More information on the Beckwith Controversy:
http://www.enjoyinggodministries.com/en … ntroversy/
http://www.enjoyinggodministries.com/en … roversy-2/
Category: Theology Page 51 of 67
“Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name.”
Acts 5:41
Here we have such a beautiful picture of suffering and rejoicing in it. The Apostles had been beaten before the council of Israel for speaking the Gospel boldly in the name of Christ. They rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name of Christ. I just let this idea and this worldview sink in for a while today, and it brought me to tears. The reason is because I saw clearly in this passage how suffering is mercy from God (to bring us to repentance that we may turn to Christ for cleansing), and how suffering for the name of Christ specifically is taking up your cross for the sake of Christ and His glory and honor. The Apostles had such a vision of Christ and His glory that they could not help but speak about what they had seen and heard. And even moreso, they praised God they could suffer for His sake!
We are not merely supposed to imitate them. Of course we are to do that. But we cannot of ourselves! We are utterly dependant upon the Holy Spirit to give us the eyes, ears, strength and power to live in this worldview. We cannot conjure up this image of Christ of our own volition and will. We are dependant on the One who makes it evident. The only way we can see God in this worldview is by us seeking Him in the Scriptures and having this vision revealed to us by the Holy Spirit. We are utterly dependent upon God to show us His glory (just as Moses was totally dependent upon God to have His glory revealed to Him on the mountain). And we go to see the glory of Christ in Scripture and in communion with Him personally in prayer where we experience His very presence. This thinking is so backward from our Western culture. I have a hard time shaking it myself and struggle. In fact I cannot shake it myself. And it will take a supernatural revelation of God for all of us to see Christ in this greater light, so much that we rejoice in suffering and see that we are counted worthy to suffer for the glory of God!
Francis J. Beckwith, a prominent leader amongst evangelicals in America, a guy who also co-authored one of my favorite books, Relativism, has apparently converted to Roman Catholicism. I find it strange, namely because he was the president and a member of the Evangelical Theological Society but has since resigned both offices. I guess he would probably agree with the Evangelicals and Catholics Together statement, a document J.I. Packer and Chuck Colson also signed. I am not understanding this … even people of the Reformed tradition (which has been known for strongly upholding the Five Solas of the Reformation against the Catholic Church), seem to be floundering in their convictions and agreeing with documents like the E.C.T. statement. It seems to me relativism is taking its toll, even on a guy who co-authored a fantastic book refuting the philosophical system that is so prevalent in our society.
Beckwith’s Statement
ETS Statement
Beckwith Article on KWTX’s website
James White Article on the E.C.T. Statement
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070509/ap_ … y_sharpton
It’s great to see that in the political discourse leading up to the presidential election, leaders from both political fronts are using God as their pawn to 1-up the other and gain political ground. I don’t understand why believers here call this a Christian nation. It is just as decadent, wickedly depraved, and sinful as any other country in the world (if not moreso), we’re just a lot more cleaned up about it on the outside in our “civilized” society. Sharpton has no interest in the things of Christ (only politics), and Romney’s a Mormon (believing Christ to be one of many gods). They both have lost the Gospel. Sharpton is using God as a means to defend his liberal, racist political agenda, and Romney is doing the same thing, just in a different manner. Praise God our ultimate hope is not in the conservative or liberal agendas, but is in Christ alone and his political Kingdom, the glory of God being enjoyed by His people forever.
“The Bible’s purpose is not so much to show you how to live a good life. The Bible’s purpose is to show you how God’s grace breaks into your life against your will and saves you from the sin and brokenness otherwise you would never be able to overcome… religion is ‘if you obey, then you will be accepted’. But the Gospel is, ‘if you are absolutely accepted, and sure you’re accepted, only then will you ever begin to obey’. Those are two utterly different things. Every page of the Bible shows the difference.”
