Sorrow and Sorrow
(No. 2691)
INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 1900.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, JULY
31, 1881.
"For godly sorrow works repentaance to salivation not to be repented
of: but the sorrow of the world works death." 2 Corinthians 7:10.
MANY years ago and, indeed, in some measure to a later date, preachers
of the Word seemed mainly to dwell upon the inner experience of men.
They both preached sermons and wrote books in which they set forth the
condition of convinced sinners, describing what they usually felt
before they found peace with God. They were very strict in their search
for the genuine tokens of true repentance and the internal evidences of
regeneration. They preached continually upon the work of the Spirit of
God in convincing sinners of their lost condition, but they were not
accustomed to say to them so baldly and so boldly as we do now,
"Believe, and live." And the consequence was that a large number of
truly awakened persons were kept in bondage and did not come into the
liberty wherewith Christ makes Believers free–at least, not so soon as
they do nowadays. I believe that under God's blessing, those
experimental preachers were the means of producing very sturdy
Christians. They did a great deal of deep plowing with a very sharp
plowshare before they began to sow the good Seed of the Kingdom of God.
They took care to use the pointed needle of the Law of God to make a
way for the silken thread of the Gospel, so that what they did sew was
well sewn–and the garments which they made did not tear quite so
easily as much of the spiritual raiment does which is made in these
days of more showy, but less substantial, labor.
Still, there was this defect about that style of preaching–it led men
to look too much within instead of looking away from self to Christ. No
matter how faithfully they proclaimed the Grace of God, they preached
some sort of preparation for the reception of that Grace and,
therefore, sinners often looked to themselves to see whether they had
that preparation rather than to the Grace of God which it was most
desirable that they should seek. I believe you may say so much about
the disease of sin, that instead of leading the sinner in despair to
turn his gaze to Christ, as the bitten Israelites looked to the brazen
serpent as the only remedy–you may merely make him sit down and study
the disease–and look, and look, and look again for the various
symptoms you have described. And though he will be well acquainted with
the disease, he will not, in that way, find a cure for it. You may dive
as far as you like into the sea, but you will not find any fire there.
You may rake as long as you please in the burning fiery furnace, but
you will never reach any cooling blocks of ice. You may hunt, for many
a day, in the human heart's natural death, but you will not there
discover any signs of life. And, within the morgue of man's corruption,
you shall never be able to discern any remedy for a sin-sick soul. It
was in that particular that the experimental preaching lacked an
important element.
But now, times have changed and many of us who are ministers of the
Gospel, do very plainly proclaim to sinners the message, "Believe, and
live." This plain declaration rings out from almost every part of our
land–not yet quite in every place–I would that it were so–but still,
there is a large company of Evangelical preachers continually repeating
the Apostolic message, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall
be saved." I am sure that much good must result from this proclamation
of the Truth of God, for this is God's ordained way of blessing the
souls of men. And yet–and yet–I sometimes fear lest there should be
all sowing and no plowing–lest there should be the preaching only of
the remedy, with almost an entire ignoring of the disease–and lest the
message, "Believe, and live," should take the place of that other great
Truth of God, "You must be born again."
It will never do for men to be led to think that they are healed before
they know that they are sick unto death, or to imagine that they are
clothed before they see themselves to be naked, or to be taught to
trust Christ before they are aware that they have anything for which
they have need to trust Him! It would be a happy circumstance if, in
our preaching, we could have a blending of these two elements so that
we could have somewhat of our forefathers' deep experimental teaching
and, with it, and growing out of it a plain, unfettered delivery of the
Gospel declaration, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be
saved."
"How are the two things to be reconciled?" someone asks. My dear
Brother, I have long ago given up trying to reconcile friends who never
fell out. These two Truths of God are both taught in Scripture and,
therefore, they cannot be at variance with one another. You would be as
much puzzled to prove where they differ as I would be to show that they
agree. I am confident that they do agree because I find them both in
the Book. Therefore, let them both be preached. Somehow, we are
constantly coming across Truths that lie side by side, like the metals
on which the railway carriages run. If we only preach one of them, it
will be like trying to run the train on a single rail. You know that
there are often two Truths, if not three, closely connected with one
another. I am frequently led to see that there is a trinity of Truths
as there is a Trinity in the Godhead–and if they are all preached, in
due proportion, they will balance one another and prevent any one Truth
of God from being too prominent. Luther, with his free justification by
faith, is apt to go too far unless there shall come in Calvin and
Zwingli, with their balancing Truths, to set him right. Even Paul's
Inspired Words might have been the means of leading some men astray
unless James had also been inspired to write on the practical side of
the Truth of God so that Paul's meaning could be the better understood.
