Sins of Omission

Sins of Omission

A Sermon
(No. 838)

Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, October 25, 1868, by
C. H. SPURGEON,
at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

"Yet they obeyed not, nor inclined their ear, but walked every one
in the imagination of their evil heart: therefore I will bring upon
them all the words of this covenant which I commanded them to do;
but they did them not."
Jeremiah 11:8.

JEREMIAH was commissioned of God to bring a solemn accusation against
rebellious Israel and he commences by solemnly mentioning their sins of
omission. Observe that neglect of the Divine command is the charge
brought in the text. In the next verses, the Prophet goes on to mention
their sins of commission, but he very properly gives the first place to
their shortcomings in positive service. He reminds them of what they
had not done which they ought to have done and how constantly and
persistently they had refused to render active obedience to the
righteous will of the Most High.

Brothers and Sisters, it is well for us to have our sins brought to our
remembrance. This morning we may spend a little time most profitably by
looking into the glass of Holy Scripture to discover the spots upon our
countenances. Perhaps some of your sins have never been forgiven
because you have never sought to have them pardoned–you may have never
been sufficiently conscious of the danger in which they placed you–may
you be, by the Holy Spirit, this morning convicted of sin and led to
Jesus!

While I shall be trying to speak of your great omissions, perhaps
conscience may be at work, and the Holy Spirit may work through
conscience so that you may be led to repentance, and to faith, and
through faith to salvation. "It is a consummation devoutly to be
wished." Others here who have been pardoned–who rejoice everyday in
the perfect forgiveness which they have found at the foot of Christ's
Cross–will, nevertheless, be benefited by being reminded of their
sins, for thus they will be humbled. Thus they will be led to prize
more the great atoning sacrifice. Thus they will be driven again to
renew the simplicity of their faith as they look to Him on whom Jehovah
made to meet the iniquities of all His people.

God grant that also, for His name's sake, I shall, this morning, take
rather the spirit of the text than the words of it. The subject will be
sins of omission.

I. First, I would call your attention to THE GREAT COMMONNESS OF THESE.
Their commonness in the wide world. Their frequency in our own circle
of society. And to each man, to each woman, I would say to their
abundance in your own heart. Here it is observed at the outset that in
a certain sense all offenses against the Law of God come under the head
of sins of omission, for in every sin of commission there is an
omission–an omission, at least, of that godly fear which would have
prevented disobedience.

Our Lord has told us that the whole law is summarized in these two
Commandments: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
and your neighbor as yourself." Since, then, every sin must be a breach
of this all-comprehensive Law, every sin must, from a certain aspect,
be a sin of omission. Consider, then, how multitudinous have been your
omissions and mine! Have we loved the Lord our God with all our heart?
Perhaps you have omitted to love Him at all. You who have loved Him
have omitted to love Him with "all your heart." And if at any time you
have loved with "all your heart," yet you have omitted to continue in
this.

There have been slowing downs and intermissions–and every omission of
obedience becomes a distinct act of disobedience to the Most High. We
have not served Him with "all our mind," any more than with all our
heart. That is to say we have not yielded up our understanding to His
infinite wisdom and authority. We have even dared to re-judge His
judgments and murmur against His Providences. We have not surrendered
our wills to His will, but have desired things contrary to His purpose
and to His Truth.

Neither has our strength been entirely devoted to His service. We have
not done unto You, Creator and Preserver, at all according to the
benefits which we have received. Take the first four Commandments,
which make up the first table, and what sins of omission have we all
committed there! We have omitted to make God the Chief, the First, the
Foremost, the only Lord of our spirit, and we have too often had other
gods before Him. We have omitted to treat His name with the reverence
which He demands. And if we have not committed profanity or blasphemy,
yet that name has not always been hallowed by us as it should have
been.

