We are not a civilized nation anymore. You're familiar by now I'm sure with the controversy over the skit by comedienne Kathy Griffin with a mask of Donald Trump used as a prop of a bloody severed head. Christians and churches are literally everywhere but we are more pagan as a nation than we are Christian. There is a reason for this.
I'm looking off in the distance as I type to three medium sized trees. One looks to be a red maple, another possibly an ash tree of some sort and the third....possibly another type of maple. They are very still and then a strong wind passes and mightily moves the branches of first the ash tree...then the red maple...and then the third tree. I can hear the leaves bristle from about fifty yards away. It's beautiful to watch. Then they are still once again.
God's very Word to us says, as Jesus speaks in the Gospel of John...."The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit." The passage of course is where Jesus told Nicodemus that one must be born again. Puritan Matthew Henry described the moving of the Holy Spirit referred to here in..."The wind bloweth where it listeth for us; God directs it. The Spirit sends his influences where, and when, on whom, and in what measure and degree, he pleases. Though the causes are hidden, the effects are plain, when the soul is brought to mourn for sin, and to breathe after Christ."
This Puritan divine continued in his commentary...."....he that believeth in Christ is not condemned. Though he has been a great sinner, yet he is not dealt with according to what his sins deserve. How great is the sin of unbelievers! God sent One to us? How great the misery of unbelievers! They are condemned already....a present condemnation."
I'll use a very odd analogy here. Rush Limbaugh today spent considerable time and effort trying to explain to his listening audience that the United States participation in the Paris Climate Agreement will continue unless...unless...President Trump actively and purposely orders us out. If he simply stands by and does nothing....we remain in. He can criticize it all he wants but unless he actually 'legally extracts us'....we remain in.
I chose this topic, passage and commentary by Mathew Henry to hopefully demonstrate that we....every single solitary one of us....remain in our sin.....unless we have been legally extracted from condemnation. We can say what we want...proclaim what we want...and believe what we want...but unless we have been 'born again'....we remain in condemnation!
This is the 'reason' that I alluded to in the first paragraph of this post. When I started typing the sun was shining and I actually had to move into the shade. Storm clouds have since moved in and I am now under cover as a heavy rain causes those same tree branches to droop as under a strain. Thunder is one continuous crack after another. America was once in the sun where we had time to plant our fields and enjoy the riches of the land....but a storm has violently moved in and it would behoove every one of us to consider not only the state of our nation and its people but our own legal condition.... as we shall stand one day....quite possibly very soon...before our Creator/Judge and our God....and should we have been legally extracted out of condemnation....or born again...our Redeemer!
I'm looking off in the distance as I type to three medium sized trees. One looks to be a red maple, another possibly an ash tree of some sort and the third....possibly another type of maple. They are very still and then a strong wind passes and mightily moves the branches of first the ash tree...then the red maple...and then the third tree. I can hear the leaves bristle from about fifty yards away. It's beautiful to watch. Then they are still once again.
God's very Word to us says, as Jesus speaks in the Gospel of John...."The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit." The passage of course is where Jesus told Nicodemus that one must be born again. Puritan Matthew Henry described the moving of the Holy Spirit referred to here in..."The wind bloweth where it listeth for us; God directs it. The Spirit sends his influences where, and when, on whom, and in what measure and degree, he pleases. Though the causes are hidden, the effects are plain, when the soul is brought to mourn for sin, and to breathe after Christ."
This Puritan divine continued in his commentary...."....he that believeth in Christ is not condemned. Though he has been a great sinner, yet he is not dealt with according to what his sins deserve. How great is the sin of unbelievers! God sent One to us? How great the misery of unbelievers! They are condemned already....a present condemnation."
I'll use a very odd analogy here. Rush Limbaugh today spent considerable time and effort trying to explain to his listening audience that the United States participation in the Paris Climate Agreement will continue unless...unless...President Trump actively and purposely orders us out. If he simply stands by and does nothing....we remain in. He can criticize it all he wants but unless he actually 'legally extracts us'....we remain in.
I chose this topic, passage and commentary by Mathew Henry to hopefully demonstrate that we....every single solitary one of us....remain in our sin.....unless we have been legally extracted from condemnation. We can say what we want...proclaim what we want...and believe what we want...but unless we have been 'born again'....we remain in condemnation!
This is the 'reason' that I alluded to in the first paragraph of this post. When I started typing the sun was shining and I actually had to move into the shade. Storm clouds have since moved in and I am now under cover as a heavy rain causes those same tree branches to droop as under a strain. Thunder is one continuous crack after another. America was once in the sun where we had time to plant our fields and enjoy the riches of the land....but a storm has violently moved in and it would behoove every one of us to consider not only the state of our nation and its people but our own legal condition.... as we shall stand one day....quite possibly very soon...before our Creator/Judge and our God....and should we have been legally extracted out of condemnation....or born again...our Redeemer!
