Psalm 24 Devotional

A Psalm of David

  1. The earth is the Lord’s, and all that therein is; the world, and they that dwell in it.
  2. For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.
  3. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? and who shall stand in his holy place?
  4. Even he that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.
  5. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
  6. This is the generation of them that seek him, that seek thy face, O Jacob. Selah.
  7. Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.
  8. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.
  9. Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.
  10. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory. Selah.

We saw previously the typology in this Psalm and how that the Psalmist here means to point to the worship of God in the tabernacle, showing that God is not beheld nor worshiped aright unless it is according to His commandment, and in the place where He hath set His name. Therefore those outside the church, or “tabernacle” are not the worshipers of God as this Psalm declares, both saying “that seek Him in Jacob,” and again, “the King of glory shall come in,” signifying worship in the temple of God. But now we are to understand this in a spiritual manner, for it is said in the word, “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” and again, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” and again, “For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.”

Therefore, inasmuch as there was a censure and word of condemnation toward those who made attempt to worship God apart from His holy tabernacle in Jerusalem as it is written, “And thou shalt say unto them, Whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers which sojourn among you, that offereth a burnt offering or sacrifice, and bringeth it not unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, to offer it unto the LORD; even that man shall be cut off from among his people.” and again, “But unto the place which the LORD your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put his name there… thither ye shall bring your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices, and your tithes… and there ye shall eat before the LORD your God” and again, “of which the LORD said, In Jerusalem will I put my name…” showing that worship was not accepted outside of the designated place God had appointed by express commandment, as it is written, “What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.”

We ought also to note then the manner in which we are here called to receive the doctrine according to the truth. For the entrance of truth in the soul is of no small consequence, nor in scripture is it ever taken lightly, but always pressed with the greatest weight and severity, as it is written, “Because they have cast away the law of the LORD of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. Therefore is the anger of the LORD kindled against his people” and again, “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king.”

So we see in this Psalm a remarkable exhortation to receive the Messiah when He comes in His glory. Not the glory of the world, in pomp and ostentation, ruling over earthly kingdoms, but the glory of the truth, and the efficacy of His word and doctrine, which we see fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ, so that this Psalm can be none other than a Messianic prediction of Christ’s coming, and a most lively encouragement to receive Him when He cometh, as it is written, “Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye desire: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a purging fire, and like fullers’ soap: And he shall sit down to try and fine the silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may bring offerings unto the Lord in righteousness. Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be acceptable unto the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in former years.”

Therefore as God’s word is proclaimed in the church, and we are exhorted by it to make way for the Lord Jesus Christ to come and make His dwelling and abode there, this is great cause for us to fear and love Him and cleave unto His word with our whole heart, for those that do receive His word, which is to receive the king of kings into the very heart and soul, there to dwell and reign, are called blessed, true, faithful, and beloved of the Lord.

As it is written, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” and again, “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” and again, “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God” from which we see that it is not of our own will to receive the doctrine according to godliness, or to receive the King of glory in our hearts, but God must first open our eyes and open our hearts so that we might receive Him gladly and He will enter, and dine and sup with us in joy and blessed communion, and this he does by the preaching of that word unto souls who are so prepared by His own grace.

Therefore, “Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.” Who is this King of Glory? The Lord Jesus Christ full of all righteousness, and bringing with Him everlasting salvation. He is the King of glory.

Dickson:

“In the third place, having described those persons who shall surely dwell in heaven with God, he exhorteth all the members of the visible Church—so that they may receive righteousness and salvation from God, who is in covenant with his Church—to heartily welcome Christ Jesus, the King of glory and Lord of hosts. He dwells in the midst of them in the Tabernacle, shadowing forth and signifying his coming in the flesh by giving oracles from the Ark of the Covenant, defending them, feeding them, and fighting their battles. At length, in David’s time, he ascended on Mount Sion, he and the Ark of the Covenant triumphantly, to let them see in a shadow how, after his great battles fought for our redemption, he should ascend to heaven and make way for his subjects to come up after him to dwell with him.

