Gold Nugget 240 - Damning the River of Grace

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      The more the advantages, the weightier the account demanded; the longer the time granted for amendment, the severer the castigation for wasted opportunities.  Men “treasure up” wrath for themselves.  Character indurates, like the writing on clay tablets hardened in the sun.  No possible excuse can be found where the day of grace has passed unused.  A dreadful contrast, to accumulate a store of wrath instead of profiting by the riches of God’s goodness.

      The money of heaven was placed at men’s disposal; but, throwing this away as rubbish, they made their own counterfeit coins, and are punished for their treason against the King’s government.  Trifle not with sin when thou seest its present disastrous results, but calculate thence the “wrath of the Lamb,” when gentleness has been spurned and maltreated, and goodness must give place to severity.  The smoothly gliding river of God’s long-suffering, if barred out of thy heart by closed gates, will swell to a might torrent, sweeping thy frail obstructions to ruin. …

      No description of hell can transcend the awful picture of “wrath and indignation, tribulation and anguish,” resting upon the soul; that, clasping unrighteousness to its bosom as a prize on earth, finds it sting like a serpent and burn with fiercest remorse when allowed full sway in its “own place.” …

      A righteous aim can be permanently attained only in righteous ways.  The recognition of this stamps the government of the universe as moral. … It includes passive endurance and active perseverance; the stationary posture of the caryatides, and the carrying of a burden in the face of wind and storm.  The other class are described as “factious,” quarrelling with their lot, coveting pleasure and notoriety … Refusing to bow to the yoke of truth, they become the slaves of unrighteousness; and a hard master and terrible paymaster does unrighteousness prove.

      The judgment of God will proceed on easily intelligible principles.  It is not difficult for men to decide whether they are working good or working evil.  It is not reaching a conclusion after abstract speculation, nor holding a creed with multitudinous details.  Only an omniscient Judge, however, could bring to light the hidden deeds of darkness, the secret thing, good or bad.

The Pulpit Commentary, Romans p. 72-73, Romans 2:6-11, (S. R. Aldridge)

Gold Nugget 240

Damning the River of Grace

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