This gem of a sermon ties together the tables of the law,our inability to save ourselves, and the importance of real charity as an act towards neighbor as a person, not abstract humanity. Here is an excerpt:
"The Law is weak, because of the sinful condition into which each of us was born, and so the Law cannot provide the grace to love God. We have no power to love God, which love is manifested if we obey His commandments. Without the grace of God made known by Jesus Christ in all his saving acts, and without the grace given to us by the Holy Spirit within us, we have no power to love God".
As a student of history, I like this part too:
"The righteous man considers the life of his beast. But, the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel" says the Book of Proverbs (12:10). Utopian ideologues since the French Revolution, such as Marx and his followers, spoke lofty words about what was best for mankind. It reminds me of one of Charles Schultz’s Peanuts cartoons. Linus tells his sister Lucy that he wants to be a doctor, a great doctor. She tells him 'you cannot be a great doctor. You know why? Because a doctor must love mankind. You don’t love mankind.' Linus, stunned, retorts 'I do love mankind…It’s people I can’t stand!' The ideologues have always loved mankind; and they have made many people suffer for it. They have offered millions of innocent victims to some idea of 'the greatest good for the greatest number,' and all of that Satanic propaganda about what is best for humanity. Crowds enjoying the spectacle of heads being cut off in Paris, Communists dictating who should live, who should die, and who must go to the camps, and, indeed, the Nazis destroying millions in order to advance human evolution to the state of perfection, believed they were lovers of mankind, saviors of that abstract and impersonal thing called 'humanity.'"...................Read the rest here
Look around you, who is your neighbor?
2 comments:
Thanks for the link. Says a mouthful.
Hi there, dear Rick. Two appropriate quotes that match the tone of the first quote on your page (though I liked them both very much):
"If morality is a guide at all, it is a guide to perfecting one's virtues, not the reform of one's vices. It keeps non-gamblers from being foolish at the racetrack. It does not keep child abusers from beating children, compulsive liars from lying, or lechers from leching. For those in the front lines of their faults, it is just a lovely, cruel vision of a home they cannot get to. The law only makes sin exceedingly sinful; it never saved anyone who really needed help." (The Rev. Robert Capon)
"These two terms, grace and peace, constitute Christianity. Grace involves the remission of sins, and peace, a happy conscience. Sin is not canceled by lawful living, for no person is able to live up to the Law. The Law reveals guilt, fills the conscience with terror, and drives men to despair. Nothing can take away sin except the grace of God." (Martin Luther)
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