As for His day, it has not always been sacredly guarded as a day of
mental as well as bodily rest. We have done servile work in our minds,
if not with our hands, by our many cares and fretfulness and so have
failed to honor our God with the joyful worship which He deserves.
Think, dear Friends, especially you who know God, and rejoice in Him,
how ill you have treated the Father of your spirits! He deserved, since
He has bought you with the blood of His dear Son, to be served with an
all-consuming earnestness. He rightly claims the cream of our thoughts,
the best of our meditations, and that our souls should always be
diligent in His service. But alas, we have been sluggards and idlers!
We have not spoken well of His name. We have not sounded abroad His
Glory. We have not been obedient to His will. We are unprofitable
servants. We have not done what it was our duty to have done towards
our God.

The other portion of the Law, our Savior tells us, is contained in
these words, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Which of us
has done that? We must plead guilty even before we come to details.
Take the command as it stands and there is no man of woman born who
shall dare to say that he has been perfect in this. Especially let me
remind you of those sins of omission which daily occur in our various
relationships. We have oftentimes omitted to act lovingly towards our
neighbor. We have failed to do the kind thing towards the sick and the
poor in relieving them–the right thing towards the ignorant in seeking
their instruction.

I am afraid that many of us have the blood of our neighbors upon our
garments because we have left them in ignorance and have not told them
the Gospel. And if they die in their sins they might well, with their
dying breath, upbraid us that, having the light, we have not carried it
to them. You cannot, I think, look out of your window and say, "I am
clear concerning all those who abide around me. I have, to the utmost
of my ability, done for them what I shall wish to have done when I come
to die." Brothers and Sisters, have you not fallen into sins of
omission against your own children? They have grown up now, some of
them–did you, for them in matters towards God, do as you could wish
now that you are done?

Or your little ones that are around about you–are you sure that you
are always doing everything that God would have you do to train them up
in His fear? Are there no omissions in the household? For my own part,
I dare not think of my relationships towards this Church, towards the
world, towards other Churches of Jesus Christ, towards my own household
without the blush and the tear! Brethren, our sins of omission are not
to be numbered! Their number grows, as we examine ourselves, till they
are more in number than the hairs of our head. And if we had to be
justified by our own works, we dare not look up, but must bow our head
as guilty culprits and submit to the sentence of God.

Look at sins of omission in another light. How many there are who have
omitted yet to perform the first and all essential Gospel commands!
Wherever the Gospel goes, it cries, "Repent and be converted." And yet
again, "Repent and he baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus." And yet
again, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved." Now,
I will not speak of the neglect of Baptism, though the mass of the
Church and the world have renounced Baptism and have adopted a ceremony
of their own invention. But I will speak to you of the neglect of
repentance, for many of you in this house have been urged, again and
again, to repent and consider your iniquities, but you have refused the
sacred counsel.

There was, indeed, room enough for repentance, and cause enough for a
change of mind–but, though you have heard the arguments for penitence,
your heart still remains hard towards God and no true sorrow for sin is
found within your spirit. How often have these lips declared to you
that faith in Jesus Christ is both your duty and your privilege– that
it, alone, can save you? Yet that faith you have neither sought nor
desired! You know in theory what saving faith means. You could explain
to others what it is to believe in Jesus, and yet you remain hearers of
the Word and not doers of it, deceiving your own souls.

Throughout this huge city of ours, dense masses of men know the Gospel,
but obey it not. They have heard it, or might hear it if they would,
but they have not obeyed the Gospel. As Isaiah says, it has been a
hardening to them, and not a gracious means of renewal. O unbelievers,
the lack of faith is a sin of omission which will sink you to the
lowest Hell! This is the most damning sin of all, and above all others
fills the gates of Hell–that men believe not on Jesus Christ, but love
darkness rather than light!

