The Deep-Seated Character of Sin
A Sermon
(No. 812)
Delivered on Sunday Morning, May 17, 1868, by
C. H. SPURGEON,
at the [22]Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
"The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point
of a diamond: it is engraved upon the tablet of their heart, and
upon the horns of your altars."
Jeremiah 17:1.
IN traveling in the East, inscriptions upon the rocks are often met
with, which have remained almost as sharp and clear as when they were
first cut by the engraver's tool. Some of these owe their indelible
character to the hardness of the rocks upon which they have been
engraved. They must have been written, to use the expressive language
before us, "with a pen of iron," and engraved as "with the point of a
diamond." When such writing had been once achieved, those who had
achieved their purpose might have said with Pilate, "What I have
written I have written," for there it stood, and there it stands.
The Prophet declares that the sin of Judah was as indelibly cut into
their nature as the rock writings in the stone. Their hearts were as
hard as rock and sin was inscribed thereon deeply and plainly–as
though written with some iron instrument. Their spirits were just as
senseless and hardened as stone itself, and their iniquity appeared as
if engraved with the point of a diamond. What was said of Judah, may,
with equal truthfulness be said of the whole human race. Circumstances
here do not alter cases. Put men where you will, whether they belong to
Judah or to the uncircumcised nations, as face in water answers to
face, so the heart of man to man–each man is like his fellow–the
hardness of Judah's heart is repeated in the stubbornness of barbarian
and Roman, Greek and Scythian. It is seen, indeed, in us–to deal with
ourselves is our main business this morning.
I. We shall commence by answering the question, WHAT IS SIN? We are
always hearing about it. It is constantly dunned into our ears by the
preacher. We cannot turn over a page of Holy Writ without meeting with
it. What is sin? How few people have obtained a right idea of sin! How
much smaller is the number who express the idea clearly! If you ask the
Pharisee of old what sin was–"Well," he would say, "it is eating
without washing your hands. It is drinking wine without having first of
all strained out the gnats, for those insects are unclean, and if you
should swallow any of them they will render you defiled."
His repentance dealt with his having touched a Gentile, or having come
on the wind side of a Publican. Many in these days have the same
notion, but with a variation. We have read of a Spanish bandit, who,
when he confessed before his father-confessor, complained that one sin
hung with peculiar weight upon his soul that was of peculiar atrocity.
He had stabbed a man on a Friday, and a few drops of the blood of the
wound had fallen on his lips, by which he had broken the precepts of
"Holy Church," in having tasted animal food on a fast day. The murder
did not seem to arouse in his conscience any feeling of remorse at
all–not one atom–he would have done the same tomorrow. But an
accidental violation of the canons of "Mother Church" excited all his
fears!
I read only last night in the newspaper an account of a visit paid by a
strict high churchman to a little meeting of Plymouth Brethren and I
was amused with the guilt that evidently rested on the writer's
conscience in having been found in such an assembly. He tells us, in
the first place, that he was not quite well enough to sit out the usual
long service in the Church. And in the second place that he had been to
a celebration of the "Eucharist" in the morning, and, therefore, he
thought that for once he might be pardoned for indulging his curiosity.
His mind was, however, evidently burdened with the weight of his
heinous sin.
There are men in England to whom it would be one of the highest crimes
and misdemeanors to worship God with the most holy of His servants so
long as they did not meet within walls which had been superstitiously
consecrated. Singular, indeed, are the ideas which many men have of
transgression! But such is not God's view of sin. Half of those things
which mere ecclesiastics condemn are not sins at all. To break the
commandments of men may be virtuous! To kick against the
conventionalities of a man-made Church may be an evidence of
enlightenment! To refuse homage to a proud hierarchy may be a bounden
duty!
The chains of custom, the fetters of fashion, the manacles of priest
craft are to be scorned by all who claim the right of manhood. To break
them in sunder is no sin. Sin is a want of conformity to the will of
God! Sin is disobedience to God's command! Sin is a forgetfulness of
the obligations of the relation which exist between the creature and
the Creator. This is the very essence of sin. Injustice to my fellow
creature is truly sin, but its essence lies in the fact that it is sin
against God who constituted the relation which I have violated. It is
surprising, when we talk with persons who profess that they have
forsaken their sins, how very seldom they will give you a distinctly
spiritual definition of sin. I believe they understand it in their
hearts, but their understandings come short of the desired point.
