A fairy-tale world

We live in a cause-and-effect world. One of the most deadly things you can do to your children is always to shield them from the consequences of their actions. They will grow up living in a fairy-tale world that does not exist. And they will never be able to cope with the real world where actions have inevitable consequences. We depend on that fact, as does science. What kind of world would it be if we never knew what the effects of our actions would be? We, in our fallenness, insist on getting the just rewards of all our good (or almost-good) actions, but assume that the consequences of all our bad actions can just be forgotten. It is not true. For forgiveness to exist in the cosmos, there has to have been created some mechanism whereby the just consequences of sin can be fully suffered. Jesus Christ and His Cross are that mechanism, and so much more than a mere mechanism.— Lectures in Old Testament Theology, page 256

<idle musing>
Amen! Good preaching! When the kids were young, they used to say, "That's not fair!" And I would agree, but I also reminded them that "not fair" plays both ways...I wonder if they remember that.
</idle musing>