A Convinced Sinner's Prayer

I have been reading a book of prayers by  Benjamin Jenks (1646–1724). He has a prayer entitled, "The Convinced Sinner's Prayer. Somehow, I don't expect any altarcall monger among the Osteen crowd to ask their audience to "repeat after me" a prayer of this caliber. 

“Hearken to the voice of my cry, my King and my God! for unto thee will I pray. But wherewithal shall I appear before the Lord, and bow myself before the most high God, whose holy laws I have broken, and whose just displeasure I have incurred! I acknowledge my transgression, O Lord, and my sin is ever before me. My iniquities are gone over my head, as a sore burden; they are too heavy for me to bear. When thou, with rebukes, dost chasten man for his iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth. My sin now has found me out; and that which once I thought too little to be repented of, seems now too great to be pardoned. I flattered myself in my own eyes, till my iniquity is found to be hateful. I thought I was rich, and increased with goods, and had need of nothing: but now I find that I am wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked; so that there is nothing but disorder and ruin in my soul. I have undone myself; but to work my own recovery, I have no sufficiency. O how wicked have I been to harbour the mind, and allow myself in the way, which is enmity against God! How ignorant, yet how confident! How vile, yet how arrogant! In what need of mercy, yet how unmerciful! How sinful, yet how impenitent! How bold in the sins where conscience reproved me; but how indifferent in the cause where thy good Spirit encouraged me! O the spoils, and ruins, and desolations which my sins have made in my soul. How darkened has been my mind; how perverted my will; how sensualized my affections; how disordered my passions; how hardened my heart: and how mad have I been in cleaving unto things displeasing to my God, and destructive to my soul!

“Vain would be the attempt to hide anything from thee, who fillest heaven and earth. What shall I say unto thee, Lord? I scarcely know how to speak anything bad enough of myself. O wo is me, that I have done so foolishly and wickedly! Whither shall I betake myself, seeing that against thee, O Lord, I have so sinned and done such evil in thy sight! Thou art the offended Majesty, out of whose reach I cannot escape, and whose judgments I can never be able to endure. A guilty consciousness makes me afraid to come unto thee; yet I know there is nothing but certain destruction if I keep away from thee. And though there is no peace to the wicked, whilst he continues in his sins, yet if the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and return to the Lord, thy promise then, O God, is, to have mercy upon him, and abundantly to pardon. I have none to look unto for deliverance from my sins, but unto the just and holy God, against whom I have so grievously sinned. And how shall I stand in thy sight, O Lord, who hatest and condemnest the works of darkness, and the workers of iniquity? whose wrath against sin burns deep as hell, and as long as eternity.

“I submit, great Lord, to thy offended Majesty! and whithersoever I look, I have no hope but in thine almighty power, thy super-abounding grace, and thine ever-enduring mercy. Nothing is too hard for thee to effect. The most wretched case is not past thy cure. Though our sins be as scarlet, thou canst make them as white as snow: though they be red like crimson, thou canst make them as wool. Yea, thou hast found a ransom, and laid help upon One that is mighty, even on thy dear Son, who is able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God through him. If I had not sinned, I had no need of such a Redeemer; but it was the sinful and the lost whom he came to seek and save. To the Lord Jesus therefore do I look, with the desire of my soul, to find healing through the precious blood of his cross. O merciful God! when my sins cry to thee for vengeance, be thou pleased to hear his blood and merits pleading and interceding for my soul, and speaking better things in my behalf, than I am able to do for myself in all my prayers.