Ask them the question, "What sin has most troubled you?" Or, "What in
your sin most distressed you?" You will be amazed at their replies!
Seldom enough will they answer that sin is obnoxious to them because it
is an offense against God–rather they will light on some one offense,
and indicate that as the weight which lies heaviest. One very sincere
young man told me that nothing had previously pricked his conscience
until he upset an oil can in the warehouse where he was working, and in
foolish fear of his master, denied that he had done so.
He felt that he had told a lie and was so overwhelmed with a sense of
his meanness that he felt thoroughly degraded, and was led to search
his heart and to make the discovery of the corruption of his nature. It
did not appear to have occurred to him up till that moment that he had
been living wrongly in living without God, or that he was acting meanly
in his ungrateful neglect of his Maker to whom he owed his hearty
service. Sin, through all those years, only meant to him mean things
towards his fellow mortals! By God's Grace he now knows how ill it is
to rebel against his God.
This last week an esteemed Brother minister was telling me that in
speaking to a man who professed to have been converted, he asked him
which sin remained as a load upon his mind. "Well," said the man, "I
have to see after cows and I have often beaten the cows very badly."
"What do you do now?" "Oh, I coax them instead of beating them." Now, I
have no doubt that in his peculiar calling, cruelty to animals would be
most strikingly laid upon his conscience, but the pastor had to say to
him, "Yes, quite so. But the great sin in your fault is that the cows
are God's creatures, and that He is angry if we treat His creatures
unmercifully."
The guilt lies in all our offenses in our disobedience to the good Lord
who has a claim to be served by us with all our heart, and soul, and
strength. Conscience readily enough tells us we are wrong if we defraud
our fellow men, but if we rob God, how feebly does the moral sense
upbraid us! If we were ungrateful to our parents or friends we should
feel that we had done a grievous wrong–but we confess that we are
ungrateful to God–and yet our shame is not so deep as a true sense of
wrong would produce. If we were disloyal to our country and rebellious
against its laws, we should feel it to be a great crime–but some of us
remain in disloyalty to the King of kings, and in disobedience to the
best Laws that were ever framed–and yet our spiritual treason does not
strike us with horror!
David touched the center of the matter when he said, "Against You, You
only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight." Sin is a lack
of conformity to the will of God. It is a breach either in imagination,
or desire, or word, or action of the Divine Law. It is, to repeat the
words I have used before, a forgetfulness of the true relation which
exists between a creature and the Creator. It is but right that He who
made us should have our service. It is a great and intolerable wrong
that, being created by God, we yet refuse to yield to His will. It is
right that He who is so good to us should have our love–it is sin
that, living upon God's goodness we do not return to Him our heart's
affection.
It is right that, being sustained by Divine beneficence from day to day
we should give to Him constant thankfulness, but, being so sustained,
we do not thank Him–herein lies the very soul of sin. Let it be
remembered that tens of thousands of persons in this so-called
Christian land live in utter neglect of God. If there were no God, it
would not in any way affect the lives of most men–they live precisely
as if there were none. "God is not in all their thoughts." They never
pause over an action, and ask, "Will God be angry with this?" They are
never moved to the performance of virtue by the reflection that God
will approve it.
There is no God to them, though the table is loaded with the bounties
of His Providence. There is to them no God even though the sick chamber
is made to feel the terror of His rod. There is no God to them though
they walk in all the fields of Nature and behold evidences of Deity on
every side–no God though they might see His finger in every event of
their lives. They live like brutes in this respect and alas, many of
them die the same–without God, without hope–earth grubbers buried in
the earth. Multitudes of men who are occasionally stirred with the
thought of God, yet, nevertheless, as often as they can, forget Him.
They cannot quite be without reflections upon the existence of the
Deity and their own relation to Him, but still it is so unpleasant a
thought and so contrary to the general set of their nature that they
shake it off as much as possible, and plunge into the frivolities and
dissipation's of pleasure, or into the stormy seas of care and trouble
in business–into anything so that they may be able to be clear of the
undesirable remembrance of their Maker.
