11-17-2015

Good Morning All!!     

     John 10:29; “My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.”

    One of the most famous sermons ever given in American history was given by a man by the name of Jonathan Edwards.  In 1741, during one of the Great Awakening revivals, he gave a sermon entitled “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”  The general theme was that God was as angry at the living wicked as He was at those who were in torment in hell.  At any time God could allow Satan to take anyone who deserved to go to hell and God was holding them in his hands and he is angry.  The unrepentant were on a slippery slope held up only by the arbitrary, sovereign nature of God; they were sinners in the hands of an angry God.

    Yikes!!  The reaction was one of great fear.  Many cried and cried out “what shall I do to avoid eternal damnation?”  Not a lot of hope or comfort there.  This sermon pretty much defines fire and brimstone preaching.  The theory was to scare the worshiper into straightening up.  I don’t know if it worked or not, I would kind of doubt it.

     God’s actions in the Bible do not show an angry God.  God wants all to be saved and cries for the lost.  The fact that God sent his son, his only son to die, all alone, on a cross so that you and I might have eternal life doesn’t look like an angry God.  That looks like a God that really loves you.  This is why John, in his epistles, stresses God’s love.  This is what it means when we say this is how we know God loves us for while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.  This is what pure love looks like.  God didn’t wait for us to show any remorse or any type of reconciliation we were and are incapable of doing this.  We don’t meet God half way.  God comes all the way to where you are and lifts you up, washes you off, feeds you and clothes you and gives you the promise of eternal life.  This is the hope that we have.  We look to and forward to what God is doing.  He is molding us into the disciples that he wants us to be and leading us down the journey that he has laid out for us.  All the while God holds us in his hands.  There are times when we feel like we are in the hands of an angry God but in truth, an angry God would just let us fall, all alone and never give us hope of getting back up.  Yet time after time, we sin and God picks us up and cleans us off and gently takes our hand and leads us on our path.  God holds us in his hands with all the love that we will ever need and guards us with His mercy and grace.  So we are not sinners in the hands of an angry God.  We are sainted sinners held gently yet firmly in the hands of our heavenly Father protected from all the devil will throw at us.  Rest secure in God’s grace.

Eternal and loving God, by your grace we are kept safe.  We pray for all of our brothers and sisters who do not feel the security which you give us.  Wrap them with your Spirit of comfort and peace and give them the true sense of your love for hem in their lives.  All this we ask in Jesus’ precious name, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret