Mar 5 - A Joyful Thought

Mar 5

A Joyful Thought

Ro 5:8 …while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Since ancient times, men have been plagued with the idea of earning favor with the gods.  I can only imagine the utter fear and astonishment of ancient people when they saw a meteorite blaze across the sky or suffered the terror of an eclipse of the sun or moon. An eclipse helped Christopher Columbus scare natives when they planned to harm him and his crew. He told them he would make the sun go dark. He knew an eclipse was due that day. When the sun went dark they begged him to restore it. Those natives must have been astonished.

    The Egyptians had their gods. The Greeks and Romans were so anxious to please their multiplied gods they even had an “Unknown God”  in case they had overlooked something. Acts 17:23

But salvation by faith was known from the first. Abraham believed God and it was counted toward him as faith. But the way of faith was rejected by many.

Ro 1:21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

Unfortunately that still continues today. The Christian message has been proclaimed for nearly 2000 years, yet the simplicity of salvation is outside the understanding of many, who choose to be blind.  They still cling to the notions that drove men thousands of years ago to sacrifice people to appease their gods. Man wants to be in control. He wants to earn favor with God. That is why churches today have different answers to the question “When Adam fell, how far did he fall?”

    J D Pentecost asks that question on pg 17 of his book Things which become sound Doctrine.   Liberal churches answer that question by saying Adam fell up. When he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he was made more complete and gained something he did not have before. In that sense they teach he fell upward.  Many churches teach that when Adam fell he grabbed the edge of the cliff by his fingertips. Yes he fell off the cliff but if he works hard enough he can pull himself back up and be saved. One large church teaches that when Adam fell he landed on a cliff, the church.  If he stays on that cliff he will be OK. That church can save him. But the Bible says he fell all the way to his spiritual death.

Eph 2:1 ¶ And you hath he quickened,

who were dead in trespasses and sins;

Men have struggled for centuries to find some way to earn merit with their god. They offer sacrifices, perform rituals, create priests that imagine they can forgive sins, give money, work hard for the church, pray long, deprive themselves and try to make bargains with God. But all to no avail. There is no service but a hypocrite can do it, even to giving of their goods to feed the poor and their body to be burned.

And it has all been for nothing. Man has never created a means by which they can please God. But God has created a most miraculous way.

Our thought for today is a joyous one.

Ro 5:8 But God commendeth his love toward us,

in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

There is simply no way man can do enough good to merit God’s attention. We cannot work our way into heaven. We cannot appease an angry God by being nice or doing good things. A flea cannot save himself from a lions scratching by trying to prepare a large enough meal to satisfy his irritated lion. Multiply that idea several million times and you will start to approach the relationship between the unsaved man and God.

But praise God we do not need to. We can simply accept what God has done for us.  

Let us be mindful of these two things today. First, that we are sinners.  Spiritually as dead as a doornail. Without the “spark of the Devine” as some teach.

Secondly, that in the midst of our sin, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Why would he do that at all, especially for sinners? John 3:16 give us the answer “For God so loved….  What kind of love is that?

The song writer has captured it as well as anyone can. In the third verse of The Love of God we find these words.

“Could we with ink the oceans fill, and were the skies of parchment made,

were every stalk on earth a quill and every man a scribe by trade;

to write the love of God above would drain the oceans dry

Nor could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky."

May you have a blessed day as you meditate on this Joyful Thought. ...while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us!