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{The Application
Application for the Ungodly
Embark with Christ
Need of a Sinner to Despair of Himself, All Else, except Christ}
Once made sensible of his sin and danger, a sinner will look for help and deliverance. But he will look everywhere else before he will look to Christ. Nothing will bring a sinner to Christ except an absolute necessity. He will try to forsake his sins; he will think of leaving his drunkenness and becoming sober; he will think of leaving his adulteries and becoming chaste. He will see whether by this means he may escape. He will go to prayers, sermons, and sacraments, and search out whether there is salvation in them.227 All of these are useful in their places, but looking further, the sinner sees that there is no help in them. His righteousness cannot help him for it is only rags. His duties cannot help him; these may be counted among his sins. Ordinances cannot help because they are empty cisterns for him. All of these tell him that he knocks at a wrong door; salvation is not in them. “Well, may the Lord be merciful to me,” says the sinner. “What will I do? Continue as I am I dare not do. How to help myself, I do not know. My praying and sermon hearing will not help me. If I give all my goods to the poor and give my body to be burned, all of this will not save my soul. Woe is me! What shall I do and to where shall I go?” And now, being brought to this distress and utter loss,228 his despair drives him to the only door of hope that is left open. Then Christ will be accepted when he sees that none but Christ can help him. The apostle tells us, “Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed” (Galatians 3:23 ESV). All other doors were shut against us; there was no hope of escaping except by that one door that was left open. “The coming faith [that] would be revealed”—It is as a city that has every gate blocked up except only one difficult passage left open by which there is any possibility of escaping. To it the besieged throng to save their lives. Their choice is confined to that one door that they never would have used had there been any other way open.
Until the sinner lets go of all other props and trusts in Christ alone, he cannot truly accept Christ, nor can the sinner be received by Christ. Christ will have no sharer with Him in the work of saving souls. “If you seek me, let these go their way” (John 18:8), as He said in another case. Let not only your sins go, but let your own supposed righteousness go, let go of all of the refuges of lies in which you trusted. Let all go if you will have Me to be a refuge to you. “I came not to call the righteous” (Mark 2:17). If I did call the supposedly righteous, they would not come. Or if they come, let them go as they come; let them go to their so-called righteousness in which they trust. Let naked, destitute sinners and distressed sinners come to Me, for I came for the purpose of seeking and saving those that are lost.
227Not every believer takes this or any other single path to Christ.
228This journey may be by sound teaching, a conscience that will not be quieted, terror of the wrath of God, and so on.
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