Book of Job, 27

Pastor’s Opening

There are many persons who long to have a deeper sense of their sinfulness, and then with a certain show of conscientious scruple, they make an excuse for the exercise of simple faith. That spiritual disease, which keeps sinners from Christ, assumes a different shape at different times. In Luther’s day the precise evil under which men laboured, was this: they believed in being self-righteous, and so they supposed that they must have good works before they might trust in Christ. In our day the evil has taken another, and that a most extraordinary shape. Men have aimed at being self-righteous after quite a singular fashion; they think they must feel worse, and have a deeper conviction of sin before they may trust in Christ.

Main Theme(s)

I. First, beloved, let me speak to you who are desiring to feel more and more your sins, and whose prayer is the prayer of the text, “Lord how many are mine iniquities and my sins, make me to know my transgression and my sin.”

II. I must now go on to my second point, and give a few words of INSTRUCTION.

III. And now, very briefly indeed, a few sentences by way of DISCRIMINATION.

IV. Now I come to, my last point, which I have already trenched upon, and that is by way of EXHORTATION.