28 Feb., 2018<\/p>\n
Yes, He was a “country boy,” said Clay Walker.\u00a0 He liked to go “swimmin’ in the river, fishin’ for his dinner” and “livin’ with the sinners like me.”\u00a0 And He “never had a million dollars,”nor “wore a lot of stylish fancy clothes.”\u00a0 Just a good ol’ country boy.\u00a0 Indeed, he \u00a0a nice guy with whom any regular fellow would enjoy hanging around.<\/p>\n
But that is not a good summary characterization of the Lord of glory.\u00a0 Really.\u00a0 He who came down to die for us is He who reigns forever, King of the universe, Lord of the nations. \u00a0\u00a0He will come to judge the world for its wickedness with holy justice.\u00a0\u00a0 And His wrath won’t be pretty for the recipients.<\/p>\n
We are advised to consider not just His role as a kind lamb patter roaming the fields.\u00a0\u00a0 The All powerful Creator, Sustainer, and Judge of the human race will drag up everyone hiding in death, fit them to stand naked before His piercing, all-seeing eyes, and run a video of the deeds of each and every person before his own eyes.\u00a0\u00a0 (Uh, before “her” own eyes, too –\u00a0 for the grammatically confused.)<\/p>\n
So where is the love?<\/p>\n
It is in His very death for His own<\/em> so that His just wrath would miss them<\/em>!\u00a0 But it won’t miss the rest of the world.\u00a0 Nope.\u00a0 He ain’t happy with them.\u00a0\u00a0 He is, as some have said in popular parlance, “downright pissed.” \u00a0And how much easier it is to \u00a0understand His just wrath the more one peers into the darkness of mankind’s rebellious, disgusting behavior!<\/p>\n Oh but He is patient!\u00a0 In the present time in our national mindset when our sensibilities are attuned to any<\/em> injustice regarding race<\/em>, it is good to recall how dull we once were to racial injustice – a slave-holding nation –\u00a0 and then to consider how dull we might be now<\/em> to the overlooked sins of the present<\/em> time.<\/p>\n Reflect upon the dullness of the Christian churches regarding the man-stealing industry.\u00a0 It has been a mere\u00a0 sesquicentennial since its demise.\u00a0\u00a0 And it did not go away easily!\u00a0 It took a war to wear overcome the hard-hearted American who loved his love with all the benefits that the enslavement of others provided.\u00a0\u00a0 All the major denominations approved it (the Quakers were a relatively small band) .\u00a0 The Methodists were the “progressive” Christians.\u00a0 John Wesley penned his Thoughts on Slavery<\/em> in 1774 in which he damned the institution and the Methodists, in the national conference of\u00a0 1780 in Baltimore expressed disapproval of members who held slaves. \u00a0And they required\u00a0 their traveling evangelists to free their slaves.\u00a0 They kept the pressure up at their\u00a0 next national conference of 1784 but lightened up the next year and dropped the rule.<\/p>\n There is that ebbing and flowing, revival and cooling off, even backsliding among God’s people.\u00a0\u00a0 They know what it right, but the doing of it just does not come easily. Sometimes it takes a revival or a judgment or a combination of the two.<\/p>\n In all of this activity, human endeavor and divine influence, we know that He is presiding.\u00a0 We know that He loves what is right and he hates what is evil.\u00a0 Yes, we know that His love triumphs for the sake of \u00a0His own in His sacrificial death for those whom He is redeeming from the death that is due them.<\/p>\n But He “died to make men holy” even as out anthem proclaims.\u00a0 And we are called to proclaim and advance Truth and Justice along with the good news of the Gospel.\u00a0 Even as our “Battle Hymn of the Republic” anthem declares:\u00a0 “As He died to make men holy, let us live to make men free.” \u00a0Indeed, we proclaim the Truth and advance justice.<\/p>\n Justice for the children in the womb is not just lacking! \u00a0It is absent.\u00a0 The innocents are butchered in our land and their murderers are protected by our government.\u00a0\u00a0 Jesus hates this and He hates a nation which continues to tolerate it.\u00a0\u00a0 Believe that.\u00a0 He ain’t happy with the USA.<\/p>\n \u201cOh how I love Your law . . . my meditation,\u201d says the inspired Psalmist.\u00a0 Then he says, \u00a0\u201cI hate every false way\u201d and \u201cI hate those that are double-minded\u201d (Ps. 119: 97-113).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 28 Feb., 2018 Yes, He was a “country boy,” said Clay Walker.\u00a0 He liked to go “swimmin’ in the river, fishin’ for his dinner” and “livin’ with the sinners like me.”\u00a0 And He “never had a million dollars,”nor “wore a lot of stylish fancy clothes.”\u00a0 Just a good ol’ country boy.\u00a0 Indeed, he \u00a0a nice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9,12,21],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2453"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2453"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2454,"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2453\/revisions\/2454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}