Matthew Henry’s “Method For Prayer”

Confess and Bewail your Original Corruption

Confession 2.2 | NIV

I must therefore confess and bewail my original corruption in the first place: that I am the child of apostate and rebellious parents, and the nature of man is depraved and has wretchedly degenerated from its primitive purity and rectitude, and such is my nature.

ord, you made mankind upright, but men have gone in search of many schemes; Ecclesiastes 7:29(NIV) and despite his riches, man does not endure; he is like the beasts that perish. Psalm 49:20(NIV)

Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned: Romans 5:12(NIV) Through that one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, including me. Romans 5:19(NIV)

I am of a brood of evildoers; Isaiah 1:4(NIV) my father was an Amorite and my mother a Hittite, Ezekiel 16:3(NIV) and I myself was called (and not miscalled) a rebel from birth; and well do you know how treacherous I am. Isaiah 48:8(NIV)

The nature of man was planted a choice vine of sound and reliable stock, but it has become a corrupt, wild vine, Jeremiah 2:21(NIV) producing the grapes of Sodom and the clusters of Gomorrah. Deuteronomy 32:32(NIV) How the gold has lost its luster, and the fine gold become dull! Lamentations 4:1(NIV)

Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Psalm 51:5(NIV) For, who can bring what is pure from the impure? No one! Job 14:4(NIV) Like the rest, I am by nature an object of wrath, because a child of disobedience. Ephesians 2:2-3(KJV)

All people have corrupted their ways; Genesis 6:12(NIV) we have all turned aside, we have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one. Psalm 14:3(NIV)

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