Whence learn:

  1. The way to make men true converts, true believers, true saints, and inheritors of heaven, is to receive Christ heartily and honorably—to cast up doors in hearty consent of faith and love, like triumphant arches for welcoming so glorious a conqueror to be their guest: Lift up your heads, O ye gates, etc.
  2. Whosoever shall receive Him, and open the heart to him, he shall close covenant with him: Be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in.
  3. He is an unknown King until he be manifested to us; and such as are wise, when they hear of him, will seek to know him: Who is this King of glory? will be their question.
  4. Such as seek to know Christ shall indeed have experimental knowledge of him—that he is able to save them to the uttermost, to work all their work for them, to defend them from their adversaries, and to give them complete victory: He is the Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.
  5. We have need again and again to hear the declaration of Christ’s grace, and to be wakened up to observe Christ and his glory. We need to be exhorted again and again to open our hearts wide to him: Lift up your heads, ye gates, the second time.
  6. Christ is indeed glorious, and a glorious King, in all the passages of redemption and salvation of his people. Yet the ignorance and unbelief of men, as well as the crosses and troubles following his kingdom in this world, obscure his glory to the carnal eye. Therefore, it is no wonder that men oftentimes move the question about his kingdom and glory, asking: Who is the King of glory?
  7. Christ Jesus, whose ascension was prefigured by the ascending of the Ark upon Mount Sion, conveyed with David and all Israel—as he is true man, so he is also very God Almighty, one with the Father and Holy Spirit in his Godhead: For the Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory.

Opening Prayer.

Lesson 19. [1.1.8.] The Sufficiency of Scripture. Pt. 2 (Upon the Types and Shadows of the Old Testament)

  1. The Necessity of understanding the OT.
  2. The Types are a resounding affirmation of the Sufficiency of Scripture.
  3. Many of these types and shadows were former ways of revelation, now fulfilled in Christ.

Westminster Confession of Faith 1.1

Although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence, do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men inexcusable; yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God, and of his will, which is necessary unto salvation; therefore it pleased the Lord, at sundry times, and in divers manners, to reveal himself, and to declare that his will unto his Church; and afterwards, for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the Church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan and of the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing, which maketh the holy Scripture to be most necessary, those former ways of God’s revealing his will unto his people being now ceased.

8.6.

Although the work of redemption was not actually wrought by Christ till after his incarnation, yet the virtue, efficacy, and benefits thereof were communicated unto the elect, in all ages successively from the beginning of the world, in and by those promises, types, and sacrifices, wherein he was revealed, and signified to be the seed of the woman which should bruise the serpent’s head, and the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world, being yesterday and today the same, and forever.

19.3

Beside this law, commonly called moral, God was pleased to give to the people of Israel, as a Church under age, ceremonial laws, containing several typical ordinances, partly of worship, prefiguring Christ, his graces, actions, sufferings, and benefits; and partly holding forth divers instructions of moral duties. All which ceremonial laws are now abrogated under the New Testament.

Intro. Thomas Taylor, Christ revealed

  1. Elizabethan Puritan, opposed the Puritans, then was converted and became a sufferer for the cause.
  2. Vigilantly opposed papism, Arminianism, antinomianism and wrote against them in his works some of which are directed at them.
  3. Works include Christ Revealed, a sermon for soldiers going to war, a sermon on the good husband and good wife, works against papism, one against antinomianism, a treatise on contentment, a treatise on holiness and sanctification, the practice of repentance, as well as sermons on various topics.

Having formerly delivered,

I. That Christ is Truth as opposed to falsehood, we are now to show that he is Truth as opposed to the shadows and figures of the old Law.

In the entrance into which Treatise, we must premise some Propositions.

I. That the Lord decreed to have always a Church upon the face of the earth, for the upholding of which he upholds the world. For,

  • He will have his name confessed and praised as well in earth as in heaven.
  • He will maintain his public worship, by it to distinguish heathenish idolaters from true worshippers.
  • To prepare true believers in this Church militant to that Church triumphant, and to set and polish them as living stones in this mount of the Church, for that heavenly mountain and temple.

II. For the effecting of his purpose, he hath decreed that the doctrine of salvation by Jesus Christ should be founded out in the Church, together with the doctrine of the Law, that partly the right way of his worship, and partly the way of salvation, might be made known and opened to believers.