– Tim Keller
And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
1 Corinthians 13:2
The essence of the nature of a debate between believers is that you are contending for the truth of the Scriptures. And while this is a noble endeavor and should be engaged in by every believer for the edification of the church (in love), what is ignoble in this task is letting such things divide and stifle fellowship between genuine believers who both love Christ. To Arminians I disagree with on such points as regeneration, atonement, and election, I can agree and stand with them on about 95% of other theological points, and should do so. No genuine believer wants to take credit for their salvation. And so we unite together under the person and work of Christ on our behalf in His life, death, and resurrection, through faith. And while I believe that an issue such as regeneration affects all other points of salvation and is vitally important to Gospel preaching, I believe that if God has granted me a greater knowledge in this particular area of Scripture, it is no credit to me at all, but to God’s gracious and merciful hand giving me a greater vision of man’s plight in sin and what lengths Christ really had to go to in order to make us willing to go to Him for salvation. And so if I have a greater knowledge of the work of Christ and salvation, 1) I believe I am tasked to share it, but 2) I am to share it humbly, with love and brotherly affection! If I do not share in brotherly affection (as I have been prone to do in the past), what good is that to my brother or sister in Christ whom I want to impart truth that has radically changed my vision of God? How am I going to convince an Arminian of total depravity, unconditional election, Christ’s definite atonement, His irresistible grace at the time of belief, and Christ’s preservation unto final salvation, if I am a jerk to them about it? And has it truly affected my heart the way it should if I do not approach others humbly concerning these things? And how can I not be patient with others who are struggling with these difficult topics after having seen the extreme and infinite patience of Christ in the cross?
And really if anyone thinks they have a greater grasp on Biblical things than someone else (Calvinist or Arminian), if it does not humble them or bring about the fruits of the Spirit in their life (Gal. 5:22-23), what glory is that to God? Is our final end not to bring about the glory of the grace of God in Christ (Rev. 13:8)? How do fellowship divisions with other believers bring about glory to God? If anyone loves Christ, they have been called into fellowship with God and one another, even though there may be points of contention. This is how John Wesley and George Whitefield preached together, they were united in the cause of Christ, the preaching of the Gospel. Christ purchased this gift of fellowship through His blood on the cross. How wonderful!
Now there are some points that we cannot move on such as the full humanity and full deity of Christ, the fact that all men are sinners, deserving of eternal wrath from the hand of God, sacrifical atonement through the blood of Christ, justification, the resurrection, virgin birth, etc, that if we dismiss these, we will lose the Gospel entirely which is no hope to the world at all. And I personally believe Calvinism is a point I cannot move on as well, but I must be loving and patient and kind with believers who disagree. True? There are points of theology I have strong convictions about and will disagree all day long with an Arminian on concerning the nature of salvation, because I believe these things really do affect the effectiveness of the preaching and application of the Gospel to both the unbeliever (unto salvation) and believer (in sanctification and spiritual growth). However, I do not believe these things should be ground for breaking fellowship with them because I believe both genuinely preach the Gospel, and both love and desire to honor Christ; and neither is better spiritually than the other just because one may have a greater grasp on knowledge of the Gospel the other may not. The one with the greater knowledge should be more humbled! Understanding a certain point of theology does not gain us any greater acceptance before the Father, and this goes for both the Calvinist and the Arminian. We are saved by sheer grace through the cross. What a wonderful banner to stand under together, the crucified and risen Jesus Christ!
I really like what Charles Simeon had to say to John Wesley when they met together; however understand that while Simeon could unite on things they agreed on, he was not afraid to call error out when he saw it, just keep that in mind:
Sir, I understand that you are called an Arminian; and I have been sometimes called a Calvinist; and therefore I suppose we are to draw daggers. But before I consent to begin the combat, with your permission I will ask you a few questions. Pray, Sir, do you feel yourself a depraved creature, so depraved that you would never have thought of turning to God, if God had not first put it into your heart?
Yes, I do indeed.
And do you utterly despair of recommending yourself to God by anything you can do; and look for salvation solely through the blood and righteousness of Christ?
Yes, solely through Christ.
But, Sir, supposing you were at first saved by Christ, are you not somehow or other to save yourself afterwards by your own works?
No, I must be saved by Christ from first to last.
Allowing, then, that you were first turned by the grace of God, are you not in some way or other to keep yourself by your own power?
No.
What then, are you to be upheld every hour and every moment by God, as much as an infant in its mother’s arms?
