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Sick of SIN, sick of SELF, sick of the
WORLD
(J. C. Philpot, "Spiritual
Delight" 1845)
"Delight yourself in the LORD and He will give
you the desires of your heart." Psalm 37:4
By nature we delight in SIN. It is the very element of
our nature—and even after the Lord has called us by
His grace and quickened us by his Spirit—there is the
same love to sin in the heart as there was before.
We delight in it—we would wallow in it—take our full
enjoyment of it—and swim in it as a fish swims in
the waters of the sea!
By nature we also are prone to IDOLATRY. Self is
the grand object of all our sensual and carnal worship.
Our own exaltation,
our own amusement,
our own pleasure,
our own gratification.
Something whereby SELF may be . . .
flattered,
admired,
adored,
delighted,
is the grand end and aim of man's natural worship.
By nature we also delight in the WORLD. It is . . .
our element,
our home,
what our carnal hearts are intimately blended with.
From all these things, then, which are intrinsically
evil—which a pure and holy God must hate with
absolute abhorrence—we must be weaned and
effectually divorced—we need to have these
things embittered to us.
All the time we are doing homage and worship to
self—all the time we are loving the world—all the
time we delight in sin—all the time we are setting
up idols in the secret chambers of imagery—there
is no delighting ourselves in the Lord.
We cannot delight ourselves in the Lord until we are
purged of creature love—until the idolatry of our hearts is
not merely manifested, but hated and abhorred—until by . . .
cutting temptations,
sharp exercises,
painful perplexities,
and various sorrows,
we are brought to this state—to be . . .
sick of SIN,
sick of SELF,
sick of the WORLD.
Until we are brought to loathe ourselves, we are not
brought to that spot where none but God Himself can
comfort, please, or make the soul really happy.
Now the very means that God employs to embitter the
world to us are cutting and grievous dispensations—as
unexpected reverses in fortune—or afflictions of body,
of family, or of soul. But these very means that the Lord
employs to divorce our carnal union from the world, stir
up the self-pity, the murmuring, the peevishness, and
the rebelliousness of our nature. So that we think we
are being very harshly dealt with, in being compelled
to walk in this trying path.
But only by these cutting dispensations we are eventually
brought to delight ourselves in Him, who will give us the
desires of our heart.
How long you shall be walking in this painful path—
how heavy your trials—what their duration shall be—how
deep you may have to sink—how cutting your afflictions
may be in body or soul, God has not defined, and we cannot.
But they must work until they have produced this result—
weaned, divorced, and separated us from all that we
naturally love and idolatrously cleave unto—and all
that we adulterously roam after. If our trials have not
done this, they must go on until they produce that effect.
The burden must be laid upon the back,
affliction must try the mind,
perplexities must encumber the feet,
until we are brought to this point—that none but the
Lord Himself, with a taste of His dying love, can comfort
our hearts, or give us that inward peace and joy which
our soul is taught to crave after.
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