Jason K. Allen's Blog, page 25

Lord’s Day Meditation: “He Will Give Grace And Glory” by C. H. Spurgeon

Lord’s Day Meditation: “He Will Give Grace And Glory” by C. H. Spurgeon (Morning and Evening, October 1, Evening)

“He will give grace and glory.” (Psalm 84:11)

Bounteous is Jehovah in his nature; to give is his delight. His gifts are beyond measure precious, and are as freely given as the light of the sun. He gives grace to his elect because he wills it, to his redeemed because of his covenant, to the called because of his promise, to believers because they seek it, to sinners because they need it. He gives grace abundantly, seasonably, constantly, readily, sovereignly; doubly enhancing the value of the boon by the manner of its bestowal. Grace in all its forms he freely renders to his people: comforting, preserving, sanctifying, directing, instructing, assisting grace, he generously pours into their souls without ceasing, and he always will do so, whatever may occur. Sickness may befall, but the Lord will give grace; poverty may happen to us, but grace will surely be afforded; death must come but grace will light a candle at the darkest hour. Reader, how blessed it is as years roll round, and the leaves begin again to fall, to enjoy such an unfading promise as this, “The Lord will give grace.”

The little conjunction “and” in this verse is a diamond rivet binding the present with the future: grace and glory always go together. God has married them, and none can divorce them. The Lord will never deny a soul glory to whom he has freely given to live upon his grace; indeed, glory is nothing more than grace in its Sabbath dress, grace in full bloom, grace like autumn fruit, mellow and perfected. How soon we may have glory none can tell! It may be before this month of October has run out we shall see the Holy City; but be the interval longer or shorter, we shall be glorified ere long. Glory, the glory of heaven, the glory of eternity, the glory of Jesus, the glory of the Father, the Lord will surely give to his chosen. Oh, rare promise of a faithful God!

Two golden links of one celestial chain:

Who owneth grace shall surely glory gain.

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Four Reasons to Pray for Your Pastor Daily

As a pastor, few things warmed my heart more than church members telling me they prayed for me daily. Their simple act of prayer both encouraged and reassured me. It encouraged me to know they were standing in the gap for me spiritually, and it reassured me to know they loved my family, the church, and me enough to do so.

Now that I a member of a local church, God has been impressing upon my heart the importance of praying regularly for my pastors. They are men called by God to serve his flock, and they regularly bless my family and me. The least I can do is pray for them faithfully. There are many Biblical reasons why we should pray for our pastors, but let us consider just these four.

First, pastors face a higher judgment. The ministry of the Word is a rewarding but dangerous calling. In fact, James cautioned that not many should become teachers because they will face a stricter judgment.[1]  In addition to the ministry of the Word, the pastor is also responsible for the souls of his flock. This is a daunting responsibility, for which they will give an account.[2]  If these were not enough, pastors also steward God’s glory in the church and before the community. Their character is to be sterling, and their reputation unblemished. God expects much of his ministers, and we should be much for them in prayer.

Second, pastors face more intense temptation. Peter tells us that Satan roams about as a roaring lion seeking those he may devour; and there is no one he enjoys devouring more than a Christian minister, especially a faithful one.[3] When he does, he not only ruins a pastor and his ministry, he also destroy a family, disrupts a church, and sullies God’s glory in that community. There simply is no sin like the sin of a clergyman, and there is no one Satan desires to bring down more than those whom God is using most fruitfully.

Third, pastors face unique pressures. There are days pastors carry the weight of the world, and for reasons of confidentiality, all they can do is bottle it up. Whether it is a piercing word of criticism, a disruptive sin, a draining counseling session, a rigorous day of sermon preparation, or just the operational challenges of most congregations, all of these burdens—and more—can mount up to make the strains of ministry seem at times nearly unbearable.

Fourth, pastors will bless you more. This final point may seem odd, if not altogether self-serving, but it is true. Over the years I have noticed the more I pray for my pastor, and especially his preaching ministry, the more I get fed from the pulpit. Perhaps it is God answering my prayer for my pastor, or perhaps my heart is better prepared to receive the Word after praying for the preacher, but time and again I have seen a direct correlation between the two. The surest way to be personally blessed is to pray more fervently for the preacher and the preaching of God’s Word.

Any man can take the title pastor, and too many men have. Only those called of God can rightly shepherd his flock. If God has given you such a man, you have been blessed indeed. Make sure and bless him—and yourself—by praying for him daily. Pastor appreciation Sunday comes around one week a year. Why don’t you show your appreciation daily by praying for God’s man?