There is nothing wrong in the teaching of either Paul or James–they
are both right–the two together bring out both aspects of Truth.
I am going to preach tonight about sorrow for sin. I hope it has not
yet quite gone out of the world. I trust that sorrowful penitence still
exist, though I have not heard much about it lately. People seem to
jump into faith very quickly nowadays. I do not disapprove of that
happy leap, but still, I hope my old friend, Repentance, is not dead! I
am desperately in love with repentance–it seems to me to be the twin
sister to faith. I do not, myself, understand much about dry-eyed
faith–I know that I came to Christ by the way of Weeping-Cross. I did
not come to shelter beneath His blood immediately when I heard of it,
as I now wish that I had done, but when I did come to Calvary, by
faith, it was with great weeping and supplication, confessing my
transgressions and desiring to find salvation in Jesus, and in Jesus
only.
Now, concerning this sorrow for sin, I want, first, to remove certain
erroneous ideas with regard to it Secondly, to distinguish between the
two sorrows mentioned in the text–the godly sorrow which works
repentance to salvation, and the sorrow of the world which works death.
And then, thirdly, we will indulge ourselves in sorrow for sin. We will
finish up with some happy sorrow, that blessed, godly sorrow which is
never to be repented of or regretted!
I. First, then, I want to try to REMOVE CERTAIN ERRONEOUS IDEAS WITH
REGARD TO SORROW FOR
SIN.
Some persons seem to think that mere sorrow of mind in reference to sin
is repentance, but it is not. Read the text, and you will at once see
that it is not. "Godly sorrow works repentance." Therefore, it is not,
itself, repentance. It is an agent employed in producingrepentance, but
it is not, itself, repentance. There is, in the world, a great deal of
sorrow on account of sin which is certainly not repentance and never
leads to it. Some transgressors are sorry for sin for a time– they are
convicted of guilt with a transitory conviction which soon passes away.
Many are sorry for sin because of its temporal consequences–and many
more because of its eternal consequences. They are afraid of Hell. If
there were no Hell, they would like to continue to live in sin. They
would be delighted if it could be proved that there is no God. Nothing
would please them better than to have the Law of the Lord and all its
penal consequences abolished. They are as fond of sin as ever they
were, but they sorrow because they see that it is bringing them down to
the gulf of Perdition. Now, that kind of sorrow is not repentance! A
moth may burn its wings in the candle and then, full of pain, fly back
to the flame. There is no repentance in the moth, though there is
pain–and so, there is no repentance in some men, though there is in
them a measure of sorrow on account of their sin. Do not, therefore,
make a mistake in this matter, and think that sorrow for sin is, or
even necessarily leadsto, repentance.
Next, do not fall into the other mistake, and imagine that there can be
such a thing as repentance without sorrow for sin, for there can never
be such a thing! I heard a person say, and, as I thought, say very
flippantly, that it was a great thing to know the Greek language
because, in that way, you found out that repentance "simply meant a
change of
mind." The Brother who said that did not appear to me to know much
about the English language, and I was quite certain that he did not
know alpha from beta i n the Greek language–but that is what he said,
"it simply meant a change of mind." Ah, it doesmean a change of mind,
but what a change of mind! In my opinion, such a translation of the
Greek as that would not imply that repentance was anything less than it
is commonly understood to be, but a far greater thing. It is an entire
and total change of mind, a turning of the mind right round, so that it
hates what once it loved and loves what once it hated–it forms
different judgments from what it always did before–and no longer puts
bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter, darkness for light and light
for darkness. It judges righteous judgment, for the change of mind is
thorough and complete! And therefore I say that there is no repentance
that is worth anything which is not accompanied by sorrow for sin.
