"Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish." Luke 13:3
John Bunyan writes this in The Pilgrims Progress:The man said, I was once a fair and flourishing professor, both in mine own eyes, and also in the eyes of others… I am now a man of despair, and am shut up in it, as in this iron cage. I cannot get out. Oh, now I cannot!… I left off to watch and be sober. I laid the reins, upon the neck of my lusts; I sinned against the light of the Word and the goodness of God; I have grieved the Spirit, and he is gone; I tempted the devil, and he is come to me; I have provoked God to anger, and he has left me: I have so hardened my heart, that I cannot repent…I have crucified him to myself afresh [Heb. 6:6]; I have despised his person [Luke 19:14]; I have despised his righteousness; I have "counted his blood an unholy thing"; I have "done despite to the Spirit of grace". [Heb. 10:28-29] Therefore I have shut myself out of all the promises, and there now remains to me nothing but threatenings, dreadful threatenings, fearful threatenings, of certain judgement and fiery indignation, which shall devour me as an adversary…For the lusts, pleasures, and profits of this world; in the enjoyment of which I did then promise myself much delight; but now every one of those things also bite me, and gnaw me like a burning worm.
Two men prayed, a Pharisee and a tax collector, one man ‘good’ one man ‘bad’. When they prayed the Pharisee held his head high and thanked God that he was not a sinner like the tax collector, the tax collector could not even look up at heaven and begged for mercy. (Luke 18:9-14). Can you guess who went home Justified?
And all this beings said, I’d just like to thank my God, for his patience and ever enduring efforts, to bring His children back to Himself.
Read: Ezekiel 11:19 ; Ezekiel 36:26
So very true...thanks for the reminder.
ReplyDelete