It can happen that problems and difficulties coincide with very troubling sights of our sins. Things can then seem overwhelming, and we can’t stop thinking that God is not only angry with us but rightly so. Where can we then turn in this desperate situation? Zachary Boyd (1585–1653) imagines a dialogue between a man with a terminal illness and his pastor. The discussion takes place over several days and covers an extensive range of topics. On the second day, the sick man reaches out desperately for advice about his sins, which he feels are crushing him. In the following updated and abbreviated excerpt, the pastor offers him various considerations to encourage him, and the man finally realises that through it all, the pastor is chiefly trying to point him to the Lord Jesus Christ. Zachary Boyd was minister of the Barony Parish, Glasgow. Well-known as a poet, he contributed around a tenth of the content of the Scottish Psalter (1650). He was Rector and Vice-Chancellor at the University of Glasgow. He faced Cromwell’s army with bravery when they invaded Scotland and proceeded to Glasgow.

Sick man: My soul is so blinded with my sins that I cannot get a sight of mercy. I’m afraid I will die in despair. Don’t you pity me at all?

Pastor: May the Lord pity you, and give me a heart to pray for you. May the Lord put the words in my mouth which will comfort your comfortless soul in this ongoing trial. Have patience in your pain. Sin is like a rotten tooth. The deeper root it has in your jaw, the more painful it is to draw it. But many people are more ashamed to confess a fault than to commit a sin. What is it in particular that grieves you, my friend?

Sick man: The wrath of God makes me afraid. His anger is like a lion, which cannot be tamed. My sin is past, but punishment is to come. Terrors shout from the fire, “Because you have fallen down before the god of this world, go down, down to him who you worshipped on earth!” I am beholden to God for such a long opportunity to repent. But I neglected it, and now God does not think I am worthy of comfort, for while I was in prosperity, I was so covered over with the spirit of slumber that I would not be warned or wakened by the voice of God’s trumpeter. Because I ignored Boanerges, the sons of thunder, now God will not deign to give me a Barnabas, the son of consolation.

Pastor: I rejoice from my heart, not in your grief, but in that you are so grieved for your sins. God in mercy by these sorrows whets your desires for Him. It is good to be of a humble and contrite spirit. “To whom will I look?” said the Lord. “Even to him that is of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.” The more humble you are, the further you are from the danger of God’s judgments.

When sin is a heavy burden

Sick man: Then it seems that a soul cast down by its own unworthiness is in less danger of judgment than those who are lifted high up in their own conceits.

Pastor: Without a doubt. Bless God, my friend, for a humbled heart! Yet never rely on any grace that is within yourself. Let God’s mere mercy alone be your strength and your support. The least opinion of our own worth is a frost which nips repentance in the blossom.

Sick man: My heart is strained and squished with grief. The heavy weight of my sins! How close they stick to me! I am like a tired horse that can’t wait to be rid of its burden.

Pastor: To be tired of sin is a sign that you will shortly be delivered from it. Sin is not a heavy burden to the wicked, because in them it is like water in its own element — though it has weight, yet it doesn’t weigh itself down. The sin-wearied soul has Christ’s promise of rest (Matthew 11:28), but woe to those who, like Laodicea, have need of nothing! For the most part, people are drowned in drowsiness. Complacency is far more dangerous than despair. Complacency has shaken hands with hell and death. The one who is greatest in God’s eyes is the one who is smallest in his own eyes.

Getting rid of this burden

Sick man: But how can I be delivered from this burden?

Pastor: Listen to Christ in His gospel calling, “Come to me!” Go to Him who calls so lovingly, “Come!” Strive above all things to get a sight of your Saviour by the eye of faith. Urge on your heart a deep meditation on His mercy. His merits are able to cure our maladies.

Sick man: There is such a mist between me and Christ that it is not possible for me to see Him. If only my eyes were cleared with God’s eye-salve, so that I could clearly look at Him!

Pastor: The great desire you have to see Him is a sort of seeing. Not everyone sees Christ the same. Not everyone goes up the mountain with Peter, James, and John. Not everyone sees God face to face, like Moses. Not everyone lays their head in Christ’s bosom, like His best beloved disciple. But don’t be discouraged, just because you can’t get so close to Christ as you’d like. If you can’t get so close as to embrace Him like Simeon did, you can still strive to touch the border of His garment from behind with the finger of faith, and the flow of your sins will be staunched. Sighing for a sight of Christ is a real sight of Him. He wants to be found by those who never sought Him — how much more will He be found by those who seek Him and sigh for Him!

