Saturday, June 24, 2006
'The Golden key to open hidden treasures' by Thomas Brooks
'Thirdly, Then in the suffurings of Christ, as in a gospel-glass, you may see the odious nature of sin, and according learn to hate it, arm against it, turn from it, and subdue it. Sin never appears so odious as when we behold it in the red glass of Christ's sufferings, Psalm 119, 114, 127, and Romans 7:15 and 12:9. Can we look upon sin as the occasion of all Christ's sufferings, can we look upon sin as that which made Christ a curse, and that made him forsaken of his Father, and that made him live such a miserable life, and that brought him to die such a shameful, painful, and cruel death, and our hearts not rise against it? Shall our sins be grievous unto Christ, and shall they not be odious unto us? shall he die for our sins, and shall we not die to our sins? did not he therefore suffer for sin, that we might cease from sin? did not he 'bear our sins in his own body on the tree, that we being dead to sin, should live to righteousness'? 1 Peter 4:1, and 2:24. If one should kill our father, would we hug and embrace him as our father? no, we would be revenged onhim. Sin hath killed our Saviour, and shall we not be revenged on it. Can a man look upon that snake that hath stung his dearly-loved spouseto death, and preserve it alive, warm it at the fire, and hug it in his bosom, and not rather stab it with a thounsand wounds? It is sin that hath stung our dear Jesus to death, that has crucifed our Lord, clouded his glory, and shed his precious blood, and oh how should stir up our indignation against it. Ah, how can a Christian make much of those sins that killed his dearest Lord! how can he cherish those sins that betrayed Christ, and apprehended Christ, and bound Christ, and condemned Christ, and scrourged Christ, and violently drew him to the cross, and there murdered him! It was neither Judas, nor Pilate, nor the Jews, nor the soldiers that could have done our Lord Jesus the least hurt, had not our sins, like so many butchers, and hangmen, come in to their assistance. After Julius Caesar was treacherously murdered in the senate-house, Antionious brought forth his coat, all bloody, cut and mangled, and laying it open to the view of the people, said, Look, here is your emperor's coat; and as as the bloody conspirators have dealt by it, so have they dealt with Caesar's body; whereupon the people were all in an uproar, and nothing would satisfy them but the death of the murderers, and they ran to the houses of the conspirators and burnt them down to the ground. But what was Caesar's coat and Caesar's body to the body of our dear Lord Jesus, which was all bloody, rent, and torn for our sins? Ah, how this should provoke us to be revenged on our sins! how should we forever loath and abhoar them! how should we labour with all our might to be the death of those sins that would have been the death of so great a Lord, and will, if not prevented, be the death of our souls to all eternity! To see God thrust the sword of his pure, infinite, and incensed wrath through the very heart of his dearest Son, notwithstanding all his supplications, prayers, tears, ans strong cries, Hebrews 5:7, is the highest discovery of the Lord's hatred and indigation os sin that ever was or will be. It is true God discoveredhis great hatred of sin by turning Adam out of paradise, and casting the angels down to hell, by drowning the old world, and by raining hell out of heaven upon Sodom and Gomorrah, and by the various and dreadful judgements that he has been a-pouring foth upon the world in all ages; but all this hatred is but the pitcure of hatred, to that hatred that God manifested against sin in causing the whole curse to meet upon our crucified Lord, as all streams meet in the sea. It is true God discovers his hatred of sin by those endless, and remediless torments that he inflicts uppn devils and damned spirits; but this is no hatred to that hatred against sin which God discovered when he opened the floodgates of his envenomed wrath upon his Son, his own Son, his only Son, that always pleased him, his Son that never offened him, Isaiah53:5, 6, and Proverbs 8:30, 31, and Matthew 3:17.
p. 205-206
Brooks shows what sin cost our Lord. This should help us to see how we should hate sin.
Related Tags: Thomas Brooks, 'The Golden key to open hidden treasures', Jesus Christ, sin
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p. 205-206
Brooks shows what sin cost our Lord. This should help us to see how we should hate sin.
Related Tags: Thomas Brooks, 'The Golden key to open hidden treasures', Jesus Christ, sin
Continue reading!
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
'The Mischief of Sin' by Thomas Watson
'God's watchmen have been sent to warn men of their evil ways. They have told them how damnable a thing it is to persist in sin. The judgements of God, like arrows, have been shot at them for sin. Yet for all this, they still sin. This is worse than to be Balaam the Sorcerer. For when he saw the angel before him with a naked sword, he dared not ride on. But these desperate, heaven-darining sinners, though they see the flaming sword of God's justice before them, resolvedly venture on in sin.
This sin is willful. Willful disobeyers are said to reproach the Lord, Numbers 15:30. To defey a prince's authority is to reproach him. Willfulness in sin amounts to presumption. Psalm 19:13, "Keep back Thy servant from presumptuous sins." Under the Law, there were sacrifices for sins of ignorance, but no sacrifices for sins of presumption, Numbers 11:30. To sin willfully accents and enhances the sin. it is like die to the wool or like a weight put in the scale which makes it heavier. This leaves men without excuse, John 15:22. If a sea mark is set up to give notice that there are shelves or rocks, the mariner still will sail there. If he spilts his ship, no one will pity him because he had warning given.'
p. 70-71
Good words from Watson.
