May 4, 2020-Chapter 6: "O Wretched Man That I Am"- Question: 5

QUESTION: 5

When God finally brings us to fully understand our sinful nature (The Wretched Man) that we have in ourselves, what do we finally come to understand about ourselves that we didn’t understand before? (Page 59)

ANSWER To Question 5 (As stated by the Author)

Not only is the man who makes this confession a regenerate and an impotent man, but he is also a wretched man. He is utterly unhappy and miserable; and what is it that makes him so utterly miserable? It is because God has given him a nature that loves Himself. He is deeply wretched because he feels he is not obeying his God. He say, with brokenness of heart: "It is not I that do it, but I am under the awful power of sin, which is holding me down. It is I, and yet not I: alas! alas! it is myself; so closely am I bound up with it, and so closely it is it intertwined with my very nature." Blessed be God when a man learns to say: "O wretched man that I am!" from the depth of his heart. He is on the way to the eight chapter of Romans.

The sad thing is with most honest and earnest Christians who love the Lord, is that they read Chapter 7 of Romans, but never move on to Chapter 8, where we find our true victory and rest in our Lord. It is when we fully come to recognize that it is no longer ourselves that are in control of our lives, but it is the Holy Spirit that should have the control and we must come to full and absolute surrender to that control. Praise God when we come to fully understand that great truth of God's word.