by Vance Havner
“To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to his it is sin.” James 4:17
Gibbon describes the degeneration of Christianity under the Greek scholars of the 10th century, who handled the literature and spoke the language of the spiritual but knew not the life:
“They held in their lifeless hands the riches of their fathers without inheriting the spirit which had created and imparted that sacred patrimony. They read; they praised; they compiled; but their languid souls seemed alike incapable of thought and action.”
The Pharisees of Jesus’ day handled the things of God, read the Scriptures, faithfully kept the letter of the law, were painstakingly separated from sinners. But the publicans and harlots went into the Kingdom before them.
To have grown up in a Christian home and in a church, early fluent in the speech of the Kingdom, familiar with its subjects and observing its practices, yet never a citizen, produces a type of sinner often harder to awaken than the most ignorant heathen. Truth long heard and not acted upon means awful self-deception (James 1:22).
Second generations do not inherit salvation. God has no grandchildren.
by Vance Havner
