We’ve flowed through the first section of this series, in looking at verses that prophesy Jesus’ coming, His arrival, and His early life.
Starting today, from Day 12-16 we will look at verses that focus on Jesus as The Son.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Further Reading
Ligonier: What does ‘the world’ mean in John 3:16? Understanding how undeserving the world is of God’s love is the key to John 3:16. Only then will we appreciate the unexpected gift that God gives. This point was well made many years ago by the esteemed theologian Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield. In his sermon “God’s Immeasurable Love,” Warfield probes the meaning of the term “world” (Greek kosmos) in John 3:16 in order to plumb the depths of God’s love. What is the meaning of “world” in this passage?
Ligonier: John 3:16 and man’s ability to choose God It is ironic that in the same chapter, indeed in the same context, in which our Lord teaches the utter necessity of rebirth to even see the kingdom, let alone choose it, non-Reformed views find one of their main proof texts to argue that fallen man retains a small island of ability to choose Christ. It is John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” What does this famous verse teach about fallen man’s ability to choose Christ? The answer…
Crosswalk: Why John 3:16 should be more than a slogan For many people John 3:16 reads like a Hallmark card sent from God. In fact, when some Christians speak of the Gospel they use a play on the words of the Hallmark corporate slogan: “God cared enough to send His very best.” But John 3:16 is not a message of sentiment. When God sent His Son into the world, He was not having an emotional response to the tragedy of sin.
Spurgeon: Devotional on John 3:16, His Love, His Gift, His Son This text is a polestar, for it has guided more souls to salvation than any other Scripture. It is among promises what the Great Bear is among constellations. Several words in it shine with peculiar brilliance…
Life has been getting harder lately no? The wider world, it seems to me, is in flames. Ugliness.
But the smaller sphere of my life is beautiful. Here is what happened just yesterday, from start to finish.
I’m one of the people who get to my part of the school building first. I can park in spot #1. I’m friends with someone who is always first in. We often pause to chat. And the chat usually turns to something about Jesus. Praises, exultations, wisdom (from her!). It’s really refreshing.
I went about my day and heard laughter from children (the best sound!) and collegiality among everyone wherever I went. My school is full of kind staff and wonderful children. I even received a compliment from a colleague.
I got ready to go home. Since I’m first in to my section of the school, my car is parked next the passageway between the two buildings. One of the staff came to me and said he noticed my rear tire was extremely low. The school has some basic car helps like jumper cables and tire-pump up thingie (hey, I’m a a girl, I don’t know what it’s called.) He said he’d pump it up for me. I said thanks for noticing. He said “God did.”
When it was pumped I drove the .05 miles to the Tire Place in town and Tire Guy pumped up the remaining tires for $3.
It was macaron day! The local coffee shop receives baked goods from a small-batch bakery and one of their selections is macarons. They don’t last long, they are highly popular. Since they are made with almond flour, I can eat that snack! I ordered a fancy coffee and 3 macarons for a Friday weekend opener treat. Picked those up and headed home.
When I got home my Kroger delivery was waiting for me at the door. She must have just left. The tire pumping delayed me just a few minutes. The order was correct. Bonus!
I opened my computer and there was a Jacquie Lawson e-card from a friend in Texas. Lawson ecards are animated with classical background music. It begins with a blank canvas and it as if we see the artist paint the picture in front of your eyes. The moose walks out from the fotest, the water under its hooves ripples. Leaves fall. At the end, the light turned on in the cabin, revealing a family. The sunset deepens. Like that. The sender’s message appears at the end after the animation completes. Here is a still shot of the finished scene:
Here is what she wrote:
While watching each stroke of the artist’s brush lay down his creation of autumn beauty, my thoughts were, so as our Father God laid the foundations of His creation, each word He spoke were as brush strokes upon His canvas to bring into existence this beautiful earth!
And though in decline, its majestic beauty continues to testify that our God is the I AM WHO I AM, the merciful and gracious Saviour-God who will speak into existence a new earth whose everlasting beauty will reflect the beauty of our thrice Holy God!
