"Turn
Thou
us unto Thee,
O LORD,
and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old."
-LAMENTATIONS
5:21 [KJV]
Are
you not often destitute of the power to repent, and confess your sins
before God? Does not conscience often bring to view a melancholy
retrospect of carnal thoughts, wicked desires, vain imaginations,
foolish words, frivolous speeches, and all that catalogue of evils,
that huge bill which godly fear sometimes files in the court within,
as seen in all our departures from the life of God? But are you able
to repent? are you able to feel cut to the very heart? are you able
to mourn and sigh because conscience brings against you this long
indictment? Can you always feel your soul melted down with sorrow on
account of it? Are you always able to feel contrition because you are
proud, worldly, covetous, everything that is evil, everything that is
hateful in God's sight?
But,
then, there are times and seasons when the Lord is pleased to work
upon the conscience, to move and stir the soul, to touch the heart
with His gracious finger—then repentance and godly sorrow flow
forth. It is with us as with the rock that Moses struck. There was
water in the rock; but it required to be struck with the rod before
the waters flowed out. So we may have the grace of repentance in our
souls; but it requires the divine hand to strike the rock, to cause
the waters of godly sorrow to gush forth.
-Gospel
report by preacher J.C. Philpot (1802-1869 A.D.)
January
25th, EARS FROM HARVESTED SHEAVES
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