[1] James 3:1.

[2] Hebrews 13:7.

[3] I Peter 1:8.

*This article was originally posted on 12/27/2015*

 

 

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Lord’s Day Meditation: “Pleasant Fruits, New and Old” by C. H. Spurgeon

Lord’s Day Meditation: “Pleasant Fruits, New and Old” by C. H. Spurgeon (Morning and Evening, October 1, Morning)

“Pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved.” (Song of Solomon 7:13)

The spouse desires to give to Jesus all that she produces. Our heart has “all manner of pleasant fruits,” both “old and new,” and they are laid up for our Beloved. At this rich autumnal season of fruit, let us survey our stores. We have new fruits. We desire to feel new life, new joy, new gratitude; we wish to make new resolves and carry them out by new labours; our heart blossoms with new prayers, and our soul is pledging herself to new efforts. But we have some old fruits too. There is our first love: a choice fruit that! and Jesus delights in it. There is our first faith: that simple faith by which, having nothing, we became possessors of all things. There is our joy when first we knew the Lord: let us revive it. We have our old remembrances of the promises. How faithful has God been! In sickness, how softly did he make our bed! In deep waters, how placidly did he buoy us up! In the flaming furnace, how graciously did he deliver us. Old fruits, indeed! We have many of them, for his mercies have been more than the hairs of our head. Old sins we must regret, but then we have had repentances which he has given us, by which we have wept our way to the cross, and learned the merit of his blood. We have fruits, this morning, both new and old; but here is the point–they are all laid up for Jesus. Truly, those are the best and most acceptable services in which Jesus is the solitary aim of the soul, and his glory, without any admixture whatever, the end of all our efforts. Let our many fruits be laid up only for our Beloved; let us display them when he is with us, and not hold them up before the gaze of men. Jesus, we will turn the key in our garden door, and none shall enter to rob thee of one good fruit from the soil which thou hast watered with thy bloody sweat. Our all shall be thine, thine only, O Jesus, our Beloved!

 

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Three Motivations Parents Should Avoid

As the father of five young children, I live with an ever-present awareness that my greatest stewardship is my children. Many men can preach a sermon and more than a few can be a seminary president, but only one can father these five children.

Thus, my wife and I approach our family with a profound sense of stewardship and intentionality. As parents, we are practitioners, but also observers, always seeking to learn and improve in order to be most faithful.

Over the past decade, I’ve witnessed in others—and, unfortunately, in myself—three parental motivations to avoid. Like weeds that force their way through the best-cultivated garden or thickest concrete, these motivations seem stubborn, always reappearing; resilient, always resurfacing.

In fact, if I could wish away three parental motives from my heart, and from others, it would be these: ambition, fear, and pride.

Parenting out of Ambition

Parenting out of ambition occurs when we channel our goals through our children. Mothers do this when they vicariously cheer through their daughters and fathers do so when they vicariously play sports through their sons. At a deeper level, this occurs when parents require of their children a level of commitment and accomplishment they never attained.

Parental ambition drove Hans Luther to deter his son, Martin, from entering the ministry. Luther’s father desired him to study law that he might enjoy financial gain and social respect. Had he been successful, Hans Luther would have deprived the church of one of one of its greatest gifts and delayed the much needed reformation and revival he brought.

There is a difference between aspiration and ambition. It is right to have aspirations for our children and to cultivate in them a healthy sense of ambition. But it is wrong to channel our ambitions—whether for their lives or our own—on them, especially when those ambitions are man-centered and not God-centered.

Parenting out of Fear

Another parental attitude to avoid is fear. Like ambition, fear appears in many forms. Sometimes it is hyper-safety, leading parents to avoid contact sports and seek to insulate children from harm. At other times, it shows up in “helicopter parenting,” remaining in proximity to our children, helping them make decisions and avoid life’s dangers.

In bourgeois Christianity it is often fear of our kids failing in life. The thinking goes, “If my son doesn’t make all As he might not score well on the SAT, not get into the best college, or find the best job. He’ll be a failure. He’ll live in my basement and play Xbox for life.”

My wife and I insist our children wear seatbelts, and we hold them to rigorous academic standards. But we aim not to parent out of fear of what they may or may not become. The point is not to be cavalier, recklessly hoping for God’s kind providence. Rather, we should parent out of stewardship and love, not fear and doubt.

