The End is in Sight!

As of today there are 20 posts left in the Romans series. If you remember, this series was mainly started in order to illustrate a gospel foundation that gets far less emphasis these days than Paul gave to it. That foundation is the sinfulness and consequent lostness of mankind down to the very last person, including you and me. It is the "bad news" compared to which the gospel of grace is the "good news".

They that are well have no need of a physician, but they that are sick. Conviction of sin by the Holy Spirit through the preaching of Christ crucified is a part of the process of salvation. It is means in the hand of God. He has chosen to save through repentance and faith which He both grants and gives to all who come to believe.

The only corollary I would make is to reemphasize that it is conviction by the Holy Spirit, and not by the preacher or teacher. The moment we make the transition from being faithful vessels of the Word and Spirit of God into being self-powered effectors of conviction we are in danger of become harpies, or shrewish, or capital judges. We are not to be any of these things. We are messengers. We are witnesses to what Christ has done and why He did it. And we testify to what God has spoken in Him.

The remaining posts will take us to mid February when I leave for Vancouver to visit my daughter. I'll try to have posts ready for the period when I'm gone, but I'm not sure I want to start the Revelation Letters to Seven Churches series while I'm away, so I might re-post some old articles from way back for a period of about 10-12 days. I'm scheduled to be back in the saddle on Feb 26th, but I will probably take a few days to settle in.