There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. —Soren Kierkegaard. "…truth is true even if nobody believes it, and falsehood is false even if everybody believes it. That is why truth does not yield to opinion, fashion, numbers, office, or sincerity–it is simply true and that is the end of it" – Os Guinness, Time for Truth, pg.39. “He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God’s providence to lead him aright.” – Blaise Pascal. "There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily" – George Washington letter to Edmund Randolph — 1795. We live in a “post-truth” world. According to the dictionary, “post-truth” means, “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” Simply put, we now live in a culture that seems to value experience and emotion more than truth. Truth will never go away no matter how hard one might wish. Going beyond the MSM idealogical opinion/bias and their low information tabloid reality show news with a distractional superficial focus on entertainment, sensationalism, emotionalism and activist reporting – this blogs goal is to, in some small way, put a plug in the broken dam of truth and save as many as possible from the consequences—temporal and eternal. "The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." – George Orwell “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” ― Soren Kierkegaard
We must pray for grace to preserve us from sin and all appearances of it and approaches towards it.
I pray to God that I may not do wrong, 2 Corinthians 13:7(ESV) but may be blameless and innocent, as a child of God, without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation. Philippians 2:15(ESV)
Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways. Psalm 119:37(ESV) Put false ways far from me and graciously teach me your law! Psalm 119:29(ESV)
Do not let my heart incline to any evil, to busy myself with wicked deeds in company with men who work iniquity, and let me not eat of their delicacies! Psalm 141:4(ESV)
O declare me innocent from hidden faults; keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins: Let them not have dominion over me, but let me be blameless and innocent of great transgression; Psalm 19:12-13(ESV) and grant that hereby I may prove myself blameless before you, by keeping myself from my own guilt. Psalm 18:23(ESV)
Let your word be stored up in my heart, that I might not sin against you; Psalm 119:11(ESV) and your grace be at all times sufficient for me, 2 Corinthians 12:9(ESV) ready to me, and mighty in me; and never give me up to my own heart’s lust, to walk in my own counsel. Jeremiah 7:24(ESV)
Enable me to walk carefully, not as unwise but as wise, Ephesians 5:15(ESV) so carefully, that I may cut off occasion from those who desire occasion to blaspheme that honorable name by which I am called; James 2:7(ESV) and by doing good may I put to silence the ignorance of foolish people, 1 Peter 2:15(ESV) and may I adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in everything. Titus 2:10(ESV)
Nehemiah 12:27-47 In this week’s study, we look at the dedication ceremony and note the great rejoicing by the people for all that the Lord had done for them.
Theme
Nehemiah’s Accomplishments
3. Nehemiah inspired a defeated and dispirited people. Not only was the objective itself overwhelming, but Nehemiah also had to cope with a people who had tried to build the walls before, had failed and were now dispirited. There had been nearly a century of defeat. The people had settled down into accepting things as they were. Somehow Nehemiah inspired this dispirited people to believe the job could be done.
4. Nehemiah overcame a bewildering barrage of opposition, some from his enemies without and some from his own people within. After the project got underway, Nehemiah was opposed by many people and in a variety of ways. Nehemiah overcame these attacks by five great qualities: 1) he was close to God; 2) he had a strong sense of God’s calling; 3) he had a healthy sense of his own abilities and worth; 4) he had discernment; and 5) he had courage. God used these qualities to see him through the attacks of his enemies and enable him to press forward to victory.
5. Nehemiah completed the reconstruction of the wall. What a great accomplishment and triumph this was! He did in just fifty-two days what others had been unable to do in almost a century.
6. Nehemiah encouraged and assisted in a national revival. His achievement here was two-fold. First, he saw the need for revival where a lesser man might have been content merely with his own personal and external accomplishments, that is, the building of the wall. Second, he realized that someone else was better positioned to lead the revival than himself, namely, Ezra, and therefore he stepped aside until this phase of the work, led by Ezra, was accomplished. A lesser man would have been unwilling to do this.
7. Nehemiah reorganized and repopulated the city. The last in this list of accomplishments was the implementation of a plan to repopulate the city of Jerusalem. It was after he had completed this—with the walls, the temple, the religious and civil leaders and the masses of the people all in place—that Nehemiah proceeded with the wall’s dedication.
Few people have had as much to celebrate after a lifetime of hard work as Nehemiah had after less than a year as Judah’s governor.
In the eighth chapter of 2 Corinthians the apostle Paul is writing about the surprising generosity of the Christians in Macedonia, asking how they had managed to be so generous when they were actually quite poor. His explanation is that “they gave themselves first to the Lord and then to us in keeping with God’s will” (v. 5). That is a secret for spiritual success anywhere in any situation at any time: to give ourselves to God first, and then to others. There was something like this in the dedication of the walls of Jerusalem, at least in the sense that the people dedicated themselves to God before they dedicated the gates, the wall or the city.
What is a dedication? The word comes from the Latin verb do, dare, dedi, datum, which means “to offer” or “to give.” When an object is dedicated to the Lord, for example, it means that it is given to Him for His control and use. When a person dedicates herself or himself to God it is for the same reason.
Study Questions
Review Nehemiah’s other accomplishments.
What is a secret for spiritual success that we see in 2 Corinthians? How do we see that in the book of Nehemiah?
Application
Application: Have you dedicated yourself to God for His glory? What does that look like in your relationships and service to others?
For Further Study: Download for free and listen to James Boice’s message, “Everybody, Praise the Lord.” (Discount will be applied at checkout.)
In this episode of the Cold-Case Christianity Broadcast, J. Warner Wallace examines the classic problem of evil and offers a cumulative case response. In this first of several related broadcasts, J. Warner examines the role eternity and free agency play in helping understand why an all-powerful, all-loving God would allow evil to exist in the universe. For more information about the cumulative case for the existence of God and the problem of evil, see J. Warner’s book, God’s Crime Scene. Here is the audio podcast (the Cold-Case Christianity Weekly Podcast is located on iTunes or our RSS Feed):
What better way to celebrate Reformation Day and biblical womanhood than to combine the two? Today, we’re going to take a look at some women in Reformation history and in biblical history who exemplified biblical womanhood by influencing others toward godliness.
Choose any of the women below and read their stories (click on their names). Then consider the following questions:
1. In what ways did this woman exemplify biblical womanhood in her culture, context, circumstances, family situation, or church?
2. Which godly character traits or Fruit of the Spirit were especially obvious in her life, words, and actions?
3. Which Scripture passages come to mind as you read this woman’s story? In what ways did she live these Scriptures out (or fail to live them out)?
4. Are there any instances of sin in this woman’s story? If so, how can you learn from what she did wrong and avoid this sin in your own life?
5. How does this woman set a godly example that you can apply to your own life?
6. In what ways did this woman point someone to Jesus, serve the Kingdom, or help God’s people?
An unusual topic, but it appears frequently enough in the Bible for us to ponder its symbolism. I am reading the Book of Jonah, and the great fish vomited the prophet up on dry land. This act signifies the destructive nature of sin and disobedience, including biblical instances where vomiting represents evil, such as God’s rejection of lukewarm believers. I highlight the stark imagery to illustrate spiritual truths.
Who in their right mind would blog about vomit on a Christian blog? Me, that’s who!
I was reading John MacArthur’s commentary Jonah & Nahum: Grace in the Midst of Judgment. I got to the part where the great fish vomited Jonah up on dry land. For the record, I believe every jot and tittle of the book of Jonah. I believe a great fish swallowed Jonah, that God preserved Jonah’s life in the belly of the great fish, and that God spoke to the fish and the fish obeyed by hurling Jonah up on dry land.
So we read the following insightful nugget from the MacArthur commentary. Here’s MacArthur-
“While this vomiting resulted in Jonah’s return to dry land, vomiting in scripture is generally associated with evil. The Lord threatened that Israel would be vomited out of the land (Lev 18:25). Christ said of Laodicea, “I will spit you [vomit you] out of my mouth” because their love for Him was lukewarm (Rev 3:16). Job 20:15 describes a scene in which God cause a rich man who swallowed riches to vomit them up. Peter said that false teachers are like a dog returning ot their own vomit (2 Peter 2:22). In Jeremiah 22:27, vomiting is associated with drunkenness. Every other time the word “vomit” appears in scripture it is used negatively. That same connotation applies to Jonah as well: the fish vomited Jonah up as a final and unforgettable reminder of the despicable nature of Jonah’s disobedience.” –end John MacArthur quote from Jonah & Nahum p 74.
We all know that when we retch, it’s a negative thing. It means our bodies are sick, or it means we overindulged in food or drink. It means something is wrong.
I remember a Seinfeld TV show scene from the 1990s where Jerry Seinfeld was relating to another character that it had been almost 20 years since he had gotten sick in that way. I had thought about my own length of time I had gone without retching, it was about 50 years. But that ended recently when my doctor put me on a medicine that did not agree with me. After 3 months of my body rejecting this med in the most negative way, I quit it. Perhaps that is why this unsavory topic resonated with me when I read about the fish expelling Jonah. But more importantly, then I read the commentary and I gained a deeper insight and tis connection to sin’s uncleanness.
An illustration of the fate of the wicked Job 20:12-15
Source for these references: Manser, M. H. (2009). Dictionary of Bible Themes
The Bible doesn’t talk a lot about bodily functions, thank goodness. But there are times when the LORD sends a disease to this or that person involving their bowels. And we read about women and their monthly discharge and what they are supposed to do during that time.
The Bible briefly discusses going to the bathroom in Deuteronomy 23:12-14, which instructs the Israelites to go outside the camp to relieve themselves, bring a spade and dig a hole to bury their waste, keeping the camp holy and clean.
The LORD knows we are flesh, frail, human and our excretions are gross. Even at that, the Bible is such an amazing book that the LORD covers these topics, knowing we are flesh. I suppose if the Bible was made up (it isn’t) no one in their right mind would include such mundane and repellent topics. But He did. When you come across one of these verses, remember, vomiting is forceful and revolting, and that is why it is a vivid picture of sin.
The Lord expounded on the nature of true discipleship by using a paradox. As Jesus explained, For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. Those unwilling to surrender their lives to Christ, choosing instead to cling to sin, selfish ambition, and acceptance by the world, will one day lose their souls to everlasting death. But those willing to abandon everything for the sake of Christ will receive eternal life. Jesus, of course, was not suggesting that every form of self-sacrifice has spiritual or eternal value but only that which is done for His sake and the gospel’s. In Matthew 13, the Lord illustrated this paradoxical principle with two parables about the kingdom of salvation:
The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls, and upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it. (Matt. 13:44–46)
In the same way that one might sell all he owns to gain something of far greater value, so believers are eager to give up everything to gain Christ and the salvation He alone provides. As the apostle Paul explained, speaking of the self-righteous works he abandoned for Christ’s sake, “I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ” (Phil. 3:8). The Lord continued by posing two rhetorical questions: For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? For what will a man give in exchange for his soul? To obtain all of the riches, respect, and religious accolades this life could offer and yet die apart from Christ is to be eternally destitute. The world and all it contains is passing away (1 John 2:17), soon to be consumed with fire (2 Peter 3:10–12). But each person’s soul will live forever. For those who joyfully embrace that reality, it is incredible to think that anyone would forfeit eternity in heaven for a few fleeting decades of self-indulgence in this life. Yet that is what most people do (Matt. 7:13). Such is the power of human sinfulness (cf. John 8:42–47). On a different occasion, the Lord Jesus illustrated this truth with a parable about a wealthy fool who thought only of the present and failed to plan for eternity. As Luke reports,
And He told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man was very productive. And he began reasoning to himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry.” ’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?’ So is the man who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:16–21)
To gain the whole world but reject Christ is to lose one’s soul to hell. But to give up everything this world offers for the sake of following Him is to gain eternal riches (cf. Matt. 6:19–21).
MacArthur, J. (2015). Mark 1–8 (pp. 430–431). Moody Publishers.
