Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.
— Psalm 2:11-12
Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.
— Hebrews 3:12
And they said, There is no hope: but we will walk after our own devices, and we will every one do the imagination of his evil heart.
— Jeremiah 18:12
While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation. For some, when they had heard, did provoke: howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses.
— Hebrews 3:15-17
Weakness and Imperfection of Duty—Opposition from Indwelling Sin, by John Owen. The following contains an excerpt from Rule IV concerning his exposition on Psalm 130:4 on his work, “The Forgiveness of Sin: A Practical Exposition Upon Psalm 130.”
But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.
— Psalm 130:4
Rule IV
Objections from the present state and condition of the soul—Weakness and imperfection of duty—Opposition from indwelling sin.
THIRDLY. There is another head of objections against the soul’s receiving consolation from an interest in forgiveness, arising from the consideration of its present state and condition as to actual holiness, duties, and sins. Souls complain, when in darkness and under temptations, that they cannot find that holiness, nor those fruits of it in themselves, which they suppose an interest in pardoning mercy will produce. Their hearts they find are weak, and all their duties worthless. If they were weighed in the balance, they would be all found too light. In the best of them there is such a mixture of self, hypocrisy, unbelief, vain-glory, that they are even ashamed and confounded with the remembrance of them. These things fill them with discouragements, so that they refuse to be comforted or to entertain any refreshing persuasion from the truth insisted on, but rather conclude that they are utter strangers from that forgiveness that is with God, and so continue helpless in their depths.
According unto the method proposed, and hitherto pursued, I shall only lay down some such general rules as may support a soul under the despondencies that are apt in such a condition to befall it, that none of these things may weaken it in its endeavour to lay hold of forgiveness. And,—
1. This is the proper place to put in execution our eighth rule, to take heed of heartless complaints when vigorous actings of grace are expected at our hands. If it be thus, indeed, why lie you on your faces? why do you not rise and put out yourselves to the utmost, giving all diligence to add one grace to another, until you find yourselves in a better frame? Supposing, then, the putting of that rule into practice, I add,—
1. That known holiness is apt to degenerate into self-righteousness. What God gives us on the account of sanctification we are ready enough to reckon on the score of justification. It is a hard thing to feel grace, and to believe as if there were none. We have so much of the Pharisee in us by nature, that it is sometimes well that our good is hid from us. We are ready to take our corn and wine and bestow them on other lovers. Were there not in our hearts a spiritually sensible principle of corruption, and in our duties a discernible mixture of self, it would be impossible we should walk so humbly as is required of them who hold communion with God in a covenant of grace and pardoning mercy. It is a good life which is attended with a faith of righteousness and a sense of corruption. Whilst I know Christ’s righteousness, I shall the less care to know my own holiness. To be holy is necessary; to know it, sometimes a temptation.
2. Even duties of God’s appointment, when turned into self-righteousness, are God’s great abhorrency, Isa. 66:2, 3. What hath a good original may be vitiated by a bad end.
3. Oftentimes holiness in the heart is more known by the opposition that is made there to it, than by its own prevalent working. The Spirit’s operation is known by the flesh’s opposition. We find a man’s strength by the burdens he carries, and not the pace that he goes. “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” is a better evidence of grace and holiness than “God, I thank thee I am not as other men.” A heart pressed, grieved, burdened, not by the guilt of sin only, which reflects with trouble on an awakened conscience, but by the close, adhering power of indwelling sin, tempting, seducing, soliciting, hindering, captivating, conceiving, restlessly disquieting, may from thence have as clear an evidence of holiness as from a delightful fruit-bearing. What is it that is troubled and grieved in thee? what is it that seems to be almost killed and destroyed; that cries out, complains, longs for deliverance? Is it not the new creature? is it not the principle of spiritual life, whereof thou art partaker? I speak not of troubles and disquietments for sin committed; nor of fears and perturbations of mind lest sin should break forth to loss, shame, ruin, dishonour; nor of the contending of a convinced conscience lest damnation should ensue;—but of the striving of the Spirit against sin, out of a hatred and a loathing of it, upon all the mixed considerations of love, grace, mercy, fear, the beauty of holiness, excellency of communion with God, that are proposed in the gospel. If thou seemest to thyself to be only passive in these things, to do nothing but to endure the assaults of sin; yet if thou art sensible, and standest under the stroke of it as under the stroke of an enemy, there is the root of the matter. And as it is thus as to the substance and being of holiness, so it is also as to the degrees of it. Degrees of holiness are to be measured more by opposition than self-operation. He may have more grace than another who brings not forth so much fruit as the other, because he hath more opposition, more temptation, Isa. 41:17. And sense of the want of all is a great sign of somewhat in the soul.
https://takeupcross.com
takeupcross
Take Up the Cross 