Sin took advantage of those commands and deceived me;
it used the commands to kill me.
But still, the law itself is holy,
and its commands are holy and right and good.
Romans 7:11-12

Read: Ezekiel 36:22-36, Romans 7:1-13
Pilgrim’s Progress Stage 2 Part 7

Relate: The Interpreter leads Christian into a large parlor full of dust. He calls for a man to sweep it, and as the man begins to sweep, the dust rises up in clouds, choking the room, blinding everyone in it. Christian coughs and covers his face. Then the Interpreter calls for a young woman to come and sprinkle the room with water. After the sprinkling, the dust settles, the room clears, and it is swept clean. The Interpreter explains what Christian has just seen. The room is the heart of a person who has never known the grace of the gospel. The dust is sin. The sweeping is the law, which, without grace, might do some cleaning but still manages to make everything worse. It stirs everything up. The dust, or sin, that was hidden and settled is now visible and making life difficult.

React: How many of us have tried sweeping up the dust in our hearts? How many of us have tried to fix ourselves, make rules for ourselves, listen to or read self improvement books and podcasts, or other such nonsense? How many of us have tried to clean ourselves up so that we can come to God even when we know better that the only way to clean ourselves up is by bringing our mess to God? The motion of the broom feels productive. Our good works feel important. And they are important, but only when they have first been sprinkled “by grace through faith.” (Eph 2:8-9) The Law is holy. Our following it is just and good. We were created to do good works just as the sweeping servant is doing what he was hired to do. But without the good news of God’s grace, our works under the law alone do nothing but stir up trouble. 

The water, Bunyan tells us, is the gospel. It is the grace of God applied to the heart by the Holy Spirit. When the water comes, it does something the broom never could. It doesn’t move the dust around. It binds it. It settles it. It makes the room sweepable in a way it never was before. This is not an argument against effort or discipline or the pursuit of holiness. It is an argument about order. Grace must come first. The water must be sprinkled before the sweeping can do what it was intended to do. A heart that has been touched by the grace of God becomes, for the first time, a heart that can genuinely be transformed and not just rearranged. Every pilgrim needs to see this room before they go much further down the road, because the temptation to pick up the broom before the water has come will present itself, again and again, all the way to the Celestial City.

Respond:

Dear God,
Help me to balance the desire to do good with the recognition that doing good is never enough. Like the servant with the broom, we have been given a responsibility. But without the sprinkling of Your grace, that task is impossible. I thank You that You have not only shown me the good that I must do, but also, through my salvation, given purpose and effectiveness to that good.
Amen