Welcome to Paul Tripp's Wednesday's Word podcast. I'm Dalton, a member of the Paul Tripp

Ministries team. Join me each week as I read aloud Paul's popular Wednesday's word devotional.

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or you can read online at paultrip.com slash Wednesday, or on Facebook, Instagram, and the Paul Trip app.

This week, Paul explores the difference between God's common grace, which restrains evil and shows his goodness to all,

and his redeeming grace, which alone transforms hearts and secures eternal hope.

Here's this week's Wednesday's word.

I was sitting in a frustrating traffic jam the other day,

where construction had closed off most of the

lanes on the highway, and everyone had to merge into a single file of cars. People were actually

submitting to the traffic laws and signs around them. No one was shooting at each other or using their

vehicles as a weapon to ram into other cars. There was order and restraint. The world, despite

being deeply broken, was still operating with some level of sanity.

It was a powerful display of the restraining grace of God.

Why?

Because driving each automobile was a selfish, self-focused, self-oriented, sinful human being

who believes that the world should revolve around them,

that their need is most important important and that they should get to

their destination first. Yet for the most part, everyone was courteously allowing the next person

in front of them to merge. Each driver was not a redeemed child of God, motivated by the Holy

Spirit in that moment to love their neighbor. Rather, God, in the generous grandeur of his grace,

restrains the sin of the world so it does not reach the level of horror that it potentially could without his restraining grace.

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