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Tuesday, 16 December 2008

read jonathan edwards!

(not "read" that sounds like "red" but "read" the command, that sounds like "reed").

an excerpt on a sermon about prayer:

If you live in the neglect of secret prayer, you show your good will to neglect all the worship of God. He that prays only when he prays with others, would not pray at all, were it not that the eyes of others are upon him. He that will not pray where none but God seeth him, manifestly doth not pray at all out of respect to God, or regard to his all-seeing eye, and therefore doth in effect cast off all prayer. And he that casts off prayer, in effect casts off all the worship of God, of which prayer is the principal duty.

Now, what a miserable saint is he who is no worshipper of God! He that casts off the worship of God, in effect casts off God himself.

all his sermons, ever: http://edwards.yale.edu/research/sermon-index/canonical - click your favorite, or even an obscure passage, and read :)

Sunday, 09 November 2008

overcoming sin and temptation, vol 8

Let this be part of our daily contending with God- that he would preserve our souls, and keep our hearts and our ways, that we be not entangled; that his good and wise providence will order our ways and affairs, that no pressing temptation befall us; that he would give us diligence, carefulness, and watchfulness over our own ways. So shall we be delivered when others are held in the chords of their own folly. p196

Does your delight in the people of God faint and grow cold? Or is your love to them changing from that which is purely spiritual into that which is very carnal, upon the account of suitableness of principles and natural spirits, if not worse foundations? -overcoming sin temptation, p199

It is in the heart, then, wherein provision is to be laud up against temptation. When an enemy draws nigh to a fort or castle to besiege and take it, oftentimes, it he find it well manned and furnished with provision for a seige, and so able to hold out, he withdraws and assaults it not. If Satan, the prince of this world, come and find our hearts fortified against his batteries, and provided to hold out, he not only departs, but, as James says, he flees: "He will flee from us" (4:7). For the provision to be laud up is that which is provided in the gospel for us. Gospel provisions will do this work,; that is, keep the heart full of a sense of love of God in Christ. This is the greatest preservative against the power of temptation in the world. p204

Tuesday, 04 November 2008

overcoming sin and temptation, vol 7

Let no man, then, pretend to fear sin that does not fear temptation to it. They are too nearly allied to be separated. Satan has put them so together that it is very hard for any man to put them asunder. He hates not the fruit who delights in the root. -overcoming sin temptation, p193

Let the heart, then, commune with itself and say, "I am poor and weak; Satan is subtle, cunning, powerful, watching constantly for advantages against my soul; the world earnest, pressing, and full of specious pleas, innumerable pretenses, and ways of deceit; my own corruption violent and tumultuating, enticing, entangling, conceiving sin, and warring in me, against me; occasions and advantages of temptation innumerable in all things I have done or suffer, in all businesses and persons with whom I converse."

The first beginnings of temptation are imperceptible and plausible, so that, left onto myself, I shall not know I am ensnared, until my bonds be made strong, and sin has got ground in my heart: therefore on God alone will I rely for preservation, and continually will I look up to him on that account."p195