Just think for a moment. Here is a man who says, "I repent." But are
you really sorry that you sinned? "No," he replies. Then, my dear Sir,
you cannot have truly repented, for a man who has not got so far as
repentance is often sorry for having done wrong. When a man is
convinced that he has transgressed against God, he ought to be
sorry–and if you tell me that there can be such a thing as spiritual
repentance and yet no sorrow for having broken the Law of God, I tell
you that you do not know what you are talking about! The thing is
clearly, on the very face of it, impossible! There must be a deep
hatred of the sin that you have committed and even of the thought of
ever committing that sin again. There must be sincere sorrow that you
should have ever transgressed against God and that you should be liable
to transgress again. If there is no such sorrow as that in your heart,
one of the things which are necessary to a genuine repentance is
absent.
I have tried, thus, to correct two mistakes, but there is a third which
I must point out to you. There are some persons who seem to think that
we must reach a certain point of wretchedness or else we are not truly
penitent They imagine that we must grieve up to a certain point of
temperature or we cannot be saved. And they watch the convicted sinner
to see when he gets near to what they consider to be a sufficient
measure of brokenness of heart. But there are different methods of
measuring this state of the spirit. I believe that some of our
Hyper-Calvinistic brethren rigidly apply a very long measure, indeed,
to all cases of this kind. I remember that one young friend, before
whom I had set the Gospel very simply, said to me, "But is that all I
have to do? Have I only to believe in Christ in order that I may be
saved? Why, my father was six months in trouble of soul before he could
find the Savior. And part of the time he was so bad that he had to be
put in a lunatic asylum." Yes, that is the kind of notion some people
have–that there is a certain amount of alarm, distress, apprehension
and fear which a man has to feelbefore he is up to the mark in this
respect. But there is nothingat all in the Word of God to support that
idea!
I will not waste time by dwelling upon it because it is altogether a
baseless supposition. We admit that many who come to Christ have passed
through very great terror and agony before doing so, but a large part
of their suffering was the work of the devil–not the work of the
Spirit of God at all! A great part of it might have been spared if they
had not been so ignorant. And a still larger part of it they might
never have suffered if they had heard the Gospel preached with greater
simplicity and had not been muddled and handled so roughly by some who
put their own experience into the place of the Savior! After all, we
are not saved by any feelings or alarms that we may have. The source of
eternal life is yonder, on that Cross, and he who looks there, be he
who he may or what he may, shall find salvation in the glance that
spies out the wounded God! Not our wounds, but His wounds–not our
griefs, but His griefs–not our tears, but His blood saves us! Away,
therefore, forever, with the notion that there is a certain point of
grief that has to be reached to qualify us for coming to the Savior!
Then, again, there is another mistake made by many–that this sorrow
for sin only happens once–as a sort of squall, or a hurricane, or
thunderstorm that breaks over a man once, and then he is converted and
he talks about that experience all the rest of his life, but he has
nothing more to do with it. Why, dear Friends, there is nothing more
erroneous than that! For myself, I freely confess that I have a very
much greater sorrow for sin, today, than I had when I came to the
Savior more than 30 years ago. I hate sin much more intensely, now,
than I did when I was under conviction. I am sure I do. There are some
things that I did not know to be sin, then, that I do know to be sin,
now, and therefore I strive to be rid of them. I have a much keener
sense of the vileness of my own heart, now, than I had when first I
came to Christ, and I think that many other Believers here will say
that it is the same with them. Sorrow for sin is a perpetual rain–a
sweet, soft shower which, to a truly gracious man, lasts all his life!
He is always sorrowful that he has sinned. He is con-
tinually grieved that there should still be any sin remaining in him
and he will never leave off grieving till all that sin has gone.
I could almost wish that in Heaven, itself, the Lord would let me mourn
that I ever sinned. Good old Rowland Hill used to say that the only
thing about Heaven that he did not quite like was that he should leave
off repenting there. He supposed that no tear of sorrow for sin could
be ever allowed to fall there. It is a sweet thing to be sorrowful for
sin, to be sorrowful for impurity, to be sorrowful for anything that
made Jesus sorrow–it is not a thing that happens once and then is done
with–the godly sorrow of a Believer lasts throughout his life.
I want to also correct another mistake, namely, that sorrow for sin is
a miserable feeling. The moment the word, "sorrow," is mentioned, many
people suppose that it must necessarily be grief of a bitter kind. Ah,
but there is a sweet sorrow, a healthysorrow. In honey, there is a
sweetness that cloys after awhile. We may eat too much of it and make
ourselves ill. But in repentance there is a bitter sweetness, or a
sweet bitterness–which shall I call it?–of which, the more you have,
the better it is for you! I can truly say that I hardly know a sweeter
joy than to lay my head in my Heavenly Father's bosom and say, "Father,
I have sinned, but You have forgiven me and, oh, I do love You!" It is
such bliss, whenever you are troubled in heart, to go to God, again,
just as you went to Him at the first, as a poor sinner and to say,
"Lord, I mourn to think that I should have been what I have been–that
I should have fallen so far short even of my own ideal of what I meant
to have been. But I know that You love me and the more sure I am of the
fact, and the more glad I am because of it, the more grieved I am to
think that I do not live as such love as Yours deserves that I should
live."