35–37 The meaning of these sayings depends on a wordplay with the Greek word psychē (GK 6034), which can refer either to physical life (“life”), or spiritual/eschatological life (“soul”). Jesus warns that by denying him, one’s physical life (psychē) may be saved, but one’s eschatological life (psychē)—i.e., one’s salvation—will be lost. Conversely, to lose one’s physical life by remaining true to Christ—i.e., by confessing him under duress—is to be assured of eternal life and salvation. Thus it would have sounded a warning to anyone in Mark’s church who might be thinking of defecting under trial. “For me” stresses the absoluteness of Jesus’ claim for allegiance, and “for the gospel” is probably a reference to the preaching of the gospel for which people are to give their lives. Verses 36–37 emphasize the incomparable worth of the psychē, here meaning “eschatological life” or “soul.” Not even “the whole world” compares to it in value (v. 36). And once a person has forfeited his or her share in eternal life (in this context, by denying Jesus), there is no way that person can get it back (v. 37). Even the whole world, if they had it, could not buy back eternal life—another stern warning against recanting the Christian faith. The language of profit and loss here echoes Psalm 49, where the psalmist warns against trusting in riches by pointing out that no ransom or redemption price is enough to purchase a life:
No one can redeem the life of another
or give to God a sufficient ransom—
the ransom for a life is costly,
no payment is ever enough—
so that someone should live on forever
and not see decay.
Psalm 49:7–9 TNIV
Wessel, W. W., & Strauss, M. L. (2010). Mark. In T. Longman III & D. E. Garland (Eds.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Matthew–Mark (Revised Edition) (Vol. 9, p. 834). Zondervan.
Vers. 36. For what shall it profit a man?—
The worth and excellency of the soul:—The soul of man is of inestimable value. 1. In respect of its capacity of understanding. 2. In respect of its capacity of moral perfection. 3. In respect of its capacity of pleasure and delight. 4. The high price which God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost have set upon our souls. (Dr. Scott.) The gain of the world compared with the loss of the soul: I. THE GAIN SUPPOSED. 1. It is an uncertain gain—“If.” 2. It is a difficult gain. 3. It is a trifling gain. 4. It is an unsatisfactory gain. 5. It is a temporary gain. II. THE LOSS SUSTAINED. 1. The loss of heaven. 2. The loss of happiness. 3. The loss of hope. III. THE INQUIRY PROPOSED. 1. Will the pleasures of sin compensate you for eternal pain? 2. Will any worldly gain compensate you for the loss of the soul? 2. Christ shunned the offer, you accept less. 4. Or will you ask, “What must I do to be saved?” (H. F. Pickworth.) I. THE MANNER OF PROPOUNDING THIS TRUTH. The manner of propounding is by a continued interrogation, which not only carrieth in it more strength than an ordinary negation, but stirreth up the hearer to ponder and well weigh the matter, as if he were to give his judgment and answer; as if the Lord had said in larger speech, “Tell me out of your own judgments and best understanding, let your own consciences be judges whether the whole world were a reasonable gain for the loss of the soul, or whether the whole world could recover such a loss, or no.” 2. In the manner note another point of wisdom, namely, in matters of much importance, as is the losing of the soul; or else of great danger, as is the winning of the world, to use more than ordinary vehemence. 3. Our Saviour in the manner teacheth how naturally we are all of us inclined to the world, to seek it with all greediness, and so have need of many and strong back biasses. II. THE MATTER AFFORDS SUNDRY INSTRUCTIONS:—1. The more a man is addicted to gain the world, the greater is the danger of losing his soul. They that will be rich fall into many temptations and snares. 2. Desire to be rich and gain the world stuffeth the soul with a thousand damnable lusts, every one able to sink it to hell. 3. Desire of gain threatens danger and singular detriment to the soul; because it brings it almost to an impossibility of repentance and salvation; Matt. 19:20: “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to be saved.” 4. As it keeps out grace in all the means of it, so it eats out and casteth it out of the heart, as the lean kine ate up the fat, and were lean and ill-favoured still. (T. Taylor, D.D.)
Gaining the world:—What a man loses this side of the grave by this unholy bargain. 1. A good conscience. 2. His communion with God. 3. His hope in the future. Some are selling their souls—1. For pleasure. 2. For the world. 3. For business. 4. For fear of ridicule. (J. Vaughan, M.A.)
A sum in gospel arithmetic:—I propose to estimate and compare the value of the two properties. I. The world is a VERY GRAND PROPERTY. Its flowers are God’s thoughts in bloom. Its rocks are God’s thoughts in stone. Its dew-drops are God’s thoughts in pearl. How beautiful the spring with bridal blossoms in her hair. “Oh,” you say, “take my soul! give me that world.” But look more minutely into the value of this world. You will not buy property unless you can get a good title. You cannot get a good title to the world. In five minutes after I give up my soul for the world, I may have to part with it. There is only one way in which I can hold an earthly possession, and that is through the senses: all beautiful sights through the eye, but the eye may be blotted out—all captivating sounds through the ear, but my ear may be deafened—all lusciousness of fruits and viands through my taste, but my taste may be destroyed—all appreciation of culture and of art through my mind, but I may lose my mind. What a frail hold, then, I have upon any earthly possession! Now, in courts of law, if you want to get a man off a property, you must serve upon him a writ of ejectment, giving him a certain time to vacate the premises; but when death comes to us and serves a writ of ejectment, he does not give us one second of forewarning. He says, “Off of this place! You have no right any longer to the possession.” We might cry out, “I gave a hundred thousand dollars for that property”—the plea would be of no avail. We might say, “We have a warrantee deed for that property”—the plea would be of no avail. We might say, “We have a lien on that storehouse”—the plea would be of no avail. Death is blind, and he cannot see a seal, and cannot read an indenture. So that first and last, I want to tell you that when you propose that I give up my soul for the world, you cannot give me the first item of title. Having examined the title of a property, your next question is about insurance. You would not be silly enough to buy a large warehouse that could not possibly be insured. You would not have anything to do with such a property. Now, I ask you what assurance can you give me that this world is not going to be burned up? Absolutely none. Geologists tell us that it is already on fire, that the heart of the world is one great living coal, that it is just like a ship on fire at sea, the flames not bursting out because the hatches are kept down. And yet you propose to palm off on me, in return for my soul, a world for which, in the first place, you give no title, and in the second place, for which you can give no insurance. “Oh,” you say, “the water of the oceans will wash over all the land and put out the fire.” Oh no, there are inflammable elements in the water—hydrogen and oxygen. Call off the hydrogen, and then the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans would blaze like heaps of shavings. You want me to take this world for which you can give no possible insurance. Astronomers have swept their telescopes through the sky, and have found out that there have been thirteen worlds, in the last two centuries, that have disappeared. At first, they looked just like other worlds. Then they got deeply red—they were on fire. Then they got ashen, showing they were burned down. Then they disappeared, showing that even the ashes were scattered. And if the geologist be right in his prophecy, then our world is to go in the same way. And yet you want me to exchange my soul for it. Ah no, it is a world that is burning now. Suppose you brought an insurance agent to look at your property for the purpose of giving you a policy upon it, and while he stood in front of the house, he would say, “That house is on fire now in the basement”—you could not get any insurance upon it. Yet you talk about this world as though it were a safe investment, as though you could get some insurance upon it, when down in the basement it is on fire. I remark, also, that this world is a property, with which everybody who has taken it as a possession, has had trouble. Now, between my house and this church, there is a reach of land which is not built on. I ask what is the matter, and they reply that everybody who has had anything to do with that property got into trouble about it. It is just so with this world; everybody who has had anything to do with it, as a possession, has been in perplexity. How was it with Lord Byron? Did he not sell his immortal soul for the purpose of getting the world? Was he satisfied with the possession? Alas, alas, the poet graphically describes his case when he says:
“Drank every cup of joy, heard every trump
Of fame; drank early, deeply drank; drank draughts
Which common millions might have drank. Then died
Of thirst, because there was no more to drink.”
Oh yes, he had trouble with it, and so did Napoleon. After conquering nations by the force of the sword, he lies down to die, his entire possession the military boots that he insisted on having upon his feet while he was dying. So it has been with men who had better ambition. Thackeray, one of the most genial and lovable souls, after he had won the applause of all intelligent lands through his wonderful genius, sits down in a restaurant in Paris, looks to the other end of the room, and wonders whose that forlorn and wretched face is; rising up, after awhile, he finds that it is Thackeray in the mirror. Oh yes, this world is a cheat. Talk about a man gaining the world! Who ever gained half the world? II. Now, LET US LOOK AT THE OTHER PROPERTY—THE SOUL. We cannot make a bargain without seeing the comparative value. The soul! How shall I estimate the value of it? Well, by its exquisite organization. It is the most wonderful piece of mechanism ever put together. Machinery is of value in proportion as it is mighty and silent at the same time. You look at the engine and the machinery in the Philadelphia Mint, and as you see it performing its wonderful work, you will be surprised to find how silently it goes. Machinery that roars and tears soon destroys itself; but silent machinery is often most effective. Now, so it is with the soul of man, with all its tremendous faculties—it moves in silence. Judgment without any racket, lifting its scales; memory without any noise, bringing down all its treasures; conscience taking its judgment-seat without any excitement; the understanding and the will all doing their work. Velocity, majesty, might; but silence—silence. You listen at the door of your heart. You can hear no sound. The soul is all quiet. It is so delicate an instrument, that no human hand can touch it. You break a bone, and with splinters and bandages the surgeon sets it; the eye becomes inflamed, the apothecary’s wash cools it; but the soul off the track, unbalanced, no human power can re-adjust it. With one sweep of its wing it circles the universe, and over-vaults the throne of God. Why, in the hour of death the soul is so mighty, it throws aside the body as though it were a toy. It drives back medical skill as impotent. It breaks through the circle of loved ones who stand around the dying couch. With one leap it springs beyond star, and moon, and sun, and chasms of immensity. Oh, it is a soul superior to all material things. I calculate further the value of the soul by the price that has been paid for it. In St. Petersburg, there is a diamond that Government paid two hundred thousand dollars for. “Well,” you say, “it must have been very valuable, or the Government would not have paid two hundred thousand dollars for it.” I want to see what my soul is worth, and what your soul is worth, by seeing what has been paid for it. For that immortal soul, the richest blood that was ever shed, the deepest groan that was ever uttered, all the griefs of earth compressed into one tear, all the sufferings of earth gathered into one rapier of pain and struck through His holy heart. Does it not imply tremendous value? I argue also the value of the soul from the home that has been fitted up for it in the future. One would have thought that a street of adamant would have done. No, it is a street of gold. One would have thought that a wall of granite would have done. No, it is the flame of sardonyx mingling with the green of emerald. One would have thought that an occasional doxology would have done? No, it is a perpetual song. (Dr. Talmage.)
The chief thing forgotten:—So short-sighted and foolish is man! I once read of a woman whose house was on fire. She was very active in removing her goods, but forgot her child, who was asleep in the cradle. At last she thought of the poor babe, and ran, with earnest desire, to save it. But it was now too late; the flames prevented her from crossing the threshold. Judge of the agony of mind which wrung from her the bitter exclamation: “Oh, my child! my child! I have saved my goods, but lost my child!” So will it be with many a poor sinner, who spent all his life in the occupations of the world, while the “one thing needful” was forgotten. What will it then avail for a man to say, “I secured a good place, or a good trade, or profession, but I lost my soul? I made many friends, but God is my enemy. I heaped up riches, but now they must all be left.”