Yes, altogether.
And is all your hope in the grace and mercy of God to preserve you unto His heavenly kingdom?
Yes, I have no hope but in Him.
Then, Sir, with your leave I will put up my dagger again; for this is all my Calvinism; this is my election, my justification by faith, my final perseverance: it is in substance all that I hold, and as I hold it; and therefore, if you please, instead of searching out terms and phrases to be a ground of contention between us, we will cordially unite in those things wherein we agree. (Moule, 79f)
Great quote posted on Monergism.com :
” … it is wrong to suppose that the doctrine of Justification by faith alone, that storm center of the Reformation, was the crucial question in the minds of such theologians as Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, Martin Bucer, and John Calvin. This doctrine was important to the Reformers because it helped to express and to safeguard their answer to another, more vital, question, namely, whether sinners are wholly helpless in their sin, and whether God is to be thought of as saving them by free, unconditional, invincible grace, not only justifying them for Christs’ sake when they come to faith, but also raising them from the death of sin by His quickening Spirit in order to bring them to faith.” – Michael Haykin
FYI, I talk about some graphic things from my life in this post:
I know that many, especially those who question the validity of Christianity, are asking this very question today. Where was God during such an awful tragedy? Or at the very least, why didn’t He intervene if He is good and righteous? I want to start out by saying I completely sympathize with this question, because I asked that very question myself in the past. I went through a rough childhood where my mom had been hospitalized in mental institutions over and over. She had been sexually abused by her mother when she was a child and had severe mental disorders such as multiple personalities, bi-polar disorder, and dissociative disorder as a result of the abuse. Some of her personalities were suicidal and she would cut herself frequently. My brother and I had to hold her arm together on many occasions until the paramedics arrived. I can’t count the number of times she had to be hospitalized during birthday’s (mostly my brother’s), the Christmas’ she wasn’t apart of at home, and other times that made life very difficult. In addition, there’s the childhood trauma of going to psyche wards from a young age to visit our mom. So trust me, I know all about questioning the goodness and righteousness of God. I twisted off for a number of years in rebellion to God as a result of these things, taking drugs, hanging out with Satanists, and delving into all kinds of other wickedness. I asked myself where was God during the times I had to clean up my mother’s blood from the floor? Where was God when she almost died from a gran mal seizure in my High School years?
I can say with confidence as well as hope that God was right in the middle of my personal tragedies and these shootings. How do I find any comfort from that? After I turned to Christ by His work in my life, I saw the very truth that is proclaimed in Job that John Piper articulates so well: I did not find comfort from God in secondary causes such as, “Satan was the one who did this, not God,” or “God is fully love, therefore He had no part of this, so turn to Him,” but rather, I found comfort in seeing that God ultimately is the One who permits or disallows evil and that He allowed it in my life to bring me to Himself. Most Christians at this point scoff at such a statement. “You are ascribing evil to God!” No, I am not. Are there not aspects concerning God’s attributes we all agree on that we cannot necessarily understand how they work together? How about Jesus being fully man and fully God at the same time? How about the Trinity being three persons in one God? How about the predestining work of God unto salvation and man’s responsibility for his sin? There’s a host of these and we embrace them by faith.
So here is what I am saying: God is without sin and wickedness; and at the same time, in His sovereign will to bring about a plan that would bring about the greatest amount of glory for Himself, without sinning, He permits evil to occur. I am saying that He is sovereign and has enacted a plan we cannot understand. In the beginning of Job, Satan must ask the permission of God to perform wicked acts on Job and his household. God is the one who allows or disallows evil. Nothing happens apart from His sovereign will. Is God not omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient? Doesn’t this reality bring us to the conclusion that God is there in the midst of the tragedy and has allowed it for His purposes? In the end of the book of Job, Job doesn’t find comfort in secondary causes but finds comfort from the ultimate source and cause, God Himself. He says, “Therefore [that is as a result of what God showed him through the trials] I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know,” and “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” Job saw that God was at the heart of his trials to bring him to Himself. And in seeing this kind of love, he saw how unbelievably unworthy He was to be showered with such amazing grace.
