Thoughts for your Saturday

God has a fatherly care over us.

“Now if we are so much bound to a mortal man as to maintain his honour when we are kept at his expense, what ought we to do for our God? Are we not in his house as long as we live in this world? Have we so much as one drop of water except by his goodness and generosity? Behold, God has a fatherly care over us, and yet we allow his name to be blasphemed, his majesty to be robbed and spoiled of all reverence, his Word to be torn in pieces, all order (that he has commanded) to be broken, the church (which is his wife) to be corrupted and misused, and his children to be debauched, and in the meanwhile we keep our mouths closed. I ask you, whether such silence does not sufficiently show that we are not worthy to eat one more morsel of bread, nor to be counted in the number of earthworm, lice, bugs, and all the vilest and filthiest things of the world?

Therefore let us think well upon it, that we shall be found guilty of the despising of God’s majesty (as we see) because we do not rebuke men’s vices. That is a reason why the wicked and profane become bolder and imagine they have won all to their side, and triumph in their despising of God in that way. It comes partly as a result of our silence.”

John Calvin, Sermons on Ephesians, p. 525