Again, what sins of omission cluster round religious duties! A large
proportion of our fellow citizens neglect altogether the outward
worship of God. God forgive them and send a change in the manners of
the people by which the Houses of Prayer shall be thronged! Alas, it is
not with these we need to deal just now if we would find sins of
neglect. Are there not with you, my Hearers, even with you, sins
against the Lord our God? What omissions we are guilty of as to prayer?
How some live as if there were no God, or as if atheistic views had
bewitched them! From morning to night multitudes forget the Most High,
and call not on His name! And if, perhaps, they do remember to bow the
knee in outward supplication, how few really adore their Maker?

How lax in devotion are the most of us? How ready to be excused from
communion with God? How short we make our prayers and how little of our
hearts do we throw into them? And that Bible, as it lies open before
us, how, with silent but solemn eloquence, it accuses us! Can you look
at it, my Hearers, without shame? Unread is that book from day to day
while the ephemeral newspaper–the mere record of the flying hour and
its trivialities–is read with eagerness to the neglect of the great
things of God's Law!

Truly, we cannot even look around upon the place where we assemble for
worship without our omissions accusing us–for when we have been here
we have not set our thoughts upon God–we have not sung His praises
with heart-music! When the time of prayer has come our thoughts have
been gadding here and there after vanity. Brothers and Sisters,
whatever part of religious worship comes under review we must confess
that we have left undone the things which we ought to have done! And so
take the whole stretch of human life, from the cradle to gray old age.
We failed to honor our parents in our youth. We have been slow in
honoring God throughout our manhood. And at the close of life the same
omission in different forms may be charged upon us.

God deserves of us that we should serve Him. That we should, to the
utmost of our abilities, contribute to the revenue of His Glory. But
our talents have been wrapped in a napkin. Our service has been given
to self–we have lived to please ourselves, or to win our fellow
creatures' applause–while our blessed God has had only the dregs of
our thoughts, the remnants of our time, the refuse of our actions. The
roll of our omissions is very long, and if it were read by a tender
conscience it would seem black with multiplied lamentations. Who among
us, apart from the Atonement, can endure the thought that God records
all our failures of duty as well as our actual transgressions? Who, I
say, could dare to look up if it were not for those streaming wounds of
that blessed Son of God who has blotted out our iniquities and washed
away our scarlet stains?

Our omissions frown upon us and thunder at us! They lie upon the
horizon of memory like masses of storm clouds accumulating for a
horrible tempest! None of us dares turn our eyes in that direction
until first we have seen the Lord's appointed Propitiation and found
our rest in Him.

II. Brethren, I call you to a second thought–what is THE CAUSE OF THIS
EXCESSIVE MULTIPLICITY OF SINS OF OMISSION?

Of course, my Brethren, the great cause lies in our evil hearts. That
we do not bring forth fruit unto God is because our depraved nature is
barren towards Him. Man is, by nature, dead in sin–and how can the
dead in sin perform actions which express spiritual life? Can we expect
to gather grapes or figs from withered trees? "You must be born-again,"
and until this inward change–this thorough regeneration of our nature
has been accomplished–we remain barren and unprofitable and unaccepted
of God. Lack of the new nature is the great root of the matter in the
ungodly. And the absence of a new heart and a right spirit mean men
will never obey the Lord's commands till the Holy Spirit takes away the
heart of stone and gives them a heart of flesh. May the Lord do that
for you, O you unsaved ones, and His shall be the praise!

I suspect that the unnoticed superabundance of sins of omission may
result, also, from the fact that the conscience of man is not well
alive to sins of omission. If any of you had committed theft, he would
most likely feel much ashamed. If another had fallen into an act of
unchastity, it would probably stick in his conscience for awhile,
unless, indeed, habit had rendered him callous to it. But while
conscience will chastise most men for direct acts of wrong, it is not
in every case sufficiently alive to rebuke us for so much as one in 10
of our omissions. And, indeed, even our memory willfully refuses to
file the record of duties left undone.