Profit and loss:—What is the good of life to us if we do not live? what is the profit of being a man in form and not a man in fact? what is the worth of existence if its worth is all, or, for the most part, outside of us and not in us? There are two remarks which might be made in illustration of this question, in the sense in which I take it. I. The gain here spoken of is nominal, imaginary. II. The loss is real, and it is the greatest conceivable. I. I shall only have time here to say a few words with regard to the latter point. As to the former I will only say, that to lose the soul, not to live man’s higher life, is really also to lose the world, whether you mean by it the material world, or the activities and pleasures of human life. It is only in an imaginary, entirely illusory way that any man who loses his soul gains the world. We gain as much of the world as really enriches us, really enters in the shape of thought and feeling into the current of our existence, really affords us unmixed and enduring satisfaction, and we gain no more of the world than this. We have of the world not what we call our own, but what we are able to enjoy and no more. It is not to gain the world, to gain riches which can buy anything the world contains, unless you can buy along with it the power to enjoy it. Thus rich men gain the whole world and do not gain it at all. They have no delight in books, no interest in public affairs, no zest for amusements. They have gained the world, and do not possess it. Their world is almost the poorest conceivable. It does not enrich them. It does not occupy their affections, or fill up their idle hours; it does not lend stir or variety or charm or value to their existence. Cultivate and expand the mind: in proportion as you do so, though your fortunes remain stationary, you gain the world. On the other hand, an educated man may be poor—the inhabitant of a garret or of a cottage; but the world which exists for him, in which he lives, is rich and spacious. In the observation of nature, in the study of books, above all in the study of man, he finds deep, unfailing delights. The seas which break on the shores of other lands, the storms that sweep over them, the streams that flow through them, the people who inhabit them, are all full of interest to him, and possess him and are possessed by him. In comparison with that of a man devoid of intellectual life, his world is one full of a thousand various pleasures, and occupations, and possessions. Without something higher and better than even intellect and mental culture and activity, you cannot gain the world, except in a poor and illusory manner. Only if you have the soul to scorn delights and live laborious days, not for fame but for the good of others, to spend riches and health and intellect and life, not in ministering to selfish tastes, be they either fine or coarse, but in doing good, helping others to be better and happier, in being to them a minister of the things which God has given you, and a herald to them of the glad tidings of God’s love, and man’s fellow-feeling and charity;—only if you have such a soul can you truly gain the world, enjoy its best, purest, most various, and abundant pleasures and satisfactions, and also have the sting taken out of its worst trials and afflictions. The luxury of doing good in the love of goodness, of giving rather than receiving, is the best and richest which the world affords. It was a luxury to enjoy which the Son of Man advised one whom He loved well, one who had gained the world and had large possessions, to sell all that he had and give it to the poor, and come and follow Him. The gain here spoken of, then, is illusory. II. The loss is real and immense. 1. In the first place, the soul is lost by not being exercised. Life which is not effort, growth, increase, is not life at all; it is life lost. Souls are not in danger of being lost when they are without such light as we enjoy. They are lost. There is no contingency in the matter. Where man’s higher life has not been called forth, the loss is not what may be, but what is—it is condemnation and death. Only compare a savage of any country with a Christian of your own land, and see if the loss is nothing or little. I speak of the heathen abroad, because what is to be said of them has its application at home. Use the body, exercise your limbs, observe the laws which govern the use of your physical nature, and you will thus best secure its health and soundness. In the same way it does not save the soul to entertain, as many do, a constant and worrying anxiety as to the soul. Use the soul, exercise your higher life, and you will thus save the soul, thus promote your higher life. 2. I remark, in the second place, that the soul is lost when it is perverted and corrupted. It is perverted and corrupted in the sphere of the lower life. In this sphere souls are doubly lost, as a citadel for which contending armies strive for weeks and months is doubly lost when those who ought to hold it are driven out and those who ought not to hold it enter in. They are lost as a friend is lost who becomes a foe; they are lost as guns are lost in battle when they are turned upon their retreating owners. When, instead of a man having passions and commanding them, passions possess the man and command him, all human life, all higher life is lost; it is gradually or rapidly narrowed, curtailed, darkened, debased, emptied of its worth and value. The soul is perverted in the sphere of the lower life. It is more important, perhaps, to remark that it is perverted and corrupted in its own sphere. It reminds us that souls are perverted in their own sphere—perverted not only by passion but by religion. If the light that is in you be darkness, how great is that darkness! If your religion is false, where can you be in contact with truth? Souls lost through passion often keep a mysterious reserve of goodness in which there is hope. It is not so where religion is not love, but sect and party, selfishness, spiritual pride, bigotry; where religion, instead of demolishing every wall of partition between man and man, and between man and God, erects new barriers and new divisions. Man’s higher life of faith and goodness is here under a double curse—it is cut off at once from nature and from grace, it is severed at once from the world and God, it has neither pagan health nor Christian beauty, neither natural bloom nor spiritual glory. 3. It is easy, I remark in conclusion, to exhaust the world and life in all directions but one. As for the great mass of men, they are by their very condition denied all, or almost all, that makes life attractive, beautiful, enjoyable. Even much study itself is a weariness of the flesh. As we think of all this, we are tempted to say—Surely every man walketh in a vain show; they are disquieted in vain. Other life is vain—man’s true life is not vanity, nor vexation of spirit. For all men, rich and poor, learned and ignorant, for the drudge toiling in darkness in a mine, for those whose labours are in the lofty fields of science, there is a life possible, not remote, far off, unnatural, but their own life, man’s true life, life of faith and goodness, Christ’s life in the unseen and eternal, from which vanity is remote, to which vexation cannot come, in which the rich find the true use of riches, the learned and gifted of their gifts, the poor an untold wealth in poverty, all men the grandeur, worth, sacredness of this mortal existence. In the same way, I will add, is immortality brought to light also. Flesh and blood may turn again to clay, all human glory may fade; but truth and righteousness and love are Divine and cannot die. A life which is filled by these is a part of the life of God, who inhabiteth eternity. (J. Service, D.D.)
Selling one’s soul:— I. Let us examine, in the first place, THIS FINE HUMAN POSSESSION, which the devil wishes to obtain, called, by all of the evangelists who report Jesus’ words, a man’s “own soul.” 1. Think of this: Each of us has a whole soul to himself. There is that within us which has measureless capacities. There is within us, too, that which has marvellous susceptibilities. A human heart can weep and sing, groan and laugh, shudder and shiver. There is, also, that within us which has untold possibilities. Each birth begins a history, the pages of which are not written out at once. It can be a Nero or a Paul, a Saul or a David, a Bunyan or a Byron, a star or a shadow. 2. Think of this next: This soul is entirely each man’s own. We might have expected such a thing, for all God’s gifts and creations are perfect. He gave each human creature one soul, and then he placed the individual owner in dominion over it. Hence, He respects the property-title in all His dealings with it. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock” (see Rev. 3:20). Even the devil has no power to steal away a man’s soul unawares. 3. Then think of another thing: Great estimates have been set upon the value of a human soul. 4. Then, again, think of this: If lost, this soul of ours is all lost at once. When a soul is sold to the devil, it resembles real estate, in that it carries all improvements with it. For the sale of soul transfers all the powers of it. The intellect enters perdition unchanged. Moreover, this ruin carries with it all the soul’s sensibilities. We can suffer here; but no one can picture with language how the finally lost at last learn to suffer. The sale of the soul, furthermore, carries with it all its biographies. Our souls are our biographies incorporated in existence. Each fibre of being is a thought, a word, or a feeling. He who sells his soul to the devil sells his father’s tenderness and his mother’s tears, his chances of good, his resolutions of reform, his remembrance of Sabbaths, his own fruitless remorses over sin, his educations, his embellishments—his all. II. Now let us, in the second place, turn to consider the DEVIL’S PRICE FOR A SOUL, called, by the evangelists all alike, “the whole world.” 1. Observe the rather fine show it makes. 2. But now, on the other hand, it is just fair that men should note some delusive reserves concealed in this luring price. For example, remember that the devil never offered the entire world to anybody except Jesus Christ (see Matt. 4:8, 9). He never said anything like that to a common man. Let us give even Satan his due. One lie there is he has not yet told upon this earth. He has offered no man the whole world. Nor has any one person ever had it. Nor does anybody keep what he gets. 3. Still further: observe as you contemplate this lure of the devil, which he calls his price, the painful drawbacks one meets in the enjoyment of it after it is attained. The world we get attracts jealousy the moment we have it in possession. Mere possession of “the world” brings satiety. One of the kings in Europe, it is recorded, wearied and disgusted with luxurious pleasures, offered a vast reward just for the discovery of what he called “a new sensation.” The princes of the earth are not contented. Rasselas was restless even in the Happy Valley. The gain of this world engenders a fresh craving for more. Poetic justice at least was that when the Parthians rewarded Crassus for the infamy of his avarice by pouring melted gold down his throat until he was full of it; then he had enough, and died. Then love is lost in the strife of desire. III. All that remains now to be considered, IS THE GRAND OFFER OF CHRIST, as He attempts to arrest the ruinous bargain He sees going rapidly on toward its consummation. 1. First, What does the Saviour say? The answer is found in the context. From this we learn that Christ’s offer for a man’s soul, is the soul itself. It is as if He said, “Give Me your soul, and I will secure the everlasting possession of it to yourself; if you will lose your life—or soul—to Me, I will see that you shall save it.” He will take nothing away in this transfer but our imperfections and our sins. 2. Then what will the Saviour ask? Only this: “Come to Me; repent of sin; trust Me for an atonement; enter upon My service; try to do good; rest in My love; perfect yourself for heaven.” 3. Can the Saviour be actually in earnest? The Son of God became the Son of man in order to make this offer for human souls. (C. S. Robinson, D.D.)
Loss of the soul—its extent:— I. IT IS AN ENTIRE LOSS. When Francis I. lost the important battle of Pavia, he described it by saying, “We have lost all but honour.” But there is nothing to qualify or mitigate the loss of the soul. It is the loss of losses, the death of deaths—a catastrophe unequalled in extent, and unparalleled in its amount through all the universe of God. II. A LOSS WITHOUT COMPENSATION. The great fire of London consumed six hundred streets, thirteen thousand dwellings, and ninety churches, and destroyed property to the amount of seven and a half millions of pounds sterling. Yet that calamity was in some sort changed into a blessing; for the rebuilding of the city, in a superior style of architecture, and with more regard to sanitary arrangements, banished for ever the fearful plague which had previously made such havoc. But for the loss of the soul nothing can countervail so as to make amends for it. III. IRREPARABLE. Other losses may be repaired. Lost friendships may be regained or replaced; lost health may be restored; lost property recovered; but the loss of the soul can never be retrieved. When Sir Isaac Newton had lost some most important and complicated calculations, the result of years of patient thought and investigation, by the burning of his papers, the loss to him was immense; and yet, with patience equal to his genius, he could say to the favourite animal that caused it, “Diamond, Diamond, thou little knowest the labour thou hast cost me!” But what is the loss even of years of patient philosophic investigation and profound mathematical research, compared with the loss of a human soul, capable of conducting, in some degree, similar investigations, and of repeating and repairing them if lost? IV. CAST AWAY. The second death. (J. J. Given, M.A.)
How awful the charge of souls:—Ministers have taken even the care of immortal souls, their education for eternity, their discipline for heaven! Have we ever essayed, however vain the effort, to take the dimensions of a soul, to sound its depths, and explore its vast capacities? Look at the infant child that appears but little raised above the level of mere vegetable life. Mark the gigantic strides by which he rises in a few short years to such wonders of intelligence, that he dives into the hidden mysteries of nature, calculates the distance of the stars, and, by the magic of his telescope, sees world ascending above world, and system towering above system, up to the footstool of the throne of God! Into what, then, may a soul expand, when, free from the prison-house of flesh, it is let out to expatiate amidst its native heavens! Or, what may such a nature be in its ruins, in a fall corresponding to such a height! These, then, are the mighty concerns with which we have professedly engaged to intermeddle. For the perdition or salvation of beings on so immense a scale, we shall have to render an account. (H. Woodward, M.A.)