III. By the Gospel the Lord hath revealed the Covenant of grace, which is in substance but one, as God is but one, and Christ is but one, who is the substance of it. As there is but one hope of one eternal life, the end of the Covenant, and one faith, which is the means to lead to that end (Eph. 4:5).

IV. Christ, and his doctrine, and Covenant being the same yesterday, and today, and forever (Heb. 13:8), for substance, altereth and differeth only in the form and manner of dispensation; according to which, it is diversely propounded in the Old Testament and New. In the former, it was propounded as of the Messiah to come, from Adam unto his incarnation. In the latter, as of the Saviour already come, and so embraced in the Church from his first coming to his second coming again.

V. So long as Christ was to come, it pleased God to train his Church by a heap of ceremonies, rites, figures, and shadows, to strengthen their faith in the expectation of him. Of this multitude of ceremonies, if more special reasons be demanded, these may be given:

  • The nonage and infancy of that Church, which was not capable of such high mysteries, but was to be taught by their eyes as well as their ears. Therefore, it pleased God to put the ancient Church (even newly out of the cradle) under tutors (Gal. 4:2), and appointed diverse types and ceremonies as rudiments and introductions (v. 3), fitted to the gross and weak senses of that Church, which was to be brought on little by little, through such shadows and figures, to the true image and thing signified—who in our text calleth himself Truth, in opposition to all those shadows.

Objection.

But the weaker and duller they were, the more need had they of clear instruction; and God could have revealed Christ as clearly to them as to us.

Solution.

But as the Lord had observed this method in creating the world, he would have darkness go before light; and in upholding the world, he would have dawning go before clear day. So in the framing and upholding the Church, he would have Christ exhibited to the Fathers, as to the Wise Men, in swaddling clothes, which hid his glory. He respected them as children; he erected for them in Jewry a little free school, set up in a corner of the world. He appointed the Law of Moses as a primer, or ABC, in which Christ was to be shadowed in a dark and obscure manner. He would have Christ come to his brethren as Joseph to his, who first obscured himself to them, and afterward made himself better known. One compares it to Noah: Opening the window of the Ark. Removing the covering. Stepping forth himself.

II. Therein the wisdom of God provided for the further advancement of Christ and his Gospel, which, compared with the Law, must be manifested in great brightness and glory. Christ the Son must come in more glory than Moses the servant. Hence, John 1:17: “The Law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” The Gospel is called grace, not because under the Law the same grace was not preached, but comparatively—that was scarce grace to this which is more full, more manifest; as the light in the dawning is scarce light in comparison of light at noonday.

  • There was grace, but here is more grace:
    • In manifestation—the light of the Sun is sevenfold, and like the light of seven days, as was prophesied (Isa. 30:26).
    • In completion and accomplishment of that which was but a promise of grace in comparison (Acts 13:32).
    • In application and apprehension by believers in all countries, not only in Judea.
    • In the growth and perfection of faith and grace in the hearts of ordinary believers above them. Hence, Heb. 10:1: “The Law had but a shadow of good things to come, and not the image and truth itself.” That is, it had a rude and dark delineation of good things to come, as a draught made by a painter with a coal; but the Gospel exhibits the picture itself in its flourish and beauty—that is, the truth and being of it.

Hence also, Paul in Col. 2:17, speaking of the observances of the Ceremonial Law, saith: They were but shadows of things to come, but the body is Christ. Whence we are to conceive:

That as the body is the cause of the shadow, and the cause more excellent than the thing caused, so Christ was the cause of those ceremonies, and more excellent than they.

As the shadow representeth the shape of the body, with its actions and motions, so those rites and ceremonies resembled Christ in all his actions, passions, and motions, as we shall hear.

As the shadow is but an obscure resemblance in respect of the body, so the ministry of the Old Testament in rites and ceremonies is a dark representation of the body, namely, Christ and his spiritual worship.

As the body is solid, firm, and of continuance even when the shadow is gone, so the ceremonies as shadows are flown away, but Christ the body and his true worship last forever. In all this, Christ and his grace are advanced as the publisher and perfecter of our salvation without any shadows; whereas of the Law, it is said: It made nothing perfect (Heb. 7:19).

