Freedom is at the heart both of God’s grace, and who God is.

When God reveals Himself to Moses, He virtually defines Himself as an absolutely free giver of grace. In Exodus 33.18, Moses says to God,

“Please, show me your glory,”

God’s first reponse to this prayer is to give Moses a verbal revelation that precedes the visual one. In effect, what God says is, Here is my glory: “I will be gracious to whom I would be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.”¹

When God says, “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious,” he means: I am free in showing grace. If you were to ask, “Who are those to whom you show grace,” the answer is: “Those on whom I show grace.” In other words, God doesn’t look outside His own will for an impulse to move his grace. Ultimeately grace is not constrained by anything outside of God Himself.

Right at the very heart of God’s self-revelation is the declaration that He is free in the way He dispenses His grace. And this freedom belongs to the very essence of what it means to be God. God is gracious to whom He will be gracious. He is not limited by anyone’s wickedness. He is not ever trapped by His own wrath; His grace may break out anywhere He pleases. And this is a great encouragement to the worst of sinners to turn from futile hopes and trust in God’s grace…

1. Exodus 33.19, ESV, emphasis mine. [↩]

This post is really a final thought about, and extension of, my sermon series on the distinction between the Law and the Gospel. As I tried to articulate to the college crowd at H²0 over the last 6 weeks, the Law is what God demands; the Gospel is what God provides. Articulating this distinction is essential to understanding and living life in Christ.

The more I’ve mulled over the topic in my head, even after the series has been completed, the more I realize that I could have preached in that series for the rest of 2008 and not come close to exhausting all that the Bible has to say on this particular topic.

For the most part, I use the word gospel nearly interchangeably with the word grace. I do this because Paul repeatedly speaks of the gospel of God’s grace, with grace being the focal point of the gospel. When the Law demands, the Gospel provides, and what is provided by the gospel is grace! Grace which is unmerited and totally free, and grace and freedom is at the absolute heart of who God is.

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More likely than not, this post is going to get me in trouble with the elders in charge of H20, as well as an ex-girlfriend, and various other groups of people.

I was recently told that if I would just be a little more meek, my sermons would go down easier. A couple of weeks before that, I was given practically the same advice.

I was raised Southern Baptist, with this image of

“gentle Jesus, meek and mild,”

to quote the old hymn by Charles Wesley. Then I grew up and read the New Testament for myself, and it seemed like Jesus really enjoyed screwing with religious people.

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Applause from hell

Fr. Frank Pavone

National Director, Priests for Life

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If we think of hell, we might imagine screams coming out of the flames, or the sinister laughter of the devil. But the sound I recently heard coming from there was that of applause.

What I heard was an audiotape of Dr. Martin Haskell giving a presentation at the 16th Annual Meeting of the National Abortion Federation Conference in 1992 in San Diego. It was a gathering of abortionists — men and women who make their living by killing babies. Haskell was describing to his audience how to do a partial-birth abortion. Listen to his words about how this procedure takes place:

“The surgeon then introduces large grasping forceps … through the vaginal and cervical canal … He moves the tip of the instrument carefully towards the fetal lower extremities — and pulls the extremity into the vagina …The surgeon then uses his fingers to deliver the opposite lower extremity, then the torso, the shoulders, and the upper extremities. The skull lodges in the internal os. The fetus is oriented … spine up … The surgeon then takes a pair of blunt curved Metzenbaum scissors in the right hand. … the surgeon then forces the scissors into the base of the skull–spreads the scissors to enlarge the opening. The surgeon–surgeon then introduces a suction catheter into this hole and evacuates the skull contents.”

Haskell, having described these brutal details, shows his audience a video of himself doing one of these procedures. And at the end of the video, after the sound of the suction machine taking the brains out of the baby’s head, the audience applauds.

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