What have you been doing that is wrong, Brother, Sister? Are the
consolations of God small with you? Is there any secret sin that is
keeping you sad and sorrowful? Shall I help you find out the source of
the evil? Have you been neglecting the reading of the Word? Have you
been lax in private prayer of late? Have you been getting covetous? As
you have grown richer, have you grown tighter in the fist? Have you
been getting more worldly? Do you speak less about Christ than you used
to and more about vanity? Have you been mixing with bad company? Have
you been entangled by a so-called friend who is no help to you, but who
really hinders you greatly in spiritual things? Have you been forming
some associations that you know Christ does not approve of? Have you
been letting things go a little amiss in your business– only a little
amiss? Still, you know that things are not straight and that you could
not face a thorough examination of your affairs. Have you fallen out
with your brother and can you not forgive him? Have you had a quarrel,
you two sisters, and will you not love each other? Yet you call
yourselves Christians!
So I might go on to mention 50 other things and any one of those things
would be quite sufficient to take from you the joy of the Lord and to
bring you into a lean state, spiritually. You know that you were once
like the land of Egypt during her seven years of plenty, when all went
well with you. I pray God that you may not have seven years of famine,
as they had in Egypt, for it is amazing how the lean cows will eat up
the fat cows, and yet never be any the fatter themselves. One would
have thought that if the seven lean beasts ate up the seven fat ones,
they would get fat, themselves–but they did not! And you may have a
sad time of declension that will eat up all your years of zeal and holy
joy, yet those years may not be one whit the better because of the
strange feast!
Come, Brother! Come, Sister! You and I cannot afford to live at a
distance from Christ! We cannot afford to live in a state of misery. A
Christian who is not glad–why, what sort of a Christian is he? I
cannot bear to see religion served up with vinegar. No, Brothers and
Sisters, it ought to be sweet in itself–so sweet that if you poured a
bottle of vinegar in it, you would not make it sour! A Christian ought
to be a happy person. He is not true to his colors–he is not true to
his Master–he is not true to himself–unless he is happy! Let us have
a good drink of the "wines on the less, well refined," till we forget
our misery and remember it no more in the ecstatic joy and intense
delight which the love of Christ and communion with God shall give us
again! If you have backslidden, come back this very hour! Confess your
sin in backsliding from God, and Christ will soon give you back your
old joy and gladness.
It does not spoil your happiness, my Brother or Sister, to confess your
sin. The unhappiness is in notmaking the confession. If you are a child
and you have done something wrong towards your father, you are unhappy
as long as you try to conceal it. You old folks can remember that when
you were boys at home and you had been doing wrong, you sometimes said,
"I shall not acknowledge it." But all the while that you hardened
yourself, you were miserable–you know that you were! You missed your
father's good-night kiss and your mother's smile. And although, as long
as you stubbornly held out, you thought yourself very brave, yet you
were very miserable. But did you not also know what it was,
afterwards, to go and say, "Father," or, "Mother, I was very wrong to
do what I did and I am truly sorry"? Then, as you received the kiss of
full forgiveness, I do not suppose you ever felt more happy than that
in all your life! That is the way for God's child always to do.
Whenever you have done wrong, go at once to your Heavenly Father with
godly sorrow for that sin–and get the sweet kiss of His forgiving love
all over again! That is not wretchedness, it is happiness of the
highest kind! It is the safest and surest way to maintain communion
with God that I know of–unless, indeed, it is true, as some of our
friends say, that they live without sinning altogether–about which I
will say no more just now.
