Tag: God’s promises

It Can’t ALL Go Wrong

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Reading Hollowed Out, by Jeremy Adams, I was getting the very strong impression that everything is going wrong. Everything! But then a strange thing happened to me. I found myself singing the old Car 54 theme song.

There’s a holdup in the Bronx, Brooklyn’s broken out in fights,

There’s a traffic jam in Harlem that’s backed up to Jackson Heights.

There’s a scout troop short a child, Khrushchev’s due at Idlewild–

Car 54, where are you?

And the thought came to me: Everything can’t go wrong. It sure looks like it–but what’s that, that the Bible tells us again and again, about how we should walk by faith and not by sight? I mean, is God still up there on His throne, or not? Do we have His promises, or not? Is Christ risen, and our sins forgiven, or not?

The answer is not “Not.”

I don’t understand the details of what God is doing with this fallen world of ours. Maybe He thought we need a wake-up call. Maybe even a trip to the woodshed. But the end of it all, according to God’s own enscriptured word, is salvation. Regeneration. Christ shall reign forever.

This is what we must believe. God is pleased to let us into His labors with Him, to accept us as His servants: there is no higher calling. So buckle down and work, no matter what we see, no matter what we suffer.

Because He has a new heaven and a new earth waiting for us, and eternal life with which to enjoy it.

‘Embracing the God Who Shakes Our World’

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.    Hebrews 12: 26-27

This essay by Martin Selbrede will do for a sermon.

https://chalcedon.edu/resources/articles/embracing-the-god-who-shakes-our-world

God shakes the earth. We see that as a hardship, a rough ride; but it’s also God’s promise. As for the shaking, “It is how God fulfills His promise to His people that they will inherit the earth while His government increases without end.”

You can read the whole essay for yourselves. I just want to add one more thought to it.

What if God didn’t shake the earth? What if He didn’t remove those things that oppose Christ’s Kingdom?

That should scare you worse than the shaking.

Remember the seed that was sown among thorns.

Magic Moments

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Our day today got off to a bad start with an illness scare, plus an invasion of flies, but by and by it settled down and we didn’t have to rush to the emergency room.

Meanwhile, “Unknowable” sent us this video, which has a very soothing effect. I’m convinced these moments, captured on video, give us a foretaste of what our God has in store for us when He finishes His work of restoring the Creation.

It’s going to be great!

‘As Bright as the Promises of God’

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

See the source image

I seem to be doing an awful lot of Bible stuff today. Well, when’s a bad time for that?

This heartening essay is by Mark Rushdoony for today’s Chalcedon Blog:

https://chalcedon.edu/blog/as-bright-as-the-promises-of-god

We are not just to believe God’s promises, Mark writes, not just to refrain from doubting them, but “to live in terms of their certainty” and “to live and act in faithfulness to the certainty that He will accomplish it.”

That’s what makes them certainty: He, not we, will accomplish it.

But He does like it when we work with Him.

The Lion and the Lamb

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

See the source image

Before I cover any more disgusting and distressing news–if I have to–I’d like to mention something rather more edifying.

The other day, in my car, I passed a house whose owner has put out the most beautiful and spiritually uplifting lawn ornament I’ve ever seen–a lion and a lamb lying down together. It brought to mind a glorious thing.

Our Lord Jesus Christ is both the Lion and the Lamb: the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29); but He is also the Lion of Judah, all-powerful, who has prevailed to open the book and loose the seven seals thereof (Revelation 5:5): King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who was and is and is to come. And He will clean up the mess we’ve made.

And it also reminds us that when God has renewed and regenerated His creation, the lion and the lamb will lie down together in Christ’s Kingdom.

These are promises we have from God Himself, and no power in heaven or earth will prevent Him from doing as He has said.

God’s Promise: ‘Behold the Mountain of the Lord’

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Yes, I know I’ve posted this grand old 18th-century Scottish hymn several times before, and I hope you don’t mind hearing it again. “Behold, the mountain of the Lord in latter days shall rise” has very, very much to do with the fulfillment of God’s promises.

We believe the Father’s promises; He will do as He has said.

Hope: ‘Behold, the Mountain of the Lord’

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

If there’s one thing we need, in this evil age, it’s hope. And how else to ground our hope, but on the promises of God?

Join me in loving this hymn, which is all about God’s promises: Behold, the Mountain of the Lord, sung by Godfrey Birtill. Reach out and embrace those promises.

*Sigh*… ‘Moral Evolution’

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

One of the ill effects of our public education system is that people can’t recognize piffle anymore when they hear it.

Our self-righteous jidrool in the White House visited Hiroshima last week and called upon the whole world to “morally evolve” so that nuclear weapons will never again be used ( http://www.telegram.com/article/20160527/NEWS/160529209 ). He wants “a moral revolution” to match our scientific and technological revolutions.

“Evolve”–what does he mean by that? Does he mean the kind of “evolution” he had, that convinced him that homosexual pseudo-marriage is A-OK, ticketty-boo morally, and the Bible has always been dead wrong about it? Or is it Supreme Court Justice Kennedy’s “evolving standards of decency” that make the indecent decent?

Where does he suppose this “moral evolution” will come from? Islam? Socialism? More money spent on more schools, more colleges, more teacher pensions? Or will it just develop naturally–like from walking fish to dinosaur to monkey to Social Justice Warrior?

God’s word teaches us that man is fallen, cursed. That’s why we needed a Savior. If we could save ourselves, or just “evolve” into morally upright beings, there would have been no need for the Son of God to die on the cross. Jesus Christ is the source of our moral regeneration. Jesus Christ, and Christ alone, is the Person who can make us better. We are all sinners, and we sin all the time: but we are also capable of repentance, and God will not turn away a contrite heart.

God’s word promises us that someday all of Creation will be regenerated, with sin and death banished from it forever. This is accomplished not by us, but by the irresistible grace and power of God.

In the meantime, humanity as a species is the same as in the days of Noah–DNA pretty much guarantees it–and we as individuals just as much in need of salvation–and just as capable of receiving it, in Christ–as ever.

“Evolution” does not enter the picture.

But it sounds so cool when the president says it.