All gain is loss when a man does not save his soul:—He who possesses all things without God, has nothing. No man is so foolish as to be willing to purchase an empire at the price of his life; and yet the world is full of those pretenders to wisdom, who give up salvation and immortal life for a vain pleasure, a handful of money, or an inch of land. How much are the greatest conquerors to be pitied, if, whilst intoxicated with their victories and conquests, they ravage and lay waste the earth, their own souls are laid waste by sin and passion, and destroyed to all eternity. (Quesnel.)
The price of the soul:—An appeal to the instincts of common sense, which comes specially home to a commercial nation like the English. The selling price—the market value of everything is challenged. All schemes and proposals—whether in the realm of politics or of commerce—are met with this question. The eager desire for profit carries men away till there is no room left for any other purpose in life. For money men will almost dare to die. There are men who for money’s worth will sell others’ lives—shipowners the lives of their sailors, mothers the happiness of their daughters. But there are more precious treasures at stake sometimes than even flesh and blood. Some will tamper, for money’s worth, with what involves the loss of the soul. This is a gain which it is dead loss to win; a price which it is suicidal to pay—selling for money that which no money can buy again; giving—like the foolish Glaucus—golden armour for brazen; trading on capital; embarking, with rotten securities, on a bubble scheme. No amount of earthly gain can free the soul from death and judgment. The moral life once gone—its vitality not destroyed but ruined and turned against itself—how shall it be recovered? Even now there is a foretaste of this awful state. At times there is within the heart a very hell of sin; jealousy, covetousness, cruelty, selfishness, all combining to make such a hell within the breast as a man would shrink from disclosing even to his most lenient friend. Plain sober reason, then, obliges us to consider Christ’s question. (H. B. Ottley M.A.) What shall it profit …?—To be good, nay, to pursue goodness as our ruling aim, is to make, or gain our souls. To be bad, or not to follow after that which is good, is to unmake or lose the soul. And hence, whatever other aims we may lawfully, or even laudably, place before us, this should stand first with us all. For what are we profited if we should achieve the highest distinction—what are we profited should we become great poets or artists, great scholars or statesmen, if we did not use our powers for good ends? Or, to use the sacred familiar words, “What is any man profited if he should gain the whole world only by the loss of his own soul?” Nay, more; what is the world profited if he should lose that? I often think of Sir Walter Scott kissing Lockhart, that bitter man of the world, and saying to him with his dying breath, “Be good, my dear, be good.” For Scott had gone far both to gain the world, and to lose it; only to discover at last—as sooner or later you will discover—that nothing but goodness is of any real worth. To be good, to do our duty in a dutiful and loving spirit, is the crown and top of all performance. And nothing short of this, nothing apart from this, will be of much comfort to us through life or in death. For, whatever England may do, it is very certain that God “expects every man to do his duty”—his duty to himself, to God, and to his neighbour—not only on this exceptional day or that, but every day. (S. Cox, D.D.)
Losing the soul:—If you yield to temptation and fail in the hour of trial, if you cease from the work and retire from the strife, whatever else you may gain, you will be losing your soul—losing possession of it, losing command of it, losing hope for it. You will be adjudging yourself unworthy of the life eternal, condemning yourself to live in the flesh and walk after the flesh, instead of living and walking in the spirit. All that is noblest, purest, best in you will die for want of sustenance or want of exercise. All that is loftiest and noblest in thought, in morality, in religion, in life, will lose its power over you, its charm for you, and will fail any longer to quicken responses of love and desire within you. If you would know to what depths you may sink should you relinquish your aim, you have only to recall an experience which can hardly be strange to any man of mature years who has kept his soul alive. For who has not met an early friend, after long years of separation, only to find that by addicting himself to sensuous or selfish aims, by cherishing a vulgar and worldly spirit—or, in a word, by walking after the flesh—he has belied all the fair promise of his youth, and grown insensible to the charm and power of all that you still hold to be fairest, noblest, best? Speak to him of the open secrets of beauty, of purity, of truth, of love, and he stares at you as one who listens to a forgotten dream; or perhaps—as I once saw a poor fellow do—bursts into tears, and exclaims, “No one has spoken to me like that for an age!” If you would waken any real interest in him, elicit any frank response, your whole talk must take a lower range; you must come down to the level on which he now lives and moves. What has the man been doing with himself all these years? He has been losing his soul, suffering it to “fust in him unused.” He has exchanged his “immortal jewel,” not for the whole world—though even that were a losing bargain—but for a little of that which even the world confesses to be vile and sordid and base. To that base level even you may sink, if, amid all trials and temptations and defeats, you do not steadfastly pursue the high spiritual aim which Christ invites and commands you to cherish; if you do not seek above all else to be good, and do not therefore follow after whatsoever things are just, true, pure, fair. Hold fast to that aim, then; that by your constancy you may gain and possess your soul. (Ibid.)
Loss of the soul:—And what is it to lose a soul? It is to let weeds grow there instead of flowers. It is to let selfishness grow, suspicious, curious tempers grow, wantonness grow, until they have all the field to themselves. Set these in full force within a being, and add, if you will, a whole universe of possession: it is hell. You may think that these are only strong rhetorical words. It is just as simple literal fact as that two and two make four. I do not think that you will need to look far around you in the world for the proof of it. (J. B. Brown, B.A.)
Monuments of soul ruin:—Often, when travelling among the Alps, one sees a small black cross planted upon a rock, or on the brink of a torrent, or on the verge of a highway, to mark the spot where men have met with sudden death by accident. Solemn reminders these of our mortality! but they led our mind still further; for, we said within us, if the places where men seal themselves for the second death could be thus manifestly indicated, what a scene would this world present! Here the memorial of a soul undone by yielding to a foul temptation, there a conscience seared by the rejection of a final warning, and yonder a heart for ever turned into a stone, by resisting the last tender appeal of love. Our places of worship would scarce hold the sorrowful monuments which might be erected over spots where spirits were for ever lost—spirits that date their ruin from sinning against the gospel while under the sound of it. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Lost, in seeking for gain:—One summer afternoon, a steamer crowded with passengers, many of them miners from California, was speeding along the Mississippi. Striking suddenly and strongly against the wreck of another vessel which, unknown to the captain, lay near the surface of the water, her bow was stove in, and she began to fill rapidly. Her deck was a scene of wild confusion. Her boats were launched, but did not suffice to carry off one-fourth of the terrified passengers. The rest, divesting themselves of their garments, cast themselves into the river, “some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship; and so it came to pass that they escaped all safe to land.” Some minutes after the last of them had quitted the vessel, another man appeared on her deck. Seizing a spar, he also leaped into the river, but instead of floating as the others had done, he sank instantly as if he had been a stone. His body was afterwards recovered, and it was found that he had employed the quarter of an hour, in which his fellow-passengers had been striving to save their lives, in rifling the trunks of the miners. All around his waist their bags of gold were fastened. In one short quarter of an hour he had gained more gold than most men earn in their lifetime; but was he advantaged thereby, seeing that he lost himself? And though you should gain power, or rank, or fame, or learning, or great wealth; though your life should be one prolonged triumphal procession, all men applauding you; though all your days you should drink unrestrained of the cup of the world’s pleasures, and never reach its bitter dregs; yet what shall you be advantaged if, nevertheless, you lose yourself, and, at last, instead of being received into heaven, are cast away? (R. A. Bertram.)
Great loss for momentary gratification:—When Lysimachus was engaged in a war with the Getae, he was so tormented by thirst, that he offered his kingdom to his enemies for permission to quench it. His exclamation, when he had drunk the water they gave him, is striking. “Ah, wretched me, who for such a momentary gratification have lost so great a kingdom!” What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?—Think what a solemn question these words of our Lord Jesus Christ contain! What a mighty sum they propound to us for calculation! I. EVERY ONE OF US HAS AN UNDYING SOUL. This is not the only life we have to do with—we have every one of us an undying soul.… There is a conscience in all mankind that is worth a thousand metaphysical arguments. What though we cannot see it? Are there not millions of things which we cannot see, and of the existence of which we have nevertheless no doubt? I do ask you to realize the dignity and the responsibility of having an immortal soul; to realize that in your soul you have the greatest talent that God has committed to your charge. Know that in your soul you have a pearl above all price, the loss of which nothing can ever make up. II. ANY ONE MAY LOSE HIS OWN SOUL. Weak as we are in all things that are good, we have a mighty power to do ourselves harm. You cannot save that soul of yours, remember that. We are all by nature in great peril of losing our souls. But some one may ask, How may a man lose his soul? The answers to that question are many. Just as there are many diseases which assault and hurt the body, so there are many evils which assault and hurt the soul. Numerous, however, as are the ways in which a man may lose his own soul, they may be classed under these three heads. 1. You may murder your own soul by open sin, or serving lusts and pleasures. 2. You may poison your own soul by taking up some false religion. 3. You may starve your own soul to death by trifling and indecision. But, does it take much trouble to ruin a soul? Oh, no! There’s nothing you need do! You have only to sit still, &c. But are there many, you ask, who are losing their souls? Yes, indeed, there are! But, who is responsible for the loss of your soul? No one but yourself! But, where does your soul go when it is lost? There is but one place to which it can go. III. THE LOSS OF ANY MAN’S SOUL IS THE HEAVIEST LOSS HE CAN SUFFER. No man living can show the full extent of the loss of the soul, nor paint it in its true colours. Nothing can ever make up for the loss of the soul in the life that now is. The loss of property and character are not always irreparable; once lost the soul is lost for evermore. The loss of his soul is irretrievable! Does any one of you wish to have some clear idea of the value of a soul? Then go and see what men think about the value of a soul when they are dying. Go and read the sixteenth chapter of St. Luke. Measure it by the price that was paid for it eighteen hundred years ago. We shall all understand the value of a soul one day. Seek to know its value now. Do not be like the Egyptian queen, who, in foolish ostentation, took a pearl of great value, dissolved it in some acid, and then drank it off. Do not, like her, cast away that precious soul of yours, that pearl above all price, that God has committed to your charge. IV. ANY MAN’S SOUL MAY BE SAVED. I dare say the proclamation is startling to some; it was once startling to me. “How can these things be?” No wonder you ask that question. This is the great knot the heathen philosophers could never untie—this is the problem which sages of Greece and Rome could not solve—this is a question which nothing can answer but the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. 1. Because Christ has died upon the cross to bear men’s sins. 2. Because Christ still lives. 3. Because the promises of Christ’s gospel are full, free, and unconditional. Application: 1. Do not neglect your own soul. 2. Come to Christ without delay. 3. To all who have sought to have their souls saved, and have found Jesus a Saviour, “cleave to the Lord with purpose of heart,” &c. (Bishop Ryle.)
The soul:—The soul is excellent in its nature. It is a spiritual being, “it is a kind of angelical thing.” The mind sparkles with knowledge, the will is crowned with liberty, and all the affections are as stars shining in their orbs. How quick are the motions of a spark! How swift the wings of cherubim! So quick and agile are the motions of the soul. What is quicker than thought? How many miles can the soul travel in an instant? The soul being spiritual moves upward; it has also a self-moving power, and can subsist when the body is dead, as the mariner can subsist when the ship is broken; it is also immortal—a bud of eternity. (T. Watson.)
Preciousness of the soul:—It is a misapplication of forces for the nobler to spend itself upon the meaner. Men do not usually care to spend a pound in the hope of getting back a groat and no more, and yet, when the soul is given up for the sake of worldly gain, the loss is greater still, and not even the groat remains. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Soul a jewel:—The soul is a jewel, a diamond set in a ring of clay; the soul is a glass in which some rays of the divine glory shine; it is a celestial spark lighted by the breath of God. (T. Watson.)