There are some who also erroneously think that sorrow for sin must be
mixed with unbelief They suppose that if a man is sorrowful for sin, he
must be afraid that he will be lost, he must fear that his sin can
never be forgiven him. Permit me, however, to explain that no such
black cloud as that need follow upon the heels of our repentance! The
best sorrow for sin is that which never doubts Christ's ability to wash
it out–that cries out in grief for having sinned–and yet says, "Wash
me, and I shall be whiter than snow." It is not right, on the part of
your child, if he comes and says, "Father, I have done wrong and I do
not believe you will ever forgive me." Why, he is wrong all over, then,
is he not? You can see the evil that is in his heart boiling over in
such talk as that! But there is no need for it to be so with you, my
Brother or Sister! Rather say, "My Father, I have sinned, and I mourn
that I have done so, but, at the same time, I not only know that You
will forgive, but I know that You have already forgiven me for Christ's
sake. I have laid my hands upon the head of the great Sacrifice and
Substitute and I know that, ere I was born, in His own Person, He
carried my sin away, even as of old the scapegoat carried the sin of
Israel into the wilderness, and it is gone forever, for You have said,
'The iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none;
and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found.' Lord, I trust to
the substitutionary Sacrifice offered by Your dear Son, and I feel at
perfect peace with You. And, for that very reason, I hate sin more than
I ever did, and I grieve more than I ever did in my life, to think I
should ever have been guilty
of it."
Thus have I tried to remove a few erroneous ideas out of the way. Yet I
fear that they will continue to deceive many as long as the world
stands.
II. Now, secondly, I want to help you to DISTINGUISH BETWEEN THE TWO
SORROWS MENTIONED IN THE TEXT. First, there is a godly sorrow which,
"works repentance to salvation not to be repented of." If you have
marginal notes in your Bibles, you will see that in the preceding
verse, where we read, "you were made sorry after a godly manner," in
the margin it reads, "you were made sorry according to God." And that
rendering lets a great deal of light into the meaning of our
text–"sorrow according to God."
Now, mark, the true sorrow which we ought to have and which saves men
instrumentally, is sorrow on account of sin because it is sin against
God. That is the very pith of godly sorrow, as penitent David cried,
"Against You, You only, have I sinned and done this evil in Your
sight." And as the prodigal said, "Father, I have sinned against
Heaven, and in your sight." O my dear Hearers, ask yourselves whether
you have sorrowed for sin because it is sin against God–for any
hypocrite is sorry for sin which injures himself, or which may damage
his reputation among men–but the essential thing is to be sorry
because the evil is a wrong done to God. You know that men do not
generally trouble much about wrong done to God. A crime is usually a
wrong done to man, so we think it is a horrible thing. But a sin,
inasmuch as it is against God, many people do not care at all about
that.
If I were to personally address any man or woman in this place, and
say, "You are a sinner," each one would reply, "Yes, that is true." But
if I were to say to a man, "You are a criminal," he would be ready to
knock me down! So, you see, a criminal is one who offends against men
and that is, in our view, a very horrible thing. But a sinner being
only one who offends against God–that is not, according to most
people's notion, anything in particular–so they do not care much about
it. Oh, but when a man is really awakened, he sees that the wickedness
of the offense is that it is an offense against God! That is the worst
part of the offense, as he rightly judges, and he therefore sorrows
over it. This is a sorrow which is to be cultivated by us–the mourning
over sin because it is committed against God.
Then, notice, that it is also a sorrow which is associated with a
believing faith, for a godly sorrow must be one that makes the heart
that feels it yield itself to Christ. Yielding itself to Christ, it
must believe in Christ, for, if I do not believe in Christ, it is
certain that I have not yielded myself to Him. Therefore, the only
sorrow for sin that is worth having is that which brings me to yield
myself up to the Lord Jesus Christ and to accept God's mercy in God's
own way. If you have any sort of sorrow for sin which does not lead you
to believe in Christ, away with it! Away with it! A repentance
that does not repent at the Cross is a repentance which will have to be
repented of–true sorrow for sin must be blended with a childlike
submission to God and consequent confidence in Christ–otherwise it is
not "godly sorrow."
"Godly sorrow" is, next, known by its leading to repentance. It "works
repentance"–"a change of mind" about everything and especially about
sin. A man is so sorry for having done wrong that he now thinks
differently of all wrongdoing. He thinks differently of his entire life
and his mind is made up, God helping him, to live just the opposite way
to that in which he has formerly lived. When sorrow for sin leads to
that result, we may be quite sure that it is the work of the Spirit of
God and that it is acceptable in His sight.
