A Call To The Remnant

Have you ever fallen from grace? Have you ever just “blown it?” You have fallen on the battle-field and been wounded and lost ground. The wound, the loss, the injury, all relates to having let down your Lord. It is a unique crushing pain that strikes at the very heart of who you are. You’re burning in a fire that you set yourself and your enemy encourages you to stay right there in the fire. It takes very little to heed his word. In your heart you know you deserve this and in fact you want to be punished. It somehow relieves your pain while at the same time it does not.

It washes over you in waves. If you turn to the left it is there, turn to the right and there it is. You feel like you have lost 30 years of sanctification in a moment of time. And the whole time the enemy of your soul is telling you that you’re finished. Brothers and sisters, let me speak to you a wee bit. Obviously I am not speaking hypothetically. I know the wound and I know the pain of it. Agony is probably a better word. And the depth of your love for Jesus will be the measure of the depth of the pain that you feel. I have laid out the problem, let me speak a bit about the solution and let us start with a Scripture.

“Do not rejoice over me, my enemy. When I fall, I shall arise. When I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me. I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against Him (Him alone) until He pleads my case and executes judgment for me. He will bring me to the light. I will see His righteousness (Mic 7:8-9) John Bunyon had a vision one day. He saw the righteousness of Christ sitting at the right hand of the Father. And the truth of Christ’s righteousness exploded in his heart. He knew that on his best day his own righteousness was not good enough and on his worse day that that Christ’s righteousness was more than enough. He danced all the way home that day, literally danced.

What was true for John Bunyon is true for you dear saint. You shall not be measured by your worse day, you shall be measured by the righteousness of Christ and your contrite heart. So when you have fallen, as soon as possible you must get up. The Scriptures say that when you fall you shall arise. Rise up saint, take back the ground that you ceded to the enemy. When you sit in darkness, the Scriptures says the Lord shall be a light to you. Rise up and walk in the light as He is in the light and you will have fellowship one with another. He will plead your case for you, He has executed justice for you.

A little later in Micah 7 we hear this question “Who is a God like you?” Who indeed saint, can you see Him even now sitting at the right hand of the Father in all His glorious righteousness? Pardoning iniquity, passing over the transgressions of His remnant. He does not retain His anger forever because He delights in mercy. He loves a broken and a contrite heart. He will have compassion on us and will subdue our iniquities. These are His promises to His children. Never to be presumed upon, God forbid. Those who truly love Him could never presume upon His mercy, its not possible. The depths of His love for us and our love for Him renders that an impossibility.

One more promise from Micah 7 “You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.” Into the depths of the sea saints. Buried and dead. And the Lord our God never goes fishing in that sea, He shall never cast up to you that which He has forgiven. You have bore His indignation because you sinned against Him, now arise. Ignore the enemy and rise up by the Grace of God and the righteousness of Christ. Take back the ground, strike down the enemy and advance forward once again. A war is filled with many battles and in the midst of these battles we suffer wounds of many kinds, the most grevious being the self inflicted wound. Yet one battle does not determine the outcome of a war. In our case, the war is already won! Christ won the war! Arise saint and move forward in victory!