Most non-hearers crave thinking well of themselves. They get angry when God insists we glorify him instead of serving our lust for self-esteem.

The other kind of person will not hear what Sibbes says. They are fundamentally closed to what the true God is all about.

They may temporarily bristle at what is true, but sooner or later they listen.

You counsel two kinds of people in principle.

Honest war with yourself comes paired with incomprehensible gifts.

“You and sin must quarrel, if you and God are to be friends,”

The Christian life is a lifelong “race of repentance,” but we want to have arrived already.10

None of us naturally approaches our troubles saying, “I must become different.

As you begin counseling any other person, you must be gripped by this vision. Without it, some species of self-deception will ultimately call the shots.