Yet, Beloved, there is as much sin in not loving God as in lusting
after evil! There is as much rebellion in not obeying God as in
breaking His commands. Measure for measure–put into the scales
together–it may even happen that a sin of omission may turn out to be
more sinful than one of commission! A sin of omission argues a state of
mind sinful and corrupt, while a sin of commission may only be
occasioned by the violence of a temptation, while, after all, the soul
is at heart, right with God. Those sins of ours which we have never
confessed or noticed, which have slipped away with the hours, and have
gone as a dream are recorded in the book of God. And in the day when
unforgiven sinners with awakened consciences shall be made to hear that
book read out before an assembled universe, woe unto them, woe unto
them, that they refused to be obedient to the Lord!

No doubt, sins of omission are also multiplied through indolence. Some
men have not enough force of character in them to be downright
wicked–they are mere chips in the porridge with nothing of manhood in
them. They are so idle that they are not even good enough to be
diligent servants of Satan. There are some who would, if they could, I
think, lie in bed and rot of slothfulness, to whom it would be their
most supreme bliss to have nothing to do forever, and nothing to think
of except maybe a little eating and drinking by way of variety. Because
this indolence abounds, many men sleep on and awake not to
righteousness and to the service of God.

For them to repent is troublesome. To believe in Jesus Christ requires
the exercise of thought. To be a Christian is too laborious. To watch
their conduct and conversation is too much to require of them. If
Heaven could be reached in a sound sleep, and sleeping cars could be
run all the way to the Celestial City they would be among the best of
pilgrims! But they cannot rub their eyes even to see Jesus, or leave
their couch to win Heaven itself! How these simpletons will wake up one
day when they find that their life of trifling has brought them within
the fast closed gates of Hell! God is not to be trifled with! He does
not make immortal beings that they may sport like butterflies from
flower to flower. He does not create souls and give them lives to spend
in child's play, fashionable frivolities, and killing of time!

Yet in the face of eternity, life, death, Heaven and Hell, multitudes
upon multitudes are ruined simply because they neglect the great
salvation and are absolutely too idle to concern themselves about
eternal matters. They doze into damnation! They sleep into eternal
fire! But what a waking! O my fellow Men, run not the risk, run not the
risk! Ignorance, too, is a more excusable and, perhaps, less fruitful
cause of sins of omission, but still a prominent one. Some men neglect
to serve God because they do not know His Word, His mind or His Gospel.
But with many the ignorance is willful.

In every land the subject is supposed to know the law–and though our
magistrates very rightly are often lenient to prisoners who commit the
first offense against a new law, yet such leniency lasts only for a
case or two. And if, after the law has been made for years, a prisoner
pleaded that he did not know a law, he would be told that he ought to
have known it. Especially is this the case with us who have the Law
here in the Bible, and who have it moreover written upon our
consciences, so that when we sin we sin not as the heathen do, but sin
against light and knowledge.

If a man sins through ignorance, he is so far excusable as the
ignorance is excusable, but no further. And, in this country, an
ignorance of Christ, an ignorance of Gospel duties, an ignorance of the
Law of God is without excuse, since in almost every street Jesus Christ
is preached, and the Word of God is within every man's reach! If he is
but willing and desirous to know the mind of God, he may soon discover
it. Yet, I doubt not, ignorance in many, many cases–willing, witting
ignorance–does cause many sins of omission.

Sins of omission, again, are very plentiful because men excuse
themselves so readily about them by the pretense of a more convenient
season. "I have not repented," says one, "but then I mean to do so. I
have not believed, but I shall do so before long. It is true I
neglected prayer today, but then I intend, by-and-by, to give myself to
supplication." So that men imagine that God is to be served by them at
their own times and seasons! God is to wait until it pleases them to do
His bidding! And when they have a more convenient season, then will
they hearken to His Word and to His Spirit! Ah, but, Sirs, the excuse
of some future improvement is pitiful–it holds no water–for we are
always bound to serve God at once, and the postponement of service is
the perpetuation of rebellion.

