Author: Bunyan, John
Genre:
Tags: Christian Living / Cross / Discipleship
Series:
Rick Shrader‘s Review:
This book by Bunyan is profitable to the modern reader because it deals with a universal and lasting problem: that of the human heart. Bunyan saw the need and advantage of a broken heart for the believer, and a necessity for the unbeliever. I will let Bunyan speak for himself here. “There has, indeed, at all times been great flocks of such professors in the world in every age, but to little purpose, unless to deceive themselves, to mock God, and lay stumblingblocks in the way of others; for a man whose heart was never truly broken, and whose spirit was never contrite, cannot profess Christ in earnest, cannot love his own soul in earnest; I mean, he cannot do these things in truth, and seek his own good the right way, for he wants a bottom for it, to wit, a broken heart for sin, and a contrite spirit.”
“When God shows a man the sin he has committed, the hell he has deserved, the heaven he has lost; and yet that Christ, and grace, and pardon may be had; this will make him serious, this will make him melt, this will break his heart, this will show him that there is more than air, than a noise, than an empty sound in religion; and this is the man, whose heart, whose life, whose conversation and all, will be engaged in the matters of the eternal salvation of his precious and immortal soul”
The book concludes with this, “’A broken heart, a contrite spirit, God will not despise’; but both thou, and all thy service, he will certainly slight and reject, if, when thou comest to him, a broken heart be wanting; wherefore here is the point, Come broken, come contrite, come sensible of, and sorry for thy sins, or thy coming will be counted no coming to God aright; and if so, consequently thou wilt get no benefit thereby.”