Have we thrown the ballast overboard?
Was Charles Simeon right?
And is this why contemporary Christians are emotionally capsized so easily – so vulnerable to winds of criticism or opposition?
Is it that in the name of forgiveness and grace, we have thrown the ballast of our own sinfulness overboard?
Simeon’s boat drew a lot of water.
But it was steady and on course and the mastheads were higher and the sails bigger and more full of the Spirit than most people’s today who talk continuously about self-esteem.
For Simeon, adoration of God grew best in the plowed soil of his own contrition.
In 1794 his friend Marsden found Simeon “so absorbed in the contemplation of the Son of God, and so overpowered with a display of His mercy to his soul, that he was incapable of pronouncing a single word, till at length, he exclaimed, “Glory, glory.”
Few days later, another friend called Thomason found Simeon at the hour of the private lecture on Sunday scarcely able to speak, “from a deep humiliation and contrition”.
According to H.C.G. Moule these two experiences are not the alternating excesses of an ill-balanced mind.
Rather, according to Moule, they are “two poles of a sphere of profound experience”.
Simeon had no fear of turning up every sin in his life and looking upon with great grief and hatred, because he had such a vision of Christ’s sufficiency that this would always result in deeper cleansing and adoration.
“I would have the whole of my experience one continued sense – first, of my nothingness, and dependency on God; second, of my guiltiness and desert before Him; third, of my obligations to redeeming love, as utterly overwhelming me with its incomprehensible extend and grandeur. Now I do not see why any of these should swallow up another.”
Charles Simeon
Simeon was convinced that Biblical doctrines at once most abase and most gladden the soul.
“I have deep and abundant cause for humiliation, I have never ceased to wash in that fountain that was opened for sin and uncleanness, or to cast myself upon the tender mercy of my reconciled God.”
Charles Simeon
He actually fled for refuge to the place which we today try so hard to escape.
“Repentance is in every view so desirable, so necessary, so suited to honor God, that I seek that above all. The tender heart, the broken and contrite spirit, are to me far above all the joys that I could ever hope for in this vale of tears. I long to be in my proper place, my hand on my mouth, and my mouth in the dust… I feel this to be safe ground. Here I cannot err… I am sure that whatever God may despise… He will not despise the broken and contrite heart.”
Charles Simeon
This post is part of Thursday Devotionals series. Right now it is going through the life, work and faith of Charles Simeon.