Her Godly sentiment refreshed me after a good, but tiring day. How thoughtful! I keep her e-cards and go back to them from time to time. I love them.
After checking my email and viewing the e-card, I went to Facebook and see that the mid-century table I’ve been trying to sell for 3 months on Facebook Marketplace has a buyer, and she is one of the staff at school! She will pay me on Monday! How convenient! I had worried about strangers coming to see the table. I really didn’t want a stranger to come inside my house. I was nervous about how the sale was going to work for me as far as safety and also financially, with all the warnings about Facebook money scams out there.
Every single thing I listed above was a providence of God. The kind staff with whom I work, many of whom know and love Jesus; the providential spotting of the low tire; the close location of the tire place; the inexpensive snack I love popping up just in time for a Friday treat; grocery delivery (something as I age, I am appreciating more and more); the beautiful e-card, the $ale of the table just when I need the money, and it’s a female staff member, so I’m safe when I open the door to a friend not a stranger.
The Lord looked after me on Friday in all those visible ways. He looked after me in all the invisible ways too, ways I don’t even know about. And that was just one day out of 365. His mercies are expansive. His love is boundless. Everything had worked out for me and was a delight to my soul.
And even if the day had gone ‘wrong’ or negative occurrences happened in ways that didn’t delight me, I am reminded that the Lord still providentially takes care of us in every way. He is still good and everything He does is for my good.
But I was grateful that yesterday was a day where He chose to show me His providences in ways that eased my day from start to finish.
Psalm 121, A Song of Ascents.
1I will raise my eyes to the mountains; From where will my help come? 2My help comes from the LORD, Who made heaven and earth. 3He will not allow your foot to slip; He who watches over you will not slumber. 4Behold, He who watches over Israel Will neither slumber nor sleep.
5The LORD is your protector; The LORD is your shade on your right hand. 6The sun will not beat down on you by day, Nor the moon by night. 7The LORD will protect you from all evil; He will keep your soul. 8The LORD will guard your going out and your coming in From this time and forever.
But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. 2For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, slanderers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, 4treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5holding to a form of godliness although they have denied its power; avoid such people as these.
That’s a LOT! In truth, it is getting hard to avoid people such as those. They seem to be growing, those kind of people are everywhere. Love, especially, is dwindling in quantity and in form.
Where is the love?
In 1972 Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack published a song called exactly that, Where is the love? I remember it because it was popular and ended this way-
LOL, you didn’t think that 7-11 songs were invented in the 2000s, did you? Anyway, I am focusing on love in this edition of Prata Potpourri because we all need it.
For many here in the US, Labor day means back to school season. Here in Georgia, we started back in August, but in many other places the first day of school begins after the September holiday. BBC Good Food has some tips on back to school anxiety. Becuase we love our children and want them to be safe and happy:
What is sanctification? It’s growth in holiness. It’s a partnership with the indwelling Holy Spirit, who points us toward Christ and incremental growth in His likeness, but includes our choice to obey and to mortify sin in us as we grow. Why do we obey? Because we love Jesus. Obedience is the evidence of our love of Christ.
The one who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and the one who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will reveal Myself to him. John 14:21
Here is an essay called Sanctification explained simply: “I am convinced that this is the exact opposite of how the Spirit works to sanctify us. Sanctification isn’t a stairway upwards to higher and higher rungs of holiness. No, sanctification is a downward soul work“.
Remember the book about the 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman? It was first published in 1992. That’s over 30 years ago! Time flies. On Google Books, it says 72% liked this book. But enough time has passed since its publication that research has been done on whether we really DO speak in love languages. Notwithstanding people’s personal enjoyment of it, the question is, does the premise hold? Research says…no.
Mt. Zion Church’s ministry Chapel Library has a monthly booklet on a theme, with the old guys’ essays on that theme. This month it’s “The Christian’s Love for Christ”. I highly recommend the booklet, called Free grace Broadcaster. You can read it online, download it to your device, or have it sent free to your Postal mailbox.