“Behold, O merciful Lord, a miserable object, on whom to glorify thy power and mercy! O look upon me, in my blood, and bid me live. Speak death to my sins, that my soul may live, and forever bless thy name. Turn away thy face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. For thy name's sake, O Lord, pardon my sin, for it is great; too great for any but a God of infinite goodness and mercy to forgive. O magnify thyself in my deliverance. Make it seen, in thy work upon my soul, how great things, worthy of God, thou canst do; that where sin hath abounded, thy grace can much more abound. Return, O Lord, deliver my soul: O save me for thy mercy's sake. Save me from the guilt and punishment, from the power and pollution, of all my sins. And thou, Lord, who knowest how to deliver, make me some way to escape out of the perplexities into which my sins have cast me: that my iniquities may not be my ruin; but that they may be taken away and forgiven, and washed out with the blood of Jesus Christ. Turn thou me, O Lord God of my salvation, that I may be turned from my sins, and from this present evil world, unto thyself. O give me such conviction as may end in sound conversion; and let me experience in myself that grace of God which bringeth salvation. I want thy grace, O Lord; and I shall want it to all eternity, if thou be not pleased to look graciously upon me in my blessed Redeemer. Thou wilt not have the less, how much soever thou bestowest: and thou canst not be stow thy grace upon any one that more needs it than myself. O God of all grace, that keepest mercy for thousands, hast thou not a blessing for me; a blessing for my perishing soul? For thy dear Son, my only Saviour's sake, let me find such grace in thy sight. O get thee everlasting glory, in so favouring the most unworthy of thy creatures. And whatever thou with- holdest, O deny me not thy saving grace, which, though so precious a treasure, is not too great or good for the God of infinite mercy to bestow. Do that work of thy grace thoroughly upon my heart, for which I may have cause to glorify thy name for evermore. Amen.”

I Can't See Their Hearts

I have been irritated lately. I have heard a dozen or so comments from various people that have just really angered me. I’ve already tipped my hand by the title of this post. Yes, it’s about this lily-livered, spineless, relativistic, “who-am-I-to-judge-anyone” attitude that has infected, or should I say, infested much of so-called Christian thought. Much more could be said that I will say, but there are some huge flaws that this mindset betrays.

First of all, it is based on the assumption that truth is subjective. That idea in and of itself is absolutely idiotic. I don’t know of a nicer way to put it. It is so fashionable for people to say that what is right for one person may not be right for someone else. But this is sheer idiocy and hypocrisy. If a person, outside the Christian faith wants to believe such drivel, I say, let them. Paul said we didn’t judge those outside the Church. But, for a person who claims Christianity to hold to such a philosophy is unpardonable. Christianity means nothing if it doesn’t mean it absolutely.

The world has been turned on its head by this relativistic mindset. G.K. Chesterton, in his book Orthodoxy, remarks that we were meant to be sure of the truth and doubtful of ourselves, but we have reversed the order. It is considered arrogant to make exclusive truth claims. Classic Christianity is too “narrow” because it views all other religions as false and holds that no one who does not believe in Christ is or will be saved. Period! Somehow it has been portrayed as humble to be doubtful or, at least, to not be insistent about the exclusive claims of Christianity about salvation and sin. What kills me though is that the same people who are so “modest” and “humble” as to doubt God’s Word, are the same ones who are unspeakably confident in themselves. The only reason that the subversive Emergents reject the exclusivist claims of Christianity, is because they place their own minds above God’s. Chesterton quipped that we are well on our way to producing a race of men too modest to believe in the multiplication table!

But it gets uglier. As my title suggests, I’m particularly irritated by the Osteen-esque refusal to pin oneself down theologically by appealing to this wimpy, “I Can’t See Their Hearts,” copout. Say what you like, but this is nothing other than a denial of sin. It is based on the false, anti-Christian belief that all men are essential good. It is assumed that regardless of how a person lives or believes, as long as he has a “good heart” then nothing else matters. But there’s the rub. Scripture claims that NO ONE has a good heart. Outside of Christ, everyone is vile, corrupt, wicked and perverse. The noblest unbeliever is on a greased slide to hell.

Here’s a short sample of what God says, and incidentally, He can see the heart.

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? Jer. 17:9

And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Gen 6:5

I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. Gen. 8:21

Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one. Job 14:4

Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Ps. 51:5

Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good that are accustomed to do evil. Jer. 13:23

Peter tells us that the spurious believer is "in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity." Acts 8:23

"The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Rom. 8:7

All men are by nature children of wrath.... and dead in trespasses and sins. Eph. 2:1, 3