How Hypocrites Obey God

Hypocrites obey God grudgingly and against their will; they do good, but not willingly. Cain brought his sacrifice, but not his heart. It is a true rule that what the heart does not do is not really done. Willingness is the soul of obedience. God sometimes accepts the willingness without the work, but He never accepts the work without the willingness. Cheerfulness shows that there is love in the duty. Love is to our duties what the sun is to fruit – it mellows and ripens them and gives them a better flavor.

Adapted from The Ten Commandments by Thomas Watson

Obedience Must Be Sincere

We must aim at the glory of God in it. In the Christian religion, the purpose is everything. The purpose of our obedience must not be to stop the mouth of conscience or to gain applause or success, but our purpose must be to grow more like God and bring more glory to Him. Do all to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31).

Adapted from The Ten Commandments by Thomas Watson

You Will Never Lose Your Justification

Thomas Watson:

Justified persons may fall from degrees of grace, they may leave their first love, they may lose God’s favor for a time, but not lose their justification.  If they are justified they are elected; and they can no more fall from their justification than from their election.  If they are justified they have union with Christ; and can a member of Christ be broken off?  If one justified person may fall away from Christ, all may; and so Christ would be a head without a body.

See from hence [this], that there is nothing within us that could justify but something without [outside] us; not any righteous inherent, but imputed.  We may as well look for a star in the earth as for justification in our own righteousness. The Papists say we are justified by works; but the Apostle confutes it, for he says, ‘not of works, lest any man should boast.’ (Eph 2.9).

Source: Justification Can Never Be Lost

The Ordinary Means of Our Effectual Calling

The ordinary means which the Lord uses in calling us, is not by raptures and revelations—but is,

(1.) By His Word which is "the rod of his strength" (Psalm 105:2). The voice of the Word is God's call to us; therefore He is said to speak to us from heaven (Heb. 12:25). That is, in the ministry of the Word. When the Word calls from sin, it is as if we heard a voice from heaven.

(2.) By His Spirit. This is the loud call. The Word is the instrumental cause of our conversion, the Spirit is the efficient cause of our conversion. The ministers of God are only the pipes and organs; it is the Spirit blowing in them, which effectually changes the heart. "While Peter spoke, the Holy Spirit fell on all those who heard the word" (Acts 10:44).

It is not the farmer's industry in ploughing and sowing, which will make the ground fruitful, without the early and latter rain. Just so, it is not the seed of the Word that will effectually convert, unless the Spirit puts forth His sweet influence, and drops as rain upon the heart. Therefore the aid of God's Spirit is to be implored, that He would put forth His powerful voice, and awaken us out of the grave of unbelief. If a man knocks at a gate of brass, it will not open; but if he comes with a key in his hand, it will open. Just so, when God, who has the key of David in His hand (Rev. 3:7) comes, He opens the heart, though it be ever so fast locked against Him.

Adapted from The Means of our Effectual Call based on All Things For Good by Thomas Watson

What Qualifies for Godly Sorrow?

For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death (2 Corinthians 7:10).

A godly man's sorrow has three qualifications:

1. It is inward. It is sorrow of soul. Hypocrites 'disfigure their faces' (Matthew 6:16). Godly sorrow goes deep. It is 'pricking at the heart' (Acts 2:37). True sorrow is a spiritual martyrdom, therefore called 'soul affliction' (Lev. 23:29).

2. Godly sorrow is ingenuous. It is more for the evil that is in sin than the evil which follows after. It is more for the spot than the sting. Hypocrites weep for sin only as it brings affliction. I have read of a fountain that never sends out streams except on the evening before a famine. Hypocrites never send forth the streams of their tears except when God's judgment is approaching.

3. Godly sorrow is influential. It makes the heart better: 'by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better' (Eccles. 7:3). Divine tears not only wet but wash; they purge out the love of sin.

Thomas Watson, The Godly Man's Picture

The Signs of Godly Sorrows

For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death (2 Corinthians 7:10, KJV)

This sorrow for sin is not superficial: it is a holy agony. It is called in scripture a breaking of the heart: 'The sacrifices of God are a broken and a contrite heart' (Ps. 51:17); and a rending of the heart: 'Rend your heart' (Joel 2:13). The expressions of smiting on the thigh (Jer. 31:19), beating on the breast (Luke 18:13), putting on sackcloth (Isa. 22:12), plucking off the hair (Ezra 9:3), all these are but outward signs inward sorrow. This sorrow is:

1. To make Christ precious. O how desirable is a Saviour to a troubled soul! Now Christ is Christ indeed, and mercy is mercy indeed. Until the heart is full of compunction it is not fit for Christ. How welcome is a surgeon to a man who is bleeding from his wounds!

2. To drive out sin. Sin breeds sorrow, and sorrow kills sin. Holy sorrow is the rhubarb to purge out the ill humours of the soul. It is said that the tears of vine-branches are good to cure leprosy. Certainly the tears that drop from the penitent are good to cure the leprosy of sin. The salt water of tears kills the worm of conscience.

3. To make way for solid comfort: 'They that sow in tears shall reap in joy' (Psalm 126:5). The penitent has a wet seed-time but a delicious harvest. Repentance breaks the abscess of sin, and then the soul is at ease. Hannah, after weeping, went away and was no more sad (1 Sam. 1:18). God's troubling of the soul for sin is like the angel's troubling of the pool (John 5:4), which is made way for healing.

Thomas Watson, The Doctrine of Repentance