In this issue of the FGB, The Christian’s Love for Christ, J. C. Ryle introduces this crucial subject with Christ’s question to Peter: “Lovest Thou Me?” Thomas Vincent explains why true Christians love the unseen Christ. Following that, Jonathan Edwards lists biblical motives to love Christ. Charles Spurgeon declares that love for Christ is the great test for confirming that we are children of God. Ryle, in his second article, identifies the marks of love for our precious Savior. In Spurgeon’s second article, he asserts reasons to love Christ and the consequences of being without love for Him. Edwards follows with a second article that describes God’s dreadful curse on those who do not love Christ. Vincent then helpfully gives an overview of how to examine and prove our love for Jesus. In his third and final article, Ryle asks a heartfelt, probing, and personal question that we must all answer: Do you love Jesus Christ?
Ligonier says the “‘ethical mandate’ is to “The ethical mandate of the Christ-centered life is to love God and to love others with our whole selves.” Good essay. Here’s another quote-
Only the Spirit-changed heart can exercise this Christ-defined love because Christ reconciles us to God and to neighbor and even puts back together the broken pieces of our own selves. The ethical mandate is to put on the agap of Christ because we were loved by Christ all the way to the end.
“God’s grace is older than history, reaching back before the creation of time itself. It is not merely poured out in the moment of salvation; it is evident throughout His eternal plan of redemption.”
Such love!! More at link above
In conclusion, thought love in the world may be waning, if you are in Christ, He loves us to the end. He will never not love us. His love is sure, steady, and eternal. Our love for Him in response should be the same, and for each other. Where is the Love Donny and Roberta asked? It is in Christ, glowing out in glory rays to His beloved, aimed at hearts to change them into hearts of flesh, beating with the grace-filled love He has given us.
For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; (2 Corinthians 5:14).
Powerful. Have you ever thought about that before? That the love of God controls us? Or as KJV says, constraineth us? The word here whether it’s control, constrain, or compel, means in the Greek,
I press together, close, (b) I press on every side, confine, (d) I urge, impel,
Picture our ever growing sanctification as entering the wide end of a funnel, and slowly being drawn down the narrow end, the sides all around being Christ’s love to us which we ever grow in reflecting back.
Or, picture the scene where Balaam’s donkey was on a path so narrow the hedges pressed him in on all sides and the animal could not even turn around.
Some commenters on the subject-
with irresistible power limits us to the one great object to the exclusion of other considerations. The Greek implies to compress forcibly the energies into one channel. Love is jealous of any rival object engrossing the soul. Jamieson, Fausset, & Brown
Love has a constraining virtue to excite ministers and private Christians in their duty. Our love to Christ will have this virtue; and Christ’s love to us, which was manifested in this great instance of his dying for us, will have this effect upon us, if it be duly considered and rightly judged of. Source- Matthew Henry’s commentary on the whole Bible.
The phrase “the love of Christ” means His love for us as seen in His sacrificial death. “We love Him, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). He loved us when we were unlovely; in fact, He loved us when we were ungodly, sinners, and enemies (see Rom. 5:6–10). When He died on the cross, Christ proved His love for the world (John 3:16), the church (Eph. 5:25), and individual sinners (Gal. 2:20). When you consider the reasons why Christ died, you cannot help but love Him. Source, Warren Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). “Be Series.” The Bible exposition commentary.
Yes, we cannot help but love Him! Jesus is the most lovely, wondrous, majestic person in the entire universe! He created all things and upholds all things, yet condescended to incarnate into human flesh, and live among sin, sinners, and this sinful world! He died on the cross shedding His blood for us.
Let the love of Christ control you today. Let the love of Christ constrain you today. Let the love of Christ compel you today.
Yesterday I wrote a post and published a podcast about the things that God hates. It is important to mention these things since they are half of the Gospel.
People rebut. Many people unfortunately don’t believe that the unsaved are due wrath from God, or that God hates anything at all. I repeat what Paul Washer said, ‘OK, well, you’re saved. What did He save you FROM?’
His wrath.