It also leads on to deliverance from sin, for the text says, "Godly
sorrow works repentance to salvation." Now, what is salvation? Some
people think that it means being saved from going down to Hell. That is
the resultof salvation, but salvation means being saved from the power
of sin and being saved from the tendency to sin, as well as being saved
from the punishment of sin. That is a blessed sorrow which leads us to
such a change of mind that the bonds of sin are snapped and we become
free men in Christ Jesus, saved in the Lord with an everlasting
salvation from the bondage and the power of sin and Satan!
That is the kind of sorrow to cultivate, for it leads to perpetual
perseverance in the ways of God. Notice that the text says it is a
salvation not to be repented of, or, if you like, a repentance not to
be repented of. I have known men repent after a fashion, and they have
been very sorry for it afterwards. I knew a wild sort of fellow who was
brought to his knees at the penitent-form and he did cry away at a fine
rate–but you could never get him inside that place again. He was
always ashamed of himself, for it was a repentance that needed to be
repented of, and he did repent of it. There is many a dog that gets
back to his vomit as soon as he can, and there is many a sow that is
sorry for being washed, and glad enough to get back to wallow in the
mire. But that is not the kind of change that the Apostle mentions
here. True godly sorrow is that which leads to repentance never to be
repented of, for the man says, "No, I left my sin, and if I wanted to
go back to it, I have plenty of opportunity to do so. But I cannot go
back to it, I hate it. There," he says, "I have been tempted over and
over again and my feet had well-nigh slipped, but the eternal life
within me, kept there by the Spirit of God, has driven me back to
Christ! I could not do this great wickedness and sin against God. I
have already smarted too much to put my hand again into the fire. I
grieved my God too much and brought too much grief upon my own heart,
for me to play the fool, again, and once more to go into the purlieus
of iniquity."
Happy is that man who has had enough of the smart of sin to make it
sour and bitter to him all the rest of his days, so that now, with
changed heart and renewed spirit, he perseveres in the ways of God,
never thinking of going back, but resolved "through floods or flames"
to force his way to Heaven, to be, by Divine Grace, master over every
sin that assails him! That is the kind of sorrow which I pray that God
may work in everyone here who has never yet felt it.
III. Now, to close, let us pray God the Holy Spirit to enable us to
INDULGE OURSELVES IN GODLY SORROW FOR SIN.
I will not say anything about the sorrow of the world that works death,
but leave that sad subject in order that we may devote this little
space that remains to the enjoyment of godly sorrow for sin.
Remember, Beloved, that it is now all forgiven. Our sin is all gone. It
will never be mentioned against us anymore forever! The depths of the
ocean of oblivion have covered the Egyptians of our sins, there is not
one of them left. Therefore, "sing you to the Lord, for He has
triumphed gloriously." The Red Sea waves of the Redeemer's blood have
rolled over all our sins and they sank to the bottom like a stone. "As
far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our
transgressions from us." That is, they are removed to an infinite
distance from which they can never be brought back! They are gone–they
are all gone, and gone forever!
And now, Beloved, let us ask ourselves–how could we have sinned
against such a forgiving God? If we had known how readily He would
forgive us, surely we could not have offended Him as we have done. Such
a God as He is–was there ever any like He? Well might the Prophet
Micah exclaim, "Who is a God like unto You, that pardons iniquity and
passes by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage?" O God, how
could I ever have offended You? Having done so, how could I continue to
rebel against You all those long years? How could I resist the
yearnings of Your love and the entreaties of Your Spirit? Oh, why did I
linger so long before coming back to such a Father, who clasped me to
his heart and kissed away all my transgressions, and said, "Bring forth
the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes
on his feet." Burst forth into tears, O eyes that have so long been
dry! O hearts that have been like the
rock in the desert, let the sweet love of God strike you, like the rod
of Moses, and let the waters leap forth! The thought that we have
sinned against such a God may well cause us godly sorrow.
