Charles Simeon grew downward in humiliation before God, and he grew
upward in his adoration of Christ.
“Before honor is humility and he had been growing downwards year by year
under the stern discipline of difficulty met in the right way, the way of close
and adoring communion with God.”
H.C.G. Moule about Charles Simeon
The two things were the heartbeat of Simeon’s inner life: growing
downwards in humility and growing upward in adoring communion with God.
“Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.”
Romans 12:12
The remarkable thing about humiliation and adoration in the heart of
Charles Simeon is that they were inseparable.
Unlike most of us today who think we should get rid once and for all of
feelings of vileness and unworthiness as soon as we can, for Simeon, adoration
only grew in the freshly plowed soil of humiliation for sin.
Simeon actually labored to know his true sinfulness and his remaining
corruption as a Christian.
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and
petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”
Philippians 4:6
Do you seek your heart to find the sin in it or do rather hide from it
and from the humiliation?
“I have continually had such a sense of my sinfulness as would sink me
into utter despair, if I had not an assured view of the sufficiency and
willingness of Christ to save me to the uttermost. And at the same time I had
such a sense of my acceptance through Christ as would overset my little bark,
if I had not ballast at the bottom sufficient to sink a vessel of no ordinary
size.”
Charles Simeon
Simeon never lost sight of the need for the heavy ballast of his own
humiliation.
After he had been a Christian forty years he wrote,
“With this sweet hope of ultimate acceptance of God, I have always enjoyed
much cheerfulness before men; but I have at the same time labored incessantly
to cultivate the deepest humiliation before God. I have never thought that the
circumstance of God’s having forgiven me was any reason why I should forgive
myself; on the contrary, I have always judged it better to loathe myself the
more, in proportion as I was assured that God was pacified towards me…
There are but two objects that I have ever desired for these forty years
to behold; the one is my own vileness; and the other is the glory of God in the
face of Jesus Christ; and I have always thought that they should be viewed
together; just as Aaron confessed all the sins of Israel whilst he put them on
the head of the scapegoat.
The disease did not keep him from applying the
remedy, nor did the remedy keep him from feeling the disease. By this I seek to
be, not only humbled and thankful,
but humbled in thankfulness, before
my God and Saviour continually.”
Charles Simeon
“Then, when I make atonement for you for all you have done, you will
remember and be ashamed and never again open your mouth because of your
humiliation, declares the Sovereign Lord.”
Ezekiel 16:63
This post is part of Thursday Devotionals series. Right now it is going through the life, work and faith of Charles Simeon.