Anyway, I decided to follow up the bad tasting medicine from yesterday with a focus on a tender moment in the Bible. I have been reading commentaries on Habakkuk. I love the Minor Prophets. It is prophet-able to read them. Ha ha see what I did there? Habakkuk’s story is that in three short chapters, he went from doubt and angst, to full and complete trust and joy in God, despite the dire circumstances that Prophet was told to announce. Part of his story is a tender moment in chapter 2:1.
The Prophet had agonized over the sins of the wicked tribes that God was (seemingly) doing nothing about. Habakkuk was indignant. Chapter 1 is his lengthy charge against God. Chapter 2 begins with the Prophet having concluded his complaint to God, and saying he will return to his place at the watchtower, curl up and wait to “see what He will speak to me And how I may respond when I am reproved.” He has spoken out against God and he knew he was in a position to be turned to a cinder.
It’s like he then curled up into a fetal position, all tired out from the constant sight of the wicked prospering, and then protesting to God about it, and collapsing in a heap in the corner of his tower to wait for the lightning bolt.
But God.
But God did not send any lightning. Almost like a parent who bemusedly and compassionately watches their terrible two year old toddler have a tantrum, trying to grapple with emotions that are beyond their ability to control or even understand, when Habakkuk calmed down, the LORD put His arms around the prophet, lifted up his chin and allowed him to gaze upon the LORD of Glory while He explained the future.
Wow.
The LORD did not harshly reprove Habakkuk, instead He gently explained to the perplexed prophet what He was doing in the world and in future history.
There are many such moments in the Old Testament. The Lord tenderly speaking with a heartbroken Hagar (twice)… God sending an angel to be with depressed and broken down Elijah after the 400 Prophets of Baal incident. In that one, Elijah woke up with an angel touching him and offering bread and drink. (1 Kings 19:5-8).
The Lord our God is loving and tender. He loves His own with a heart that’s perfect, a mind that’s holy, with wisdom and compassion. I am grateful to know a God like this.
So many people have followed soft teaching women’s ministries for so long, with their constant focus on “God is love”, combined with an absence of teaching on sin, holiness, and wrath, that now we have slews of women who disbelieve God hates anything.
I had a Twitter interaction with a woman, who began her interaction with me by calling me a liar. I am very sad that civil discourse seems to have gone by the wayside, and people feel so free to resort to name calling to make their point, and worse, at the outset. She was commenting on my tweet thread on things God hates, which was accompanied by the verse from Proverbs 6. Ignoring the verse, she said that God doesn’t hate those He created.
I agree it would seem to be a contradiction, for God to make people and then hate them. But we must remember the beginning. It didn’t start out that way. He created Adam and then Eve. He created them in love, to have fellowship with them and for them to know Him and have fellowship. Then they sinned, bringing upon the world a curse, and upon themselves a sin nature which reverberates down to this generation and every human ever born (except for Jesus). God didn’t start out hating his created beings.
Remember also, He created the angels and He did not hate them either, until ‘Lucifer’ AKA satan the adversary sinned and brought a third of the angels with him in rebellion. Sin entered the world when he enticed Eve and she disobeyed. God hates sin. Always remember that.
And the phrase, “God hates the sin but loves the sinner”? It isn’t biblical. God does not cast only ‘sin’ into the Lake of Fire. He casts sinners into the Lake of Fire.
While I agree it isn’t profitable to focus only on His hate of sin, His wrath, and His punishment, it is also not good to focus only on His love, His care, and His tenderness in saving us. As my pastor says, there are two wings to the airplane. Love-hate, law-gospel, salvation-wrath, sin-repentance and so on. The plane is lopsided with only one wing, and it won’t fly right.
Our believing lives are two sides of one coin. While the redeemed are loved and no wrath is due us (because of our risen Jesus from the cross), even after salvation we should remember the position of the unredeemed. They dwell on an earth that’s cursed and they personally are dangling on an ephemeral spider’s web strand over the Lake of Fire to be dropped into it for all eternity if they fail to respond to the Gospel.
