Do not attempt to touch yourself up and make

Do not attempt to touch yourself up and make yourself something other that) you really are; but come as you are to him who justifies the ungodly. A great artist some short time ago had painted a part of the corporation of the city in which he lived, and he wanted, for historic purposes, to include in his picture certain characters well known in the town. A crossing-sweeper, unkempt, ragged, filthy, was known to everybody, and there was a suitable place for him in the picture. The artist said to this ragged and rugged individual, “I will pay you well if you will come down to my studio and let me take your likeness.” He came round in the morning, but he was soon sent about his business; for he had washed his face, and combed his hair, and donned a respectable suit of clothes. He was needed as a beggar, and was not invited in any other capacity. Even so, the gospel will receive you into its halls if you come as a sinner, but not else. Wait not for reformation, but come and once for salvation. God justifieth the ungodly, and that takes you up where you now are: it meets you in your worst estate.

Come in your deshabille. I mean, come to your heavenly Father in all your sin and sinfulness. Come to Jesus just as you are, leprous, filthy, naked, neither fit to live nor fit to die. Come, you that are the very sweepings of creation; come, though you hardly dare to hope for anything but death. Come, though despair is brooding over you, pressing upon your bosom like a horrible nightmare. Come and ask die Lord to justify another ungodly one. Why should he not? Come along with you; for this great mercy of God is meant for such as you are. I put it in the language of the text, and I cannot put it more strongly: the Lord God himself takes to himself this gracious title, “Him that justifieth the ungodly.” He makes just, and causes to be treated as just, those 1 who by nature are ungodly. Is not that a wonderful word for you? Reader, do not rise from your seat till you have