wasted in sloth, in company, in pleasure, in idle or
desultory reading, that might have been devoted to
prayer, alone or with others, to study, to meditation, to
working and witnessing for the Lord (2 Cor 5:10; Rom
14:10-12).
Indolence, self-indulgence, fickleness, fleshpleasing and indulging have eaten like a cancer into our
Christian lives, arresting our spiritual growth, dwarfing
our fruitfulness as branch-bearing Christians, and
making Laodicean saints out of us. It cannot be said of
us, “My name you have labored and have not wearied”
(Rev 2:3). Alas! We have fainted. We have “grown
weary in well-doing!” (Gal 6:9). In all this we have not
dealt honestly with ourselves. We have dealt deceitfully
with God.
Coldness
We have been cold. Even when diligent, how
little warmth and glow! The whole soul is not poured
into the duty, and hence it wears too often the repulsive
air of routine and form. We do not speak and act like
men in earnest (Rom 12:11; Rev 3:14-22). Our words
are feeble, even when sound and true. Our looks are
careless, even when our words are weighty; and our
tones betray the apathy which both words and looks
disguise.
Love is wanting, deep love, love strong as death,
love such as made Jeremiah weep in secret places for
the pride of Israel, and Paul speak “even weeping,” of
the enemies of Christ (Phil 3:17-19). In preaching and
visiting, in counseling and reproving, what formality,
what coldness, how little tenderness and affection! Oh
that I were all heart and soul and spirit - to tell the
glorious Gospel of Christ to perishing multitudes!
Timidity
We have been timid. Fear has often led us to
smooth down or generalize truths which if plainly
stated must have brought hatred and reproach upon us.
We have thus often failed to declare to people the whole
counsel of God (Acts 20:26,27). We have not fully
preached a free Gospel. We have shrunk from
reproving, rebuking and exhorting with all
longsuffering and doctrine (2 Tim 4:1,2). Hence our
preaching has been feeble and straitened; and hence our
preaching of a free Gospel has been yet more vague,
uncertain and timorous. We are greatly deficient in the
majestic boldness and nobility of spirit which
peculiarly marked Luther, Calvin, Knox, and the
mighty men of the Reformation. Of Luther it was said,
“Every word was a thunderbolt.”
We have been wanting in solemnity. How deeply
ought we to be abased at our levity, frivolity, flippancy,
vain mirth, foolish talking and jesting, by which
grievous injury has been done to souls, the progress of
the saints retarded and the world countenanced in its
wretched vanities (Eph 5;4).
Self-exaltation
We have exalted ourselves - we have preached
ourselves, not Christ. We have sought applause,
courted honour, been avaricious of fame and jealous of
our reputation. We have preached to exalt ourselves
instead of fixing them on Him and His Cross! Have we
not often preached Christ for the very purpose of
getting honour to ourselves? Christ, in the sufferings of
His first coming and the glory of His second coming,
has not been the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last,
of all our sermons.
Moreover, in our preaching and witnessing to
souls, we have used words of man's wisdom. We have
forgotten Paul's resolution to avoid the enticing words
of man's wisdom, lest he make the Cross of Christ of
none effect (1 Cor 1:17; 2:1-5). We have reversed his
reasoning as well as his resolution, and acted as if, by
well-studied, well-polished, well-reasoned discourses,
we could so gild and beautify the Cross and to make it
no longer repulsive, but irresistibly attractive to the
casual eye! We have made the Cross of Christ of none
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