Parenting out of Pride

Parenting out of pride is the most insidious—and injurious—attitude of all. If left unchecked, it will lead us to value morality over spirituality and cultivate children that are self-righteous, but know not Christ’s righteousness. Parenting out of pride is more concerned about man’s evaluation of your parenting than God’s, and more concerned about man’s opinion of your children than God’s.

Those serving in ministry are especially susceptible to parenting out of pride. An unhealthy commitment to I Timothy 3, and a well-ordered house, can cause one to incentivize moral structure to the oversight of repentance, regeneration, and true submission to Christ’s Lordship.

Even more disastrously, pride can lead parents to prod children down the aisle before the gospel has ripened in their heart. Jesus beckons children to come to him, but he doesn’t beckon parents to shove them. Lead them to Jesus, yes. Shove them down the aisle, no.

On the Contrary, Redemptive Parenting

Due to our sin natures, even our best efforts will remain indecipherably corrupt. But the more one is conscious of a propensity to err in these directions, the less likely one is to do so. Gospel-centered parenting focuses on cultivating the heart toward submission to the Word of God, repentance, godliness, and cherishing the gospel.

Conclusion

Parenting is the most enjoyable and exhilarating responsibility I know. I feel as though I am getting to create, invest, sculpt, build, and nurture all at once. It satisfies the pastor, entrepreneur, teacher, builder, evangelist, and leader within me.

As I do this, I know my supererogative responsibility is to tend the heart, nurturing my children in the fear and admonition of the Lord, and teaching them to know, love, and live the gospel. To make sure their heart is right, I must first nurture my own, and that includes forsaking ambition, fear, and pride.

 

*This article was originally posted on 04/07/2014*

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Lord’s Day Meditation: “A Living Dog Is Better Than A Dead Lion” by C. H. Spurgeon

Lord’s Day Meditation: “A Living Dog Is Better Than A Dead Lion” by C. H. Spurgeon (Morning and Evening, September 30, Evening)

“A living dog is better than a dead lion.” (Ecclesiastes 9:4)

Life is a precious thing, and in its humblest form it is superior to death. This truth is eminently certain in spiritual things. It is better to be the least in the kingdom of heaven than the greatest out of it. The lowest degree of grace is superior to the noblest development of unregenerate nature. Where the Holy Ghost implants divine life in the soul, there is a precious deposit which none of the refinements of education can equal. The thief on the cross excels Caesar on his throne; Lazarus among the dogs is better than Cicero among the senators; and the most unlettered Christian is in the sight of God superior to Plato. Life is the badge of nobility in the realm of spiritual things, and men without it are only coarser or finer specimens of the same lifeless material, needing to be quickened, for they are dead in trespasses and sins.

A living, loving, gospel sermon, however unlearned in matter and uncouth in style, is better than the finest discourse devoid of unction and power. A living dog keeps better watch than a dead lion, and is of more service to his master; and so the poorest spiritual preacher is infinitely to be preferred to the exquisite orator who has no wisdom but that of words, no energy but that of sound. The like holds good of our prayers and other religious exercises; if we are quickened in them by the Holy Spirit, they are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ, though we may think them to be worthless things; while our grand performances in which our hearts were absent, like dead lions, are mere carrion in the sight of the living God. O for living groans, living sighs, living despondencies, rather than lifeless songs and dead calms. Better anything than death. The snarlings of the dog of hell will at least keep us awake, but dead faith and dead profession, what greater curses can a man have? Quicken us, quicken us, O Lord!

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Lord’s Day Meditation: “Sing Forth The Honour Of His Name” by C. H. Spurgeon

Lord’s Day Meditation: “Sing Forth The Honour Of His Name” by C. H. Spurgeon (Morning and Evening, September 30, Morning)

“Sing forth the honour of his name, make his praise glorious.” (Psalm 66:2)

