The son of well-known historian David McCullough delivered a graduating speech at Wellesley High School, Boston in 2012. Nothing unusual there, until it went viral on you tube. David Jr, an English teacher drew unexpected and wide spread attention when he told the departing students they were not special. In fact he told them around a dozen times; he told them they were not significant or unique; he told them they were not the centre of the universe; he told them they had been pampered too much. He emphasised the need for hard work and selflessness if they were to get anywhere in life.<\/p>\n
A while ago I viewed some less than inspiring school results. Yet in the same report the teacher poured out accolades which seemed to contradict the evidence that hard work was missing. School teachers apparently cannot criticise youngsters; they cannot mark work with a red pen using crosses when answers are incorrect. They have to be positive. It would seem that honesty is too negative.<\/span><\/p>\n There are no airs and graces in the Bible. God tells us as it is. He does not pamper us; He does pander to our sinful self-indulgence. Surely rebuke is necessary and a tremendous blessing when heeded. God\u2019s language is often pointed, strong, and could be deemed offensive. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Sugar coating weakness and sin only deludes those who need to turn to God for help. Youngsters growing up in the church today are being taught they are special; they are unique; teenage girls are God\u2019s princesses; teenage boys are God\u2019s champions. Where is the poverty of spirit; the mourning over sin; the crying out for grace; the dying to self?\u00a0 The first time I heard a sermon on the doctrine of Total Depravity it was the most liberating experience. \u00a0I was a man in such desperate need and Christ was a merciful Saviour able to do for me what I could not do myself. It changed my life. It was as John says in Revelation 10:9, both \u201cbitter and sweet\u201d. Life will not become truly sweet until we first drink the bitter dregs of our sinfulness. Sadly many seek a false sweetness and the end result will be only bitter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The son of well-known historian David McCullough delivered a graduating speech at Wellesley High School, Boston in 2012. Nothing unusual there, until it went viral on you tube. David Jr, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=366"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3985,"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366\/revisions\/3985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n