Winning the world:—I do verily believe, that the winning of the whole world of power, is in itself so slight a gain, that it were fair to strike the balance, and say there is little left; for even Alexander himself envied the peasant in his cottage, and thought there was more happiness on the plains among the shepherds than in his palace amongst his gold and silver. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
A witness to the worth of the world:—Alexander, I summon thee! what thinkest thou: is it worth much to gain the world? Is its sceptre the wand of happiness? Is its crown the security of joy? See Alexander’s tears! He weeps! Yes, he weeps for another world to conquer! Ambition is insatiable! The gain of the whole world is not enough. (Ibid.)
Profit and loss:— I. WHAT IS A MAN PROFITED IF HE SHOULD GAIN THE WHOLE WORLD? Power over extensive empires. Power over great riches. Treasures of knowledge and pleasures. What will it profit him when he comes to die? In the day of judgment? when he gets to hell? II. THE LOSING THE SOUL. Its intrinsic value. Its capabilities. Where the soul must go to that is lost. III. THE PRACTICAL LESSON. (Ibid.)
Gaining the world pretty sport:—This world is like the boy’s butterfly—it is pretty sport to chase it; but bruise its wings by an over-earnest grasp, and it is nothing but a disappointment. (Ibid.)
Exell, J. S. (n.d.). The Biblical Illustrator: St. Mark (pp. 330–338). James Nisbet & Co.
If thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, blessed shalt thou be in the city.Deuteronomy 28:2-3
The city is full of care, and he who has to go there from day to day finds it to be a place of great wear and tear. It is full of noise, and stir, and bustle, and sore travail; many are its temptations, losses, and worries. But to go there with the divine blessing takes off the edge of its difficulty; to remain there with that blessing is to find pleasure in its duties and strength equal to its demands.
A blessing in the city may not make us great, but it will keep us good; it may not make us rich, but it will preserve us honest. Whether we are porters, or clerks, or managers, or merchants, or magistrates, the city will afford us opportunities for usefulness. It is good fishing where there are shoals of fish, and it is hopeful to work for our Lord amid the thronging crowds. We might prefer the quiet of a country life; but if called to town, we may certainly prefer it because there is room for our energies.
Today let us expect good things because of this promise, and let our care be to have an open ear to the voice of the Lord and a ready hand to execute His bidding. Obedience brings the blessing. “In keeping his commandments there is great reward.”
If thou return to the Almighty, thou shalt be built up.Job 22:23
Eliphaz, in this utterance, spoke a great truth, which is the summary of many an inspired Scripture. Reader, has sin pulled you down? Have you become like a ruin? Has the hand of the Lord gone out against you so that in estate you are impoverished and in spirit you are broken down? Was it your own folly which brought upon you all this dilapidation? Then the first thing to be done is to return to the Lord. With deep repentance and sincere faith find your way back from your backsliding. It is your duty, for you have turned away from Him whom you professed to serve. It is your wisdom, for you cannot strive against Him and prosper. It is your immediate necessity, for what He has done is nothing compared to what He may do in the way of chastisement, since He is Almighty to punish.
See what a promise invites you! You shall be “built up.” None but the Almighty can set up the fallen pillars and restore the tottering walls of your condition; but He can and He will do it if you return to Him. Do not delay. Your crushed mind may quite fail you if you go on to rebel; but hearty confession will ease you, and humble faith will console you. Do this, and all will be well.
Life is filled with never-ending trials. Each day seems to bring problems that can potentially drown us in sorrow. Look at how Scripture addresses this by saying that the pressure of these trials come “on every side”:
We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed—always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. (2 Corinthians 4:8-10)
These painful pressures leave us “perplexed.” In other words, they leave us baffled. I have a friend for whom I pray daily. He loves the Lord and has devoted his life to reaching the lost. Here’s the baffling part. He was diagnosed with cancer and Parkinson’s disease at the same time. One by itself is a nightmare, but to get both is a horror beyond words. My friend Danny is baffled as to why God would allow him to go into such a dark valley, but he’s not in despair. Despair is said to be “the absence of hope.” However, the Bible refers to our hope as “an anchor for the soul, both sure and steadfast” (Hebrews 6:19). Our storms, no matter how intense, only come for our good—we have God’s promise on that (Romans 8:28). But the ungodly are in a terrible storm without an anchor for the soul. Trials leave them in despair.
The One Lost Sheep
Look at how Jesus begins this verse and how He uses two interesting phrases when describing the Great Commission:
“What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine and go to the mountains to seek the one that is straying? And if he should find it, assuredly, I say to you, he rejoices more over that sheep than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray.” (Matthew 18:12-13)
The two interesting phrases are “What do you think?” and “go to the mountains.” Jesus saying, “What do you think?” should provoke us to thought and then to action. And secondly, if we want to reach out to the lost, we have to go to the mountains. We are to leave the 99 and climb the mountain. That takes a concerted effort.
One major mountain is Mount Self. That’s a big one. We will have to overcome natural human selfishness—things in our lives that we consider to be more important than the fact that people are going to Hell. This mountain includes a continual fear of rejection. Mount Self is all about me. And that’s a huge obstacle.
“Our storms, no matter how intense, only come for our good—we have God’s promise on that (Romans 8:28). But the ungodly are in a terrible storm without an anchor for the soul.”
Then there is Mount Apathy. These two high peaks are joined at the base. People are going to Hell, and because I’m selfish, I don’t care. This mountain is overcome by the love of Christ. It constrains us. It forces us to go in a certain direction. That’s what it means to “constrain” someone. As followers of Jesus, we don’t have any choice. Love won’t let us let apathy have its evil way. And if there is a lack of love, apathy will fill that vacuum in a second.
This mountain climbing takes place even though trials are on every side. Look at what the apostle Paul says. After he speaks about these continual trials, he brings us back to having a zeal for the lost:
And since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, “I believed and therefore I spoke,” we also believe and therefore speak, knowing that He who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus, and will present us with you. (2 Corinthians 4:13-14)
If we believe, we will speak. We will leave the 99 who are saved, and we will climb mountains to seek and save that which is lost. “What do you think?” Am I right?
People often mistake us for an official church ministry, so we get a lot of e-mails asking about sin. We usually ignore them, but not today! Join us as we exercise deep spiritual discernment to answer the following important questions:
Bob from Toledo, OH: Q: I load the dishwasher from front to back. Is this a sin?
A: Yes.
Travis from Rancho Cucamonga, CA: Q: I like the Dodgers. Is this sinful?
A: Yes.
Donald from D.C.: Q: I cheated on my wife with an adult film star. Is that a sin?
A: No. That’s fine.
Steve from Cedar City, UT: Q: I’m a Reddit moderator. Is that a sin?
A: You, unfortunately, cannot be redeemed.
Pat from Oklahoma City, OK: Q: I sometimes ‘heart’ the reels my wife sends me, even though I don’t love them and they are not funny. Is that a sin?
A: You shall be held blameless.
Cindy from Mounds Park, MN: Q: Is scheduling a Zoom meeting after 4 P.M. a sin?
A: Trick question. Scheduling a Zoom meeting of any kind at any time is a sin.
Pauly from Jersey City, NJ: Q: I go to Raising Cane’s on Sunday since Chick-fil-A is closed. Is that OK?
A: Eternal damnation awaits you.
Daniel from Albuquerque, NM: Q: I accidentally stole a glance at CNN at the airport. Is that a sin?
A: Pluck your eyes out. It is better for you to enter Heaven with no eyes than for your whole body to be cast into Hell.
Zack from Mobile, AL: Q: Whenever Bob the Builder asked ‘Can we fix it?!’ I always shouted ‘No!’
A: Weird, but okay.
Joe from Wilmington, DE: Q: I got 12 soldiers killed in Afghanistan, and retaliated by ordering a drone strike on a civilian family. Was that a sin?
A: You’ve probably done much worse.
Greg from Los Angeles, CA: Q: Is it a sin to find Bugs Bunny attractive when he dressed up like a girl bunny?
A: No. He’s quite a looker.
David from Franklin, TN: Q: I wrote an article defending drag queens as a blessing of Christian liberty, and I constantly attack other Christians for not being as righteous as me because I hate Donald Trump. This is not a sin. I am a great man.
A: Dave, get help.
We hope this article was as rewarding for you as it was for us to judge other people. Please repent and turn away from the Dodgers before it’s too late.
NOT SATIRE: Lives Change When Presented with The Real Story of Jesus
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Liberal Brynnleigh witnesses a communist utopia in action!
because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (5:5b–8)
A fourth marvelous link in the unbreakable chain that eternally binds believers to Christ is their possession of the divine love of God, which has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. When a person receives salvation through Jesus Christ, he enters a spiritual love relationship with God that lasts throughout all eternity. As the apostle makes unambiguous in verse 8, love of God does not here refer to our love for God but to His love for us. The most overwhelming truth of the gospel is that God loved sinful, fallen, rebellious mankind, so much “that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16). And as the apostle proclaims in verse 9 of this present chapter, if God loved us with so great a love before we were saved, when we were still His enemies, how much more does He love us now. As if that were not enough, God even graciously imparts His love to us. For those who accept His offer of salvation, God takes His indescribable and undeserved love and pours it out within the hearts of those who believe, through His own Holy Spirit who he gives to them. Taking the truth of eternal security out of the objective area of the mind, Paul now reveals that, in Christ, we are also given subjective evidence of permanent salvation, evidence that God Himself implants within our deepest being, in that we love the One who first loved us (1 John 4:7–10; cf. 1 Cor. 16:22). Poured out refers to lavish outpouring to the point of overflowing. Our heavenly Father does not proffer His love in measured drops but in immeasurable torrents. The very fact that God gives His Holy Spirit to indwell believers is itself a marvelous testimony to His love for us, because He would hardly indwell those whom He did not love. And it is only because of the indwelling Spirit that His children are able to truly love Him. Speaking to His disciples about the Holy Spirit, Jesus said, “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water’ ” (John 7:38; cf. v. 39). Those rivers of blessing can flow out of believers only because of the divine rivers of blessing, including the blessing of divine love, that God has poured into them. In the same way, our spiritual security is not in our ability to live godly but in the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit to make us godly. Only God can make men godly, and the Spirit’s leading us into godliness is one of the great evidences of salvation. “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God,” Paul declares, “these are sons of God” (Rom. 8:14). With the longing to love, even the genuine desire to be godly is produced by the Holy Spirit. Whenever we sincerely aspire to righteous living, whenever we have an earnest desire to pray, whenever we yearn to study God’s Word, whenever we long to worship the Lord Jesus Christ with all our hearts, we know we are being led by the Holy Spirit. Whenever we experience the awesome awareness that God is indeed our heavenly Father, it is “the Spirit Himself [who] bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ” (Rom. 8:16–17). The natural man has no such desires or experiences, and even Christians would not have them apart from being indwelt and led by the Holy Spirit. Because acknowledging His promises with the mind does not necessarily bring personal confidence to the heart, God makes provision for the emotional encouragement as well as the mental enlightenment of His children. When the Lord is given free reign in our lives, the Holy Spirit will bear fruit in and through us, the first fruit of which is love (Gal. 5:22). But when we grieve Him through our disobedience (Eph. 4:30), He cannot produce what He intends. Therefore, when we live in disobedience, we not only will not feel loving toward God but will not feel His love for us. With perhaps that truth in mind, Paul prayed for the Ephesian believers: “For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man; so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fulness of God” (Eph. 3:14–19). The Holy Spirit strengthens the inner man and enables him “to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge.” By the gracious work of the Spirit within us, our hearts are able to experience a depth of love that our minds are unable to grasp, “the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge.” Knowing that his readers would want to know more about the quality and character of the divine love that filled them, Paul reminds them of the greatest manifestation of God’s love in all history, perhaps in all eternity: For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. While men were utterly helpless to bring themselves to God, He sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to die for us, notwithstanding the fact that we were ungodly and completely unworthy of His love. When we were powerless to escape from our sin, powerless to escape death, powerless to resist Satan, and powerless to please Him in any way, God amazingly sent His Son to die on our behalf. Natural human love is almost invariably based on the attractiveness of the object of love, and we are inclined to love people who love us. Consequently, we tend to attribute that same kind of love to God. We think that His love for us is dependent on how good we are or on how much we love Him. But as Jesus pointed out, even traitorous tax collectors were inclined to love those who loved them (Matt. 5:46). And as theologian Charles Hodge observed, “If [God] loved us because we loved him, he would love us only so long as we love him, and on that condition; and then our salvation would depend on the constancy of our treacherous hearts. But as God loved us as sinners, as Christ died for us as ungodly, our salvation depends, as the apostle argues, not on our loveliness, but on the constancy of the love of God” (Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974 reprint], pp. 136–37). God’s immense love is supremely demonstrated by Christ’s dying for the ungodly, for totally unrighteous, undeserving, and unlovable mankind. In the human realm, by contrast, Paul observes that one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. Paul is not contrasting a righteous man with a good man, but is simply using those terms synonymously. His point is that it is uncommon for a person to sacrifice his own life in order to save the life even of someone of high character. Still fewer people are inclined to give their lives to save a person they know to be a wicked scoundrel. But God was so inclined, and in that is our security and assurance. Saved, we can never be as wretched as we were before salvation—and He loved us totally then. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That sort of self-less, undeserved love is completely beyond human comprehension. Yet that is the love that the just and infinitely holy God had toward us even while we were yet sinners. The God who hates every sinful thought and every sinful deed nevertheless loves the sinners who think and do those things, even while they are still hopelessly enmeshed in their sin. Even when men openly hate God and do not have the least desire to give up their sin, they are still the objects of God’s redeeming love as long as they live. Only at death does an unbeliever cease to be loved by God. After that, he is eternally beyond the pale of God’s love and is destined irrevocably for His wrath. In Christ, we are forever linked to God by His love, demonstrated in (positive) blessings and (negative) mercy.
MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (1991). Romans (Vol. 1, pp. 283–286). Moody Press.
God’s Love Commended
Romans 5:6–8
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
There are a number of preachers today, some of them quite famous, who do not want to say anything unpleasant about sinful human nature. They describe their approach to Christianity as “possibility thinking” and argue that people are already so discouraged about themselves that they do not need to be told that they are wicked. I do not know how such preachers could possibly preach on our text. They should want to, I think, Romans 5:6–8 (and verse 5, which precedes this paragraph) speak about the love that God has for us. The greatness of this love, which is mentioned here in Romans for the very first time, is an uplifting and positive theme. Besides, it is brought into the argument at this point to assure us that all who have been justified by faith in Christ have been saved because of God’s love for them and that nothing will ever be able to separate them from it. This is the climax to which we will also come at the end of Romans 8. Nothing could be more positive or more edifying than this theme. Yet Paul’s statement of the nature, scope, and permanence of God’s love is placed against the black backdrop of human sin, and rightly so. For, as Paul tells us: “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (v. 8). How can we appreciate or even understand that statement without speaking about the evil natures of those whom God has thus loved? This is a very practical matter for two reasons. First, since Paul is describing the love of God against the dark background of human sin, he is saying that it is only against this background that we are able to form a true picture of how great the love of God is. In other words, if we think (as many do) that God loves us because we are somehow quite lovely or desirable, our appreciation of the love of God will be reduced by just that amount—just as a beautiful but very vain woman might have trouble appreciating the love of her husband, or of anyone else. If we think we deserve the best of everything, we will not appreciate the love we receive irrespective of our beauty, talent, or other supposedly admirable qualities. The second point is this: If we think we deserve God’s love, we cannot ever really be secure in it, because we will always be afraid that we may do something to lessen or destroy the depth of God’s love for us. It is only those who know that God has loved them in spite of their sin who can trust him to continue to show them favor.
God’s Love for Sinners
I begin with Paul’s description of the people God loves and has saved, and I ask you to notice the four powerful words used to portray them, three in the passage we are studying and one additional word in verse 10. They are “powerless,” “ungodly,” “sinners,” and “enemies.” It is important to know that we are all rightly described by each of these words.
Powerless. This word is translated in a variety of ways in our Bible versions: “weak,” “helpless,” “without strength,” “feeble,” “sluggish in doing right,” and so on. Only the strongest terms will do in this context, since the idea is that, left to ourselves, none of us is able to do even one small thing to please God or achieve salvation. One commentator distinguishes between “conditional impossibilities” and “unconditional impossibilities” in order to show that this kind of inability is truly unconditional. A conditional impossibility is one in which we are unable to do something unless something else happens. For example, I might find it impossible to repay a loan unless I should suddenly earn a large sum of money. Or I might be unable to accept an invitation to some social event unless a prior commitment is canceled. An unconditional impossibility is one which no possible change in circumstances can alter, and it is this that describes us in our pre-converted state. What specifically were we unable to do? We were unable to understand spiritual things (1 Cor. 2:14). We were unable to see the kingdom of God or enter it (John 3:3, 5). We were unable to seek God (Rom. 3:11). Paul elsewhere describes this inability vividly when he says that before God saved us we were “dead in [our] transgressions and sins” (Eph. 2:1). That is, we were no more able to respond to or seek God than a corpse is able to respond to stimuli of any kind.
Ungodly. This word conveys the same idea Paul expressed at the beginning of his description of the race in its rebellion against God: “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness” (Rom. 1:18). In these verses, “ungodly” and “godlessness” mean not so much that human beings are unlike God (though that is also true), but that in addition they are in a state of fierce opposition to him. God is sovereign, but they oppose him in his sovereignty. They do not want him to rule over them; they want to be free to do as they please. God is holy, and they oppose him in his holiness. This means that they do not accept his righteous and proper moral standards; they do not want their sinful acts and desires to be called into question. God is omniscient, and they oppose him for his omniscience. They are angry that he knows them perfectly, that nothing they think or do is hidden from his sight. They also oppose him for his immutability, since immutability means that God does not change in these or any of his other attributes.
Sinners. “Sinners” describes those who have fallen short of God’s standards, as Romans 3:23 says: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” It means that we have broken God’s law and in this sense is probably parallel to the word wickedness in Romans 1:18, which was cited above. “Godlessness” is being opposed to God; that is, to have broken the first table of the law, which tells us that we are to worship and serve God only (cf. Matt. 22:37–38). “Wickedness” means to have broken the second table of the law; we have failed to treat others properly, to have respected them, and to have loved them as we love ourselves (cf. Matt. 22:39).
Enemies. The final word Paul uses to describe human beings apart from the supernatural work of God in their lives is “enemies,” though the word does not appear until verse 10. This summarizes what has been said by the first three terms, but it also goes beyond that. It affirms that not only are we unable to save ourselves, are unlike and opposed to God, and are violators of his law, but we are also opposed to God in the sense that we would attack him and destroy him if we could. Being like Satan in his desires, we would drag God from his throne, cast him to hell and crush him into nothingness—if that were possible—which is what many people actually tried to do when God came among them in the person of Jesus Christ. What a terrible picture of humanity! No wonder the possibility thinkers choose other, more uplifting themes to speak about! Yet it is only against this background that we see the brightness of God’s love. “You see,” writes Paul, “at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (vv. 6–8).
Love at the Cross
Any contrast has two sides, of course, and thus far we have looked only at one side. We have looked at the dark side: ourselves. We have seen that God loved us, not when we were lovely people who were seeking him out and trying to obey him, but when we were actually fighting him and were willing to destroy him if we could. That alone makes the measure of God’s love very great. However, we may also see the greatness of the love of God by looking at the bright side: God’s side. And here we note that God did not merely reach out to give us a helping hand, bestowing what theologians call common grace—sending rain on the just and unjust alike (cf. Matt. 5:45), for instance—but that he actually sent his beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to die for us. There is a further contrast, too, as Paul brings these great ideas together and compares what God has done in dying for sinners with what human beings might themselves do in certain circumstances. Paul points out that, while a human being might be willing to give his life for a righteous or, better yet, a morally superior woman or man under certain circumstances, Jesus died for us while we were still sinners, which is the precise opposite of being good, or righteous. In his excellent study of this text Donald Grey Barnhouse gives two illustrations of exceptionally great human love. In one story two men were trapped in a mine cave-in, and poisonous gas was escaping. One man had a wife and three children. He also had a gas mask, but his mask had been torn in the underground explosion and he would have perished apart from the act of the man who was trapped with him. This second man took off his own mask and forced it on the man who survived, saying, “You have Mary and the children; they need you. I am alone and can go.” When we hear of an act like this, we sense we are on hallowed ground. The other story concerns a tough youngster from the streets of one of our large cities. His sister had been crippled and needed an operation. The operation was provided for her. But after the operation the girl needed a blood transfusion, and the boy, her brother, was asked to volunteer. He was taken to her bedside and watched tight-lipped as a needle was inserted into his vein and blood was fed into his sister’s body. When the transfusion was over, the doctor put his arm on the boy’s shoulder and told him that he had been very brave. The youngster knew nothing about the nature of a blood transfusion. But the doctor knew even less about the actual bravery of the boy—until the boy looked up at him and asked steadily, “Doc, how long before I croak?” He had gotten the idea that he would have to die to save his sister, and he had thought that he was dying drop by drop as his blood flowed into her veins. But he did it anyway! These stories sober us, because in them we recognize something of the highest human love. Yet, when we read of the love of God in Romans 5, we learn that it was not for those who were close to him or who loved him that Jesus died—but for those who were opposed to God and were his enemies. It is on this basis that God commends his love to us.
An Argument for Hard Hearts
Isn’t it astounding that God should need to commend his love to us? We are told in the Bible, though we should know it even without being told, that all good gifts come from God’s hands (James 1:17). It is from God that we receive life and health, food and clothing, love from and fellowship with other people, and meaningful work. These blessings should prove the love of God beyond any possibility of our doubting it. Yet we do doubt it. We are insensitive to God’s love, and God finds it necessary to commend his love by reminding us of the death of his Son. So it is at the cross that we see the love of God in its fullness. What a great, great love this is! You may recall that when the Swiss theologian Karl Barth was in this country some years before his death, someone asked a question at one of his question-and-answer sessions that went like this: “Dr. Barth, what is the greatest thought that has ever gone through your mind?” The questioner probably expected some complicated and incomprehensible answer, as if Einstein were being asked to explain the theory of relativity. But after he had thought a long while, Barth replied by saying: “Jesus loves me, this I know. For the Bible tells me so.” This was a profound answer and a correct one. For there is nothing greater that any of us could think about or know than that Jesus loves us and has shown his love by dying in our place.
The Greatness of God’s Love
I would like to close this study by reflecting on the greatness of God’s love for us, but I wonder how anyone can do that adequately. How can any merely human words sufficiently express this wonder? Some years ago I was preaching through the Gospel of John and had come to that greatest of all verses about the love of God: John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” I wanted to say that the love of God is great, remembering that Ephesians 2:4 uses that very word: “But because of his great love for us.…” But the English word great is not great enough for this subject. The week before, I had been at Houghton College in New York, and I remembered having said that I thought the work of the college was great, that some of the points the other speakers had made were great, and that I had had a great time. I was sincere in my use of the word great. But what were such uses of the word compared to the use of the word to describe God’s love? Someone once tried to express the greatness of God’s love by printing on a little card a special arrangement of John 3:16, with certain descriptive phrases added. The twelve parts of the verse were arranged down one side of the card, and the added phrases were printed across from them. It went like this:
God the greatest Lover so loved the greatest degree the world the greatest company that he gave the greatest act his only begotten Son the greatest gift that whosoever the greatest opportunity believeth the greatest simplicity in him the greatest attraction should not perish the greatest promise but the greatest difference have the greatest certainty everlasting life the greatest possession
The title placed over the whole was: “Christ—the Greatest Gift.” Let me try to express the greatness of the love of God by the words of a hymn by F. M. Lehman. Lehman wrote most of this hymn, but the final stanza (the best, in my opinion) was added to it later, after it had been found scratched on the wall of a room in an asylum by a man said to have been insane. The first and last verses of the hymn and the chorus, go as follows:
The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell.
