The Pilgrim Path---Psalm 130: 4, 5

If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?

But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.

“…THERE IS FORGIVENESS”

Just lately I have been reading St. John Chrysostom (344—407). That second name means “Golden Mouth,” a testament to his amazing abilities as a preacher for Jesus Christ the LORD. Seems his formidable years were in Constantinople. It is said that he moved his age with his preaching: high and low---every realm of society. The biographer F. W. Farrar said that in Chrysostom’s sermons, people “heard a call to repentance more powerful than had been heard since the death of the apostles.”

On the text above, Chrysostom asks if we have been “quick” to mark the sins of others “against” us? Perhaps you “resent” them for hurting you in some way? Well, I will let Chrysostom finish his thinking:

Once a man has committed fornication or adultery, having fulfilled his lust, he has finished the sin; if he’s then willing to pick himself up again from that fall by a life of vigilance, he can gain some spiritual relief, showing the seriousness of his repentance. A resentful man, by contrast, commits the same sin day after day! What pretext can we have, I ask you, for handing ourselves over willingly to such a foul fiend as resentment? How can you ask the LORD to be gentle and forgiving to you, when you have been so harsh and merciless to your fellow-servant? But, you say, your fellow-servant has treated you with scorn. Yes indeed! And haven’t you often treated God scornfully? And what comparison is there between a fellow-servant and the LORD Himself? When your fellow-servant insulted you, and you were incensed, perhaps he was responding to some kind of injury he thought he’d received. Yet you insult the LORD, when He treats you neither unjustly nor maliciously, but bestows blessings on you every single day! Bear this in mind, then: if God chose to inquire strictly into the things we have done against Him, we wouldn’t survive even one day. As the prophet says, “O LORD, if you are extreme to mark iniquity, then O Lord, who shall stand?” (Psalm 130: 3).

From Jeremiah Burroughs: If a man had a ball made of solid gold in his hand, and someone on the street cast dirt upon him, would it not be great folly to throw his golden ball at them for revenge? Truly, this is what you do when you cast away your meekness for passion to revenge yourself, when someone crosses your will, or does things to displease you! You cast your golden ball at them when you lose the quietness and meekness of your spirit to gain revenge upon them.

From John Duncan: A life of hatred is a life of sin.

“Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” Ephesians 4: 31, 32

Grace and Peace in Jesus, the Only Redeemer of broken and wretched souls, Pastor Jason