Many neglectors of God's will excuse themselves by the prevalence of
the like conduct. To omit to love and serve the Lord is the custom of
the majority. Wherever custom endorses a good thing, then it becomes
unfashionable as well as sinful to break through the rule–and there
are thousands of people who would sooner be wicked than be
unfashionable! But when a right thing is not commonly observed in
society, men straightaway begin to think that it is not necessary, and
so they leave it undone. As if a prisoner brought before the bench
should say, "It is true I am a thief, but then all the people in the
court where I live are thieves, too! Therefore I ought not to be
punished. It is true, Sir, that I could not keep my hands from picking
and stealing, but then none of my family ever could. They were brought
up to it, and you would not have a man forsake the customs of his
father and mother–my father and mother were professional thieves–
therefore I cannot be blamed for following their example."

But enlightened conscience warns us that custom is no excuse for sin.
To your own Master each one of you will stand or fall! And, Sirs,
however graceless may be the parish in which you live, you have not to
account for the parish, but for yourselves! And however covetous may be
the times in which your lot is cast, you are not accountable for the
times, but for yourselves! I charge you, in the name of God, let not
custom ever be an excuse to your soul for sin, for custom will be no
plea at the bar of God, nor will the multitude of those who are lost be
any alleviation to your pain when you, too, are cast away with them
into outer darkness!

Need I multiply reasons for the commonness of sins of omission? They
grow on every plot of wasteland in our hearts, and their seeds are
carried everywhere–as the down of the thistle–and as many as the seed
of the poppy.

III. I come now, in the third place, to say a few words by way of
setting forth THE SINFULNESS OF SINS OF OMISSION. I wish I had the
power to speak upon this subject as I would, for I long to see broken
hearts among us convinced of their innumerable shortcomings. Broken
hearts are God's sacrifices. There are some among us who complain that
they cannot believe in Jesus because they do not feel their need. I
only wish they might be made to feel their need while, this morning,
they are reminded of what they have left undone.

Now I pray the Holy Spirit to make you feel the guilt of omissions as
they are seen in the following light. Consider, for a moment, what
would be the consequences if God were to omit, for one minute, to
supply you with breath–if the Lord should omit, for a second, to
supply you with life! Suppose the infinite God should omit His
long-suffering mercy for an hour! Suppose He should refuse for an hour
to restrain the axe of judgment–where were you then? Suppose that the
great Preserver of all should make but one day's intermission of
goodness in His dealings with the universe? The sun would not shine.
The air would fail to fill the lungs. Life would forget to be! The
world would cease to exist, and the whole universe would subside into
the nothingness from which it sprang! One moment's forgetfulness on
God's part would be annihilation to all His creatures!

Suppose that Jesus had left an omission in the plan of salvation? If
only one part of our salvation had been left unfinished, then all must
be forever accursed! Then must you put your hands upon your loins, this
morning, and go up and down through this hopeless world in desperate
sorrow, saying one to the other, "There is no hope! Salvation is
unfinished, and consequently unavailable! The Savior omitted one
necessary item and none of us can, therefore, be saved!" If you will
digest these two thoughts, you may, perhaps, taste the blessedness
which lies in neglect of necessary things. Omissions cannot be trivial,
if we only reflect what an influence they would have upon an ordinary
commonwealth if they were perpetrated there as they are in God's
commonwealth.

Think a minute–if one person has a right to omit his duty, another
has, and all have–then the watchman would omit to guard the house; the
policeman would omit to arrest the thief; the judge would omit to
sentence the offender; the sheriff would omit to punish the culprit;
the government would omit to carry out its laws. Then every occupation
would cease and the world die of stagnation. The merchant would omit to
attend to his calling. The farmer would omit to plow his land! Where
would the commonwealth be? The kingdom would be out of joint. The
machine would break down, for no cog of the wheels would act upon its
fellow. How would societies of men exist at all?

