Sermons, Articles, and Other Things

One day Jonathan Edwards was out for a walk and as was his custom he was meditating on God. When we read his writings, we will observe that he often had profound thoughts about the Lord. Concerning this occasion he recorded: ‘And as I was walking there, and looked up on the sky and clouds, there came into my mind a sweet sense of the glorious majesty and grace of God, that I knew not how to express. I seemed to see them both in a sweet conjunction – majesty and meekness joined together. It was a sweet, and gentle, and holy majesty, and also a majestic meekness; an awful sweetness; a high and great and holy gentleness. After this, my sense of divine things gradually increased, and became more and more lively, and had more of that inward sweetness.’ What do we make of that description of the Lord? Is it appropriate to consider that God is meek and gentle? While it is true that each of the Beatitudes is counter-cultural, it is likely that the third of the Beatitudes stands out the most ...

Should a Christian always be joyful? Should a Christian never be joyful? Can he be joyful and mournful at the same time? Paul was when he described himself as sorrowful yet always rejoicing. The people that Peter wrote to in his first letter are described as those ‘rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials’ (1 Pet. 1:6). So it is possible for Christians to have sorrow and joy at the same time and for a prolonged time. An unusual incident is described in Ezra 3. The returnees from Babylon had laid the foundation for the new temple and were marked by joy at this sign of progress whereas those who could remember the previous temple built by Solomon were distressed. The outcome was that ‘the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people’s weeping, for the people shouted with a great shout, and the sound was heard far away’ (Ezra 3:13). Maybe that is the way it often is with God’s people. Recollect...