If they hear a peculiarly earnest sermon they resolve to remember their
Creator, but then they have resolved before and they find it as easy to
forget now as then. Sometimes an arrow from the Eternal One sticks in
their loins, and oh, what crafts and arts are practiced to get that
arrow out! How they would, if they could, escape from conviction and
continue light-hearted and frivolous in forgetfulness of their God, His
Law, His justice and the coming Throne before which all the creatures
shall be summoned! Yes, and even when men are compelled to think of
God, yet, for all that, they go on sinning! They think of Him and yet
violate His commands! They acknowledge His Presence and yet do despite
to His love.
Ah, Brothers and Sisters, it is a strange thing! It shows what a
monster, what a diabolical miracle sin is, that God should be around us
all the day long and yet before His very face we should dare to say and
think, and do that which is contrary to His will although a word could
crush us as the moth is crushed! Although His will could sink us into
the profoundest Hell! What words shall denounce the arrogance and
impudence of sin? Who shall sufficiently condemn an evil which defies
Jehovah to His face and hurls defiance at the thundering God?
This it is which makes sin so much sin–that it is not sin against
God's creatures, an indirect thing–but it is high treason against the
Majesty of God Himself. It is a defiance of Him to His face, a stabbing
of the Godhead so far as man can do it, to the very heart. This is sin.
Now, in the light of this Truth of God, pausing just a minute, let me
ask the Believer to humble himself very greatly on account of sin. That
I have not loved my God with all my heart. That I have not trusted Him
with all my confidence. That I have not given Him the glory due unto
His name. That I have not acted as a creature should do, much less as a
new creature is bound to do–that, receiving priceless mercies, I have
made so small a return–let me confess this in dust and ashes and then
bless the name of the Atoner who, by His precious blood, has put even
this away so that it shall not be mentioned against us any more
forever.
Let me invite the unconverted to reflect upon their state in the light
of this Truth. If sin consisted only in dishonesty, in lying, in
swearing, in drunkenness–many of you might plead not guilty–and it
might go well with you. But if the sin which will bring upon you the
punishment of Hell is a neglect of God, a lack of love to Him–then
where are you? You who, with the Pharisee, could say, "Lord, I thank
You that I am not as other men," where are you? Why, this shows you
that your heart may be vile and filthy and you, yourself, may be
condemned while your outward conduct may be very commendable, and all
who know you may be praising you for your consistency!
Let this Truth of God, then, shine right into your souls, and as you
see it to be a Truth and see yourself exposed by it, remember–
"There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel's veins."
Fly to it, and make this the unceasing prayer of your heart, "Lord,
pardon my iniquity, for it is great. Blot it out for Jesus' sake."
II. In the second place, the question, HOW IS THE FIXEDNESS OF SIN
WHICH IS DECLARED IN THE TEXT PROVEN? The Prophet tells us that man's
sinfulness is as much fixed in him as an inscription carved with an
iron pen in granite. How is this fixedness proven? It is proven in two
ways in the text, namely, that it is engraved upon the tablets of their
heart, and secondly, upon the horns of their altar. It clearly proves
how deeply evil is fixed in man, when we reflect that sin is in the
very heart of man.
Man loves sin. Sin is not an accident to man–a ditch into which he
falls because he cannot help it–but sin is the subject of man's
deliberate preference. Man selects evil and rejects good. If a man, for
awhile, falls into a habit and yet that habit yields him no
satisfaction, you may very readily break him of it. But when a man
finds his habit to be pleasant to his nature and even dear to him, you
may rest assured that you are not likely to turn him from it. The
Ethiopian cannot change his skin, nor the leopard his spots. When a sin
becomes intertwisted with the roots of the affections, you cannot
uproot it. When the leprosy eats deep into the heart of humanity, who
can expel it? It becomes, therefore, a hopeless case so far as human
power is concerned. Since sin reigns and rules in man's affections, it
is deeply ingrained, indeed.
