, O Lord."
Here you have the one response which a man of God must ever make to the words of God. When God says anything to him, there is nothing left for him but to bow the head and say, "Amen, O Lord - so be it!"
This response is the only one that suits a creature's lip. When God speaks - there is nothing left for man but to hear. When God decrees - there is nothing for man to do but acquiesce. When Jehovah gives a command - what is there left for His creature to do but obey? Any other word than "Amen" springs from rebellion. Any other response to the word of Jehovah, simply tells of a heart that wars with God.
It is not for men to judge God's words, far less to amend them. It it pleases Jehovah to say anything, no matter how stern, how dreadful, or how searching - there is only one position for man: that is to bow his head and say, "Amen, O Lord."
"Oh," says one, in the proud spirit of our times, "you are making a bold bid for your God this morning."
I am. The sovereignty of God needs to be brought to the front. There has been too much trifling with Jehovah! Man needs to have the peacock's feathers plucked out of his cap, and be taught that he is a poor little nothing, and that for God to speak to him at all is infinite condescension, and that for him to say anything else than "Amen" is boundless impudence!
If God condescends to utter a command, am I to go and judge whether the Lord has a right to say it? Shall I take the word of Jehovah my Maker and weigh it in my scales - and bring up His thoughts to the paltry bar of my fallen reason - and enter my protest unless I can see a good reason for God speaking as He does? When God promulgates a decree, He does not send it to man to be revised!
We are living in the days of the deification of humanity. We hear so much about 'the glory of humanity', and 'the triumphs of humanity' - that God has become little better than a very inferior deity who runs after man and tips His cap to him.
This is not the picture which the Bible gives. God's claim is this, "I am the Lord, and you are but the creatures of My hand. The brightest of My angels are but sparks struck off from the anvil of My creative omnipotence. When I speak, let men and angels be silent; or, if they must speak, let them say: Amen, O Lord!" This is the only response that suits a creature's lip.
If you can conceive of a being who is infinitely wise, all-powerful, infinitely righteous, absolutely holy, inflexibly just, and all gathered up into boundless love - that is God.
If such a One speaks - then what is there left for me but to say, "Amen?" I am stark, raving mad, if I dare question the utterance of Infinite Wisdom. I am unutterably vile, if I can dare to criticize the utterance of Absolute Love. Idiocy must have taken hold of my brain and alas! of my heart, if I would amend anything which His infinite holiness has declared. The very nature and character of God declare that the only response for man when God speaks is "Amen, O Lord."
Oh, for that grand attitude of resignation and submission to God, that bows before every word of God - whether it be a silver note of mercy from Heaven, or a thunder-clap of denunciation!
~Archibald Brown~
(The End)
______________________________
He Does As He Pleases!
"For the Lord Almighty has purposed - and who can thwart Him? His hand is stretched out - and who can turn it back?" (Isaiah 14:27).
To say that God is sovereign, is to declare that He is the Almighty, the Possessor of all power in Heaven and earth - so that none can defeat His counsels, thwart His purpose, or resist His will.
Whatever takes place in time - is but the outworking of that which He has decreed in eternity. The sovereignty of the God of Scripture is absolute, irresistible, and infinite!
We insist that God does as He pleases, only as He pleases, always as He pleases!
"The Lord does whatever pleases Him, in the Heavens and on the earth, in the seas and all their depths!" (Psalm 135:6).
"All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. God does as He pleases with the powers of Heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back His hand or say to Him: What have you done?" (Daniel 4:35).
~A. W. Pink~
"Then I answered and said: Amen, O Lord!" (Jeremiah 11:5).
Perhaps there is a secret contention going on between you and
God. God has spoken to you - but thus far there has not been Jeremiah's response of "Amen, O Lord."
Here you have the one response which a man of God must ever make to the words of God. When God says anything to him, there is nothing left for him but to bow the head and say, "Amen, O Lord - so be it!"