But that is where we are with so many women’s ministries. A decades-long hyper focus on love has given younger women the notion that no matter what, God is love only.
But God … is holy holy holy.
“Can God be good, and not move against wickedness? No. Can God be good and be apathetic towards evil? Absolutely not.” ~Paul Washer
God hates six things, no, seven…Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, And hands that shed innocent blood, A heart that devises wicked thoughts, Feet that hasten to run to evil, A false witness who breathes out lies, And one who spreads strife among brothers. Proverbs 6
And it isn’t even a comprehensive list of what God hates. Do you notice the last one? It isn’t just the sin God hates, but people who sin.
The title of this blog essay is a quote from Paul Washer. Below is an excerpt of a sermon he delivered years ago, called “The Hatred of God”. To paraphrase something he said in the excerpt of this sermon, ‘if you love babies…you must hate abortion. If you love African Americans…you must hate slavery. If you love the Jewish people…you must hate the Holocaust’. What he was describing there is the two sides of the same coin. One cannot have a holy hate unless you have love. You cannot have a Christian love unless you also hate. We MUST hate what God hates. Washer said:
You know that wonderful statement that goes something like this “God loves the sinner and hates the sin.” Just look at this text. [Psalm 5:5]. Is that what it teaches? It’s not what it teaches. I’m sorry, I know it’s a pretty thing to say and it looks good on the back of a contemporary Christian t-shirt, but it’s not what the scriptures teach.
[Ps 5:5] does not say here that God’s hatred is manifested towards the wicked deed. It says God’s hatred is manifested towards the one who commits it. ~Paul Washer
Don’t be fooled by ministries that omit half the Gospel. God does hate. How could He not? He’s perfectly holy. Therefore sin offends Him. Sinners offend Him!
BUT GOD: We are amazed and grateful that even though He is thoroughly offended by sin AND sinners, hates it, He sent Jesus to die for us!
Now- my disclaimer. This is not to say that we go around hating unbelievers who sin. They can’t help it. And, we redeemed are not perfected yet so we falter when we attempt to have a righteous indignation or a holy hate. Our motivations are born out of love for God so we try our best, but our sin nature can still corrupt the end result.
God is love. God does hate. Never forget that He is perfect, so His hate is perfect, always just the right amount and in the right degree and toward the right things. Dear ladies, please try to have a right view of God, a comprehensive view containing all of His attributes. Look at Him as He is revealed, through scripture, not through ourselves and our own notions of what love and hate is.
,Ladies please take a listen to this 19 minute clip. Washer at his best.
I love the ministry of Answers in Genesis. The first book of the Bible is so important to understand and believe literally.
As John MacArthur has said, “If you don’t believe in the literal 6 day creation, when does your belief in what Genesis presents kick in? Chapter 3? Chapter 6? Chapter 11? You see, that is analogous to the issue of creation. You can observe the way things are now but that doesn’t tell you anything about how they became what they are. Creation cannot be understood any other way than by believing the revelation of the creator. And that’s your first test when you open your Bible. I am absolutely astounded at how many people who call themselves Christians, who lead large and effective Christian ministries, don’t have any position on Genesis 1 and 2 except that they find it hard to believe it. And I ask them, “At what chapter do you kick in?” When do we finally get you on board? Is it Genesis 3? Do you buy that? Or maybe 4? What I’m saying is, creation has no connection at all to science, any more than the behavior of Lazarus could in any way reveal how he was raised from the dead. Creation is not a scientific event, cannot be explained scientifically as if natural law played any part. Creation was a massive supernatural miracle…” Source- The Theology of Creation
Here is Answers in Genesis, a ministry I love, with an essay exploring the Effects of the Fall on the Physical Creation: A Biblical Analysis. They look at pre-Fall, the Fall and the Curse, then the effects present day of the former, and last, gloriously, the Restoration!
IDOLS
The Chosen: G3 Ministries discusses the issues with the television series The Chosen, in this fourth episode of Season 3 of the G3 Podcast, Josh Buice, Virgil Walker, and Scott Aniol discuss the television series The Chosen and its connection to Mormonism, the 2nd Commandment, and the way truth is communicated through art and media.