III. Those ceremonies were not given to merit remission of sins by them, nor to appease God’s anger, nor to be an acceptable worship by the worth of the work done, nor to justify the observer, but to show justification by Jesus Christ, the truth and substance of them; to be types of him, pointing to him in whom the Father is pleased; to be allegories and resemblances of the benefits of Christ, exhibited in the New Testament; to be testimonies of the promise and covenant on God’s part; to be sacraments and seals of faith on the part of the believing Jew, exciting and confirming his faith in the Messiah.

IV. God would have this heap of ceremonies,

  • As bonds and sinews of the ministry and public meetings, in which the voice of the promised seed, and the sound of wholesome and saving doctrine, might be preserved in the Church and propagated to posterity.
  • To be external signs of their profession, by which God would have his Church distinct from all nations of the earth.
  • To be to the unbelieving Jews an external discipline to bridle them and an exercise to frame them (at least in external conversation) to the policy and commonwealth of Moses; for otherwise, they must be cut off and excluded.

V. God’s wisdom in appointing these ceremonies:

  • He appointed a certain observation of the line and tribe whence the Messiah should come.
  • He enjoined a certain provision for the ministry.
  • He ensured the provision for the poor.

Now, we come to show wherein Christ is the truth of these figures and the body of these shadows of the Ceremonial Law. Christ was figured in the Old Testament by holy persons and holy things. Among the most holy and eminent persons who were figures of Christ, I will propound some instances.

Lesson.

  1. That the Old Testament Ceremonies pointed to Christ. Heb. 10.

    i. The Priests. (In deputation and office)

    a. The Choice had respect

    I. To the tribe. He must come of one only tribe of Levi, which was by God of all the tribes separated, and appointed by God to exercise the Priesthood in the Tabernacle, and to perform whatsoever belonged to the holy ministry. This signified Christ our Mediator who must be a special and singular man, taken from among men (Heb. 5:1), as they, true man as they. For he must be true man in nature and affection that must mediate and negotiate man’s cause with God, and so taken from men to stand in the midst between God and man.

    II. The perfection required. For in the choice of the Priest were requisite many external perfections (Lev. 21:17). Whosoever of thy seed hath any blemishes, shall not press to offer the bread of his God. He must not be blind, lame, nor misshapen. Wherein the Lord would not only provide for the dignity of that calling in that infancy of the Church—which otherwise (if the Priesthood had been in outward show contemptible) many might have drawn not their persons only into contempt, but even all such holy things as they handled—but especially to signify Jesus Christ our high Priest to be without all blemish, the only immaculate Lamb that takes away the sins of the world. For although no other mortal man could be without some blemish of sin or other, yet it became us to have such an high Priest as is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners (Heb. 7:26). And as our Lord was spotless and without all blemish, so also perfect in all parts and perfections. He wanted no part, no gift, no sufficiency to discharge that function too weighty for men and angels.

    All these outward perfections of the body in all the Priests, high and low, point us to such endowments and gifts of mind which the Lord expects in Ministers before they attempt this high calling.


    1. He of all men must not be blind or ignorant. Hos. 4:6 – “Because thou hast refused knowledge, thou art rejected from being a Priest to me.” How should he be a light to others that himself is in darkness? If the eye be dark, so is all the body.

    2. He must not have either a blind or a blemished eye—an eye filled with envy at another man’s gifts and prosperity; nor a squint eye, looking indirectly upon everything, not aiming at God’s glory or the building of Christ’s Kingdom, but his own glory, wrath, lusts, and ends.

    3. He must not be lame or crippled in his feet, but make right steps to his feet. Heb. 12:13 – “Upright in his way”; not right doctrine only, but right life also.

    4. He must not have a flat nose—that is, without discretion or judgment to discern truth and falsehood, good and evil, things fit and unfit. As the nose discerns smells, so he must discern companies and courses.

    5. He must not have a crooked back, bent downwards and almost broken with earthly cares, hindering his eye from looking towards heaven and interrupting heavenly contemplation and study.

    And so in the rest. Would God such care were had in the choice and permission of Evangelical Ministers as in the Old. We should not see the churches pestered with so many unworthy, illiterate men, fitter for any trade than this so holy calling.