This response is the only one that suits a creature's lip. When God speaks - there is nothing left for man but to hear. When God decrees - there is nothing for man to do but acquiesce. When Jehovah gives a command - what is there left for His creature to do but obey? Any other word than "Amen" springs from rebellion. Any other response to the word of Jehovah, simply tells of a heart that wars with God.
It is not for men to judge God's words, far less to amend them. It it pleases Jehovah to say anything, no matter how stern, how dreadful, or how searching - there is only one position for man: that is to bow his head and say, "Amen, O Lord."
"Oh," says one, in the proud spirit of our times, "you are making a bold bid for your God this morning."
I am. The sovereignty of God needs to be brought to the front. There has been too much trifling with Jehovah! Man needs to have the peacock's feathers plucked out of his cap, and be taught that he is a poor little nothing, and that for God to speak to him at all is infinite condescension, and that for him to say anything else than "Amen" is boundless impudence!
If God condescends to utter a command, am I to go and judge whether the Lord has a right to say it? Shall I take the word of Jehovah my Maker and weigh it in my scales - and bring up His thoughts to the paltry bar of my fallen reason - and enter my protest unless I can see a good reason for God speaking as He does? When God promulgates a decree, He does not send it to man to be revised!
We are living in the days of the deification of humanity. We hear so much about 'the glory of humanity', and 'the triumphs of humanity' - that God has become little better than a very inferior deity who runs after man and tips His cap to him.
This is not the picture which the Bible gives. God's claim is this, "I am the Lord, and you are but the creatures of My hand. The brightest of My angels are but sparks struck off from the anvil of My creative omnipotence. When I speak, let men and angels be silent; or, if they must speak, let them say: Amen, O Lord!" This is the only response that suits a creature's lip.
If you can conceive of a being who is infinitely wise, all-powerful, infinitely righteous, absolutely holy, inflexibly just, and all gathered up into boundless love - that is God.
If such a One speaks - then what is there left for me but to say, "Amen?" I am stark, raving mad, if I dare question the utterance of Infinite Wisdom. I am unutterably vile, if I can dare to criticize the utterance of Absolute Love. Idiocy must have taken hold of my brain and alas! of my heart, if I would amend anything which His infinite holiness has declared. The very nature and character of God declare that the only response for man when God speaks is "Amen, O Lord."
Oh, for that grand attitude of resignation and submission to God, that bows before every word of God - whether it be a silver note of mercy from Heaven, or a thunder-clap of denunciation!
~Archibald Brown~
(The End)
______________________________
He Does As He Pleases!
"For the Lord Almighty has purposed - and who can thwart Him? His hand is stretched out - and who can turn it back?" (Isaiah 14:27).
To say that God is sovereign, is to declare that He is the Almighty, the Possessor of all power in Heaven and earth - so that none can defeat His counsels, thwart His purpose, or resist His will.
Whatever takes place in time - is but the outworking of that which He has decreed in eternity. The sovereignty of the God of Scripture is absolute, irresistible, and infinite!
We insist that God does as He pleases, only as He pleases, always as He pleases!
"The Lord does whatever pleases Him, in the Heavens and on the earth, in the seas and all their depths!" (Psalm 135:6).
"All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. God does as He pleases with the powers of Heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back His hand or say to Him: What have you done?" (Daniel 4:35).
~A. W. Pink~
Saturday, November 3, 2018
The Potter
The Potter
The doctrine of God's divine sovereignty is generally offensive to the carnal mind - because it strikes a death-blow at the root of man's pride, and lays the sinner low in the dust before God. Man does not like to be represented as lying absolutely helpless at the foot of divine mercy, entirely at the Lord's disposal. But God must be a sovereign, and if ever we are saved, it must be in the exercise of His sovereignty.
God commands Jeremiah to go down to the potter's house, to be taught a lesson there: "So I went down to the potter's house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. Then the word of the Lord came to me: "O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?" declares the Lord. "Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel." (Jere. 18:1-6).
