God cannot be mocked.
He may not be mocked; but he cannot be mocked either.
And when one departs from the straight line of the truth, he must come back to the point of departure or else continue still further away from the truth.
Before Jesus departs from his disciples on the night of his arrest and trial, he assures them of his love. His love for his disciples—and for believers in every age—is as the Father’s love for him: “As my Father hath loved me, so have I loved you” (v. 9). What beautiful words to cheer the troubled souls of the disciples and to comfort our fearful hearts!
Right receiving of the word preached
“These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” Acts 17:11
God is pleased to use the preaching of His Word to work faith (Rom. 10:17).
God is pleased to use weak, sinful men to preach, which calls the hearers to focus on the voice of their Shepherd and not so much on the Shepherd’s instrument, the preacher.
In the article just preceding this one we stated that the seeds of conditional theology were planted into our churches from foreign soil.
That conditional theology was not here even during those days when our leaders used the word “condition” without having fully before their consciousness the implication of that word. Today, however, fully conscious of the use of that word among members of the Liberated Churches of the Netherlands who desire to become members of our congregation while still holding on to their conditional theology, fully conscious of its implications because of thorough and exhaustive discussions on the floor of Synod and Classis, there are those who still want that which manifestly they did not want and did not know only a few years ago.
We are familiar with Christ’s beautiful figure of a vine and its branches in John 15. However, what is less familiar is the idea of “abiding” found in the same chapter. To “abide” is to remain, to stay, or to continue, where the verb “abide” (translated in various ways) occurs eleven times in vv. 1–11. Jesus speaks of different kinds of “abiding.” First, there is Christ’s abiding in us (v. 4–5)—that is fundamental. Second, there is the abiding of Christ’s words in us (v. 7). Third, there is our abiding in Christ (vv. 4–5, 7). Finally, and the subject of this blog post, there is our abiding in Christ’s love.
