“ True Believers Like Wheat ” and “ The Wicked Like Chaff ” “John answered them all, ‘I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire’” (Luke 3:16–17). Let us meditate on this passage and receive its spiritual lessons: (1) When the people, who had long awaited the coming of the Messiah, began to wonder in their hearts whether John the Baptist might be the Messiah (Luke 3:15, Modern Translation ), John testified clearly that he was not the Messiah, but that the One coming after him was. (a) John 1:8 says: “He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light” ( Modern Translation : “He was not the light himself but came only to bear witness to the light”). (i) The purp...
“If God is for us” (3) [Romans 8:31-34] Look at Romans 8:32 – “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?” Here, “He who did not spare” refers to God who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all. That God is a God who is for us (v. 31). And the God who is for us is the eternal God (Deut. 33:27; Isa. 40:28; Rom. 16:26), the omnipresent God (Isa. 57:15; Jere. 23:24), the Almighty God (Gen. 28:3; Josh. 22:22; Job 8:3, 5; Ps. 50:1; Isa. 9:6; Ezek. 10:5; Rev. 11:17; 15:3; 16:7, 14; 19: 6, 15; 21:22), a God of love (1 Jn. 4:8, 16). The God of love who is for us, but did not spare His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, for our salvation, and gave Him up to die on the cross for us. In Romans 8:32, “the Son” spoken of by the Apostle Paul refers to Jesus Christ, who is equal to God, the only begotten Son. God, who l...