A lifting up for the downcast - Bridge - IV - Sermon 4

Required reading
A lifting up for the downcast by William Bridge (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read Sermon IV (A lifting up in case of great sins).

My summary
Today we read Bridges' fourth sermon on Psalm 42:11.

Bridge continues to assert that the saints have no reason for discouragement.  And at the beginning of this sermon Bridge outlines nine reasons why Christians might be wrongly discouraged.  He will deal with each in turn over the next nine sermons.

This week Bridge suggests that the reason Christians are wrongly discouraged is because sometimes the discouragements of the saints and people of God, are drawn from their sins, their greater and grosser sins.

Bridge gives us three reasons why this should not be:
(i) saints may know that they shall never be condemned for their sin, whatever it may be;
(ii) godly men shall never be condemned for their sins, so their sins shall never part God and them;
(iii) if the very sins of God's people, through the overruling hand of grace, shall be an occasion of more grace and comfort to them than ever they had in all their lives before; then surely they have no reason to be discouraged in this respect.

The rest of the sermon contains Bridges answers to common objections to this teaching.

What grabbed me
Bridge gave a helpful distinction between discouragement and humility: 'You will say, then, but what is the difference between these? A man is to be humbled, and not discouraged, not discouraged and yet to be humbled, what is the difference between these two, being humbled and being discouraged ?

It is a profitable question and worth our time : by way of answer, therefore, thus, When a man is humbled, truly humbled, the object of his grief, sorrow or trouble, is sin itself, as a dishonour done unto God : the object of discouragement is a man's own condition, or sin in order to his own condition, the ultimate object of discouragement being a man's own condition. When a man is discouraged, you shall find still, that his trouble runs all out upon his own condition. Oh, saith a discouraged person, I have sinned ; I have thus sinned, and therefore my condition is naught, and if my condition be naught now, it will never be better ; Lord, what will become of my soul ? Still his trouble is about his own condition. But when a man is grieved and truly humbled for sin, his trouble is about sin itself, as a dishonour done unto God.'

Our concern should be about how our sin offends God - not how our sin offends us.

Next week's reading
Read Sermon V (A lifting up in case of weak grace).

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.