God permits wicked acts and trials in our lives to bring us to Himself, just as the end of Job. Pain and tragedies are a call by God to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. These awful events that have happened today as well as those that occurred in my life, are as C.S. Lewis puts it, “God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf and dying world.” God gets our attention through pain. He sure did get mine, and then He used those very trials to bring me to Himself. Job’s story is my story, though obviously not nearly as bad. This is why I am a Calvinist. GOD SAVED ME. I did nothing but rebelled. As odd as it may seem, the Scriptures speak of tragedies and trials as the mercy of God. That is the conclusion of Job himself. He spoke of things he did not understand, just as I did. We both questioned God, put Him in the dock, and said, “How can you do this to me? I do not deserve this!” No actually, I deserved so much worse. And then by God’s grace alone, just like Job, I saw the beauty and majesty of God in the face of Christ in particular, and saw that He graciously brought those things in my life so that I could have the best treasure in all the universe, Christ Himself. And man how I despised myself in light of such grace, but only because I saw that I was truly accepted! I saw the depth of my sin and depravity and saw the light of the Gospel shining on me brighter than the sun. What wonderful grace! And I can honestly say I would not have had my life any other way even with all those awful things that occurred, because the beauty of Christ, His worth and value in my life personally, far outweigh having those trials taken away. The trials were bitter sweet; bitter because of my sinful flesh bucking against them, and sweet because of the sanctification I underwent to see and know Christ as a result of them. And now I can honestly say, “Praise God for His mercy in blessings and tragedy!”
Heed the call of God in this tragedy Today! Turn from your sin and whatever it is that is holding you back from God and embrace Jesus Christ that you may enjoy the greatest treasure in all the universe, God Himself. There is no one greater or that satisfied more.
Articles I used pertaining to this from John Piper:
http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibr … _for_Good/
http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibr … nt_Design/
http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibr … epentance/
http://old.westerfunk.net/archives/theo … 0of%20Men/
In reading over this sermon again, some of these applications in the life of the believer are amazing, and good to reiterate. These things cannot be stressed enough. God is to be glorified, revered, submitted to in His sovereignty. As Edwards puts it, “He demands it of you.” In fact, he goes on to say, “If we go on contending with God about His sovereignty, it will be our eternal ruin.” To call God “Lord” is the same as calling Him your Sovereign. If He is your Sovereign, the One who rules your life, then you must submit to the Scripture in this, as terrifying the truth of His absolute sovereign might and power in salvation may be. I have taken the titles for each of his applications and explained them so as to make them a little more accessible to people who may have a hard time reading Edwards’ work (totally understandable).
By God’s sovereignty in salvation, by God choosing whom He is pleased to save of His own free will, we learn:
1) How absolutely dependent we are on God alone for our salvation.
2) With great humility to adore the awful, terrifying, and absolute sovereignty of God.
3) To attribute our salvation to grace alone and no other reason in us or outside of God’s grace in Christ.
4) What cause we have to admire the grace of God, that He should bind Himself by covenant to us whom He has chosen for salvation, that He should have mercy on any of us.
5) To guard those who seek salvation from two opposite extremes: presumption and discouragement.
—————————————————————-
1) How absolutely dependent we are on God for our salvation.
We are dependent upon Him even for our faith to believe in Christ. If the Lord has mercy on whom He has mercy, and hardens whom He hardens by His sovereign will, then exactly what is that mercy He has on some? Obviously it is salvation, but at what point does it start? It is the fulfillment of the great prophecy in Ezekiel 36:26-27 that says, “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” Specifically, He is merciful upon us by creating light in our hearts, cutting through to the very core of who we are, where our desires lie, breaking through with the light of the Gospel, and changing us from the inside out, not the outside in.
Prior to belief in Christ, we rejected God, and were dead in sin, enemies of God, turned away from Him, wanting nothing to do with Him. This is what a sinner is, someone who has rejected and profaned the name of God, by thoughts and intentions of the heart, manifested in evil works. The level of depravity in our hearts is so great, that it literally takes an act of God (the Holy Spirit) to give us willing hearts that submit to Him in love. Apart from this grace, we would pursue sin and its delights straight to hell.
