But I am encouraged after reading a typically rousing article (transcribed from a sermon) by the great Welsh preacher Geoff Thomas. The link to the article is here. I'll include a small section below to whet y'all's appetite.
Rest well and may our good Father bless you all the day tomorrow.
[Excerpt from Geoff Thomas' article]
I was reading this week from a book which I enjoy very much. It was written by a Dutchman, J. Fraanje in a place called Barneveld in 1936 but it was translated about thirty years ago. He was writing about his pastoral visits and he said,
I was visiting a man on his death bed. He was 75 years old. It was very evident that death was approaching and he realized it too. In his fading voice he said to the family gathered around his bed, 'Don’t wait until you become old. O, don’t delay because it will fare poorly with you. When I was a boy nearly twenty years old my soul was exercised in heavy convictions of guilt. I remember the places in church very well where I silently wept about my lost condition. I often sought out solitary places to pray. But I overruled my conscience and wouldn’t listen to its warnings. Now I lay here, an old man, without hope for eternity and I know where I shall go. O, people, don’t trample over the warnings of your conscience.' That is the admonition this old man gave in broken and hesitant speech with long intervals between words just before he passed away.Do you understand? If God is giving you a yearning, a desire to trust in Christ, then do not be casual about it! Do not harden your heart. Such a desire for God is not something that naturally waxes and wanes. It is a supernatural mark of God’s favour to you. It is the prompting of the Holy Ghost. You cannot guarantee it will come again or last for ever. Today, when you hear his voice, do not harden your heart!
(J. Fraanje, Striving Together in the Divine Truths of Scripture, USA, 1979, pp.206-7.)
Where then are these 'bombs' I’ve spoken about, these ten 'cannots'? May they come to my assistance now! First our text:
- Luke 6:43-45 'No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognised by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thorn-bushes, or grapes from briers. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.' When Matthew records these words he phrases it like this: 'A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit' (Matt. 7:18). What have you produced all your life? What’s come out of your lips? Doubts . . . questions . . . unbelief . . .procrastination. Bad fruit. What reason do we have for believing that it will be any different in fifty years’ time when you’re lying on your death bed . . . or that may be in fifty days?
- John 3:3,5: 'Unless a man is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God . . . unless a man is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.' You are utterly incapable of seeing the kingdom of God without the new birth.
- John 6:44, 65: 'No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him . . . no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him.' You cannot even take the first step towards Christ without God drawing you.
- John 14:17: 'The world cannot accept [the Spirit of truth], because it neither sees him nor knows him.' You talk of receiving the life-giving Spirit into your life one day, but you cannot do that because you do not see him or know him.
- John 15:4-5: 'No [branch] can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine . . . apart from me you can do nothing.'” Nothing means nothing and you have nothing to offer to God because you have been out of the vine and without Christ all your life.
- Romans 8:7-8: 'The sinful mind . . . does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.”
- 1 Corinthians 2:14: 'The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.' So there are two devastating words from Christ’s apostle, that you cannot please God and you cannot understand his gospel. You are totally lacking in ability to do this
- 1 Corinthians 12:3: 'No one can say, "Jesus is Lord" except by the Holy Spirit.' You can mouth those words, like you sing the great hymns of ardour and love for the Lord, but to say them from your heart and to God’s glory you need the Spirit.
- James 3:8: 'No man can tame the tongue.' It is making excuses for unbelief now and will go on making excuses and you cannot tame it. What a plight to be in!
- Revelation 14:3: 'No one could learn the song except [those] who had been redeemed from the earth.' Grace must teach you to sing the song of the redeemed before you reach heaven.
We are so set against God that when the offer of the gospel is presented to us we don’t receive it, not because in a natural sense we cannot receive it but because the motives that operate in us are hostile to God. When Jesus says, 'Come unto me,' we remain rooted to our sin. Why is that? Is there a better god than Jesus? Are we better than him?
As we judge the matter, coming to a God like the one presented in the Bible is the very thing natural unconverted men don’t want to do. That God is a sovereign God; if we come to him, we must acknowledge his sovereignty over our lives. We don’t want to do that. Coming to a God like the one presented in the Bible means coming to one who is holy; if we come to a holy God, we must acknowledge his holiness and confess our sin. We don’t want to do that either. Again, if we come to God, we must admit his omniscience – that he knows every single thing about us, and we don’t want to do that. If we would come to God, we must acknowledge his immutability, because any God worthy of the name doesn’t change in any of his attributes. God is sovereign, and he will always be sovereign. God is holy, and he will always be holy. God is omniscient, and he will always be omniscient. That is the very God the natural man doesn’t want. So we won’t come. Indeed, we can’t come until God by grace does what can only properly be described as a miracle in our sinful lives.
Someone who does not hold to this teaching might protest, 'But surely the Bible teaches that anyone who will come to Christ may come to him? Jesus himself said that if we come he will not cast us out' The answer is that that, of course, is true. But that is not the point. Certainly, anyone who wills may come and it is that that makes our refusal to come so unreasonable and increases our guilt. Who wills to come? The answer is no one, except those in whom the Holy Spirit has already performed the entirely irresistible work of the new birth so that, as the result of this miracle, the spiritually blind eyes of the natural man are opened to see God's truth and the totally depraved mind of the sinner is renewed to embrace Jesus Christ as Saviour
(James Montgomery Boice, Foundations of the Christian Faith, IVP, 1986, pp. 214-5).