    III. Atonement. Lev. 1:1-9

    IV. The efficacy of the ministry. John 6:63

    ii. Clean persons.

    I. The fourth rank of holy persons pointing us unto Christ were such persons as were cleansed from any legal uncleanness. The persons legally unclean were of several sorts, and every sort had his several kind of cleansing, all of them looking towards and leading us to Jesus Christ. To give some taste in some particulars, legal uncleanness was caused:


    1. From without, by touching or tasting.

    2. From within, as unclean issues.

    3. From within and without, as leprosy.

    Order requireth that we should speak,

    I. Of the several uncleannesses.

    II. Of the several cleansings.

    Sect. I.

    I. The kinds of legal uncleanness were three:


    1. The first kind of legal uncleanness was by eating or touching any unclean meat or creature (Lev. 11:11, 28).

    Qu. How did the creatures become unclean, which God had made good?

    Ans. The law of distinction of meats was not therefore ordained because those creatures were evil in their nature (for God saw all his works very good), but prohibited only in their use. Neither doth the Lord pronounce them unclean by their creation, but by a temporary institution which restrained their use and touch.

    Object. It seems they were so by creation; for before the ceremonial law, there was a distinction of clean and unclean in Noah’s time (Gen. 7:2).

    Answ. It was before the writing of the ceremonial law, but not before the being of it, it being delivered to Adam and his posterity by God’s lively voice. Besides, by that institution they were forbidden only for sacrifice, but by this forbidden for common use and food, yet still clean in their own nature.

    Quest. But how can these creatures defile a man, and that of our Saviour be true, That which goeth into the mouth defileth not the man (Matt. 15:11)?

    Answ. Now under the Gospel, whatsoever goeth into the mouth defileth not, in respect of lawful and limited use: And under the law, it was not the creature that defiled, but the transgression of God’s institution in it. In the beginning, God permitted all other trees to Adam, only restrained him in the tree of knowledge of good and evil; which therefore ceased not to be good of itself, but became evil in Adam’s use, because of the commandment: not the apple, not the eating were in themselves defilements, but sinful eating against the commandment.

    Quest. But what ends or reasons were there of this prohibition of meats?

    Answ. Very many:


    1. To show the Lord’s sovereignty over his creatures, who hath liberty to permit or forbid any creature at his pleasure without impeachment of himself or the creature; he may do with his own as he will.

    2. To teach all persons to depend on God and his word of allowance for and in the use of all things, even for meats, and drinks, and all comforts; seeing man liveth not by bread, but by every word of God.

    3. To train up his people in temperance and obedience by restraining them from so many creatures in earth, air, and sea, as good as any other.

    4. That his people might profess open detestation of the heathenish superstition about them. The Egyptians took for gods, oxen, sheep, goats, doves: God will have his people sacrifice these to his service, and eat those creatures which they (out of heathenish superstition) might not touch. The heathens used to offer many kinds of beasts to the moon, the queen of heaven, and to Bacchus: God will have his people detest both in sacrifice and meat those which they so offered; all to show how contrary we ought to be to idolaters in whatsoever we may.

    5. To distinguish that people of God from all the nations; God esteeming them by his grace in the Messiah a clean people and all other unclean. And this was a wall of partition between Jews and Gentiles till Christ, by rending the veil, broke it down also, as in Peter’s vision (Acts 10:15).

    6. The Lord by this difference of beasts would have them conceive a difference of persons shadowed thereby; of whom some are clean, some unclean; the former being elect are cleansed by faith from their pollution of sin, the other remain foul and filthy still.

    Sect. III.

    III. The third legal uncleanness was by the disease of leprosy; than which none was more foul, more hateful. None so lively resembled the native face of sin; none had so solemn and significant rites for cure; none did more expressly shadow all constitutions as conduce to the purging and removing of sin; and consequently, none more forceably led us to Christ, who is not in any ceremony more lively figured. The Lord would have the Jews and us in this instance to be led by things sensible to things intellectual; by an external and sensible disease to be carried to that which is internal and less sensible, for the most part. And though of all bodily diseases, none more expressly declareth the disease of sin in the soul than leprosy; yet it comes far short of it in the desperate and dangerous properties of it. We must therefore prepare men to Christ by