Had God not sovereignly cut into my life and turned my heart from rebellion to love for Christ, I would be forever lost, and God justly would have sent me to hell because I would have chosen to go there. My natural bent was toward sin, and sin I did. No good proceeded from me (that was acceptable to God) until Christ intervened in my heart, giving me the eyes to see and ears to hear the beauty and call of Christ to salvation. God went in before my desires and changed them so that I loved Christ and hated the sin I was in. And so it continues to this day, imperfectly. God chose to change me from the heart, I did not of my own natural desires choose Him. God has to do a supernatural work in us so that we desire Him. Apart from this we are hopeless to believe in Christ because it foolishness to those who are perishing, and all of us who believe were at one time perishing, under the condemnation of God’s wrath. Unless God intervenes with sovereign, free grace made possible through the cross of Christ, we are all hopeless. It is a wonder He has mercy on any, and yet what a merciful God He is in the Person and work of Christ! And this grace itself is sovereignly dispensed upon whom He chooses to dispense it. This is the conclusion of Romans 9:18. God does as He pleases in the heavens, and none can stay His hand or say to Him, what are you doing? (Daniel 4:35). We are absolutely dependent on God not only for redemption itself, but also for the faith in Christ to attain that redemption! (Edwards quote, paraphrased)
2) With great humility to adore the awful and absolute sovereignty of God.
This is not an easy teaching of the Scripture. It takes some people years and years to work through these things. It is one of the most difficult. But do not give up. God’s design in it is to humble us, in order that we see God as THE LORD, the sovereign of the universe. We have nothing to boast in except the cross. This is exactly what that means. The cross saved us, it did not just make us savable. This teaching shows us the greatness of His power and the greatness of our need. And in seeing the level of our need contrasted by His sovereignty, and how it would have been right for God to let us go our own way into eternal darkness, we stand in wonder and awe at His glory revealed in the mercy of Christ on poor souls like us.
When Isaiah went before the throne of God in Isaiah 6, he was one of the most righteous in all of Israel. And yet, Isaiah’s response before God was, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” He saw the sovereign might and power of God right before him, and he shuddered. He trembled in fear by seeing Himself in comparison to such majesty, might, and raw sovereign power, and he knew he should die instantly and justly before such a wonderful, terrifying God. Isaiah’s only hope was the pure, absolute, sovereign mercy of God, and the Lord dispensed it to him. God is fully just and fully merciful all at the same time, what a wonder!
When Moses was in the desert on the side of the mountain in Exodus 33, he said to God, “Please show me your glory.” The Lord’s response to him was, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The LORD.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.” The essence of the glory of God and the essence of His name is that He is sovereign (i.e. “I AM WHO I AM,” (Exodus 3) and “I have mercy upon whom I have mercy” (Exodus 33), both being the essence of the name of God as explained by God Himself), and He reveals that sovereignty to fallen men in the dispensing of mercy upon whom He pleases by His good will and pleasure. We should stand in awe that this sovereign and powerful God whom we have provoked by trampling upon His glory does not obliterate us at this very moment for the way we treat Him. Praise God for the work of Christ to turn away this wrath against His people! And we know it would be right for us to be obliterated in hell forever. And yet, in Christ, He has shown us such wonderful mercy that words fail to describe. It is mercy beyond comprehension, so much that it will take all of eternity to unpack and we will never come to its end.
3) To attribute our salvation to grace alone and no other reason in us or outside of God’s grace in Christ.
This is such an important thing to learn from God’s sovereignty. Why did you believe while someone else did not who heard the same Gospel message? What made you to differ in your state toward God over someone who shakes their fist in rebellion to God and runs from Him at every turn? Was it something within you naturally? Did the desire for Christ originate in you? If it was within you by nature, how can you boast in Christ alone, and say, “All glory to God” for your salvation? I have hit on this before in other blogs, but this is so extremely important to stomp out our wicked pride and self-righteousness, especially among those who claim Christ as Savior. We have nothing we can boast in, not even our faith, as said above. It is Grace Alone that made us to differ from those who reject God. We would have and did, prior to conversion, reject God. It is the grace of Christ in the work of His life, death, and resurrection that makes us to differ from the unbeliever. We are no better, but are sinners saved by sheer free grace alone.
