At the end of his 11th sermon on Love from 1 Corinthians 13, Jonathan Edwards closed with these 30 questions which I read yesterday. I want to ask and answer these in my own life. Don’t you?
- Has grace in your life rendered your failures to be holy as loathsome, grievous, and humbling to you?
- Has your failure to be holy influenced your mind so as to render your past sinful practices hateful in your eyes, and has it led you to mourn before God for them?
- Does the grace in which you trust for your salvation render those things in your conduct that, since your supposed conversion, have been contrary to Christian practice, odious in your eyes?
- Is it the great burden of your life, that your holiness is no better?
- Is it really grievous to you, that you have fallen, or do fall into sin?
- Are you ready, after the example of holy Job, to abhor yourself for it, and repent in dust and ashes?
- Are you ready like Paul, to lament your wretchedness, and pray to be delivered from sin, as you would from a body of death?
- Do you carry about with you, habitually, a dread of sin?
- Do you not only mourn, and humble yourself for sins that are past, but have you a dread of sin for the future?
- Do you dread it because in itself it is evil, and so hurtful to your own soul, and offensive to God?
- Do you dread it as a terrible enemy that you have often suffered by, and feel that it has been a grievous thing to you heretofore?
- Do you dread it as something that has hurt, and wounded, and stung you, so that you would see it no more?
- Do you stand on your watch against it, as a man would keep watch against something that he dreads, with such a dread as led Joseph to say, “How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” (Gen. 39:9)
- Are you sensible of the beauty and pleasantness of the ways of a holy life?
- Do you see the beauty of holiness, and the loveliness of the ways of God and Christ?
- Do you find that you do particularly delight in those practices that may be called Christian practices, in distinction from mere worldly morality—by Christian practices I mean such as a meek, humble, prayerful, self-denying, self-renouncing, heavenly walk and behavior?
- Do you hold these self-denying virtues in special esteem, for your Savior’s sake, and because they are filled with His Spirit?
- Do you hunger and thirst after a holy practice?
- Do you long to live a holy life, to be conformed to God, to have your conduct, day by day, better regulated, and more spiritual, more to God’s glory, and more such as becomes a Christian?
- Is this what you love, and pray for, and long for, and live for?
- Does the trait of hungering and thirsting after righteousness belong to you?
- Do you make a business of endeavoring to live holily, and as God would have you, in all respects?
- Not only can you be said to endeavor after holiness, but do you make a business of endeavoring after it?
- Is it a matter that lies with weight upon your mind?
- Is this so with you that as the business of the soldier is to fight, and as the race is the great work of the racers, so your great work is to be holy as He is holy?
- Is it your great aim and love to keep all God’s commandments, and so far as known to neglect none?
- Is this your serious, constant, and prayerful aim, that you may be faithful in every known duty as the Psalmist says “Then I shall not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all thy commandments”?
- Do you greatly desire that you may know all that is your duty?
- Do you desire to know it that you may do it?
- Can you and do you, with Elihu, pray to the Almighty, “That which I see not, teach thou me,” adding, as he added, “If I have done iniquity, I will do no more”?
I edited them slightly, but you may read the entire book for free or listen to all 16 sermons.
