Won’t You Come?

“The trouble with the world, ultimately, according to the teaching of the Bible, is that it does not think. If only people thought, most of their problems would be solved… The fallacy of the humanist is, of course, that he believes that all you have to do therefore is to tell people to think. But as long as they are sinners they will not think. These elemental forces are so much stronger than the rational forces that ‘man in sin’ is always irrational.”¹

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Man in sin, even in his most clairvoyant and lucid moments, is always irrational. Whether it be in counseling, philosophy or any other discipline, so long as we are unaided by the light of God’s radiant grace, we are blind.

We stumble through life aimlessly. Our hopes for clarity are dashed as we surge forward and find the darkness ahead even thicker than what we left behind.

Worse still, the shadow not only surrounds us but also emanates from deep within. Down to the molecule the world is fundamentally twisted—and so are we. 

Yet, it is with our consent that the insatiable night swallows us alive and casts us deeper into the abyss. How far we have fallen from what we were created to be! And though we know it, we suppress the truth in unrighteousness. By our own sinful irrationality we are condemned to the everlasting burning and the doomed choir of revilers gnashing their teeth.

We are not victims; we are glory thieves. We are children of Satan and lovers of darkness. We are rightly under the gavel of the Holy One for our cancerous evil and obstinate rebellion. Our guilt proclaims the terrifying reality that we are sinful, that we are irrationally lost, and that the death sentence has been handed down to us by the Righteous Judge. The axe is laid at the root.

But Christ Jesus is greater than we ever dared hope. He traversed the infinite distance between heaven and our polluted earth to redeem us. He who is eternally God took on a human nature; He became of one essence with us. He lived among us. He scaled the profound depths of the darkest valley to reach us. He experienced every evil and temptation on our behalf and did not sin. He submitted Himself to our every weakness so that He might redeem us from our every infirmity and foe. He did not submit to the powers of evil but overcame them for us.

Truly, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. According to the Father’s plan, He rescued us from our sinful self-deception; He liberated us from the dungeon of our darkness; He forgave us and cleansed us; He united our life to His; He made us His inheritance; He gave us His Holy Spirit and made His home with us; He reconciled us to Himself so that we might serve and glorify Him; He gave us the ability to think in the light of his grace.

Our greatest enemy defeated, Christ rose from the dead to forever establish His victory. His risen body foreshadows ours. Our freedom was purchased through His death and our hope is secure in His resurrection. He ascended to heaven to sit at the Father’s right hand to intercede for us in all our sin and misery. Still in heaven He is divine love covered over with human flesh.² He is gentle and full of mercy to us in our failures and wanderings. He never turns His back on us. He will never leave us or forsake us.

He restores us to the relationship for which we were created and exalts us to the place of his Beloved. He betrothes us to Himself as His bride. He will not enjoy one pleasure in glory until she may take part in it with Him. He will not wait a moment longer before returning to the earth to retrieve his church.

As King of Kings, He will dispense of every enemy and every shadow. As Creator, He will make all things new. As husband, He will lavish every blessing upon His treasured wife. He will wipe away every tear and give joy to every heart. From every tongue praise will pour forth to the Triune God; glory will increase from one resplendent degree to another in the joy of the Father, Son, and Spirit; the light of His face will cascade into eternity future, delighting every heart.

This is the way of truth. All who come this way must enter through Christ Jesus. All must confess that they are dead in their sin and turn their back on its darkness. They must admit that their way is irrational and come empty handed to King Jesus who abundantly pardons and cleanses with His precious blood. It is only through faith that we inherit Christ and all the blessings of life and light that are in him.

Won’t you come to him?

“For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor 4:6 ESV).

1. David Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Christian Marriage: from basic principles to transformed relationships (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1973), 154. ↩︎
2. Thomas Goodwin, The Works of Thomas Goodwin, vol. 4 (Edinburgh: James Nichol, 1862), 116. ↩︎