Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Sermon: The necessity of Divine influences by William G. T. Shedd
This sermon is in Sermons to the natural man.
But here again, as in reference to the eternal state, there is no realizing sense. Conviction of sin is not a charactertistic of mankind at large. Men generally will acknowledge in words that they are sinners, but they will wait for some far-distant day to come, when they shall be pricked in the heart, and feel the truth of what they say. Men generally are not concscious of the dreadful reality of sin, any more than they are of the solemn reality of eternity. A deep insensibility, in this respect also, precludes a practical knowledge of that guilt in the soul, which if unpardoned and unremoved, will just as surely ruin it as God lives and the soul i immortal. Since, then, if man be left to his own inclination, he will never will be convinced of sin, it is plain that some Agent who has the power must overcome his aversion to the self-knowledge, and bring him to consciousness upon this unwelcome subject.
If any one of us, for the remainder of our days, should be given over to that ordinary indifference towards sin with which we walk the streets, and transact business, and enjoy life; if God's truth should never again in this world stab the conscience, and God's Spirit should never again make us anxious; is it not infallibly certain that the future would be past, and that we should go through this "accepted time and day of salvation" unconvicted and therefore unconverted?
p. 133-134
This was part of a great sermon by Shedd. Man will never come to the truth without God showing him the truth of sin. Man is dead in his sins and does not care for the things of God.
But here again, as in reference to the eternal state, there is no realizing sense. Conviction of sin is not a charactertistic of mankind at large. Men generally will acknowledge in words that they are sinners, but they will wait for some far-distant day to come, when they shall be pricked in the heart, and feel the truth of what they say. Men generally are not concscious of the dreadful reality of sin, any more than they are of the solemn reality of eternity. A deep insensibility, in this respect also, precludes a practical knowledge of that guilt in the soul, which if unpardoned and unremoved, will just as surely ruin it as God lives and the soul i immortal. Since, then, if man be left to his own inclination, he will never will be convinced of sin, it is plain that some Agent who has the power must overcome his aversion to the self-knowledge, and bring him to consciousness upon this unwelcome subject.
If any one of us, for the remainder of our days, should be given over to that ordinary indifference towards sin with which we walk the streets, and transact business, and enjoy life; if God's truth should never again in this world stab the conscience, and God's Spirit should never again make us anxious; is it not infallibly certain that the future would be past, and that we should go through this "accepted time and day of salvation" unconvicted and therefore unconverted?
p. 133-134
This was part of a great sermon by Shedd. Man will never come to the truth without God showing him the truth of sin. Man is dead in his sins and does not care for the things of God.