4) What cause we have to admire the grace of God, that He should bind Himself by covenant to us whom He has chosen for salvation, that He should have mercy on any of us.
How beautiful is the grace and mercy of God, when contrasted with His wrath and justice! When you see what you are being saved from, only then can you really appreciate the enormity of the work it took to redeem us and we see how great the character is of the Person who performed that work. And Christ is that Person! He stepped in the way of awful wrath so that we could have Him as our treasure forever. God’s absolute sovereignty should cause us to stand in praise and tears at the mercy we have found in Christ. What a wonder God. To Him be the glory, now, and forever!
5) To guard those who seek salvation from two opposite extremes: presumption and discouragement.
God’s sovereignty in salvation is meant to guard us from two natural extremes of the human heart: pride, or fear and discouragement.
We should never presume on the mercy of God, that we may attain to it whenever we so please. God is sovereign in the dispensing of mercy and if you put off the pursuit of salvation through Christ, you may never attain it. If you say in your heart, “Right now, I want to pursue what I want, and I’ll get to God later,” it may be He lets you go into eternity just like this, only with no hope of returning. Turn to God and cry out for Him to have mercy on you now! Today is the Day of Salvation. The Scripture says, “Today, if you hear His voice do not harden your hearts.” Also, do not take advantage of the grace of God because it is infinite so that you can continue in your sin. Do not say in your heart, “Because God is infinitely loving, I can do what I want and he’ll forgive me.” There are strong warnings against this in the Scripture. It may be possible that because you care nothing for the things of Christ and continue in your sin unaffected by God’s grace, you have not been truly converted. In fact that is likely the case. A converted heart is a heart that loves Christ and loves the things of God, albeit imperfectly. Do not presume on the grace of God.
However, the other natural extreme is to despair of any hope in salvation at all because of the greatness of your sin. God is almighty and powerful and able to save because Christ’s blood is infinitely sufficient to cover a multitude of sins, no matter how great. He did not spread His arms out on the cross and shed His blood willingly for nothing. He did this very thing to provide payment for sinners who were without hope. To say that your sin is too great to be forgiven is to deny Christ as sufficient to save you. You are saying that Christ is unable to rescue you from the depth of your sinning. You are elevating your sin above the level of God and making it an ultimate thing. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved! His blood can cover infinite numbers of sins, no matter how big and how great.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story … 20,00.html
I cannot imagine what I would do if I had no hope of a future resurrection in Christ while reading this article. It could be these are simply nay-sayers, but regardless, even the scriptures themselves speak of a bleak outlook for humanity (that is apart from Christ who will renew all creation in the end). Even if we were to die from the world going into mass chaos, large mobs forming, and undemocratic, marxist-style forces emerging to govern us, our hope does not lie here and what we can obtain or hold on to. This is a very bleak report from the Ministry of Defence in Britain about the future state of the world.
However, if I read this without the proper Biblical lens through which we see the final end to which God purposed all creation, namely His glory, I would be full of fear. But despite whatever man says will happen, and even if it were worse than what is predicted in this report, the hope for all who call on Christ for salvation is that we will be made perfect in order to be with Him and enjoy Him forever. One thing we can count on in this life, as it says in the Scriptures: things will go from bad to worse in the last days. I’m personally convinced we have been in the last days since Christ ascended to heaven, and to not focus too much on eschatology, but rather focus on our future hope, the glory of God in the face of Christ that we will enjoy and be satisfied by forever. Because of His death, resurrection, power, and work in us and for us who believe, we are more than conquerors! This is our hope and reading reports like this simply make me want to flee to Christ and trust Him all the more, because it shows me how nothing can be trusted in this place for eternal hope. So in reading this, remember Christ and the hope you have in Him the whole time. Apart from Him and His joy made perfect in us through the sustaining of our faith in Christ, a bleak future remains here and forever for all humanity under His wrath and displeasure. May we flee to Christ for refuge no matter what the cost down the road!