I am fervent that the serious Christian should study eschatology, come to a gracious, settled conclusion of the Last Things, as they are known, and then live with the end in mind. We do not want to be counted as believers who are like the pagans, who mock last things and judgment by saying things like where is the promise of His coming? All things are going on as they have been! Why study eschatology?” (2 Peter 3:4). The different stances generate some heat, I know, but still, last things comprise almost 30% of the entire Bible. Study it!
Here is an article from Ligonier’s TableTalk Magazine about Eschatological Living. It’s a very short article: here is one quote:
Kingdom citizens, therefore, are looking ahead while living in the present. The believer longs for Jesus to usher in the kingdom in its fullness (Rev. 21–22)
Here is a John MacArthur sermon called The Grim Reality of the Last Days. I call my blog The End Time because we are IN the end of days, which are between Jesus 1st and His 2nd coming. Understanding what is ahead for the non-believer hopefully will undergird your evangelism. Remember, none of the people to whom an angel appeared could stand and cowered in fear, and they came in friendliness! Imagine a sinner facing the full glory & wrath of Jesus Himself as the Lion!! No, live in eschatological fervor on behalf of the glory of God and for those who do not know Him.
KOINONIA
The above is a word for one anothering, or commitment to each other in the Gospel, fellowship Gospel style. Alistair Begg has some things to say about how we should love one another in this devotional
If you like the Puritans, John Owen has a fantastic book called Duties of Christian Fellowship: A Manual for Church Members. In a short 96 pages, “In just a few pages “it sets out in very concise terms the responsibilities all Christians have, first, to their pastors, and then second, to one another within the fellowship of the local church”. Unavailable at Reformation Heritage Books and out of stock at Amazon, but can be read online at Monergism or downloaded as a .pdf from the same site 🙂
MUSIC
Here is Hymnology’s Youtube channel of season 4. The hosts explain the origin of a hymn or its meaning, then sing it. Phillip Webb sings and the music is just beautiful. Strongly doctrinal music in church and in life is a must.
We should not listen to music coming from heretical organizations such as Elevation or Bethel. Michelle Lesley comments here, and also explains further “Why Our Church No Longer Plays Bethel or Hillsong Music (or Elevation or Jesus Culture), and Neither Should Yours” here
Be kind to one another, live as if this day could be your last for the Lord (because one day, it will be!), and watch out for what you watch on media 🙂 Thank you for reading! I appreciate you.
I was sitting here this early Saturday morning, thinking of the women who read The End Time Facebook page, my Twitter, the blog, and listen to the podcast. I thought about the comments and encouragements I’ve received lately. I recalled the prayers lifted up for me this week and all the previous weeks. Such kindness.
I thought about how happy it makes me when a sister messages me that they have tried out a book I recommended or a course at ICL or Ligonier, and enjoyed it. THAT is the biggest thrill, when I point sisters to credible ministries and it’s actually pursued. SOOO encouraging.
We really do have a global church, and the sisters who follow, comment, and engage with The End Time are extremely precious to me.
I wanted to let you all know my favorite time of the week, (after church services). I get up early on Saturdays, make coffee, and put on Pandora String Quartets or Mozart channel, softly. I crack my knuckles, hover my hands over the keyboard, take a deep breath, and begin to write. I spend all morning till about noon, writing the blogs for the week. I do them all at once so they are ready to post in the mornings before I go to work.
I truly love this time writing. It’s personally satisfying for me to be able to process my thoughts by scribing them onto paper, or these days, a screen. It’s the way I’d always figured out stuff; think, then write, then think some more.
After salvation, transferring this process to where I strive to understand the Bible more or Jesus more, is deeply fulfilling. And the ministry of doing so for like-minded ladies is personally rewarding.
