DEPRAVED FROM BIRTH

The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray from birth, speaking lies.Psalm 58:3

Although I’ve read this verse at least twice per year for the past three and a half decades, and though I’ve quoted it often when preaching, I can’t remember the last time I had taken the verse and ruminated over its implications as a daily meditation. Every parent knows this truth. We’ve never had to teach our children to lie. “Did you get into the cookie jar when mom told you not to since it’s so close to supper?” “No,” they say with an innocent expression, and cookie crumbs falling from the corners of their mouths. This was your condition and mine— since birth. Defiant. Deceitful. Devious. Jesus never called the righteous to repentance (Matt 9:13) for “None is righteous, no not one” (Rom 3:10). Yet, it is because of this depraved condition that God’s grace abounds and is exalted. We were weak, ungodly (Rom 5:6) sinners (Rom 5:8) who were enemies of God (Rom 5:10) when Christ died for us, justifying us, saving us from God’s wrath, and reconciling us to God by the death of His Son (Rom 5:6-10). Two thoughts crush my soul to the dust with grief: (1) my sin, which offends a holy God; (2) and the cost to pardon those sins, the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ, the infinitely precious and eternal Treasure of heaven and earth. Yet, at the same time, my tears are wiped away by the comforting, pierced hand of Christ’s Spirit (Rom 5:5). My heart fills with joy for the unspeakable gift, because God spared not His only Son in order to make you and I His own (Rom 8:32). When the truth of Christ’s costly Sacrifice grips our souls, our joy soars as high as the heavens, because the sorrow of sin’s grief has plunged us to the very brink of Sheol’s depth. The greater our grief of sin, the grander our joy in God through Christ.

The wicked stray at birth’s first breath,
And this means you and me;
Yet God’s grace sav’d us through Christ’s death,
A truth which sets us free.

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Today's M'Cheyne Reading Schedule: 5/11 - Num 20; Psa 58-59; Isa 9:8-10:4; Jas 3

If you don’t have one, get a free PDF copy of Robert Murray M’Cheyne’s “Daily Bread” Bible Reading Calendar by Clicking Here.

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