Count on the strength of your own godly attributes, and you will grow lax in your duties for Christ. Knowing you are weak keeps you from wandering too far from Him.

When you see that your own cupboard is bare and everything you need is in His, you will go often to Him for supplies. But a soul who thinks he can take care of himself will say, “I have plenty and to spare for a long time. Let the doubting soul pray; my faith is strong. Let the weak go to God for help; I can manage fine on my own.” What a sad state of affairs, to suppose that we no longer need the moment-by-moment sustaining grace of God.

Not only does overestimating the strength of our own goodness make us shun God’s help, but it also makes us foolhardy and venturesome. Those who boast about their spirituality are likely to put themselves in all kinds of dangerous situations, then brag that they can handle them.

—William Gurnall

What is our life in this world from beginning to end but a dark night of temptation? Christian, it is so important to make sure your sentry lamp does not go out in this darkness, and your enemy catch you unawares. If you drift off into spiritual slumber, you are an easy mark for his wrath. And you may be sure if you do let sleep overtake you, the devil will hear of it. He knew the apostles’ sleeping time and desired to sift them like wheat (Luke 22:31).

A thief is just getting up when honest men are going to bed. The devil, I am sure, begins to tempt when saints cease to watch. So be consistent in your watchfulness; otherwise you stand to lose everything.

Some Christians, having been injured by a serious fall into sin, will be careful for a while as to where they walk and the company they keep. But as the soreness of the consciences wears off, they forget to keep watch and become as careless as ever. A shopkeeper who has just been robbed is very careful to lock up his store thoroughly. He may even stay up late to watch it for several nights, but as time passes he relaxes his guard and at last gives it no further attention. God did not rest until the last day’s work in creation; nor should we cease to wake or work until our salvation is complete.

—William Gurnall

If you want heaven but you also want your sins, do not expect to succeed. You must part company with one or the other. If you will not let go of your sins, God will have to let go of you. If you want heaven but insist on purchasing it with your own righteousness, you will fall short of the price. You are like the near kinsman in Ruth who wanted to buy Elimelech’s land but was not willing to marry Ruth as the law required (4:2-4). All the good you do, all the duties you perform, are admirable if they are acts of love that follow your act of repentance. But if you offer them as the price you are willing to pay for heaven, God will not deal with you. You must close with Christ and him alone, or lose the whole bargain.

—William Gurnall

God never intended, by His providence in brining Moses to Pharaohs’ court, to leave him there in worldly pomp and grandeur. A carnal heart would have reasoned that Moses could best help his people—slaves under Pharaoh—by using his potion and power to influence the king, or perhaps even by aspiring to the throne. But when Moses renounced his place of privilege, his faith and self-denial were made more eminently conspicuous. It is for this obedient faith that Moses is given such honorable mention in the New testament (Hebrews 11:24-25).

Sometimes God lavishes us with things, not so we can hang on to them, but so we will have something to let go of to show our love for Him. Was there anything better in the whole world Mary could have done with her precious oil than to anoint her Lord? What enterprise will pay more lasting dividends than to invest what you possess in the cause of Christ?

Christian, keep a loose grip on the material possessions you value most highly. Be ready at a moment’s notice to throw them overboard, rather than risk the shipwreck of your faith. You cannot labor for heavenly possessions if your hands and heart are loaded down with earthly pursuits. In the end, if you can save anything, it will be your soul, your interest in Christ and heaven. If you should lose al your worldly goods, you should still be able to say with Jacob, “I have enough [all things]” (Genesis 33:11).

—William Gurnall

Outward obedience to the law is a road where Jews, Christians, and heathens may be found walking together. How can we distinguish the Christian from the others, when heathens and Jews also are obedient children, loyal citizens, and loving neighbors?

The motive and goal make all the difference. It is common for men to wrong Christ and yet treat their neighbors with respect and fairness; they choose right behavior but not because love for Christ constrained them. And without this love you may be an honest, moral heathen, but you can never be a Christian.

Suppose a man trusts his employee to pay a certain creditor a sum of money. The person does this, not out of respect to the command or love for his boss but out of fear of being called a thief. As far as the creditor is concerned he has done his job but that is all—his attitude has wronged his employer. Men scorn Jesus like this every day; they are exact and righteous in their transactions with their neighbors and associates, but insulting to Him. Love carries out righteousness because it want to please God’s holy Son.

—William Gurnall

Christian, if you can once and for all break your engagement to the flesh and become a free man in Christ, truth will be your steadfast friend.

Study God’s Word faithfully as well. Satan has a habit of stopping the ears from hearing sound doctrine before he opens them to listening to corrupt. He will, as often as he can, pull a saint away from God’s Word and talk him into rejecting some point of truth. But he who rejects the truth of one doctrine, loses the blessing of them all. Paul predicted how this would happen: “They shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables: (2 Timothy 4:3-4).

