Need to Uncover Need

“So many preach the human aspect of Christ, His sympathy for the bereaved and the suffering and sin-stained, and men listen whilst Christ is brought down to their conditions; but a preacher has to bring the Gospel of God to men’s needs, and to do this he has to uncover their need and men resent this -- ‘I don’t want to accept the verdict on myself that Jesus Christ brings; I don’t believe I am so sinful as He reveals.’ A man never believes what Jesus Christ says about the human heart until the Holy Ghost gives him the startling revelation of the truth of His diagnosis. (See Mark 7:20-23: And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: all these evil things come from within, and defile the man.)”
[Oswald Chambers, in Approved Unto God, “The Origin of Our Salvation”.]