Renounce Your Bosom Sins-Gurnall






An excerpt from William Gurnall’s The Christian in Complete Armour (Banner of Truth-Volume 1)

I. Renounce Your Bosom Sins

Those sins which have lain nearest your heart must now be trampled under your feet. And what courage and resolution this requires! You think Abraham was tested to the limit when called upon to take Isaac, ‘thine only son…whom thou lovest’ (Gen 22:2), and offer him up with his own hands. Yet what was that to this: ‘Soul, take the lust which is the child dearest to your heart, your Isaac, the sin from which you intend to gain the greatest pleasure. Lay hands on it and offer it up; pour out its blood before Me; run the sacrificing knife into the very heart of it - and do it joufully!’

This is more than the human spirit can bear to hear. Our lust wil not lie so patiently on the altar as Isaac, nor as the Lamb brought dumb to the slaughter (Isa. 53:7). Our flesh will roar and shriek, rending the heart with its hideous cries. Indeed, who can express the conflict, the wrestlings, the convulsions of spirit we endure before we can put our heart into such a command? Or who can fully recount the cleverness with which such a lust will plead for itself?

When the Spirit convicts you of sin, Satan will try to convince you, ‘It is such a little one - spare it.’ Or he will bribe the soul with a vow of secrecy: ‘You can keep me and your good reputation, too. I will not be seen in your company to shame you among your neighbors. You may shut me up in the attic of your heart, out of sight, if only you will let me know and then have the wild embraces of your thoughts and affections in secret.’

If that will not be granted, then Satan asks for a stay of execution, well knowing that most such reprieved lusts at last obtain their full pardon. The longer we procrastinate, the harder it becomes to break through the clever coaxing of this silver-tongued defender of sin and death, and actually carry out the execution. Here history’s bravest men have shown themselves putty in the enemy’s hands. They return from the field with victory banners flying, and then live and die slaves to a base lust at home. They are like the great Roman who, as he rode triumphantly through the city, never took his eyes off a prostitute walking along the street: a man who conquered empires, captured by the glance of a singe woman!

Well, ain’t that the truth?

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Josh Hicks, Chloë's Daddy
Member of TRBC, Attending CCRPC. My Blog
The Puritan Pub (Team Blog)
Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

Wow that was well put!
Sobering... to say the least!

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Christopher Hinton
Northland, A Church Distributed;
Altamonte Springs, FL

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Andrew Myers
Husband of Jessica, Father of Jackson, Katie and Samuel
Member, Presbyterian Reformed Church of Northern Virginia
Warrenton, VA USA
Editor, The Matthew Poole Project

"Let your Morning Thoughts, and your last Evening Thoughts, be what shall become of you to all Eternity." -- Matthew Poole