A blacksmith brought home a new dog

A blacksmith brought home a new dog. The first day the blacksmith was working in his shop he would pound and pound the metal with his hammer. Immediately the dog would bark loudly. Day after day, as he worked with his hammer, his dog would jump up and bark. After a few days, the barking got softer and softer. Then a couple of weeks later the dog stopped barking when the smith started hammering….That is the problem with the lost. They have suppressed the truth of their sins so long that they have become dull towards the hammer of the law written on their hearts. The need a wake-up call through the preaching of the holy law of God.

Michael A. Robinson, God Does Exist!, Author House 2006, p.197

I should have told you that I was as religious a man as ever lived in Newington, and as good a man, certainly, as ever formed part of any congregation

One brother, when he was giving his testimony before being baptized, said: ‘The first time I came to hear Mr. Spurgeon in the Tabernacle, if you had asked me about myself, I should have told you that I was as religious a man as ever lived in Newington, and as good a man, certainly, as ever formed part of any congregation; but all this was reversed when I heard the gospel that day. I came out of the building with every feather plucked out of me. I felt myself the most wretched sinner who could be on the face of the earth, and I said, “I will never go to hear that man again, for he has altogether spoiled me.” But that was the best thing which could have happened to me; I was made to look away from myself, and all that I could do, to God, and to His omnipotent grace, and to understand that I must pass under my Creator’s hand again, or I could never see His face with joy. I learned to loathe my own righteousness as filthy rags, fit only for the fire, and then I sought to be robed in the perfect righteousness of Christ.’

Charles Spurgeon, Autobiography, Vol.2

The law is the surgeon’s knife which cuts out the proud flesh that the wound may heal

The law also shows us our great need—our need of cleansing, cleansing with the water and with the blood. It discovers to us our filthiness, and this naturally leads us to feel that we must be washed from it if we are ever to draw near to God. So the law drives us to accept of Christ as the one only person who can cleanse us, and make us fit to stand within the veil in the presence of the Most High. The law is the surgeon’s knife which cuts out the proud flesh that the wound may heal. The law by itself only sweeps and raises the dust, but the gospel sprinkles clean water upon the dust, and all is well in the chamber of the soul. The law kills, the gospel makes alive; the law strips, and then Jesus Christ comes in and robes the soul in beauty and glory. All the commandments, and all the types direct us to Christ, if we will but heed their evident intent.

Charles Spurgeon

Without the true knowledge of the law, the corruption of nature lies hid

Without the true knowledge of the law, the corruption of nature lies hid…Men are ready to soothe up themselves…being ignorant of the Law of God…they bless themselves and think they are well…The Law of God…shows men their sins, and it makes men see and feel themselves as dead men.

Edward Elton, 1648, quoted in Michael A. Robinson, God Does Exist!, Author House 2006, p.160

In my preaching of the Word, I took special notice of this one thing, namely, that the Lord did lead me to begin where His Word begins with sinners; that is, to condemn all flesh, and to open and allege that the curse of God, by the Law, doth belong to and lay hold on all men as they come into the world, because of sin

In my preaching of the Word, I took special notice of this one thing, namely, that the Lord did lead me to begin where His Word begins with sinners; that is, to condemn all flesh, and to open and allege that the curse of God, by the Law, doth belong to and lay hold on all men as they come into the world, because of sin.

John Bunyan

quoted, in Faith Cook, Fearless Pilgrim: The Life and Times of John Bunyan, Evangelical Press, 2008, p.132

The man who does not know the nature of the Law, cannot know the nature of sin.

John Bunyon

People will never set their faces decidedly towards heaven and live like pilgrims until they really feel that they are in danger of hell

Now I believe the likeliest way to cure and mend…defective… religion is to bring forward more prominently the old scriptural truth about the sinfulness of sin. People will never set their faces decidedly towards heaven and live like pilgrims until they really feel that they are in danger of hell. Let us all try to revive the old teaching about sin in nurseries, in schools, in training colleges, in universities. Let us not forget that “the law is good if we use it lawfully” and that “by the law is the knowledge of sin” (1 Tim. 1:8; Rom. 3:20; 7:7). Let us bring the law to the front and press it on men’s attention. Let us expound and beat out the Ten Commandments and show the length and breadth and depth and height of their requirements. This is the way of our Lord in the sermon on the mount. We cannot do better than follow His plan. We may depend upon it, men will never come to Jesus and stay with Jesus and live for Jesus unless they really know why they are to come and what is their need. Those whom the Spirit draws to Jesus are those whom the Spirit has convinced of sin. Without thorough conviction of sin, men may seem to come to Jesus and follow Him for a season; but they will soon fall away and return to the world.

J.C.Ryle, Holiness, ch.1, ‘Sin’

Expound the Law truly

Expound the Law truly and open the veil of Moses to condemn all flesh and prove all men sinners, and set at broach the mercy of our Lord Jesus, and let wounded consciences drink of Him…All doctrine that casteth a mist on these two to shadow and hide them, resist with all your power.

William Tyndale to John Fryth. Source

Why should we avoid whatever ‘casteth a mist on these two’? Because to avoid the one makes Christ’s death meaningless and leaves men smug in self-righteousness; to avoid the other leaves them in despair or, smug legalists.

More on preaching the law first here