And surely, if this is not to be tolerated in a society of men, much
less in that great commonwealth of which God is the King–in which
angels and glorified spirits are the peers, and all creatures citizens!
How can the Lord tolerate that here there should be an omission, and
there an omission, in defiance of His authority? As the Judge of all
the earth, He must bring down His strong right hand upon these
omissions and crush out forever the spirit that would thus revolt
against His will. Think for a minute of how you would judge omissions
towards yourselves. You have said to yourself, "So long as I do not
drink or swear, or curse, or lie, or steal, it is a small matter that I
neglect to be devout towards God."

Now listen. There is your servant–he has never stolen your goods, he
has never set your house on fire, he has never held a pistol to your
ear–and yet you have discharged him. Why? "Why," you say, "because the
fellow neglects everything about the house! I do not find that any
command which I give him is carried out. He must be master or I
must–and if he will not do what I tell him, of what service is he? Let
him go his way." That is how you judge your servant, is it? And is God
to let you neglect His service and yet to suffer you to go unpunished?
Take a soldier in the army. To commit an act of mutiny it is not
necessary for the soldier to fix his bayonet and kill his colonel. When
he is ordered out on guard, he can just stop at home. Or when the
battle rages, he may, if he chooses, just ground his arms, and say,
"No, I am not going out to fight." Who could tolerate such mutiny–how
could it be allowed?

The omission is as vicious as the commission. Your child, the other
day, smarted beneath the rod, and why? He had not lied or pilfered.
There was no direct vicious act–but you had told him to go on an
errand and he had refused to go. And when you told him again and again,
(and remember, God has commanded you a great many more times than you
ever told your child), there he stood in stolid obstinacy and would not
move. And, then, very rightly he was made to feel that such things
could not be permitted in your household.

Now, if in our house we cannot tolerate this from a child, much more
shall the great Father not endure these obstinate omissions from us!
Ah, "But," you say, "I have not omitted towards God to go to Church or
to meeting regularly. I have not omitted the form of singing and
prayer, and so on. All I have omitted is the spiritual matter, I have
not loved Him." And suppose, dear Friends, suppose you have a wife, and
the only thing that she has omitted is that she has omitted to love
you–what do you think of that? Well, the house and domestic
arrangements may show great cleanliness and order, but she is no wife
to you if she has no love for you! The omission of love you feel to be
a fatal one! And so that absence of love to God is such a dreadful
absence, too! It is such a taking away of everything that I only wish
you could feel, you who have not loved Him, how guilty you are!

It may also help us, if we will consider for a moment, what God things
of omissions. Saul was ordered to kill the Amalekites, and not to let
one escape. He saved Agag and the best of the cattle, and for that,
though he had positively done nothing but simply stayed his hand and
refused to do so, the Lord said, "I have put you away from being King
over Israel." Ahab was commanded to kill and slay Benhadad on account
of innumerable cruelties. Benhadad was taken captive, but Ahab treated
him with great leniency–and the result was, "Because you have let this
man go, therefore your life shall be for his life." Non-obedience
ruined Ahab.

Our Lord Jesus Christ was the gentlest of all Men, and yet there was
one miracle which He performed which had a degree of vengeance in
it–and what was that? He stood by a fig tree and saw leaves but no
fruit, and He said, "Henceforth there shall be no fruit on you
forever," as if to show that fruitless things provoked His anger–not
so much brambles which bear their thorns–but fig trees which ought to
bear figs and do not. Remember, too, the parable which we read this
morning in your hearing. The man with the one talent was condemned, if
you remember, and his condemnation was for this–not that he had
squandered his lord's money, but that he had not increased it. So that,
in God's opinion, the not doing of good is sufficient to condemn men
even if they have not committed positive evil.

When the Holy Spirit convicts men of sin, what is the special sin which
He reveals? The sin of adultery? The sin of robbery? No, of an
omission–"Of sin, because they believe not on Me." Omitting to believe
in Jesus is the master sin of which the Holy Spirit convicts the world.
Remember that solemn question of Paul when he asks, "How shall we
escape if we–what? If we swear? If we frequent the tavern? No–"if we
neglect so great a salvation?" The life-long neglect of salvation
involves us in danger from which there is no escape.

