I was in a very wicked family to-day, where a child had died. I opened my Bible, and explained this verse to them over the coffin of their little one: “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment,” Heb. ix.27. Solemn words! we have only once to die, and the day is fixed.M'Cheyne's phrase is hauntingly true and helpfully simple - "If you die wrong the first time, you cannot come back to die better a second time." One error that cannot be undone is the error of "dying wrong."
If you die wrong the first time, you cannot come back to die better a second time. If you die without Christ, you cannot come back to be converted and die a believer,—you have but once to die. Oh! pray that you may find Christ before death finds you. “After this the judgment.” Not, after this purgatory. No further opportunity to be saved: “after this the judgment.” As death leaves you, so judgment finds you. If you die unsaved, you will be so in the judgment. May I never see you at the left hand! If I do, you will remember how I warned you, and prayed for you, and besought you to come to the Lord Jesus.
Come to Jesus,—He will in nowise cast you out.
- Bonar, Memoir and Remains of the Rev. Robert Murray McCheyne, pp. 277-78.
Read his whole letter.Surely you have lived long enough without Christ. You have despised Jesus long enough. What has the world done for you, that you love it so much? Did the world die for you? Will the world blot out your sins or change your heart? Will the world carry you to heaven? No, no! You may go back to the world if you please, but it can only destroy your poor soul. “She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth.”—1 Tim. v.6. Read these words in your Bible, and mark them; and if you go back, that mark will be a witness against you before the great white throne, when the books are opened.
Have you not lived long enough in pleasure? Come and try the pleasures of Christ,—forgiveness and a new heart. I have not been at a dance or any worldly amusement for many years, and yet I believe I have had more pleasure in a single day than you have had all your life. In what? you will say. In feeling that God loves me,—that Christ has washed me,—and in feeling that I shall be in heaven when the wicked are cast into hell. “A day in thy courts is better than a thousand.”—Ps. lxxxiv.10.
- Andrew Bonar, Memoir and Remains of the Rev. Robert Murray McCheyne (1894), p. 277.
wisdom. And "There's Tough and Then There's Fluff" was no exception.Thinking over this story taught me an important lesson: there are tough guys and there are fluff guys. The fluff guys, rather like eunuchs, are often quite brilliant. They also (like eunuchs) know what should be done, how it should be done and who should be doing it but are sadly not actually capable of doing it themselves. The tough guys may not be perfect and may never achieve all that they hope to achieve. Calvin managed what? Maybe 70% of what he really wanted in Geneva? But they do actually do some reformation, they have the backbone to sit in meetings, say unpopular things to the face of those who oppose them, and take the consequent hits; they take personal risks with their careers for the sake of making a difference; they do not simply talk about reformation from the safe distance provided by the internet. Talk is fun; the internet is a hobby; only action makes a difference.Read Trueman's entire post.
To admit that God says hard things is admirable honesty. But to profess our dislike for what he does or wish that he were a different kind of God who did things in a different way–even if we come around to accept these ways in the end–is not the right kind of humility. It’s one thing to say to unbelievers and skeptics, “I struggled with the same questions you’re asking.” It’s another to throw God under the bus, admitting “I don’t like hell anymore than you do. I’d take it out of the Bible if I could. But it’s in there, so I can’t deny it.”Read DeYoung's entire post here.
God is good and his ways are always right. It is a measure of our maturity that we not only affirm the truth of God’s word but rest in the goodness and rightness of it. Christians should have anguish in heart at the thought of eternal suffering, but we should also see the glory of God in the Bible’s teaching on eternal punishment.
pastoral and theological wisdom. Neither did he disappoint in the recent Q&A with RC Sproul & Ligonier Teaching Fellows. At the end of the session, as they discussed why people resist the doctrine of Scriptural inerrancy, Ferguson made this biblically-informed observation:It's amazing, isn't it, how many people will despise the inerrancy of Scripture who don't actually read the Scripture? And if you challenge them just on that simple point, then what lies behind their resistance to the inerrancy of Scripture is their resistance to the inerrancy of God at the end of the day.That is not only insightful, it is helpful. People (even professing Christians) resist inerrancy because they know exactly what it implies - the clear authority of God over their lives. In other words, when you hold to "errancy," you get what every sinner ultimately desires - vague religious sentiments that allow you to fashion a deity who affirms your own (sinful) desires.