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave his Son to win:
His erring child he reconciled
And rescued from his sin.
Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made;
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Tho stretched from sky to sky.
Oh, love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure—
The saints’ and angels’ song.
Did you know that the love of God seemed so great to the biblical writers that they invented, or at least raised to an entirely new level of meaning, a brand-new word for love? The Greek language was rich in words for love. There was the word storgē, which referred to affection, particularly within the family. There was philia, from which we get “philharmonic” and “philanthropy” and the place name “Philadelphia.” It refers to a love between friends. A third word was erōs, which has given us “erotic,” and which referred to sexual love. This was a rich linguistic heritage. Yet, when the Old Testament was translated into Greek and when the New Testament writers later wrote in Greek, they found that none of these common Greek words was able to express what they wanted. They therefore took another word without strong associations and poured their own, biblical meaning into it. The new word was agapē, which thereby came to mean the holy, gracious, sovereign, everlasting, and giving love of God that we are studying here. Alas, I feel that even yet I have not begun to explain how great the love of God is. There is nothing to be done but to go back to our text and read again: “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Perhaps I should say one more thing on this subject: If you do not yet fully appreciate (or perhaps have not even begun to appreciate) the greatness of the love God has for you, the explanation is probably that you have never really thought of yourself as God saw you in your fallen state. Perhaps you have never thought of yourself as someone who was utterly without strength or powerless before God saved you. Perhaps you have never considered yourself to have been ungodly. Nor a sinner. Nor God’s enemy. But that is what you were—and still are if you have never come to Christ in order to be justified. It is only if you can recognize the truth of these descriptions that you can begin to appreciate the love that God holds out to you through the death of his Son. If you have never responded to this great overture of the divine love, let me encourage you to do that, assuring you that there is no greater truth in all the universe. Can you think of anything greater? Of course, you can’t. How could anybody? God loves you. Jesus died for you. Let those truly great thoughts move you to abandon your sin, love God in return, and live for Jesus.
Boice, J. M. (1991–). Romans: The Reign of Grace (Vol. 2, pp. 535–542). Baker Book House.
Senate Republicans signal strength amid Schumer Shutdown: Senate Republicans had lunch with the president yesterday at the White House. Majority Leader John Thune said after the lunch that the “Republican team in the Senate is unified.” It’s not just the Senate, either; the speaker of the House, the Senate majority leader, and the president of the United States are steadfast in their insistence that negotiations over Democrat pet projects can occur only after Minority Leader Chuck Schumer relents and passes the clean continuing resolution. Trump took the opportunity to praise his newly renovated Rose Garden, even as construction on the new, privately funded ballroom is beginning. Trump pointed out that just one Republican senator was missing — Rand Paul, the lone Republican to vote “No” on the CR. The Senate is expected to vote on the CR again today, but there is no indication that Democrats are backing down.
Putin and Trump not meeting after all: “I don’t want to have a wasted meeting,” Donald Trump stated on Tuesday in response to a reporter’s question as to why a planned second meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin has been canceled. The decision came on Monday, following Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s phone conversation with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, during which it became clear that Putin has no intention of seeking a peace deal to end his war in Ukraine. Following last week’s phone call with Putin, Trump pulled back on giving long-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, apparently hoping the gesture would encourage the Russian strongman to engage in serious peace negotiations. However, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky observed, “As soon as the pressure eased a little, the Russians began to try to drop diplomacy, postpone the dialogue.” Clearly, Putin is unwilling to end his diplomatic game of cat-and-mouse.
House refers Brennan for prosecution: House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan has referred former CIA Director John Brennan to Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Department of Justice for possible charges. The Judiciary Committee says that on May 11, 2023, Brennan knowingly and willfully made false statements in his testimony to the House. Brennan’s primary lie surrounds his claim that “the CIA was not involved at all with the [Steele] dossier.” This statement is contradicted by recently declassified documents, corroborated by a senior FBI analyst, which state that the decision to include Steele dossier information in the Intelligence Community Assessment that propagated the Russia-collusion hoax was “jointly made by the Directors of CIA and FBI.” The House referral also indicated that Brennan had given false testimony to Congress in 2017, although that was now beyond the five-year statute of limitations.
Hillary Clinton rages at East Wing renovation: There’s petty, and then there’s shamelessly petty, and Hillary Clinton’s recent social media outburst can only be categorized as the second. As construction crews began clearing ground on the East Wing of the White House this week, commencing Donald Trump’s building of a ballroom, Clinton posted on X, “It’s not his house. It’s your house. And he’s destroying it.” Her post included a picture of the East Wing facade being demolished in preparation for the ballroom attachment. Maybe Hillary has never watched HGTV; otherwise, she would know that demolition is part and parcel to any renovation project. Of course, her objection is actually an expression of TDS, as there is little genuine reason to object to a ballroom addition entirely financed by private donors. Furthermore, if anyone knows how to build things, it’s Trump.
Anti-ICE activist honored by Los Angeles assaults ICE with a deadly weapon: “Your tireless efforts to safeguard our neighborhoods from illegal raids and abductions reflect a profound dedication to justice.” That’s how the city of Los Angeles honored a TikToker who films ICE arrests in August. Yesterday, Carlitos Ricardo Parias, a.k.a. “Richard LA,” resisted arrest and rammed his car into ICE vehicles, spinning the tires and causing the vehicle to fishtail, creating a life-threatening situation. In response to Parias’s assault, an ICE officer opened fire, wounding Parias and leading to his arrest. A fellow ICE officer was struck and wounded by a ricochet. Both Parias and the officer are expected to recover. Acting U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli reminded the public that vehicles are deadly weapons, and anyone using them to attack law enforcement “risks arrest, imprisonment, and life-threatening injuries.”
Pardoned J6 rioter arrested for death threat against Hakeem Jeffries: In the wake of Joe “Autopen” Biden’s disgraceful pardons for anyone in or near his administration, many Republicans, including Donald Trump, thought a blanket pardon for most January 6 rioters was appropriate. As it turns out, blanket pardons are foolish. Christopher Moynihan, who was apparently one of the more violent of the Capitol rioters, has been arrested for threatening to kill House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. A text message sent by Moynihan said in relation to an expected speech from Jeffries in NYC, “I cannot allow this terrorist to live” and “he must be eliminated, I will kill him for the future.” The FBI referred Moynihan to the New York State Police, who arrested him. Moynihan has already been arraigned and did not make bail. His next court appearance is on Thursday.
Hegseth tightens reins on Pentagon’s communication with Congress: Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is overhauling the Pentagon’s communication with the outside world. He has limited press access to certain areas of the Pentagon and required journalists to sign a pledge of conduct that was almost universally rejected, leading most journalists to walk out of the building. Now Hegseth has ordered Pentagon officials speaking in their official capacities to get permission from the legislative affairs office before speaking to Congress. Individual agencies and branches of the military have heretofore been able to communicate with Congress at their own discretion. The memo informing the Pentagon of the change said that unauthorized engagements with Congress may undermine the Department’s legislative priorities.
Mamdani’s plan: tax whitey: New York City socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has run his campaign on a platform of promising a lot of free stuff, such as day care, bus rides, and government-run grocery stores. Of course, none of this stuff is free, so how does Mamdani plan to pay for it? Well, he plans to “shift the burden” by raising taxes on “richer” and “whiter” neighborhoods. When questioned as to why he highlighted racial demographics, Mamdani explained, “That is just a description of what we see right now. It’s not driven by race. It’s more of an assessment of what neighborhoods are being undertaxed versus overtaxed.” He added, “We’ve seen time and again that this is a property tax system that is inequitable. The focus here is to actually ensure a fair property tax system.” Apparently, “fair” is a relative term that justifies discrimination against people with white skin.
AZ AG files lawsuit against House GOP: Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes filed a lawsuit against House Republicans on Tuesday, alleging that Speaker Mike Johnson’s refusal to officially swear in Democrat Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva was disenfranchising voters. Grijalva, who will replace her deceased father in the congressional seat, won Arizona’s special election on September 23, four days after the House entered a recess. Johnson responded by calling Mayes’s lawsuit “patently absurd,” noting, “We run the House. She has no jurisdiction. We’re following the precedent.” The House precedent is that specially elected representatives are sworn in when the House is in session, which it has not been for weeks now due to the Democrat-initiated government shutdown. And Johnson has stated explicitly that he will not call the House back into session until the Senate votes to reopen the government.
Jen Psaki’s white-savior complex: Democrats have begun the smear campaign on JD Vance early, with MSNBC host Jen Psaki already labeling him “worse than Hitler.” But she didn’t stop there, as she went even lower by attacking Vance’s marriage. She made the contemptible comments on the “I’ve Had It” podcast, suggesting that JD’s wife, Usha, was scared of him and needed saving. “I think the little Manchurian candidate, JD Vance, wants to be president more than anything else,” Psaki said. “I always wonder what’s going on in the mind of his wife. Like, are you OK? Please blink four times. We’ll come over here. We’ll save you.” Many took to X, calling Psaki out for her disgusting and unwarranted comments. One of them, Townhall writer Amy Curtis, pointed out, “Usha Vance is happily married. … She made a vow to JD, and those words mean something.” Liberals, in their misery, hate seeing others who are happy.
Headlines
Trump receives Architect of Peace Award from Nixon Foundation (CBS News)
Jeanine Pirro charges two of Edward “Big Balls” Coristine’s attackers (PJ Media)
RFK Jr. to unveil new guidance encouraging more saturated fats (NewsNation)
Cracker Barrel CEO claims disastrous logo change was “not ideological” (NY Post)
Oxford Union votes to oust woke president-elect who called conservatives “cancer,” celebrated Charlie Kirk’s assassination (Not the Bee)
Britain’s Metropolitan Police force says it’ll finally stop investigating thought crimes (Daily Caller)
Humor: White House construction crew finds 1,357 more cocaine stashes (Babylon Bee)
The splashy mainstream media news today is that Paul Ingrassia, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Office of Special Counsel, withdrew from his Senate confirmation hearing after texts surfaced in which he expressed distasteful ideas. A few Republican senators indicated they would not support him, so he had little choice but to bow out.
In an episode that closely resembles the flap over the Young Republicans in New York, Ingrassia texted views that are well outside the accepted mainstream in Washington:
“Never trust a chinaman or Indian.”
“We need competent white men in positions of leadership.”
“MLK Jr. was the 1960s George Floyd and his ‘holiday’ should be ended and tossed into the seventh circle of hell.”
“I do have a Nazi streak in me from time to time, I will admit it.”
People say and do stupid things when they let their guard down — especially, for some reason, behind a screen. In particular, bragging about a Nazi streak is well beyond that. The Nazis were among the most evil regimes in the 20th century, and no good person deems himself a fellow traveler. Ingrassia was right to withdraw, and it would be even better if Trump would make a statement about how this sort of toxic thinking doesn’t belong in his MAGA movement.
But isn’t it interesting that Republicans around the country immediately condemned and pulled support for Ingrassia and the New York Young Republicans when they learned what awful things those men said? As Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon argued this week at The Free Press, “Bad ideas are like cancer. If you don’t deal with them quickly and decisively, they spread.”
There’s a hot debate about this currently raging on the Right, though that’s a discussion for another day. For now, I’ll say this: Dillon is right. If the conservative movement doesn’t police itself, steadfastly remaining true to First Principles, it will rot from the inside.
It’s even worse if a movement starts out on the wrong side. Take the Democrat Party, for example.
Bad ideas yield worse ideas, and wrongheaded people soon become radical extremists. That’s now normal among Democrats. When you allow a self-declared socialist like Bernie Sanders to become mainstream in the party, you end up with people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez rising in the House and a radical Muslim socialist like Zohran Mamdani poised to win the mayor’s race in America’s largest city. Full-on socialism in New York City will have disastrous consequences nationwide.