It is not left to our own option whether we shall praise God or not. Praise is God’s most righteous due, and every Christian, as the recipient of his grace, is bound to praise God from day to day. It is true we have no authoritative rubric for daily praise; we have no commandment prescribing certain hours of song and thanksgiving: but the law written upon the heart teaches us that it is right to praise God; and the unwritten mandate comes to us with as much force as if it had been recorded on the tables of stone, or handed to us from the top of thundering Sinai. Yes, it is the Christian’s duty to praise God. It is not only a pleasurable exercise, but it is the absolute obligation of his life. Think not ye who are always mourning, that ye are guiltless in this respect, or imagine that ye can discharge your duty to your God without songs of praise. You are bound by the bonds of his love to bless his name so long as you live, and his praise should continually be in your mouth, for you are blessed, in order that you may bless him; “this people have I formed for myself, they shall show forth my praise”; and if you do not praise God, you are not bringing forth the fruit which he, as the Divine Husbandman, has a right to expect at your hands. Let not your harp then hang upon the willows, but take it down, and strive, with a grateful heart, to bring forth its loudest music. Arise and chant his praise. With every morning’s dawn, lift up your notes of thanksgiving, and let every setting sun be followed with your song. Girdle the earth with your praises; surround it with an atmosphere of melody, and God himself will hearken from heaven and accept your music.

“E’en so I love thee, and will love,

And in thy praise will sing,

Because thou art my loving God,

And my redeeming King.”

 

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What I Look for When Hiring Faculty

At Midwestern Seminary, during the beginning of the spring semester, we celebrate spring convocation. Convocation signals the start of the academic semester, and it serves as a joyful reminder of the task that is ours—to train pastors, ministers, and missionaries for the church.

Convocation also projects our confessional commitment to the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention, as witnessed through newly elected professors signing our confession of faith, The Baptist Faith and Message, 2000.

The primary job of a seminary president is to recruit and retain the right faculty. Who you hire will determine the institution you lead and the type of graduates it will produce. This means I am always thinking about faculty.

A glut of Ph.D. graduates coupled with a dearth of open faculty positions means potential faculty members are not in short supply. The law of supply and demand teaches us this is a buyers’ market. I know this empirically, through the never-ending stream of reports on higher education I receive. I also know this experientially, receiving faculty applications and recommendations on a weekly—if not daily—basis.

Therefore, a seminary president can afford to be selective, and I am just that. Here is what I look for in interviewing new faculty members and evaluating current ones:

Confessional Integrity: At its core, a seminary is in the business of theological instruction, and transmitting sound doctrine is priority number one. For Midwestern Seminary, this means an unshakeable commitment to the Baptist Faith & Message 2000 , with faculty affirming it without hesitation, evasion, or mental reservation. The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy and the Danvers Statement are also guiding documents, with expected affirmation. Dirty pipes never transmit pure water. To have doctrinally sound graduates you must have doctrinally sound instructors.


Personal Piety: Put simply, I expect from my faculty, in amplified form, what I aspire for my students to believe, exemplify, and practice. Leadership is a trickle-down phenomenon, with students learning from their mentors in formal and informal ways and settings. Therefore, I Timothy 3 qualifications are non-negotiable. Prayerfulness and true love for Christ and his Word are essential. Personal piety is a must.


Mission Buy-in: Is the candidate merely looking for a job or does he truly believe in the seminary’s mission of existing for the Church? This is a crucial question, and for me it means he must demonstrate love for the local church and be sold-out to the Great Commission. Additionally, it means the candidate should be happy serving in a thoroughly Southern Baptist context.


Ministry Ambition: Ambition can be a dangerous motivation, but, rightly channeled, it is integral to faithful ministry. I hire people who fix their ambition on ministry—like improving classroom skills, writing projects, or student mentoring—not those on an endless quest to lower their golf handicap or who scour Netflix for new releases. Admittedly, life stages, varying degrees of giftedness, family needs, and other administrative and ministry responsibilities all influence one’s productivity. Nonetheless, ministry drivenness and rightly channeled ambition are looked upon favorably.


Love of Students: Students must find in faculty members not merely a professor from whom to learn, but also a person with whom they study and grow. We are not looking for a clinical transfer of knowledge, but professors who genuinely love students. Ministerial preparation is as much caught as it is taught, and it often happens in organic, life-on-life settings.


Institutional Projection: A faculty member’s teaching responsibility is the beginning of his contribution to the seminary, not the end. Classroom responsibility is a significant portion of the work, but more is needed. This is especially true after the early years of teaching when lecture materials are largely completed and the professor has gained his institutional sea legs. The faculty can strengthen the seminary’s ministry through preaching, teaching, publishing, blogging, church consulting, and social media, among other endeavors.


