Spurgeons ..cont

Bill, thanks for your encouragement  its always sweet to me when I read someone who is describing the gospel of grace. The verse in Hebrews about chastisement is one of those verses that I read with caution. Because it seems to say that God condones abuse. You look at the warning that Christ gives about forgiveness when He says" if you do not forgive your brother your Father in heaven will not forgive you." It would seem that Christ is saying that forgiveness is earned by forgiving others. But we do not interpret one scripture out of the context of the whole teaching of scripture. We are taught in other parts of scripture that God has forgiven us so that He does not remember our sin. God looks weak when we sin and He overlooks it. In other parts of the scripture it says that God does not count our sins. My point is that when we are saved we enter into a relationship in which Christ purpose is to deliver us from all of our adversities. The basis of our relationship is that we trust in Gods love. He no longer looks on us to judge us. My understanding of Gods love is that He no longer destroys us. The curse has been lifted. Ive meditated upon the Psalms that teach a very specific way that God as Father responds to us as His children. When we are saved we are delivered from the destructive forces of this world. We must understand that destruction is not just something that we see when someone suffers loss. But in the bible destruction is a way of walking. The wicked walk in the way of destruction. The way we walk is really the way we communicate. So I believe we need to be very careful when we describe God as practicing destruction. Or presenting Him as our prosecutor. Its hard for us to change old habits of thought and communication. We speak in general terms about things and people make assumptions that God is adding trouble to their lives because of something they did. But this christian life is one where we believe and speak in a certain way that does not seem logical in the system of justice in this present world. We are compared to the beggar..we do not appear to be successful in this world because we are focused on rewards in the other world and at the same time other men may be rich in this world and on the other side fall into judgement. If we are weak and unassuming ...if we appear to be poor and without help in this world is it because God is chastising us? We need to understand that when the bible talks about us being sojourners in this world that we are caught in a set of circumstances where there are much bigger players involved. The truth is that the chances of christians being successful in this world are very slim just because of the way that God has forbidden us to obtain success. We can no longer uses our own control to get what we want. We can no longer see the success of the world as important as eternal rewards. We can no longer practice destruction or speak in ways that are brash and arrogant. This is why the natural interaction we have as Gods children is that God as Father pities us. He knows that we are weak. This is why when we sin He looks on us as dust. So we have a very distinct way of interacting with our Father. And this is why we are naturally drawn to God because He doesnt treat us as our sins deserve. God has made the way of salvation rigid. He has made it so that we become naturally powerless to act certain ways and at the same time given us new abilities to be spiritually successful. This is why the christian life cannot be described or copied. The mystery is that God acts in pity towards us and we naturally respond in love. The way it is communicated to us is more real than how we appear morally in this world. Because God no longer seeks to destroy us. Because we trust in this relationship that has boundaries that cannot be crossed ... i mean in interacting with God ..not necessarily how we act ...then we get better.

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129	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Sealed	on: September 11, 2014, 08:10:18 PM
The seal which has many facets to it was originally an agreement that gave the king a promise of preservation by God. Basically the king would enquirer of God when to go to war and if the outcome would be successful. This was Gods way of governing world by applying His law through destroying Israels enemies. The seal is not just an agreement but its also the ability to pronounce the word of judgement that is backed up by God. How does a king enjoy his successful rule? He is taught by God through pronouncing. God does not have any equals. In His eternal counsel He has determined to be successful as the governor of the world. How has He ruled? He has written up a document that cannot be overturned. He has made an irrevocable covenant with man. He has spoken His word that cannot return void. God could have reordered the earth, renewed man and ruled without sin in a second. But He gave man authority over the earth to rule it. God gave this promise in the creation covenant. This was like a leader making a pronouncement to his subjects to be successful. But how did God provide man with the ability to be successful? He did it through this seal that He gave to the king. But God also established His throne over the whole earth. In His eternal counsel God determined to create success in the course of history. God displayed His glory by creating and recreating all things. God did this through speaking things into existence and overturning mans designs by His word. From Gods eternal counsel came the perfect order of spoken words. Because God has absolute authority to pronounce blessing and cursing as His creative tool , He has provided us with the His governing authority as we rule the earth. As we pronounce Gods word we experience Gods unity of purpose. We rise up to the weight of Gods pronouncements in blessing and cursing and we experience a God consciousness. We experience mystery. This kind of experience is the same infusion of power that God gave His kings when they enjoyed Gods seal to be successful in war.