Wonderful News!
by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam
The newspapers are filled with sensational news these days, but the divine extension of this present age of grace is the most sensational news of all, yet most newspapers rarely, if ever, mention it.
We are prone to take the blessings of our times too much for granted. We forget too easily that for more than 1900 years the world has been ripe for God’s judgment — ever since His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, was crucified and sent from this world a royal Exile.
All through the Old Testament Psalms and prophets it is clear that the world’s rejection of Christ was to be visited with awful judgment. The Second Psalm, describing the world’s rejection of “the Lord and His Anointed,” goes on to say: “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall He speak unto them in His wrath and vex them in His sore displeasure.” In Psalm 110:1, too, we have the Father saying to His rejected Son: “Sit Thou at My right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.”
Yet, when all seemed ready for the divine judgment to fall, God interrupted the prophetic program and saved Saul of Tarsus, the “chief of sinners,” the leader of the world’s rebellion against Christ. More: He appointed this Saul, as the Apostle Paul, to proclaim “the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24), the wonderful news that because Christ suffered, the Just for the unjust, at Calvary, any sinner may be saved by grace through faith, apart from religious or other works.
“The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 6:23). And therefore: “To him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Rom. 4:5).
Judgment will come, but thank God, He has in grace delayed it until now.
“Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (II Cor. 6:2).