Christ is not always absent when He is unseen. What shall be able to separate a Christian from the love of Christ? What then shall be able to make a Christian soul despair? Shall damnation? No, for Christ, God’s salvation, is ours. Shall hell? No, for Christ has the keys of both heaven and hell. Shall the world? No, for Christ has overcome the world. Shall the law? No, for Christ has fulfilled the law. Shall death? No, for our Christ is the way and the life. Shall the Father’s wrath? No, for Christ has trodden the winepress of His wrath for you and for all repenting sinners. All Scripture points at Him, saying, “This is the way, walk ye in it.” Run, friend, to Him, and He shall deliver you from all your sins and from all your fears!

When sin puts comfort out of reach

Sick man: I cannot get quit of my sins. I try running away from them, but they only follow me the faster. Wherever I go with my thoughts, above or below, my sins follow close behind me. I try to chase them away, even beg them to leave me alone, but their answer is, “We are yours, we will stay with you!” It puts my soul out of peace and order and thrusts me away from the Lord my God. I’ve been seeking and sighing for comfort for so long, but I can’t see anything.

Pastor: Comforts are not always seen straight away. Elijah’s servant went up Carmel eight separate times to espy some appearance of rain. The first seven times he could see nothing, and at the eighth, all he could see was a little cloud of comfort. So hold on, my friend, a little while, with Elijah, on your knees. Send up your prayer to the top of the hill, again and again, and if you keep going till you perceive even a handsbreadth of mercy, eventually God’s comforts will rain down in great abundance on your wearied spirit. 

Sick man: But how can I get quit of my sins?

Pastor: The best way to be quit of sin, in the sense that it does not reign in us, is to bend our hearts towards Christ, who is Immanuel, God with us. Though all are worthy to be condemned, yet there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ. He is the heave-offering, which we must always lift up like a shield between God’s wrath and our sinful souls.

How mercy goes deeper than our deep troubles

Sick man: Just as I swim through one deep temptation, I fall into another that is deeper. My head is turned into a whirling giddiness.

Pastor: There is no deepness either in our sins or in our troubles, but the mercy of God in Christ is able to over-reach it by innumerable fathoms. Though afflictions rain down on us like water pouring from spouts, they may well wash us, but they shall not be able to drown us. A godly man should not be afraid for a spout full of bitter waters. There is no sin which Christ’s blood is not able to purge. Whatever your sin is, if you can repent, He can forgive. Christ can do anything but this: He cannot save someone who will not repent. Seeing you know that He is infinite in mercy, have all your recourse to Him. Just test His mercy. Humble yourself at His feet, and see whether or not there is mercy with Him that He may be feared. Christ is not only true, but truth itself, and He has said, “Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do.” He who is true may lie, but truth itself cannot lie.

Sick man: That is the truth. When I think of your comforts for my distressed soul, I think that all your purpose is to point chiefly at Christ, as though He alone were the ground of grace.

Pastor: Yes! Christ is Immanuel, God with us, God with man, God in man, God-man. In Him, God and man are one person. Because we ate of the forbidden fruit, He was hanged on a cursed tree. He has loved us with an inexpressible love. By the conduit pipe of His humanity, grace for grace has been conveyed to our graceless souls. Who can express His love? He loved us to the end, and of His love there is no end.

Sick man: Is it only in Christ, then, that salvation is to be found? All Scripture, you say, points at Him.

Pastor: The Scripture is plain. “There is none other name given under heaven among men, whereby we must be saved.” He is full of love. He is the only Saviour, pointed out by Old Testament and New Testament alike. All religion is in this, that we know Christ. This is salvation, to know Christ and Him crucified. By His blood, the bill and bond of the law is crossed out and cancelled. He is our refuge against the force of God’s wrath. The church cannot come up from the wilderness except by leaning on her Beloved, Christ. Let people cover themselves as carefully as they can with their own righteousness, yet some part of them will peep bare until Christ comes with the covering of His righteousness.

FURTHER READING

AUTHOR MENU