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We don’t take sin seriously – let’s be honest. Far more often we’re embarrassed that others might find out about our sin than we are broken before the God who always knows of it.
If you struggle with sin, if you live in habitual sin, if you feel convicted to repent of that sin, or if you’re apathetic and feel no remorse for that sin, then I have one piece of advice for you: read John Owen’s book The Mortification of Sin.
Why? Because he will guide your attention to the kinds of verses and Bible teachings that force you think about what your sin is, what effect it has had upon you, and what horrific implications it might have hidden in your life.
It might sound weird, but I appreciate how much this book crushed me and exposed me.
Here’s what I like even more – though the book will create in you the kinds of wretched feelings we’re too kind and soft to experience, its ending will put in you the same kind of joy that was in the prodigal the moment his father threw his arms around him and drew him back into the house for a feast. To know what that is like is reason enough to read this book.
An excerpt from the last chapter:
“My soul has become parched ground, and a habitation of dragons. I have made promises and broken them. I have made vows, but did not keep them. Many times I have been persuaded that I have gained the victory, and that I should be delivered, but I was deceived. Now I plainly see that without some great help and assistance, I will perish and be forced to abandon God.
“But yet, though this is my state and condition, I will lift up my hands that hang down, and strengthen my feeble knees, for, behold, the Lord Jesus Christ has all the fullness of grace in His heart, and all the fullness of power in His hand. He is able to slay all these enemies. There is sufficient provision in Him for my relief and assistance. He can take my drooping, dying soul and make me more than a conqueror (Rom. 8:37)”
“Our first youth is of no value; for we are never conscious of it, until after it is gone.”
This is said by Holgrave, the daguerreotypist, and I like it not only because it is said by fellow photographer early in the art but because I see a lot of this in my own life.
I think the first youth I had, the youth that so many people bemoan as a thing sadly lost in the past, was pretty cheesy at it’s best. All my young interests and pleasures were just a bunch of hand-me-downs I got from peers and family.
I think the passions, inspirations, pleasures, and joys we seek after being refined by a bit of wisdom and life are the more worthwhile “youth.”
The second youth is always better.
Anyone familiar with this guy?
This is a photograph of Ernest Hemingway, an American author most known for his minimalist style and his contributions to what we call “Modernist Fiction.”
He had a knack for limiting his words – I think he hated adjectives. His slim novels and short short stories would give you what he called the tip of the ice-berg; just a few words from which you, the reader, had to decipher all that was under the surface.
Below is his shortest story, a story in six words. He said it was his best work – what do you think?
“For sale: baby shoes, never used.”
…
I recently got my hands on this book because I wanted something that would coerce me to change.
I’ve lost my taste for philosophical intrigue, for controversy, and for the brand new, iconoclastic ways of approaching scripture. I find that when I read much of what clever pastors and contemporary Christian thinkers write these days I walk away excusing more sin, leading myself into a morass of sadness, and distancing my thoughts from solid Truth.
For that reason, I adore this book, The Reformed Pastor. I think Baxter might write too honestly for many people to really enjoy his advice (a year ago I would have hated this book). He will force you to question yourself, force you to humility, force you to honestly regard the state of your spirituality.
I guess that’s the heart of my new taste for Puritans; they’re more honest about who I am than the newest trends in Christianity tend to be.
Here’s an excerpt:
“Take heed yourself, lest you live in those sins which you preach against in others, and lest you be guilty of that which daily you condemn. Will you make it your work to magnify God, and, when you have done, dishonour him as much as others… If sin be evil, why do you live in it? If it be not, why do you dissuade men from it? If it be dangerous, how dare you venture on it? If it be not, why do you tell men so? If God’s threatenings be true, why do you not fear them? If they be false, why do you needlessly trouble men with them?”
This guy wrote his books back when the English language was still spoken – back when well-constructed syntax and wide vocabulary were both standard and beautiful. In my opinion, Ryle’s style of writing alone is so vivid that his works are all an easy, pleasurable read.
But more importantly, Ryle presents and expounds upon practical christian living in ways that cut under our veneer of piety, fakeness, and ease of faith. It’s hard to read a paragraph or two without feeling some kind of deep conviction or inspiration.
He reminds us how God has called us to live and does so in the best of language. 
At times his allusions and illustrations are lost in his own cultural context (the late 1800s), but, nonetheless, it’s shocking how much the issues we face as Christians have not really changed all that much. We like to believe we have progressed, we’re sophisticated, improved, and scientific, yet writers like Ryle, who communicate with us from centuries past, humiliate these thoughts.
There’s nothing fluffy here, no claptrap, no equivocation for the equivocator; nothing packaged cutely for the comfy reader who’d like to look at a sweet little book and smile at its cleverness. These are honest words, sometimes brutally, and they will call you to change, show you how to change, and inform you of the consequences.
So, if you enjoy well-written prose and are looking for something frank that will resonate with your life and soul in every paragraph then I recommend Ryle.
