In Job, chapter forty-two, verse six, in response to God’s revelation, the servant of God humbled himself in repentance. The word “repent” means Job considered himself and his moral rightness as mere “dust and ashes” before a holy God, as in Isaiah six. Job did not retract what he said about his life of righteousness and moral integrity but did admit that his accusations and complaints against God were inappropriate for a finite human to make, and he repented for doing so, as in Genesis eighteen, verse twenty-seven.
The more we see the glory and majesty of God, the more we shall see the abomination and wickedness of sin and ourselves because of sin, and the more we shall be disgusted for it and repent in dust and ashes. Observe, true penitents mourn for their sins as heartily as ever they did for any outward afflictions. For they are brought to see more evil in their sins than in their troubles, and even those who have no gross enormities to repent of, yet ought to be greatly distressed in their souls for the workings of pride, self-will, peevishness, discontent, and anger, within them, and for all their hasty, unadvised speeches; for these, they ought to be pricked in their hearts, and bitterness, like Job.
It is not sufficient that we be angry at ourselves for the wrong and damage we have, by sin, done to our souls, but be disgusted towards it, as having, by sin, made ourselves odious to the pure and holy God, who cannot look upon iniquity but with detestation. If sin, in general, is truly an abomination to us, sin in ourselves will especially be so. The nearer it is to us, the more loathsome it will appear to be, and the more we shall loathe ourselves on account of it.