{"id":5778,"date":"2020-08-03T01:30:55","date_gmt":"2020-08-03T01:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/?p=5778"},"modified":"2020-08-03T01:30:55","modified_gmt":"2020-08-03T01:30:55","slug":"%ef%bb%bfif-i-wash-myself-with-snow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/?p=5778","title":{"rendered":"\ufeffIf I wash myself with snow"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>If I wash myself with snow<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.C.Philpot<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By nature, man knows nothing of the purity and perfection of God\u2014or the deep sinfulness and corruption of the creature. There is a veil over man\u2019s heart\u2014a veil of ignorance\u2014of delusion\u2014of unbelief\u2014of self-deception as regards the nature of sin. No man is vitally and experimentally acquainted with\u2014its hideous nature\u2014its awful depths\u2014its subtlety\u2014its workings\u2014its movements\u2014its cravings\u2014its lustings\u2014the heights to which it rises\u2014the depths to which it sinks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But when the Lord the Spirit takes a man really and vitally in hand\u2014and He truly begins His sovereign work of grace upon the soul\u2014He commences by opening up to the astonished eyes of the sinner, something of the real nature of sin. He not only shows him the huge, high, wide-spreading branches of sin\u2014but bids him look down and see how deeply-rooted sin is in his very being\u2014that sin is not an accident\u2014a faint blot that may soon be washed out\u2014a something on the surface, like a skin disease that may be healed by a simple ointment. He shows him that sin is seated in his very bones\u2014that this deep-rooted malady has taken possession of him\u2014that he is a sinner to his very heart\u2019s core\u2014that every thought, every word, every action of man\u2019s whole being\u2014is one mass of sin, filth, and pollution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And if he attempts, as most awakened sinners do attempt\u2014to purify himself\u2014to ease his guilt by lopping off a few external branches\u2014if he attempts to wash himself clean from iniquity, the Spirit will teach him the meaning of Job\u2019s words, \u201cIf I wash myself with snow, and cleanse my hands with lye, yet You will plunge me in the ditch. My own clothes shall abhor me.\u201d (Job 9:30, 31). Until at last God brings him to this spot\u2014that he is a sinner throughout\u2014yes, that he is the chief of sinners\u2014that every evil lodges in his heart\u2014and the seed of every crime dwells in his fallen nature. When a man is brought here, he is brought to the place of the stopping of mouths\u2014his own righteousness is effectually cut to pieces\u2014his hopes of salvation by his works are completely removed from under him. Those rotten props are cut away by the hand of the Spirit from the sinking soul, that he may fall into himself one mass of confusion and ruin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And until he is brought here, he really can know nothing\u2014of a free-grace salvation\u2014of the superaboundings of grace over the aboundings of sin\u2014of God\u2019s electing love\u2014of Christ\u2019s substitution and suretyship\u2014of His atoning blood\u2014of His justifying righteousness\u2014of His dying love. He can know nothing of the rich provisions of almighty power and eternal mercy that are lodged in the fullness of Christ. He has\u2014no eyes to see\u2014no ears to hear\u2014no heart to feel\u2014no arms to embrace a whole Christ\u2014a precious Christ, a Savior from the wrath to come\u2014who has stood in the sinner\u2019s place and stead\u2014made full atonement for sin\u2014fulfilled the law\u2014brought in everlasting righteousness\u2014and justified the ungodly!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If I wash myself with snow J.C.Philpot By nature, man knows nothing of the purity and perfection of God\u2014or the deep sinfulness and corruption of the creature. There is a veil over man\u2019s heart\u2014a veil of ignorance\u2014of delusion\u2014of unbelief\u2014of self-deception as regards the nature of sin. No man is vitally and experimentally acquainted with\u2014its hideous [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,129,30,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-author-j-c-philpot","category-complete-in-christ","category-righteousness","category-justification"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5778"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5779,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5778\/revisions\/5779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}