Have you heard God speak? In the old dispensation several people from Adam onward heard Him speak. What He spoke to the devil after he got Adam into sin is called the Mother Promise, the protevangel.
Our God does not speak that way today, although He does speak through the preaching of His Word and in the souls of His people. The important truth today is that by His Spirit He speaks through His written Word, the Scriptures. A wonderful truth that He speaks is found in Psalm 85:8 , where we read, "I will hear what God the Lord will speak: for he will speak peace to his saints: but let them not turn again to folly."
Yes, the blessed truth is that God will speak peace unto us. There is that awesome battle which began the day man fell into sin. Enmity between seed and seed began. Adam had turned in enmity against God; but in His grace He was going to make some of the human race love Him and fight against the seed of the serpent. There will be those with Christ's name, that is, Christians, and there will be antichrists, those who hate Christ.
But the wonderful truth is that to us God speaks peace, even though we had turned in enmity against Him. He tells us that He loves us; and in that love He causes us to love Him. Salvation is realized. But that means there is this bitter battle between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent.
Turn then away from sin. Sin always denies that Jehovah is God and has the right to demand certain works of us.
Listen to Him then, when He speaks peace to you. We must hear what God has to say to us, not what Satan does, and not what the world presents. Listen to the victory which will be ours when Christ returns.
You will hear Him speak in the Lord's day worship services. Go there as often as you can. Let us not turn to the folly of avoiding that proclamation which His thoughts of peace present to His saints.
Read: Ephesians 2:8-22
Psalter versification: #230
Meditations on the Heidelberg Catechism
Through the Bible in One Year
Read today:
1 Kings 5
1 Kings 6
Acts 7:1-29
Psalm 127:1-5
Proverbs 16:28-30
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Quote for Reflection:
This perversity never ceases in us, but continually bears new fruits - the works of the flesh that we have already described - just as a burning furnace gives forth flame and sparks, or water ceaselessly bubbles up from a spring. Thus those who have defined original sin as 'the lack of the original righteousness, which ought to reside in us' although they comprehend in this definition the whole meaning of the term, have still not expressed effectively enough its power and energy. For our nature is not only destitute and empty of good, but so fertile and fruitful of every evil that it cannot be idle. Those who have said that original sin is 'concupiscence' (the law of sin in our sinful flesh-ajb) have used an appropriate word, if only it be added - something that most will by no means concede - that whatever is in man, from the understanding to the will, from the soul even to the flesh, has been defied and crammed with this concupiscence. Or, to put it more briefly, the whole man is of himself nothing but concupiscence. ~ John Calvin
Additional Info
- Date: 9-June