    1. Leprosy proceeds from poisoned and corrupted humours in the body. So sin is nothing else but the poison and corruption of the soul. And this spiritual leprosy is far more miserable than the other; for that of the body is only a punishment, this is a guilt. And who can deny but the corruption and poison of the soul and spirit is far more poison-full and mortal than poison of the flesh?
    2. Bodily leprosy is a disease of some men: sin is of all men, and of all the man. Bodily leprosy spreads over all parts of the body but cannot reach the soul; but this spreads over the whole man; the soul and all the faculties are weakened and tainted; there is not a debility only, but a corruption in the understanding, will, conscience, memory, in all affections, in all senses, in all parts; no man, no part of man exempted or excepted.
    3. No disease is more stinking and hateful to men than leprosy: so nothing is so hateful and abominable to God as sin; his eyes cannot abide to behold it; he will not endure it in his dearest servants, no, nor in angels themselves, unrevenged; he esteems the sinner as dung.
    4. No disease more contagious and infectious: a leper must meddle with nothing unless he would defile it. All he can do is to make others unclean by breathing, touching, conversing. The plague of pestilence is not so infectious as the plague of leprosy, so called, Levit. 13:20, infecting houses, walls, vessels, garments. Nothing is so infectious as sin, which not only fouls the person or house, but heaven and earth and all creatures are subject to the vanity of it. Neither can an impenitent sinner do anything but make himself and others unclean, by the filthy breath of his corrupt communication, by his wicked example and conversation. No leaven is so spreading, no pitch so cleaving.
    5. Leprosy, of all diseases, separated the infected persons from the fellowship of all men, both in civil and divine ordinances, for many days; and if they proved incurable (suppose them kings), they were utterly and forever excluded from the host, as Uzziah, 2 Kings 15:5. Neither might they come to the temple to join in holy things; for the temple was legally the most holy place, and no polluted thing might enter into it. So in our sin unrepented, we are out of the camp, aliens from God. Sin shuts out from the communion of faith and saints; shuts out of the state of grace and salvation; it shuts out of the congregation of God in earth and heaven. No fellowship, place, or reward with them.
    6. Of all diseases, none is more painful, sorrowful, mortal, or incurable; and therefore they were enjoined to put on mournful garments, seeing God had inflicted so lamentable a disease on them, so hardly and seldom cured as most did carry it unto death, as Gehazi and Azariah. In which the Lord (as in a glass) would show us the extreme sorrows and pains that wait on sin unpardoned; sorrows of this life and of the life to come: and that we should put on mourning garments of timely sorrow, and afflict ourselves for our sins, seeing we are all poisoned with so incurable a disease, as there is no hope to expect any cure in this life; for every man carries the running issues of sin to his death natural, the most to the death eternal.
    7. The signs and symptoms of leprosy are most correspondent to the symptoms and effects of sin in the soul.
    8. As there is a debility and weakness of all parts because the spirits are exhausted, so sin weakens all faculties, because the spirit of grace is resisted and driven out.
    9. There is a tumour and swelling in the flesh; here a tumour and proud swelling of mind. None is more proud than he who has least cause.
    10. There is burning and thirst through the adust and burnt blood by melancholy whereof it arises. Here is inflammation and burning of anger, of lust, and thirst after the world, after revenge, after preferments; and this is insatiable as every sin is.
    11. There is filthy putrid matter still breaking forth most loathsomely. So here from within breaks out corrupt matter of envy, of hatred of goodness, of uncleanness in speeches and behaviour.
    12. There is a hoarse and weak voice. Here the voice is so weak that it cannot pray or cannot be heard. God hears not sinners; for either they pray not at all, or they are in their sins.
    13. There is a filthy stinking breath; and therefore they must cover their lips, that by their breath they might not infect others. So here is a filthy breath of corrupt communication, of unclean and adulterous speeches, swearing and cursing speeches, lying and false speeches, slanderous and uncharitable speeches. And seldom do such cover their lips, being like the unclean vessels of the Law which were ever open to the corrupting and poisoning of numbers.

Conclusion.

Heb. 7

Closing Prayer.

YouTube Audio: https://youtu.be/zBNRpj6rYAw

Leave a comment