Related Tags: Thomas Watson, 'The Mischief of Sin', God's watchmen, heaven-darining sinners
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This sin is willful. Willful disobeyers are said to reproach the Lord, Numbers 15:30. To defey a prince's authority is to reproach him. Willfulness in sin amounts to presumption. Psalm 19:13, "Keep back Thy servant from presumptuous sins." Under the Law, there were sacrifices for sins of ignorance, but no sacrifices for sins of presumption, Numbers 11:30. To sin willfully accents and enhances the sin. it is like die to the wool or like a weight put in the scale which makes it heavier. This leaves men without excuse, John 15:22. If a sea mark is set up to give notice that there are shelves or rocks, the mariner still will sail there. If he spilts his ship, no one will pity him because he had warning given.'
p. 70-71
Good words from Watson.
Related Tags: Thomas Watson, 'The Mischief of Sin', God's watchmen, heaven-darining sinners
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Tuesday, June 20, 2006
'Sermons to the Spiritual Man' by William G. T. Shedd
From 'The glorification of God'.
'It is surprising to see, and no man sees it until he endeavors to get rid of evil, how intensely the soul of man resolves upon itself, and how difficult it is to desert itself and revolve around another. You, for example, give a sum of money to a poor and suffering family. The external act- what the schoolman would denominate the "matter" of the act- is good. And your fellow-men, who can only see only the outward appearance, praise you as an excellent person. But let us look into the heart, and see if there really be the moral excellence, the true holliness before God, that is supposed. When the gift had been bestowed, did you not begin to congratulate yourself upon what you had done? Did not the left hand begin to know what the right hand had been doing? In other words, did not pride and self-worship begin to fill the heart, and was not the act, so far as the inward nature of it- what the same schooman would call the "form" of it- is concerned, an egotistical one? Did you not worship and serve the creature more than the Creator, in this act- which is one of the best that you ever proformed? Was that not a "sin" in this "holy thing?" Did not the "dead fly" spoil the "apothecaries ointment?" For if the inward disposition had corresponded entirley to the outward act, in this transaction; if the act were really holy one; it would have been done for the glory of God, and there would have not been a particle of self-worship in your experience. You would not have had the least proud thought of self in the affair, but would have humbly thought of God. After giving the gift, you would have said as David did in reference to the gift which he and the people of Israel made to God in the building of the temple: "But who am I, and what is my people that we should be able to offer so willing, after this sort? for all things come from thee, and of thine own haave we given thee." You would have acknowledged that it is God who gives both the willingness to give, and the means of giving; that He is both the first cause and the last end of things. But, by the supposition, you did neither. You gave the sum of money as something which your intellect and hands had orginated, and you took the merit of the gift to yourself. You worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator.
p. 106-107
We do have to be careful not to worship ourselves and not God.
Related Tags: God, worship, William G. T. Shedd, 'Sermons to the Spiritual Man', moral excellence, for the glory of God, self-worship
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'It is surprising to see, and no man sees it until he endeavors to get rid of evil, how intensely the soul of man resolves upon itself, and how difficult it is to desert itself and revolve around another. You, for example, give a sum of money to a poor and suffering family. The external act- what the schoolman would denominate the "matter" of the act- is good. And your fellow-men, who can only see only the outward appearance, praise you as an excellent person. But let us look into the heart, and see if there really be the moral excellence, the true holliness before God, that is supposed. When the gift had been bestowed, did you not begin to congratulate yourself upon what you had done? Did not the left hand begin to know what the right hand had been doing? In other words, did not pride and self-worship begin to fill the heart, and was not the act, so far as the inward nature of it- what the same schooman would call the "form" of it- is concerned, an egotistical one? Did you not worship and serve the creature more than the Creator, in this act- which is one of the best that you ever proformed? Was that not a "sin" in this "holy thing?" Did not the "dead fly" spoil the "apothecaries ointment?" For if the inward disposition had corresponded entirley to the outward act, in this transaction; if the act were really holy one; it would have been done for the glory of God, and there would have not been a particle of self-worship in your experience. You would not have had the least proud thought of self in the affair, but would have humbly thought of God. After giving the gift, you would have said as David did in reference to the gift which he and the people of Israel made to God in the building of the temple: "But who am I, and what is my people that we should be able to offer so willing, after this sort? for all things come from thee, and of thine own haave we given thee." You would have acknowledged that it is God who gives both the willingness to give, and the means of giving; that He is both the first cause and the last end of things. But, by the supposition, you did neither. You gave the sum of money as something which your intellect and hands had orginated, and you took the merit of the gift to yourself. You worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator.
p. 106-107
We do have to be careful not to worship ourselves and not God.
Related Tags: God, worship, William G. T. Shedd, 'Sermons to the Spiritual Man', moral excellence, for the glory of God, self-worship
Continue reading!
