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Oh, how religious he once used to be!
(J. C. Philpot, "The
Lost Sought and Saved" 1851)
"And I, the Son of Man, have come to seek
and save those who are LOST." Luke 19:10
Oh, how religious he once used to be!
How comfortably he could walk to church with his
Bible under his arm, and look as devout and holy
as possible! How regularly also, he could read the
Scriptures, and pray in his manner, and think
himself pretty well, with one foot in heaven.
But a ray of heavenly light has beamed into his soul,
and shown him who and what God is; what sin and
a sinful heart is; and who and what he himself as a
sinner is. The keen dissecting knife of God has come
into his heart, laid it all bare, and let the gory matter
flow out. When his conscience is bleeding under the
scalpel, and is streaming all over with the gore and
filth thus let out, where is the clean heart once
boasted of?
Where is his religion now?
All buried beneath a load of filth!
Where is all his holiness gone? His . . .
holy looks,
holy expressions,
holy manners,
holy gestures,
holy garb;
where are they all gone?
All are flooded and buried. The sewer has broken
out, and the filthy stream has discharged itself
over his holy looks, holy manners, holy words and
holy gestures; and he is, as Job says, 'in the ditch.'
We never find the right religion, until we have lost
the wrong one. We never find Christ, until we have
lost SELF. We never find grace, until we have lost
our own pitiful self-holiness.
"And I, the Son of Man, have come to seek
and save those who are LOST." Luke 19:10
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