V. Much more might be said, but time fails me and therefore let me
remind you very solemnly of what will be THE RESULT AND PUNISHMENT OF
SINS OF OMISSION. Sins of omission will condemn us. Take the parable
with which we closed our reading this morning–the King said to those
on His left hand, "I was hungry and you gave Me no meat. I was thirsty,
and you gave Me no drink." He did not say to them, "You were
frequenters of evil houses. You were common drunkards. You were
dishonest. You were fraudulent bankrupts. You were neglectors of the
Sabbath. You were common profane swearers." No, but He said, "I was
hungry, and you gave Me no meat."

It was the absence of virtue, rather than the presence of vice, which
condemned them. "Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord." "But,
Lord, the man has no vice about him. He has not plunged himself into
the kennel of open iniquity." "Ah, but that suffices not! If there is
not the positive fruits of the Spirit producing in him holiness of
life, he shall not see the Lord." O Sirs, let none of us deceive
ourselves! God will not accept our profession of religion because it
simply keeps us chaste and decorous, and makes us civil to our
neighbors! We must have worked in us, by the Holy Spirit, a
righteousness better than that of the Scribes and Pharisees or we shall
by no means enter into the kingdom of Heaven!

There must be worked in us as a work of Divine Grace–a deep abhorrence
of sin, an earnest clinging to purity, a resolute pursuit of everything
that is peaceful, and lovely, and of good repute–or else let us prate
as we may, we shall have no inheritance in the kingdom of God! I preach
not salvation by works in any sense or degree, or shape, or form, but
salvation by Grace alone! Yet still I hear in my ears the echo of the
Baptist's words, "Now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees:
therefore every tree which brings not forth good fruit is hewn down,
and cast into the fire."

Not only the tree that brings forth bad fruit is burned, but the tree
which is barren and unprofitable is hewn down and cast into the fire!
If we bring not forth the fruits of true saving faith, we may be sure
that such faith is not in our possession! Sins of omission not only
bring condemnation, but if persevered in they effectually shut against
us the possibilities of pardon. I mean that sins of omission against
the Gospel deprive us of Gospel privileges. "He that believes not"–is
there pardon for him? "He that believes not"–is there rescue for him?
No! He "is condemned already, because he has not believed on the Son of
God."

He that repents not–will Divine Grace reach him? Will the mercy of God
blot out sins that are unrepented of? No, not so! As long as we cling
to sin, sin will cling to us as the leprosy did to the house of Gehazi.
God forgives all sins through Jesus Christ and He is willing to forgive
the vilest of us if we come to Him trusting alone in Jesus. But if we
have no faith in Jesus Christ it is not possible for us to receive from
the Lord the forgiveness of sins which He promises only to those who
believe in Jesus! In the marriage feast of which we read in the
Gospels, there were many who would not come and they perished because
they would not come. They are not charged with having actually
committed anything wrong–but they perished for not coming.

There was one who came to the feast but he had not on a wedding
garment. I do not read that he had put on rags, or had decorated
himself with anything offensive to the master of the house–but he had
failed to put on the wedding garment–that was the deadly sin. And what
was the sentence? "Bind him hand and foot, and deliver him to the
tormentors." So I could not charge some of you, today, with anything
outwardly contrary to morality, but, O Sirs, if you have not–mark
this–if you have not put on the righteousness of Jesus Christ by a
living faith in Him, the tormentors must have you at the last!

O that this Truth of God might sink into your ears and into your
hearts! There is pardon for all omission to be found in the flowing
wounds of Jesus! There is life in a LOOK at Him! Over the heads of
these multiplied shortcomings, God's mercy will come to Believers. But,
oh, remain not in your unbelief! May the Holy Spirit, by His own mighty
power give you Grace now to repent and to believe–and yours shall be
the salvation–and God's the glory, world without end! Amen.
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The Head of the Church

A Sermon