Spurgeon on Condemnation

"There is therefore now no condemnation.”
Romans 8:1

Come, my soul, think thou of this. Believing in Jesus, thou art actually and effectually cleared from guilt; thou art led out of thy prison. Thou art no more in fetters as a bond-slave; thou art delivered now from the bondage of the law; thou art freed from sin, and canst walk at large as a freeman, thy Saviour’s blood has procured thy full discharge. 

Thou hast a right now to approach thy Father’s throne. No flames of vengeance are there to scare thee now; no fiery sword; justice cannot smite the innocent. Thy disabilities are taken away: thou wast once unable to see thy Father’s face: thou canst see it now. Thou couldst not speak with him: but now thou hast access with boldness. 

Once there was a fear of hell upon thee; but thou hast no fear of it now, for how can there be punishment for the guiltless? He who believeth is not condemned, and cannot be punished. And more than all, the privileges thou mightst have enjoyed, if thou hadst never sinned, are thine now that thou art justified. All the blessings which thou wouldst have had if thou hadst kept the law, and more, are thine, because Christ has kept it for thee. 

All the love and the acceptance which perfect obedience could have obtained of God, belong to thee, because Christ was perfectly obedient on thy behalf, and hath imputed all his merits to thy account, that thou mightst be exceeding rich through him, who for thy sake became exceeding poor. Oh! how great the debt of love and gratitude thou owest to thy Saviour!

“A debtor to mercy alone,

Of covenant mercy I sing;

Nor fear with thy righteousness on,

My person and offerings to bring:

The terrors of law and of God,

With me can have nothing to do;

My Saviour’s obedience and blood

Hide all my transgressions from view.”

Talk About Resonating in My Wheelhouse

Clay Travis brings the wood regarding the hypocrisy of Nike, and by extension, ESPN.

Wheelhouse Engaged

Spurgeon on Consolation

There is a blessed proportion. The Ruler of Providence bears a pair of scales—in this side he puts his people’s trials, and in that he puts their consolations. When the scale of trial is nearly empty, you will always find the scale of consolation in nearly the same condition; and when the scale of trials is full, you will find the scale of consolation just as heavy.

When the black clouds gather most, the light is the more brightly revealed to us. When the night lowers and the tempest is coming on, the Heavenly Captain is always closest to his crew. It is a blessed thing, that when we are most cast down, then it is that we are most lifted up by the consolations of the Spirit.

One reason is, because trials make more room for consolation. Great hearts can only be made by great troubles. The spade of trouble digs the reservoir of comfort deeper, and makes more room for consolation. God comes into our heart—he finds it full—he begins to break our comforts and to make it empty; then there is more room for grace. The humbler a man lies, the more comfort he will always have, because he will be more fitted to receive it.

Another reason why we are often most happy in our troubles, is this—then we have the closest dealings with God. When the barn is full, man can live without God: when the purse is bursting with gold, we try to do without so much prayer. But once take our gourds away, and we want our God; once cleanse the idols out of the house, then we are compelled to honour Jehovah. “Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord.”

There is no cry so good as that which comes from the bottom of the mountains; no prayer half so hearty as that which comes up from the depths of the soul, through deep trials and afflictions. Hence they bring us to God, and we are happier; for nearness to God is happiness. Come, troubled believer, fret not over your heavy troubles, for they are the heralds of weighty mercies.

What Lies Beneath

A couple of nights ago I woke up with a stream of thoughts running through and around my mind.

They centered around sons and daughters, ours and yours. The main stream of consciousness was the thoughts we have, either voiced or unactualized as we process the "why's" of how our kids go "bad".

There are typically two responses to the why's, from the fan base:

1) They weren't disciplined enough as a kid!
2) They were disciplined too much as a kid!

Interestingly, there seems to be one of those two thoughts from casual observers in regard to this phenomenon.

To the observer, there are two simultaneous thoughts going on: 

I am thankful it's not happening to our kid, with a "you know, if they had just taken that toy away when he was 5, this wouldn't be happening" or "you know, giving them a car at 16 without doing anything spectacular other than chronologically advancing was a big mistake".

The other thought is "My God, I hope and pray my child doesn't do that" and running a close second is "What in the world would we do if that was our child?". Well, that's easy- advanced parenting people would simply purge the behavior with an authoritative declaration "That's not happening in our home" and that would be it. 

We quietly impugn our case studies while hoping we never have to deal with it ourselves. The dormant hope, lurking ever near the surface, is this: I hope my sons never chooses that.

In John 9, this is illustrated, to a varying degree, as the disciples posed a question to Jesus about the man born blind. It was asked of Jesus, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"

Friends of ours lost lost their baby when he was stillborn due to the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. Devastating as it was, all she could think about was God was obviously punishing her for what she had done in the past.

Our first thoughts seem to bounce back and forth on the court of God's divine judgment when adversity manifests. "There must be something that happened to cause this".

Cause and Effect, right?

It is a window into our built in knowledge that points to justice. Albeit, it's a distorted view that was shared by the question posed to Jesus. The Old Testament contains numerous incidents of sin = death. Ground opens up, wars are lost, families destroyed, and crops lost.

Surely it continues?

Back to John 9- Why was the question posed to Jesus about the blind man? Well, they knew OT Scripture, to be sure, and probably were thinking of Exodus 20:5, "You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me.."

Jesus puts that idea to rest. He wanted to make sure people understood it isn't the nature of God to be punitive, rather it is the natural consequence of sin being in the world. In two other passages (Luke 13:2, Luke 13:4) he asks simply, "Do you think they were sinning more than others to experience this bad thing?"In other words, the way in which we are punished or die doesn't reflect the severity of sin. God hasn't decided to punish sin with certain calamities.

"Well, you did this, and as you may or may not know, that means a tower is going to fall on you and your family". In John 9:3, Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him".

The Pharisees, just like us, view the consequences of sinning as retribution from God. Well, we don't really say that; we think it. Then we go about our business hoping our sin doesn't catch up to our kids.

Near the end of this encounter, the Pharisees still can't get over the fact this man was healed and still had no account for why. Clearly, he had sinned or his parents had sinned...where was the justice? Why is this man seeing? We know he is a sinner!

I don't know if my fellow humans fall into that trap, I just know I've wandered there. We are quick to give ourselves a pat on the back when what we see manifest in our kids is "good". Now, there is a certain humility in this- I'm grateful our sons are are the proverbial "right path". They are "good" young men. Whatever we mean to be "good" varies. Do we mean we approve of their conduct? Do we mean we get favorable reviews from others for their conduct?

There was some intention on our part. Good. Most parents have good intentions. Prayer, yes, but there are lots of parents that have prayed and seen the complete opposite. The grace and mercy of God operates outside of time, but manifests for us in this time-space continuum.

It isn't so simple of an equation or where rules of logic apply. Sure, we reap what we sow, but many times we don't get what we deserve. In the end, we certainly will. Whatever the verdict, it'll be precisely due to the justice of the Divine Judge based solely on the Cross.