The Snow Covers Many a Dunghill by Thomas Watson

The Snow Covers Many a Dunghill by Thomas Watson

The snow covers many a dunghill. A snowy white profession covers many a foul heart! The sins of professors are more odious. Thistles are bad in a field—but worse in a garden. The sins of the wicked anger God—but the sins of professing Christians grieve him. ~ The Great Gain of Godliness

This writing involves all ancidotal observations and is really kind of a journal entry I want to keep in my blog space. Anyway since being regenerated by the Lord and humbled along the way by trials and tribulations (the Christian's life is never completely at ease whilst in this world) I have come across many a professing Christian who claim to know our Lord Jesus Christ but do things that make me very puzzled about their profession. I say this without any pride but only with great sadness. I try not to judge them and give them grace but too often I put up with behaviour that isn't beneficial to be around. Some these people have been close friends for a time. With some of these friends I have had to walk away from because they were not a good example and I didn't see the Lord using me as an instrument of change whilst others I am still friends with but there is a distance I feel because they don't walk in the way of the Lord. All of this does add to the tediousness of being in the body of Christ. So many of the people cry 'the Bible says to not judge us' yet it does call us to be discerning and to separate from professing Christians who are in deep sin (drunkenness, sexual sin, etc.) But what about the seemingly milder sins of contentiousness, disrespect, coarse language, coarse humour, or in some ways the worst - having an attitude towards the Lord that shows less than a desire to have Him as our master. They honour the Lord with their lives only when it is convenient for them to do so; if work calls for them to sacrifice worship or fellowship they easily justify themselves by saying, 'Oh I need to support my family or it's the requirement for the job' without first honouring the Lord with the kind of job they choose that would allow them to honour Him more completely. They seem to have the attitude that the Lord is their personal buddy. Yes Jesus did say, 'No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.' - John 15:15 ESV but that doesn't deny His lordship over our lives whereas these individuals think that is all there is to God. Maybe it's because of the way I was regenerated by the Lord where I heard the call of the Lord (no there was no voice from Heaven as Paul experienced; just a strong impression of being called) when a Christian co-worker witnessed to me back in 1994-early 1995 and then his having put before me the need to choose either the world or God a decision for which there was only one choice, to choose for God (how could I turn down the creator of the universe?). Once that choice was made I felt a relief and a release. That was on a Thursday. The next day I told my co-worker about this choice and it seemed to me like a monumental situation had been unleashed. The next day on Saturday I was getting ready to go mountain biking and suddenly I was struck down with a vivid image of all my sins flashing before my eyes. That vision certainly did bring me down to my knees! Tears started to flow and in the next moment I felt like all of those sins were forgiven and forgotten. That event caused my eyes to open to the spiritual truth of the fallen nature of mankind, to what sin was (no matter how small), to the truth in scripture (I started to read the Bible voraciously, understanding at last what it was talking about), loving a people called Christians who I had despised and even hated to a degree, the ceasing of swearing coming from my mouth, and oh so many other things that were part of the change of 180 degrees in my life. After that I saw sin everywhere - magazines that I had thought of as ordinary were all of a sudden dripping with sin. My eyes were so sensitive to sin that seemed to glare so brightly that I would wear my sunglasses into stores which in San Diego is pretty common so no one really noticed it. I also wanted to be around other Christians rather than the people I had been hanging out with. I still remember the first Friday after the life changing event when I went out for beers w/ my co-workers/friends after work how when listening to them speak/complain about work, etc. how I no longer related to what they were saying. It was as if they were speaking a foreign language! I just wanted to be back with my Christian co-worker, Jerry, talking about the Lord. Another thing the Lord revealed to me was the evil voice of the enemy of life, Satan, how it speaks corruption and hate to mankind. It was the voice of the enemy that had tried to influence me away from the Lord so many times in the past and I could actually hear it audibly in my mind! Oh how the Lord opened up to me what was hidden from so many other believers! But it wasn't to glorify me in the least but rather to show me a taste of the unseen and unheard battle that was going on all the time in this fallen world. I still don't understand why he opened all this to me but it is one of the reasons I am never at ease with other professing Christian's rationalisations for why they don't follow the narrow path of salvation. I will quite honestly say that I have given into such rationalisations myself. I have not walked a perfect path either and have fallen into my pits along the way. The Lord has had to rescue me from near disaster more times than I can recognise or remember. I have accommodated my antinomial 'Christian' friends more than I have accommodated the Lord! But the Lord has convicted me many times for this accommodation. He, again, has pulled me from the brink of sin many, many times. To be continued and fleshed out...