When you don’t rein in the most radical voices, you also end up with Senate candidates who have literal Nazi tattoos, like Democrat Graham Platner in Maine. “I am not a secret Nazi,” he protested in a sentence no one ever wants to hear a candidate feel compelled to utter. And what — he’s not a Nazi, or it’s not a secret?
He’s on the record asking why black people “don’t tip” at restaurants, calling “all” cops bastards, blaming rape victims for their own assault, and declaring himself a “communist.” His defense? He was drunk when he said those things. As for the tattoo, Platner says he didn’t know what it meant, but even his former campaign manager is calling BS on that one. Genevieve McDonald resigned from his campaign last week over the aforementioned off-color comments, and she said Platner is “a history buff” who “knows damn well what [the tattoo] means.”
I mentioned Bernie Sanders above, and for a reason. He endorsed Platner and is standing by him in the wake of all the controversy. “I personally think he is an excellent candidate,” Sanders said this week. Asked about the Nazi tattoo, the Soviet-loving socialist blustered about the “corrupt campaign finance system” and how “we don’t have enough candidates in this country that will take on the powers that be and fight for the working class.”
Who says the Nazis and Soviets can’t get along? Fascists and communists are, after all, both on the Left.
Circling the wagons is basically a muscle reflex for Democrats. It was a whole three weeks ago when Americans learned that Virginia’s Democrat candidate for state attorney general expressed a desire to kill his political opponents. Other Democrats basically yawned and yelled, “But Trump!”
I’m with National Review’s Charles C.W. Cooke, who has “developed a strategy to avoid being caught saying” horrendous things: “Don’t say those things in the first place.” He quips, “When practiced concurrently with another useful strategy — not believing any of those things in the first place — it is almost foolproof.”
That’s a good indicator of why certain individuals find themselves in the hot seat.
Emmy Griffin: KJP’s Feet Get Held to the Fire — While on her book tour, the former Biden spokesparrot got grilled by a usually friendly media about her old boss. Times are changing.
Thomas Gallatin: The Palestinian Authority’s ‘Pay for Slay’ Gambit — While getting its hostages back made the Hamas/Israel peace deal worth it, releasing hundreds of Palestinian jihadis may come back to bite Israel.
Michael Swartz: UN Punts on Shipping Carbon Tax — After pushback from the Trump administration, the United Nations decided — for now — not to pursue its latest climate change income redistribution scheme.
Sophie Starkova: Why Are Peanut Allergies Declining? — Such food sensitivities were once far more rare, and based on a new study, they could become rare once again if doctors and parents will follow the new guidance.
Linda Moss Mines: William Howard Taft and Foreign Policy — Taft was a quiet, kind man with a judicial temperament, but those personality traits were a major factor in his difficulties as president.
Keep us in the fight!
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The Socialist Housing Plan for New York City — As mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani gets closer to winning his election — and freezing rents for nearly two million New Yorkers — many fear that the situation will only get worse.
Walmart CEO Sets Trump-Deranged ABC Host Straight — John Furner said turkey prices are down to 2019 levels, telling George Stephanopoulos that the price of a Thanksgiving dinner for 10 will be “down 25% from last year.”
Satire: ‘I Don’t Know Why I’m Here’ — We cover the “No Kings” protest and how it was sponsored by the Communist Party of the United States, the Young Communist League, and Soros.
SHORT CUTS
Braying Jenny
“That is not your building. You don’t own that building. … That is the people’s building.” —”The View” co-host Whoopi Goldberg complaining about Trump’s White House renovations
Non Compos Mentis
“[Trump] is literally wiping his ass with the Constitution.” —Lenard “Charlamagne” McKelvey
Projection
“I don’t know what’s happened to the Republicans in the United States Senate. It’s as if they have all had their spines surgically removed.” —Sen. Elizabeth Warren
“He needs to get off the sidelines, get off the golf course, and actually decide to end the shutdown that he’s created. … Donald Trump clearly wants the government shut down. He wants to inflict pain on the American people.” —House Democrat Leader Hakeem Jeffries
“If anybody shouldn’t be paid, it’s Mike Johnson and the Republicans who are not doing their job.” —Rep. Jamie Raskin
The Bottom Line
“The American people would have an open government if Democrats were not terrified of their radical base.” —House Speaker Mike Johnson
“It is truly amazing how a program Democrats created and tax credits that they chose to sunset have now become the Republicans’ crisis. Republicans, in fact, never had anything to do with it. Democrats created ObamaCare — alone. They implemented the enhanced tax credits — alone. And they chose a sunset date for those tax credits — alone. Democrats are solely — solely — responsible for the ObamaCare tax credit cliff. And yet they’re trying to pin this disaster on Republicans while at the very same time they’re asking Republicans to bail them out.” —Senate Majority Leader John Thune
A Blind Squirrel Finds a Nut
“The right-wingers — say what you want about them, but they talk to you. … Charlie Kirk and I certainly don’t agree on much politically, but he sat here. He’s a human being. He’s not a monster. And I liked him. I like them all. They’re all nice people when you meet them in person.” —Bill Maher
Re: “No Kings” Protestors
“Listen, you guys spend your time however you want. It’s a free country, not a monarchy.” —Scott Jennings
For the Record
“Here’s something I learned fairly quickly in the political debate: The media downplays huge conservative crowds as ‘a few thousand,’ while small leftist crowds are described as ‘hundreds of thousands.’” —Gary Bauer
The Monroe Doctrine
“Helping friends in Latin America weather the storms that come with reforming stagnant socialist economies is a smart long-term investment for Washington, not just in our hemispheric security but in our prosperity as well.” —Daniel McCarthy
ON THIS DAY in 1968, Apollo 7 returned to Earth safely after launching into orbit on October 11. It was the first manned spaceflight after a fire aboard Apollo 1 killed three astronauts, and it renewed optimism in NASA’s space program.
Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray for the protection of our uniformed Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Lift up your Patriot Post team and our mission to support and defend our legacy of American Liberty and our Republic’s Founding Principles, in order that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.
Vice-President J.D. Vance meets with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel about the future of Gaza, as Vance warns Hamas to disarm or be destroyed, but says he’s optimistic about the peace deal, as he says the goal is to rebuild Gaza and secure peace for Israel; Chris Mitchell talks about what Hamas’s refusal to disarm and what that could mean, the possibility of another long Israeli war with Hamas, Hamas’s influence in Gaza and how people there feel about them, preventing Qatar and Turkey from having influence over Gaza, and who could rule it in the future; how artificial intelligence is being used to target children, including for sex trafficking – and how people can protect their loved ones; and our Studio 5 conversation with country singer Whey Jennings, grandson of Waylon Jennings, about how he overcame his own personal demons and giving his life to God.
In the wake of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk’s assassination, his organization’s faith wing has seen a massive increase in membership.
Kirk was not one to shy away from professing that he followed Jesus Christ. TPUSA Faith aims to facilitate the growth and to nourish the faith of Christians across the country, while spreading the Word of God. According to its website, “TPUSA Faith is dedicated to empowering Christians to put their faith into action. We engage, equip, and empower millions of grateful Americans who are prepared to defend our God-given rights, by giving them the tools to expose lies and articulate the connection between Faith and Freedom.”
On Tuesday, TPUSA spokesman Andrew Kolvet told Fox News that 4,000 new churches have joined in this vision, bringing the total number of churches under the organization to 8,000.
Additionally, TPUSA faith has seen 200,000 new Christians become involved. Its social media accounts saw an incredible uptick of 1,000 percent in followers, viewers, and streamers.
Kolvet commented on this success when speaking to “The Story” host Trace Gallagher.
“So, now we’ve doubled. We have 8,000 churches in our network at TPUSA Faith. We’ve seen almost 1,000 percent growth across all social media platforms. And get this. We’ve had over 200,000 people sign up to become a part of TPUSA Faith.
“It’s really encouraging for me just to see the pure raw numbers of that because you can feel it. There’s so many anecdotes and so many people that have come to us, sent us emails,” he said. “You see it in the social media comments saying, ‘Charlie re-inspired my faith. I’m going back to church. I’m praying for my husband. Our marriage has been saved because of the legacy that … and just the way Charlie lived his life.’”
He also spoke about Kirk taking every chance to express his faith in his work. “[Charlie would] get a question about, regardless of the topic, he would get a question, and he would find a way to integrate his faith just seamlessly into that.
“And after, you know, Charlie was assassinated, people started seeing these clips, and they would realize just what he was doing with all of those interactions that he had one by one over the years and how so much wisdom was packed into these social media videos that now people are rediscovering.
“And then they hear about the way he lived his life or loved Erica, his wife, or his kids, and they realized that there is true wisdom here and a future and a purpose for them. So, it’s wonderful to see.”
It is truly magnificent to see God’s plan carried out, even in times of great sorrow.
Romans 8:28 reads, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”
The gunman — and the godless cabal that celebrated his death — wanted those who shared his values and his faith to cower in fear.
Instead, the movement is growing.
Faith in Jesus Christ is growing, and Christians won’t be ashamed or scared to profess that.
Christians have faced persecution since the earliest day of the church, but God continues to work for our benefit even in times of pain where evil appears to triumph.
With the loss of Kirk, God has facilitated Christians to grow in numbers and become bold in their beliefs.
Now, instead of just one Charlie Kirk, we are looking at thousands just like him.
The savory, cheese-forward Hamburger Helper meal kit — introduced in 1971 — has attracted consumers for decades as a quick and easy way to prepare inexpensive ground beef.
Two recent articles have a couple quotes from prominent Democrat strategists that inadvertently capture the filthy rut the party continues to wallow in. They even use the same word.
In The Hill on Monday, campaign strategists Doug Schoen and Carly Cooperman declared that “the heart of Democrats’ dilemma is an inability to articulate their own path forward” and a failure at “communicating their own credible and attractive alternative” to President Trump’s agenda. Over in The New York Times one day before, pollster Celinda Lake almost identically said, “The biggest thing the Democrats need to do is not the negative but the positive. We have to offer an alternative.”[…]
On Friday we noted thatauto loan delinquencies among low-tier consumers have surged 50% since 2010, as new vehicle prices have spiked over 25% since 2019 and 20% of borrowers forking over at least $1,000 per month for their depreciating asset (at 9% APR, no less).
Via CBS / Vantagescore
And so it makes perfect sense that with over 100 million auto loans in America, the number of cars being repossessed is approaching records.
According to data from the Recovery Database Network (RDN), there have been over 7.5 million repossession assignments in the United States so far this year – meaning, authorizations given to an agency to recover a vehicle on behalf of a lender. This figure is on track to exceed 10.5 million by the end of the year. Of note, an assignment =/= a repossession, as repo men aren’t always successful.
Yet despite recovery ratios having fallen in recent years, over three million cars could be repossessed this year, a level not seen since 2009.
Paycheck to Paycheck
According to a Goldman survey published earlier this month, around 40% of Americans under the age of boomer report living paycheck to paycheck as inflation continues to erode purchasing power.
For those living primarily paycheck to paycheck, the top issue cited by 87% of those asked was “Too many monthly financial expenses” – like an auto loan. In second place is financial hardship (81%) such as home repairs, followed by credit card debt (77%).
Meanwhile, Fitch reports that 6.43 percent of subprime auto loans were at least 60 days past due in August, while Cox Automotive reported last week that the average transaction price for a new vehicle hit $50,000 last month – the highest level eva.
“Auto finance is at a breaking point, as Americans owe over $1.66 trillion in auto debt. Delinquencies, defaults, and repossessions have shot up in recent years and look alarmingly similar to trends that were apparent before the Great Recession,” wrote the Consumer Federation of America, a nonprofit advocacy group.
“Cars are more expensive than ever, due in part to economic factors, but also due to the fraught experience of buying and financing a car. Dealers and lenders have long engaged in deceptive and predatory practices that jack up prices for car buyers in order to line their pockets.”
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