Cheerfulness & Collegiality: I am determined for Midwestern Seminary to be the most collegial and cheerful campus on the planet. We have fun here. We aim for cheerfulness that flows from hearts satisfied in Christ, thankful to serve him at Midwestern Seminary, and fulfilled by advancing the school’s mission. Coupled with cheerfulness is collegiality with other faculty, administration, and the entire community. A person who pens anonymous letters, fires off blistering emails, circulates gossip, holds grudges, or just proves to be too prickly of a personality will best fit in elsewhere.


Value Added: Are there other, even intangible, contributions this person will make to the seminary community? Does his spouse support his ministry and hope to be involved? Will he help recruit students and connect the seminary with potential donors? Is he the kind of person who is eager to participate in seminary functions, have students in his home, or serve in areas beyond his technical responsibilities? If not, there is a long line of potential professors who are.

 

Conclusion

The most important aspect of a seminary president’s job is not fundraising, master planning, or even student recruitment. It’s finding and retaining the right faculty. And the most solemn responsibility of a Board of Trustees—sans hiring a president—is interviewing and electing faculty members.

Ultimately, you hire people, not prototypes. It’s not fair to expect perfection, but it is fair to expect fidelity, integrity, and the pursuit of excellence.

I’m thankful for the incredible faculty God has assembled at Midwestern Seminary—both those who have served here over the years and those God has brought since my election—and I always have an eye out for future additions. Those we hire will likely possess more than these characteristics, but not anything less.

 

*A version of this article was previously posted on 10/13/14*

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Lord’s Day Meditation: “I Found Him Whom My Soul Loveth” by C. H. Spurgeon

Lord’s Day Meditation: “I Found Him Whom My Soul Loveth” by C. H. Spurgeon (Morning and Evening, September 29, Evening)

“I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go.” (Song of Solomon 3:4)

Does Christ receive us when we come to him, notwithstanding all our past sinfulness? Does he never chide us for having tried all other refuges first? And is there none on earth like him? Is he the best of all the good, the fairest of all the fair? Oh, then let us praise him! Daughters of Jerusalem, extol him with timbrel and harp! Down with your idols, up with the Lord Jesus. Now let the standards of pomp and pride be trampled under foot, but let the cross of Jesus, which the world frowns and scoffs at, be lifted on high. O for a throne of ivory for our King Solomon! Let him be set on high forever, and let my soul sit at his footstool, and kiss his feet, and wash them with my tears. Oh, how precious is Christ! How can it be that I have thought so little of him? How is it I can go abroad for joy or comfort when he is so full, so rich, so satisfying. Fellow believer, make a covenant with thine heart that thou wilt never depart from him, and ask thy Lord to ratify it. Bid him set thee as a signet upon his finger, and as a bracelet upon his arm. Ask him to bind thee about him, as the bride decketh herself with ornaments, and as the bridegroom putteth on his jewels. I would live in Christ’s heart; in the clefts of that rock my soul would eternally abide. The sparrow hath made a house, and the swallow a nest for herself where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God; and so too would I make my nest, my home, in thee, and never from thee may the soul of thy turtle dove go forth again, but may I nestle close to thee, O Jesus, my true and only rest.

“When my precious Lord I find,

All my ardent passions glow;

Him with cords of love I bind,

Hold and will not let him go.”

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Deep Work for Pastors: Six Keys for Better Sermon Preparation

Every pastor knows the constant weight of sermon preparation. Sunday is a standing, unmovable deadline. It is like living in final exam week, with a massive deadline before you every Lord’s Day. But the preacher’s test is a public one, for all to see. He will be judged by God’s people. And, more importantly, he will be judged by God himself.

To weekly stand before God’s people, open his Word, and be his spokesman is a daunting responsibility. I question the judgement—if not the calling—of those who take it lightly. That is why pastors spend so much time each week preparing sermons. To be a preacher is to be a sermon preparer.

Given the neediness of the church, the cultural pressures we face, and the general social upheaval of our times, how we preach has never been more important. That means our sermon preparation has never been more important either.

Recently, I enjoyed reading Cal Newport’s book Deep Work. It is one in a long line of new books detailing our challenged attention spans, social media’s deleterious effects on our ability to concentrate, and how the modern man bounces from one distraction to the next. Newport laments these challenges and offers helpful suggestions for correction. As I read his book, my mind continually raced to sermon preparation, and how pastors can strengthen their study time. Consider these six keys.

1. Realize the value of deep work. Deep work refers to “professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit.” It is work that is most demanding mentally, most consequential in what it accomplishes. Sermon preparation is quintessentially deep work. Whether authors, composers, economists, politicians, or preachers, those who have accomplished much have—whether calling it or deep work or not—prioritized deep work.

