Monday, July 12, 2010

Hmmm... Good.

"Where is the young man who fears the judgment to come? What is the breath of an enemy of God to the blast of the soul by the breath of the Almighty? If you fear the frowns of a fellow worm, how will you stand in judgment with an angry God?"

The sinner, under the afflictive hand of divine providence, is always made better or worse. If sickness and pain and the death of friends do not wean him from the world and drive him to God, they harden his heart. This is the effect of all the judgments of heaven and of all the calamities and miseries of human life. This is strikingly illustrated in the case of Pharaoh, King of Egypt. "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil" (Ecclesiastes 8:11). Thus despising the riches of divine goodness and forbearance and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads him to repentance, after his hardness and impenitent heart and with a stiff neck, he perseveres in his course of rebellion, treasuring up unto himself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God (Romans 2:4,5)."

--Asahel Nettleton

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