LORD, I Beseech YOU To Keep Me Ever In Desperate Earnest In My War With Sin.

He and Bacchus were rolling in the gutter together!
(Charles Spurgeon, "Flowers from a Puritan's Garden" 1883) 

"In a fit of anger, 
we bid a naughty servant begone--
but he lingers in the house, and before 
the next morning all is cool and quiet, 
and he is again in our favor. Just so, 
many a time an argument happens 
between a man and his lusts--
but after a short time, he again 
hugs his darling lusts."

Ungodly men have their quarrels with 
their favorite sins on various accounts. 
But these are like children's disputes 
with one another--
soon over, because they come 
from passion, and not from principle.

An unholy person will fall out with sin, 
because it has injured his health or 
his credit, or has brought him into 
difficulties with his neighbors. 

But when these temporary results 
are ended, he falls in love again 
with the same iniquity! 

Thus we have seen the drunkard 
loathing his excess in the morning, 
when his eyes were red, and his 
head was aching; but before 
the sun went down, the quarrel 
was ended, and he and Bacchus
 were rolling in the gutter together! 

(N.B. Bacchus is the Roman god 
of wine and intoxication.) 

Our enmity to sin should be based upon 
sound knowledge and solid reason, and 
be wrought in us by the SPIRIT of GOD--
and then it will lead us to join in solemn 
league with the LORD, who has war with 
Amalek throughout all generations. 

We must have no peace with sin--
nay, not with the least sin! 

Of old, converted Israelites cast their 
idols to the moles and to the bats--
away from their sight with the moles, 
away from the light with the bats. 

Just so, our detestation must lead us to 
put sin among the dead and the forgotten!  

So far from ever entering into amity 
with it, we must regard it as a dead 
and corrupted thing, forever abandoned 
to silence and the worm! 

As Heaven and Hell will never unite--
so must it be plain that a saint and sin 
will never come together on any 
terms whatever.

LORD, I beseech YOU to keep me ever 
in desperate earnest in my war with sin. 
Forbid that I should trifle in this conflict, 
or grow cold in it. Let me be bound to 
never-ending warfare with my own sin--
and never may I be pacified until CHRIST 
has utterly crushed the foul foe! 

Like your servant David, 
I would hate every false way!

   ~  ~  ~  ~ 

GraceGems has published William Nicholson's encouraging short article, 
"The Conqueror's Reward!"