These words are as applicable to us, as to them. Observe,
Our Position. We are in God's hand! He has full possession of us, and absolute power and authority over us. We cannot fly out of His hand, or escape from under His eye! We are in God's hand - as clay in the hand of the potter. We are powerless in His hand. We are wholly at His disposal - to be molded and changed, as to form, appearance, and value - just as He desires. He does with His creatures, according to His will - both in Heaven,and on earth. His will is our law; His decree is our destiny. This may be seen in nature, in providence, and in grace.
He arranged our birth, our position in society, and our calling by His grace. Whatever He wills - He works. Whatever He has purposed - He brings to pass. The potter does not more really preside over the clay - than the Lord presides over all the affairs of the world.
We are in God's hand,as marred vessels. We have no beauty, no apparent value - unfit for sale, and unfit for use. If we are to be of use, if we are to glorify His great name - we must be re-made. Therefore every Christian is said to be, "his workmanship, created anew in Christ Jesus unto good works," and that according to His foreordination. Whatever we are spiritually - we are by His grace. Notice then,
God's Sovereignty. He is our owner. The potter cannot claim the clay, which he has dug out of his own land - as absolutely as the Lord can claim us! We are His - for He CREATED us. We were not - until He gave us being; we never would have been - had He not willed it.
We are His - for He has PRESERVED us. By the constant exercise of His sustaining energy - we have been kept in existence according to His sovereign will.
As believers, we are His by REDEMPTION. Every legal impediment has been removed out of the way of His claiming us, and justly re-molding us, and raising us to the highest happiness and glory.
We are God's material for making vessels of mercy, which are to adorn His heavenly temple, and show forth His praise. He is our absolute Owner. No one can justly question His right, or interfere with His disposal of us. He may do as He will, with His own. But as infinitely wise, whatever He does will be in accordance with justice - no part of the creation shall sustain any wrong, by anything He sees fit to do. As plenteious in mercy, His mercy will appear in every exercise of His sovereignty. We are His,absolutely His - but in dealing with us, in disposing of us - he will act wisely, justly, and in accordance with His mercy. Hence,
The Inquiry? "Can I not do with you as this potter does - says the Lord." Can I not break up the old marred form, reduce it to a shapeless mass, and re-form you for my own use and glory? Yes, He can - and He does! Therefore we are regenerated, we are renewed in the spirit of our minds, we are begotten again to a lively hope. But God puts the question to us to convince us that we are absolutely at His disposal; to impress us with a sense of our dependence on Him; to instruct and teach us that we are at his sovereign mercy; to silence all the carnal reasonings and objections of the flesh; and to humble our proud hearts!
O what a mercy it is, that the vilest can be changed!! To change the nature and character of the sinner - is God's word alone! We are in one sense, that is in reference to all that is spiritually good - like passive clay in God's hand; He must work in us to will, and to do. He must form us for Himself - if we ever actively show forth His praise.
Our God is our divine potter - and who shall effectually resist the working of His mighty power? Who can justly complain, if all that God does as a Sovereign in our world, is done in the exercise of His mercy, and is for our welfare? Who can find fault without folly - in seeing God, the only wise, the all-comprehending, just, and holy God - taking marred vessels, and making them into vessels of honor - glorifying Himself in doing so!
O my soul, lay low before the Lord, and let his own question deeply impress you, "But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to Him who formed it: Why did you make me like this?"
O Lord, teach and sanctify me by Your Spirit, that I may not only admit the doctrine of your sovereignty; but admire its working, and adore its holiness, justice, and grace!!
~James Smith~
The doctrine of God's divine sovereignty is generally offensive to the carnal mind - because it strikes a death-blow at the root of man's pride, and lays the sinner low in the dust before God. Man does not like to be represented as lying absolutely helpless at the foot of divine mercy, entirely at the Lord's disposal. But God must be a sovereign, and if ever we are saved, it must be in the exercise of His sovereignty.