2. Reserve blocks of time for deep work. Deep work, like sermon preparation, almost always requires blocks of time. Two, three or more hours of uninterrupted focus is needed for sustained focus. It is just impossible to exegete and outline a text in ten-minute bursts. Give yourself major chunks of time in which you can immerse yourself in God’s word. This is a recurring theme throughout the book, and rightly so. If you get nothing else from Newport’s book or this blogpost, make sure it is this point.

3. Batch process shallow activities. All of us have minutiae we must deal with which occupies time during our days. No matter who you are, you cannot avoid returning phone calls, responding to emails, reviewing the upcoming order of worship, etc. The key is to not sprinkle these throughout the day, but reserve a couple of blocks of time to batch process them all together. It is better to turn the administration faucet on and off intentionally than have a constant, slow drip which hinders your study.

4. Sever social media. John Piper famously observed that if it has no other use, Facebook will prove at the final judgement that we had time for prayer but we squandered it. I would like to add sermon preparation to that as well. Surfing social media is the great time-waster of our generation. When you study, turn off your social media, if not your email and internet access as well. This is an indispensable step for more productive sermon preparation.

5. Cultivate Routines. Routines are a way of preprogramming yourself to behave a certain way in advance. If, for instance, you have routinized awakening at 5:00 am and being in your study until 9:00 am, you are prepositioned to succeed. If you are inconsistent in your wake-up time and random in your study time, you will find it much more difficult to maintain adequate sermon preparation.

6. Remember, you have more time than you think. Newport suggests scheduling your day in detail. Like a budget, which tells your money how to be spent before you spend it. A schedule tells your time how to be used before you use it. As you schedule your time and manage it like the strategic resource it is, you will discover there is more time in your week than initially thought—and enough time for adequate sermon preparation.

In Conclusion

Great preaching does not just happen. It usually occurs after a week of great preparation. Great preparation does not just happen either. It usually occurs after intentionally structuring your life for adequate study, and then maintaining the discipline to use it.

Preaching is too high of a calling not to give it our best preparation. And, sermon preparation is quintessentially deep work, therefore use these six keys to strengthen your game.

_____________________________________________

Newport, Cal. Deep work: rules for focused success in a distracted world. London: Piatkus, 2016, 3.

Ibid, 16-17.

Ibid, 181.

Ibid, 100.

Ibid, 221.

*This post was originally posted on 3/22/17*

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Lord’s Day Meditation: “Behold, If The Leprosy Covered All His Flesh” by C. H. Spurgeon

Lord’s Day Meditation: “Behold, If The Leprosy Covered All His Flesh” by C. H. Spurgeon (Morning and Evening, September 29, Morning)

“Behold, if the leprosy have covered all his flesh, he shall pronounce him clean that hath the plague.” (Leviticus 13:13)

Strange enough this regulation appears, yet there was wisdom in it, for the throwing out of the disease proved that the constitution was sound. This morning it may be well for us to see the typical teaching of so singular a rule. We, too, are lepers, and may read the law of the leper as applicable to ourselves. When a man sees himself to be altogether lost and ruined, covered all over with the defilement of sin, and no part free from pollution; when he disclaims all righteousness of his own, and pleads guilty before the Lord, then is he clean through the blood of Jesus, and the grace of God. Hidden, unfelt, unconfessed iniquity is the true leprosy, but when sin is seen and felt it has received its death blow, and the Lord looks with eyes of mercy upon the soul afflicted with it. Nothing is more deadly than self-righteousness, or more hopeful than contrition. We must confess that we are “nothing else but sin,” for no confession short of this will be the whole truth, and if the Holy Spirit be at work with us, convincing us of sin, there will be no difficulty about making such an acknowledgment–it will spring spontaneously from our lips. What comfort does the text afford to those under a deep sense of sin! Sin mourned and confessed, however black and foul, shall never shut a man out from the Lord Jesus. Whosoever cometh unto him, he will in no wise cast out. Though dishonest as the thief, though unchaste as the woman who was a sinner, though fierce as Saul of Tarsus, though cruel as Manasseh, though rebellious as the prodigal, the great heart of love will look upon the man who feels himself to have no soundness in him, and will pronounce him clean, when he trusts in Jesus crucified. Come to him, then, poor heavy-laden sinner,

Come needy, come guilty, come loathsome and bare;

You can’t come too filthy–come just as you are.

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