April 26, 2024
Passage Read: Psalm 103-106
Meditation Verse: 104:35
Thought
There are two kinds of people in the world, the wicked and the righteous, and the only difference is how they respond to God. Both sin, but both are not characterized by sin. The righteous hear the word of God and repent; the righteous despise their sin and turn away from it. They may frequently catch themselves in sin, and they loathe themselves for it. They cry to the Lord for victory and discipline themselves to attain His victory. Sinners, on the other hand, may make a show off respectable behavior, but their hearts delight in their evil ways. They do not really care what God says, but choose for themselves what they'll consider to be good and right. They are a god unto themselves. There are nice sinners who might be mistaken for believers, and there are wicked sinners who care nothing for what God calls right and wrong. They do not respond at all to God's word.
Application
That's why Jesus and Paul could move on so quickly and easily from those who didn't welcome the gospel message. They expected God to reveal His working in the heart of a sinner as early as the first exposure to the gospel! We think and act like God requires months and years to turn the heart of a sinner to Himself, as if it's hard for God to rewire the human heart, but the work of the Holy Spirit is to convict men of sin, and we are called to preach the gospel, and the two surely work together. So if a man rejects the gospel, if he is unwilling to believe God's word, it is not my responsibility to work and work at overcoming his resistance. That's God's work. If he is willing to learn, great; but when he refuses to listen and believe God's word, my responsibility is ended, and his state is revealed. To the day of his death, there remains a chance he could repent, but I'm not obligated to endure with him in hope that he will one day repent! A believing wife who faithfully obeys and honors her unbelieving husband is not guaranteed to win him to Christ, how much less a relative or friend or neighbor or stranger! The Lord never called His people to preach and preach and plead and beg people to repent and believe the gospel; He told us to go, and when people rejected the message, to go on. If people believed, we could stay for a time, but eventually again we would need to move on. Those who hadn't heard had a greater claim on us than either those who rejected the gospel or those who received it.