God commands Jeremiah to go down to the potter's house, to be taught a lesson there: "So I went down to the potter's house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. Then the word of the Lord came to me: "O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?" declares the Lord. "Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel." (Jere. 18:1-6).
These words are as applicable to us, as to them. Observe,
Our Position. We are in God's hand! He has full possession of us, and absolute power and authority over us. We cannot fly out of His hand, or escape from under His eye! We are in God's hand - as clay in the hand of the potter. We are powerless in His hand. We are wholly at His disposal - to be molded and changed, as to form, appearance, and value - just as He desires. He does with His creatures, according to His will - both in Heaven,and on earth. His will is our law; His decree is our destiny. This may be seen in nature, in providence, and in grace.
He arranged our birth, our position in society, and our calling by His grace. Whatever He wills - He works. Whatever He has purposed - He brings to pass. The potter does not more really preside over the clay - than the Lord presides over all the affairs of the world.
We are in God's hand,as marred vessels. We have no beauty, no apparent value - unfit for sale, and unfit for use. If we are to be of use, if we are to glorify His great name - we must be re-made. Therefore every Christian is said to be, "his workmanship, created anew in Christ Jesus unto good works," and that according to His foreordination. Whatever we are spiritually - we are by His grace. Notice then,
God's Sovereignty. He is our owner. The potter cannot claim the clay, which he has dug out of his own land - as absolutely as the Lord can claim us! We are His - for He CREATED us. We were not - until He gave us being; we never would have been - had He not willed it.
We are His - for He has PRESERVED us. By the constant exercise of His sustaining energy - we have been kept in existence according to His sovereign will.
As believers, we are His by REDEMPTION. Every legal impediment has been removed out of the way of His claiming us, and justly re-molding us, and raising us to the highest happiness and glory.
We are God's material for making vessels of mercy, which are to adorn His heavenly temple, and show forth His praise. He is our absolute Owner. No one can justly question His right, or interfere with His disposal of us. He may do as He will, with His own. But as infinitely wise, whatever He does will be in accordance with justice - no part of the creation shall sustain any wrong, by anything He sees fit to do. As plenteious in mercy, His mercy will appear in every exercise of His sovereignty. We are His,absolutely His - but in dealing with us, in disposing of us - he will act wisely, justly, and in accordance with His mercy. Hence,
The Inquiry? "Can I not do with you as this potter does - says the Lord." Can I not break up the old marred form, reduce it to a shapeless mass, and re-form you for my own use and glory? Yes, He can - and He does! Therefore we are regenerated, we are renewed in the spirit of our minds, we are begotten again to a lively hope. But God puts the question to us to convince us that we are absolutely at His disposal; to impress us with a sense of our dependence on Him; to instruct and teach us that we are at his sovereign mercy; to silence all the carnal reasonings and objections of the flesh; and to humble our proud hearts!
O what a mercy it is, that the vilest can be changed!! To change the nature and character of the sinner - is God's word alone! We are in one sense, that is in reference to all that is spiritually good - like passive clay in God's hand; He must work in us to will, and to do. He must form us for Himself - if we ever actively show forth His praise.
Our God is our divine potter - and who shall effectually resist the working of His mighty power? Who can justly complain, if all that God does as a Sovereign in our world, is done in the exercise of His mercy, and is for our welfare? Who can find fault without folly - in seeing God, the only wise, the all-comprehending, just, and holy God - taking marred vessels, and making them into vessels of honor - glorifying Himself in doing so!
O my soul, lay low before the Lord, and let his own question deeply impress you, "But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to Him who formed it: Why did you make me like this?"
O Lord, teach and sanctify me by Your Spirit, that I may not only admit the doctrine of your sovereignty; but admire its working, and adore its holiness, justice, and grace!!
~James Smith~
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