June 13

I have surely heard Ephraim’s moaning: ‘You disciplined me severely, like an untrained calf. Restore me, that I may return, for You are the LORD my God. — Jer 31:18 BSB

The spiritual feeling of sin is essential to experiencing salvation. A true sense of the illness must come first and prepare the soul to receive and properly understand the remedy. Wherever God plans to reveal His Son with power, wherever He intends to make the gospel a truly joyful sound, He first makes the conscience feel the weight and groan under the burden of sin. And I am sure that when a person is laboring under the weight of sin, they will be full of groans.

The Bible is full of the groans of God’s people under the burden of sin. One cries out, “My wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness. I am troubled, I am greatly bowed down; I go mourning all the day long” (Psalm 38:5, 6). Another says, “My soul is full of troubles, and my life draws near to the grave” (Psalm 88:3). A third groans, “He has led me and brought me into darkness, but not into light” (Lam. 3:2). A living person cannot remain silent under such circumstances. They cannot carry the burden without complaining about its weight. They cannot feel the arrow piercing their conscience without groaning under the pain. They cannot feel the worm gnawing at their vitals without expressing the pain. They cannot feel that God is angry with them without groaning bitterly that God has become their enemy.

Spiritual groaning is a sign of spiritual life, and God recognizes it as such. “I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself.” It shows that there is something to mourn over, something causing groaning under the burden, that sin has been revealed in its hateful reality. It becomes a source of trouble and distress to the soul; instead of being indulged like a sweet morsel under the tongue, it is exposed by the penetrating eye and punished by the chastening hand of God.