Do not pretend you want to be led into truth if you will not bother to study the whole Word of God. You are no different from a child who says he wants to learn, yet plays the truant. Such a child must be disciplined. Because your heavenly Father loves you, He will bring you back to the Word with shame and sorrow, rather than leave you trapped in Satan’s lies.

—William Gurnall

Sincerity does not guarantee we will not ever fall but it helps us up again when we do. The hypocrite, however, lies where he falls until he dies. Thus he is said to “fall into mischief” (Proverbs 24:16). The sincere man stumbles as any traveler might do, but he gets up and resumes his journey with more caution and speed than before. But the hypocrite plunges as a man from the top of a mast who is engulfed past any hope of recovery in the devouring sea.

We see this principle in King Saul’s life. When his false heart discovered itself, he tumbled down the hill and did not stop, but went from one sin to another. In just a few years he had plummeted far from the place where he first left God. Once he had been so ready to worship God that he could not wait for the prophet Samuel to arrive—but later he was so far from seeking God that he went to a witch for council. And in the last act of his bloody tragedy, Saul desperately threw his life into the devil’s mouth by self-murder.

The reason Saul’s sin crushed him to death was that his heart was never right with God in the first place. Samuel hinted at this truth when he told Saul “The Lord sought him a man after his own heart? (1 Samuel 13:14). Of course David himself fell into a sin far worse than Saul’s wickedness—for which God rejected that first king—but the difference was that in David’s life sincerity was the “root of the matter” (Job 19:28).

There is double reason for the recovering strength of sincerity. One stems from the nature of sincerity itself and the other proceeds from God’s promise which settles into the sincere Christian’s soul.

Restoring nature of sincerity itself kindles the soul. Sincerity is to the soul as the soul is to the body, a spark of divine life kindled in man’s heart by the Spirit of God. It is the seed of God remaining in the saint.

—William Gurnall

The most notorious false prophet in the world is the vain hope, which men take up for their salvation. It prophesies peace, pardon, and heaven as the portion of one who was never God’s heir. But the day is coming, and soon, when this false prophet will be confounded. Then the hypocrite will confess he never had any real hope for salvation except an idol of his own imagination; and the religious man will throw off his profession, by which he deceived himself, and appear naked in his sinfulness. It is enough to make us carefully search our own hearts and find out what our hope is built upon.

Now hope of the right kind is well grounded. “Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15). All Christians, no matter how weak, have grounded their hearts in Scripture for the hope they profess. What entitles you to inherit God’s kingdom without a promise from Him? If someone should say that your house and land was his, would you give him your property just because he demanded it? Yet many hope to be saved who can give no better reason than this.

Just as a saint conquers fear by asking his soul why it is disquieted, a similar question can throw the bold sinner from his prancing hopes. “What reason do you find in the whole Bible for you to hope for salvation, when you live in the ignorance of God?” Certainly his soul would be as speechless as the man without the wedding garment was at Christ’s question. This is why some dare not let themselves think about salvation—they know this thought would make a disturbance in their conscience that will not be stilled quickly. Or if they do ask, it would be like Pilate, who asked Christ what was truth but had no intention of waiting for His answer.

—William Gurnall

The sinner who is thoroughly convicted by the Spirit sees himself like a condemned prisoner held by so many irons that escape is impossible. It is not their disease but their physician that kills sinners. They think to cure themselves; and this deception leaves them incurable. If you cling to the self-confidence of repentance and reformation, they will betray you into the hands of God’s justice and wrath. But if you have turned away from this religious self-confidence, you have escaped one of the finest snares that the wit of hell can weave.

Not only is the convicted sinner so convicted that he knows he is helpless, but he welcomes the full provision laid up in Christ for him. And this attitude is necessary prior to faith. Without it the soul convicted of sin is more likely to go to the gallows with Judas, or fall on the sword of the law, than to run to Christ.

The Spirit powerfully but sweetly renovates the rebellious will so it can deliberately choose Christ as Lord and Savior. During a storm a person may run under an enemy’s shelter he would not have even glanced at in fair weather. Do you take pleasure in choosing Christ? Do you go to Him not only for safety but also for delight? As the lover said of her bridegroom, “I sat down under his shadow with great delight” (Song of Songs 2:3). This must be a deliberate choice; wherein the soul seriously weighs the covenant Christ offers and then chooses Him. Even when Naomi spoke the worst she could to discourage her daughter-in-law, Ruth enjoyed her mother’s company too much to give it up regardless of the potential hardships involved in her decision.

—William Gurnall