I really do love your questions, they prompt me to pursue deeper answers. I love the engagement and encouragement, it prompts me to do the same for others. I don’t get tired of it. I think of how Jesus hung on the cross for me, a sinner, and absorbed all God’s wrath to the dregs, for me, it spurs me on to want to be busy for Him, proclaiming His excellencies. When a sister comes to me in life or online and says something that I wrote (thanks to the wisdom of the Spirit) helped them, I just about fall over in gratitude. There is nothing and no one better than Jesus, and learning that other women are growing closer to Him and that I might have been a part is a profoundly gratifying feeling.
I do it because I love Jesus and love you sisters in Jesus.
“When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, and behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him.” (Exodus 34:29-30).
His perfection and holiness puts fear into us. That is because we recognize how depraved and evil we are.
Isaiah saw immediately how depraved he was, when confronted by the holiness of God. “And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” (Isaiah 6:5).
The delusion satan brings is that we are good, we are innocent, we are pure. Or, at least to the slightly more honest among us, we’re not so bad. “We’re not like HIM” our minds cry out when we discover that our neighbor was an embezzler. We use each other as a benchmark of progress in the goodness department, when the true standard is God. Our minds want to shrink from using Him as a benchmark because deep down we know what we are:
“The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Genesis 6:5).
Do you see how complete that statement is, “so great”, “every intention”, “continually”? We are saturated with sin, permeated down to the last molecule. Paul Washer is right when he preaches on the depravity of man, “All men are born evil.”
Paul Washer is right to say that God’s restraining power upon Hitler was restrained from worse. The restrainer is holding back the full potential of sin in the human heart, and so we enjoy His common grace. But once the restrainer is out of the way,
“Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, … The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders…” (2 Thessalonians 2:7b, 8a, 9).
In other words, watch out! ‘Satan with all power’. Everyone on earth except those who believe in Jesus after the rapture will make Hitler look like a choirboy. God’s common grace will have been removed- which will reveal the undeniable fact that everyone is not just a Hitler, but is an antichrist.
Once we understand this, the shock shifts. We are no longer shocked by the Nazi man puttering in his garden, because we see ourselves as having the same potential. The shock is, GOD LOVES US ANYWAY.
We can have a higher and deeper awe and love for Holy God because he loved each and every little Hitler on earth who was to be saved. Our precious Jesus died and shed His blood to save us who would believe!
“but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8).
–particular to each of us –unconditional –sacrificial.
I looked over my notes from a sermon one my elders gave in 2013. He’d preached from the main text of 1 John 3:1 as the overall opening, then made the three points above.
See how great a love the Father has given us, that we would be called children of God; and in fact we are. For this reason the world does not know us: because it did not know Him.
He used the verse as the example of the perfect Father-child relationship. Then he went on to some verses to show He loves each of us particularly for adoption as His children-
may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
He began with an anecdote; which I’ll paraphrase-
‘If my wife and I had the opportunity to go to an orphanage and choose a child to adopt, I think that would be pretty cool. If you’re looking over the kids, you’d have to be honest and say that you’d kind of want a likeable one. I mean, you’d look for one that was kind of nice or kind of cute or sort of smart, in other words, had something going for him.’
‘But if you think of looking at the “orphanage of humanity” in truth we are all oozing with hostility toward our potential Father. We are dirty and unintelligent and mean and hostile. We’d all be the smart alecks, and we’d have nothing going for us. Yet God chose us anyway.’
that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
He said that there are no conditions on Jesus’s love for us. It’s not like if we have a lengthier quiet time, that He loves us more, of if we forgot to pray, He loves us less. It’s about what we believe, not what we do. He simply loves us. He loves us perfectly, too.
Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus, knowing that His hour had come that He would depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.
He reminded us of the foot washing and the humble service Jesus gave to His disciples and the people. Jesus loved His children to the very end- through torture and through death and through the resurrection and will love us to the end of time when time will never end.
I’d posted about fearing God the other day, now today we looked at the love of God. He has many attributes we can ponder. His love for us is permanent to those who confess and believe unto His Son, and it will never end. No matter what is going on in your life, bask in that truth. May it sustain you through good days and hard days.
the-end-time.org 