Death to Self-Righteousness is Brought to the Sinner by the Divine Law - All your hopes from your past self-righteous life die when the divine commandment comes and reveals to you your inward filthiness. You used to look back with great comfort upon your good works and religious efforts, but now you feel that you are an awful hypocrite, your heart was never sincerely in your motives, actions and words. You never really loved God or His Law at all. And then, all your hopes as to the future died. You have broken the Law, and all attempts to keep it in the future cannot mend the past violations and transgressions of the Law; and you know that as you had broken it in the past, you would be sure to break it in the future, and in that respect your righteous Self died. All your self-powers seemed to die. You realized God's pure holiness, and you perceived that every thought, word, and wish would condemn you, you sat before the Law and trembled, and entreated that those words might not be spoken to you any more. This is how all your hopes died. You felt that you were condemned forever. Your last ray of self-hope was gone. You were once quite secure in your self, and even boastful - you were self-righteous, but not any more. You have broken God's Law so often, and that you must perish and be cast into Hell on account of your sins, you feel yourself quite lost. When the commandment comes, the Law reveals to you your sinfulness, and it makes you mourn and feel you are lost. This is the first workings of the Holy Spirit on the lost sinner.
When a sinner is killed by the Law, he truly understands where salvation lies - in Christ's Finished Work, and not in human merit. You have no merits of your own; you never will have any. Christ has all the merits that you need to take you to Heaven. If you will trust Christ to save you, He will save you, and His righteousness shall be yours. As long as you think you have any good in yourself, you will receive nothing from Christ, but when all your hope from your own goodness is laid at the foot of the Law, then the Gospel can save you. The Gospel then says this to you, "Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." The Gospel points you to Jesus crucified, who carried your sins, who was punished instead of you - The Gospel shows you how God's divine justice has been satisfied by the atoning blood of God. Believe and live! Take the mercy God freely offers you. Take it without money, without price, without works, without any preparation. Take God's free mercy now; simply take it as God presents it to you. Just as you are without having but one plea, and that is that Jesus died for sinners -- just as you are - take Jesus, and your sins will be laid on Him.
You are filthy, condemned, and guilty in the sight of God. God has pronounced the death sentence for you because of your sins. God's mercy is freely held out to you. You cannot be saved by human efforts. Let others try it if they will; you cannot, you know you cannot. You can only be saved by the Grace of God. God freely offers salvation through His Dear Son in the Gospel. God will not deny you, however sinful and filthy you may be within, or however vile you may feel yourself to be. You only have to Come, to Trust, to Believe in Jesus, Rely solely upon Him, to throw yourself upon Him, to lean upon Him, to hang upon Him, to depend on Him as a humble little child, and you will be saved forever. Look to Jesus Christ bleeding and dying and Trust Him with your Soul. Life is short, Eternity is not.
