The Lord’s Supper by Thomas Watson “7. We must come with hearts fired with LOVE to Christ. The spouse said, ‘I am sick with love,’ Song of Solomon 2:5. Let us give Christ the wine of our love to drink—and weep that we can love Him no more. Would we have Christ’s exhilarating presence in the supper? Let us meet Him with strong endearments of affection. Basil compares love to a fragrant ointment. Christ delights to smell this perfume! The disciple who loved most—Christ put in His bosom. 8. We must come with HUMBLE hearts. We see Christ humbling Himself unto death. Will a…
Sunday Morning Calls to Worship
Call to Worship April 14, 2024
“[2.] He doth not so work our mortification in us as not to keep it still an act of our obedience. The Holy Ghost works in us and upon us, as we are fit to be wrought in and upon; that is, so as to preserve our own liberty and free obedience. He works upon our understandings, wills, consciences, and affections, agreeably to their own natures he works in us and with us, not against us or without us; so that his assistance is an encouragement as to the facilitating of the work, and no occasion of neglect as to…
Call to Worship April 7, 2024
“[3.] He brings the cross of Christ into the heart of a sinner by faith, and gives us communion with Christ in his death, and fellowship in his sufferings: of the manner whereof more afterward. Secondly. If this be the work of the Spirit alone, how is it that we are exhorted to it?—seeing the Spirit of God only can do it, let the work be left wholly to him. [1.] It is no otherwise the work of the Spirit but as all graces and good works which are in us are his. He ‘works in us to will and to do…
Call to Worship March 29, 2024
Mortification is the work of the Spirit. “2. It is, then, the work of the Spirit. For,— (1.) He is promised of God to be given unto us to do this work. The taking away of the stony heart,—that is, the stubborn, proud, rebellious, unbelieving heart,—is in general the work of mortification that we treat of. Now this is still promised to be done by the Spirit. Ezek. 11:19, 36:26, ‘I will give my Spirit, and take away the stony heart;’ and by the Spirit of God is this work wrought when all means fail, Isa. 57:17, 18. (2.) We…
Call to Worship March 24, 2024
“There are two evils which certainly attend every unmortified professor;—the first, in himself; the other, in respect of others:— 1. In himself. Let him pretend what he will, he hath slight thoughts of sin; at least, of sins of daily infirmity. The root of an unmortified course is the digestion of sin without bitterness in the heart. When a man hath confirmed his imagination to such an apprehension of grace and mercy as to be able, without bitterness, to swallow and digest daily sins, that man is at the very brink of turning the grace of God into lasciviousness, and…
Call to Worship March 17, 2024
“6. It is our duty to be ‘perfecting holiness in the fear of God,’ 2 Cor. 7:1; to be ‘growing in grace’ every day, 1 Pet. 2:2, 2 Pet. 3:18; to be ‘renewing our inward man day by day,’ 2 Cor. 4:16. Now, this cannot be done without the daily mortifying of sin. Sin sets its strength against every act of holiness, and against every degree we grow to. Let not that man think he makes any progress in holiness who walks not over the bellies of his lusts. He who doth not kill sin in his way takes no…
Call to Worship March 10, 2024
“5. Negligence in this duty casts the soul into a perfect contrary condition to that which the apostle affirms was his, 2 Cor. 4:16, “Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.” In these the inward man perisheth, and the outward man is renewed day by day. Sin is as the house of David, and grace as the house of Saul. Exercise and success are the two main cherishers of grace in the heart; when it is suffered to lie still, it withers and decays: the things of it are ready to die, Rev. 3:2; and sin gets ground towards the hardening of the heart,…
Call to Worship March 3, 2024
“4. This is one main reason why the Spirit and the new nature is given unto us,—that we may have a principle within whereby to oppose sin and lust. ‘The flesh lusteth against the Spirit.’ Well! and what then? Why, ‘The Spirit also lusteth against the flesh,’ Gal. 5:17. There is a propensity in the Spirit, or spiritual new nature, to be acting against the flesh, as well as in the flesh to be acting against the Spirit: so 2 Pet. 1:4, 5. It is our participation of the divine nature that gives us an escape from the pollutions that…
Call to Worship February 25, 2024
“3. Sin will not only be striving, acting, rebelling, troubling, disquieting, but if let alone, if not continually mortified, it will bring forth great, cursed, scandalous, soul-destroying sins. The apostle tells us what the works and fruits of it are, Gal. 5:19–21, ‘The works of the flesh are manifest, which are, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft; hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like.’ You know what it did in David and sundry others. Sin aims always at the utmost; every time it rises up to tempt or entice, might it have its…
Call to Worship February 18, 2024
“2. Sin doth not only still abide in us, but is still acting, still labouring to bring forth the deeds of the flesh. When sin lets us alone we may let sin alone; but as sin is never less quiet than when it seems to be most quiet, and its waters are for the most part deep when they are still, so ought our contrivances against it to be vigorous at all times and in all conditions, even where there is least suspicion. Sin doth not only abide in us, but “the law of the members is still rebelling against the…
Call to Worship February 11, 2024
“I. That the choicest believers, who are assuredly freed from the condemning power of sin, ought yet to make it their business all their days to mortify the indwelling power of sin. So the apostle, Col. 3:5, ‘Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth.’ Whom speaks he to? Such as were ‘risen with Christ,’ verse 1; such as were ‘dead’ with him, verse 3; such as whose life Christ was, and who should ‘appear with him in glory,’ verse 4. Do you mortify; do you make it your daily work; be always at it whilst you live; cease…