And, then, we should further sorrow as we remember that our pardon has
come to us through Jesus Christ Yet it was against Him that we
sinned–against Him who, for our sakes, left the Throne and royalties
of Heaven, and was born a Babe at Bethlehem–against Him who sat weary
on the well at Sychar and said, "Give Me to drink," yet to whom we
refused to give the water of our heart's love. Think, Brothers and
Sisters, that you and I have sinned against Him who said, "Foxes have
holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has not
where to lay His head." We have sinned against Him who never did us any
wrong, never did us an ill turn, or said a hard word to us, but who,
blessed be His infinite love, went up to the Cross for us and gave His
hands to the cruel nails, and His whole body to death, that He might
redeem us from our sins, and save us forever. O Jesus, my Savior,
against You have I offended! O strong Son of God, Incarnate Deity,
whom, though we have not seen, we do by faith unceasingly adore, it is
against You we have offended! We have sinned against Him to whom we are
married forever–against Him who is bone of our bone, and flesh of our
flesh–against Him, the kisses of whose mouth are sweeter than honey or
the honeycomb. O my Heart, you might well break, though you were made
of cast steel, to think that you have rebelled against Him who is all
goodness and all love to you!
I tell you, dear Friends, one thing that always makes me grieve to
think that I have sinned, is my election. Oh, when I first knew that
God had chosen me to be His from before the foundation of the world, I
could not make out how I could have been so mad as to have lived
without Him–to have lived in opposition to Him. And then, when I found
that Christ had engraved me, even me, upon the palms of His hands, and
written my name upon His heart, then I smote upon my breast and said,
"Woe is me that I, a man so much loved, should, nevertheless, have been
such a transgressor and have sinned so grievously against my God!"
Come, Brothers and Sisters, plunge with me into this pool of holy
sorrow! Well you may, for think how some of you have been favored by
Sovereign Grace! Think how God called you out of the depths of sin–how
long and how patiently He bore with you! Some of you were converted
when you were 60 or 70 years old–can you ever love Him enough, and can
you ever grieve enough because you lived so long in sin? And you who
were converted when you were but boys and girls–can you ever bless Him
enough for calling you so early? Can you ever blame yourself enough for
not loving Him more, and not serving Him better? As for me, I am the
worst and the lowest among you all because I owe more to God's Grace
than anyone else in this place. To have this sweet privilege of talking
about His love, why, I would not change places with Gabriel, himself,
for he, at any rate, has never had the privilege of telling such a
story of redeeming Grace and dying love as I have to tell! Yet I am
ashamed of myself for speaking so coldly and so feebly concerning my
blessed Savior. I could almost flee from my pulpit because I cannot
speak better of Him and move your hearts more earnestly to hate your
sin.
But so it is–the more mercy we have received, the more sorrow for sin
should we feel. The more love, the more delight and rapture we have
experienced, the more lamentation should we make that we should ever
have sinned, and that we should be so prone to sin again even after we
have been forgiven! I often have to cry, "O wretched man that I am! Who
shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Some people tell me that
Paul wrote that lament before he was converted, or when he was just
converted, and they talk about rising above all such experiences as
that. But I find that the nearer I get to God, the more is my
experience just like that of the Apostle when he wrote those words. And
whereas I only knew that I had so much sin when I had a clear view of
God and a strong sense of being His, yet it is then that I have learned
how terrible it is that there should still be the possibility of sin
hanging about me, and I have cried, "Oh, that I were delivered from
this body of death that still drags me down to the dust!"
I am sure it will be the same with you, Beloved. The more your joy in
the Lord and the nearer you come to perfection, the deeper will be your
lamentation–the bitterer, yet in some senses the sweeter will be your
sorrow that there should be any sin still remaining within you. I say
again, this is sweet sorrowing–sweet, sweet sorrow and, till you get
to Heaven, I could scarcely wish you any better joy than this–to go
home and creep to the foot of the Cross and lie there, sorrowing over
your sin against such a Savior, yet rejoicing that it is all forgiven–
"He that is down needs fear no fall, He that is low no pride"–
so, as you lie there, look up–
"And view the flowing Of the Savior's precious blood, With Divine
assurance knowing He has made your peace with God."
And then say–
"My sins, my sins, my Savior, Their guilt I never knew"–
"till I knew what they cost You–till I knew Your great love to
me–till I knew my sins were all forgiven! But now they are forgiven,
they torture me with a sweet grief of which I would gladly die."–
"Lord, let me weep for nothing but sin,
And after none but Thee;
And then I would–oh, that I might!
A constant weeper be."
This is joy, rest, patience, bliss–just to lie there and weep, and
wash with tears the feet that came upon that errand of love and mercy
for us! And still look, and love, and long, and weep, and look, and
love, and long, and weep again, and kiss again and again the blessed
feet of Him who has redeemed us unto God by His blood!
The Lord keep us there, dear Friends! Amen. Amen.