Truth for Life - April 8, 2017
April 8
What Are Your Chances?
For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry? - Luke 23:31
Among other interpretations of this suggestive question, the following is full of teaching: "If the innocent substitute for sinners suffers in this way, what will be done when the sinner himself--the dry tree--falls into the hands of an angry God?"
When God saw Jesus in the sinner's place, He did not spare Him; and when He finds the unregenerate without Christ, He will not spare them. O sinner, Jesus was led away by His enemies; and you will be dragged away by fiends to the place appointed for you. Jesus was deserted by God; and if He, who was only imputedly a sinner, was deserted, how much more will you be?
"Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani?" What an awful shriek! But what will be your cry when you shall say, "O God! O God! Why have You forsaken me?" and the answer shall come back, "Because you have ignored all My counsel and would have none of My reproof, I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when terror strikes you."
If God did not spare His own Son, how much less will He spare you! What whips of stinging pain will be yours when your conscience smites you with all its terrors. You rich, you merry, you most self-righteous sinners--who would stand in your place when God says, "Awake, O sword, against the man that rejected Me; smite him, and let him feel the sting forever"?
Jesus was spat upon. Sinner, what shame will be yours! We cannot sum up in one word all the mass of sorrows that met upon the head of Jesus who died for us; therefore it is impossible for us to tell you what streams, what oceans of grief must roll over your spirit if you die as you are now. You may die in this state; you may die now. By the agonies of Christ, by His wounds and by His blood, do not bring upon yourselves the wrath to come! Trust in the Son of God, and you shall never die.
Family Bible reading plan
verse 1 Leviticus 11, 12
verse 2 Psalms 13, 14
Capturing God
A family photograph taken in a familiar and endeared setting often captures the essence of all that a family represents. If we sought to capture a single image of God, what would that image be? What would it look like? Author Rico Tice takes us to the cross of Christ to view the single most insightful image of God. Here we find one extraordinary picture of God: unfathomable love, unconditional forgiveness, and the depth of His longing to save His children. Rico Tice dissects the description given in the Gospel of Luke to carefully examine the astonishing events that unfold at Calvary as God incarnate suffers as a substitute for sinners.
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From Morning & Evening revised and edited by Alistair Begg copyright © 2003. Used by permission of Crossway Books, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187, www.crossway.org.
