We live in a world of uncertainty, especially with this recent pandemic. People are scared about their
health. Businesses are closed up, and life savings depleted because of the stock market. People are unable to
visit their loved ones, and churches have shut their doors. This pandemic is bad news and has sent people into a state of worry. People are wondering how this could ever happen. How could a good God allow such a thing?
Martyn Lloyd Jones states: "The main source of worry is that Christians listen to themselves instead of talking to themselves." We must talk to ourselves and remind ourselves of the Gospel and the doctrines of grace that are found in the Holy Scriptures. Just as there is bad news about this pandemic, there is good news in knowing that this soon will pass. Likewise, the bad news must be preached in order for the good news to be sweet to our souls. The black expanse of the night must cover all, for the rays of the morning sun to break over the horizon. It has been said, “the darker the night, the brighter the light.” Only the Gospel of light can break the chains of worry that our souls are held captive by. All of humanity has experienced the curse of sin, but when trials such as this happen it can be hard to comprehend in our minds why God allows death, suffering, and pain. Although it may be easy to pinpoint that these horrible things happen because of sin in a theological sense, it is hard to experientially understand the sinfulness of sin. Yet in order to taste the sweetness of God’s grace we must first taste the bitterness of sin. Thomas Watson has said, “Until sin be bitter Christ will not be
sweet."
Adam, the first human being that God created with his very own breath, made in the likeness of God, sinned against his Creator. He did so when he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden which God explicitly prohibited. The Baptist Confession of Faith states this about that sin in Chapter 6 pt 2 that; “By this sin our first parents lost their former righteousness, and their happy communion with God was severed. Their sin involved us all, and by it death appertained to all. All men became dead in sin, and totally polluted in all parts and faculties of both soul and body.” In other words, ‘our parents’, Adam and Eve sinned and lost their innocence which they had in the garden. They were spiritually dead, unable to have communion or communicate with God. We inherited that sin nature which they received and also received along with them the penalty of sin which is death. At the moment
of conception we suffer from a state of spiritual death which they passed down unto us. Naturally, all humans are “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph 2:2). This sin nature runs so deep within us that we are
“totally polluted in all parts and faculties of both soul and body." This sin nature affects every part of our being. Every action, thought, and motive is continually evil and anything ‘good’ we do being polluted by sin is wicked at its core. Men love the darkness of sin, and being enslaved to it. They would grope to find
darkness so deep that they would be enveloped by it, comfortable in it, and by their own choosing stay in it, never coming to the light of the Gospel. Before the fall, as Augustine said, "Adam and Eve were 'posse non peccare, posse peccare', which means “able not to sin, able to sin.". However, after the fall, our nature is polluted by sin and we are “posse peccare”; able to sin. Titus 1:15 states: "To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their minds and their consciences are defiled. They profess to know God, but they deny his works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work." So, in summarization, we inheriting Adam’s sin nature are in our
natural state, totally polluted by sin, only able to sin, suffer from spiritual death, and in God’s holy justice fit to drink to the dregs the cup of His holy wrath. We are deserving of Hell.
There is wonderful news though that shines forth, penetrating the darkness of sin. It is the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ! The Second Adam has done all that the First Adam and his offspring, (you and I) could never do. He was able to, in his divinity, being fully God, and fully man, live the perfect sinless life that we could never live. In His humanity, He bears our sin upon the cross and drink the cup of God’s wrath which we so rightly deserve. He shed His blood for His elect and rose again that all whom He has
called out from this world would repent and trust in Him and His death and resurrection and have eternal life. God, instead of punishing us, has shown grace (unmerited favor), by crediting righteousness to the account of those who believe, in order that through this channel of faith which he has given us, we may have eternal life. We have been, "blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.”(Eph 1:3) God’s grace, which overflows with infinite amounts of living water, that douse the fires of hell and from which we freely drink are given to us in His cup. Let this be the unshakeable rock, Christian, on which you stand firm on in times that are so uncertain. Let this Gospel soothe your soul. Let this Gospel spur you unto good works, “which God has prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."(Eph 2:10). May holy aspirations spur you on to the fruit of active service for your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Reach out to those who are suffering, the elderly, widows, and poor who are affected by this and share with them the many temporal blessings God has given us. Galatians states in(5:13-14) : “Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another." The whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” It is
stated in James 1:27: "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world." Love your neighbor and
bring the Gospel of Peace with you and God, in his providence, will work into the hearts of His elect saving faith unto salvation. Furthermore, is the Lord calling you? If so Ephesians 2:8-9 says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. ” I pray that today you may repent and believe upon His name, and that through this, you may have the peace of God that only He can give at a time such as this.
-Guy Cygnor