“Of the Nature of Prayer in General; with the Import of Praying Without Ceasing1 Thessalonians 5:17, ‘Pray without ceasing.’THESE words are an exhortation briefly delivered, as laws use to be; and therein we have, 1. A duty proposed, ‘Pray.’ 2. The manner of it, ‘without ceasing.’ I. We have the duty itself, ‘Pray.’ It may be asked, What is prayer? I answer, It is ‘an offering up of our desires to God, for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgment of his mercies.’… First, I am to consider the…
Sunday Morning Calls to Worship
Call to Worship November 10, 2024
“3. Consider the evils of it; I mean its present evils. Danger respects what is to come; evil, what is present. Some of the many evils that attend an unmortified lust may be mentioned:— (1.) It grieves the holy and blessed Spirit, which is given to believers to dwell in them and abide with them. So the apostle, Eph. 4:25–29, dehorting them from many lusts and sins, gives this as the great motive of it, verse 30, ‘Grieve not the Holy Spirit, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.’ ‘Grieve not that Spirit of God,’ saith he, ‘whereby you receive so many and…
Call to Worship November 3, 2024
“(4.) There is the danger of eternal destruction. For the due management of this consideration, observe,— [1.] That there is such a connection between a continuance in sin and eternal destruction, that though God does resolve to deliver some from a continuance in sin that they may not be destroyed, yet he will deliver none from destruction that continue in sin; so that whilst any one lies under an abiding power of sin, the threats of destruction and everlasting separation from God are to be held out to him. So Heb. 3:12; to which add chap. 10:38. This is the rule of God’s proceeding: If any…
Call to Worship October 27, 2024
“(3.) Loss of peace and strength all a man’s days. To have peace with God, to have strength to walk before God, is the sum of the great promises of the covenant of grace. In these things is the life of our souls. Without them in some comfortable measure, to live is to die. What good will our lives do us if we see not the face of God sometimes in peace? if we have not some strength to walk with him? Now, both these will an unmortified lust certainly deprive the souls of men of. This case is so evident in David, as…
Call to Worship October 20, 2024
“So, then, let these things, and the like considerations, lead thee to a clear sense of the guilt of thy indwelling lust, that there may be no room in thy heart for extenuating or excusing thoughts, whereby sin insensibly will get strength and prevail. 2. Consider the danger of it, which is manifold:— (1.) Of being hardened by the deceitfulness. This the apostle sorely charges on the Hebrews, chap. 3:12, 13, ‘Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called To-day; lest…
Call to Worship October 13, 2024
Get a clear and abiding sense upon thy mind and conscience of the guilt, danger, and evil of that sin wherewith thou art perplexed:— 1. Of the guilt of it. It is one of the deceits of a prevailing lust to extenuate its own guilt. “Is it not a little one?” “When I go and bow myself in the house of Rimmon, God be merciful to me in this thing.” “Though this be bad, yet it is not so bad as such and such an evil; others of the people of God have had such a frame; yea, what dreadful actual sins have…
Call to Worship October 6, 2024
“6. When thy lust hath already withstood particular dealings from God against it. This condition is described, Isa. 57:17, ‘For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth, and smote him: I hid me, and was wroth, and he went on frowardly in the way of his heart.’ God had dealt with them about their prevailing lust, and that several ways,—by affliction and desertion; but they held out against all. This is a sad condition, which nothing but mere sovereign grace (as God expresses it in the next verse) can relieve a man in, and which no man ought to promise himself or bear…
Call to Worship September 29, 2024
“5. When it is probable that there is, or may be, somewhat of judiciary hardness, or at least of chastening punishment, in thy lust as disquieting. This is another dangerous symptom. That God doth sometimes leave even those of his own under the perplexing power at least of some lust or sin, to correct them for former sins, negligence, and folly, I no way doubt. Hence was that complaint of the church, ‘Why hast thou hardened us from the fear of thy name?’ Isa. 63:17. That this is his way of dealing with unregenerate men no man questions. But how…
Call to Worship September 22, 2024
“4. When a man fighteth against his sin only with arguments from the issue or the punishment due unto it, this is a sign that sin hath taken great possession of the will, and that in the heart there is a superfluity of naughtiness. Such a man as opposes nothing to the seduction of sin and lust in his heart but fear of shame among men or hell from God, is sufficiently resolved to do the sin if there were no punishment attending it; which, what it differs from living in the practice of sin, I know not. Those who are Christ’s,…
Call to Worship September 15, 2024
‘3. Frequency of success in sin’s seduction, in obtaining the prevailing consent of the will unto it, is another dangerous symptom. This is that I mean: When the sin spoken of gets the consent of the will with some delight, though it be not actually outwardly perpetrated, yet it hath success. A man may not be able, upon outward considerations, to go along with sin to that which James calls the ‘finishing’ of it, as to the outward acts of sin, when yet the will of sinning may be actually obtained; then hath it, I say, success. Now, if any…