Dale: happiness from God

Sunday, January 22, 2017
Meditation:
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.
—Romans 5:12-15 (ESV)
Quotation:
It was not the pleasant things in the world that came from the devil, and the dreary things from God! It was “sin brought death into the world and all our woe;” * as the sin vanishes, the woe will vanish too. God Himself is the ever-blessed God. He dwells in the light of joy as well as of purity, and instead of becoming more like Him as we become more miserable, and as all the brightness and glory of life are extinguished, we become more like God as our blessedness becomes more complete. The great Christian graces are radiant with happiness. Faith, hope, charity—there is no sadness in them:—and if penitence makes the heart sad, penitence belongs to the sinner, not to the saint.
* from Paradise Lost, book 1, line 3, by John Milton
… Robert W. Dale (1829-1895), Week-day Sermons [1876], London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1888, p. 117-118 (see the book)
See also Rom. 5:12-15; Gen. 3:6; Jonah 4:11; Rom. 5:19; 8:22; 2 Cor. 4:17; 1 Pet. 1:7-8
Quiet time reflection:
Lord, drive sin from my life! CQOD Blog email RSS
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