My unconverted Hearer, the sin of forgetting God is in your heart, you
know it is. You do not like to think of Him. It is not your desire to
be obedient to Him. Your pleasure lies in quite another direction. You
know very well that when you take up the Bible in the evening and begin
to read it, it is a dreadfully dry book. You have no interest in it.
And when you go to a place of worship you find no pleasure in it. Your
heart does not go after God's praise–you are like the mouse which
crept into the Church and, finding hymn books very dry nibbling, was
glad to get away again. The larder suited her better and so it does
you.
The music hall, the ballroom, and the theater are more to your taste
because there you will not be worried with the things of God. God,
holiness, Heaven, Hell, eternity and the Atonement–why these things
are old and cheerless sounds to you! You have heard them many, many
times but they ring no music into your ears–they rather beat like
muffled drums in a funeral march! As soon expect a stream to flow
uphill as look for a natural heart seeking after God! If it were right
in this place to talk of certain sins, there are many that would blush
and hide their face and say, "I pray that I may never fall into them,"
and yet they close not their ears when the evil is recited, but listen
with evident interest!
When we read police reports and divorce reports, we should be deeply
pained and made to shudder, were it not that our evil heart of unbelief
is hardened towards evil. Everybody knows that the light literature of
the day, which is pretty freely spiced with shameful sin, goes down
readily and second and third editions are called for. Your very decent
and moral people like a precious mouthful of scandal or uncleanness to
give a flavor to their reading. Yes, there is a love of sin in the
heart, a love of everything that is contrary to God! And there is a
forgetfulness, a distaste, even a hatred to thoughts concerning the
great Father of spirits!
Oh, if you loved God you would not live without prayer as some of you
do! If you loved God you would not repeat forms of prayer as some of
you do! If you loved God you would talk to your Father without your
book! My child never reads a book to me when he wants anything, but he
comes with his mouth and his heart ready at once, without any teaching
from his brother, to ask me for what he needs. If you loved God, you
would not live day by day without speaking of Him, without meditating
upon His glorious works, and without seeking after fellowship and
communion with Him! But, inasmuch as you love Him not Who is so worthy
and Who by such gentle ways woos your love, who shall deny that your
lack of love to God is deeply engraved in the very center of your
heart, and cut into your nature, itself?
The second proof the Prophet gives of the fixedness of human sin is
that it was written on the horns of their altars. When people are bad,
at their best they must be very bad, and such were the men of Judah.
They sinned in their very religion. These people sinned by setting up
idols and departing from Jehovah–we sin in quite another way. When you
get the unconverted man to be religious–which is a very easy
thing–what form does the religion take? Frequently he prefers that
which most gratifies his taste, his ears, or his sight. Yes, of course
he does not object to a religion which is produced and assisted by
painted windows, praising machines, elegant tailoring and fine music!
Men's carnal appetites are pleased with these things, and it is
gratifying to human nature to discover that such things may be called
religion. The fact is that there is no more true religion in fine music
than in discord, and no more genuine worship in a cathedral than in a
hovel. Men might as well look at vestments, and windows, and carvings
in the artificers' shops where they are made–and there would be quite
as much devotion as in looking at them in the place where they are
fixed! Others think if their ears are pleased with listening to an
eloquent discourse they are worshipping God. He who can speak well is,
to them, as one who makes a goodly sound on a pleasant instrument.
Their religion is to admire elocution, but there is no religion in
that! There can be no more Divine Grace in listening to an eloquent
minister than in listening to an eloquent parliamentary orator.
If your heart is touched, that is the worship of God! If your heart is
drawn to God, that is the service of God–but if it is the mere ringing
of the words, and the falling of the periods, and the cadence of the
voice that you regard, why, Sirs, you do not worship God, and on the
very horns of your altars are your sins! You are bringing a delight of
your own sensuous faculties and putting that in the place of true faith
and love, and then saying to your soul, "I have pleased God," whereas
you have only pleased yourself. When men become serious in religion,
and look somewhat to the inward, they then defile the Lord's altar by
relying upon their own righteousness. Nothing is more pleasing to human
nature than the attempt to do something by which it may merit salvation
at the hand of God.
God thunders out, "By the works of the Law there shall no flesh living
be justified," and in the teeth of that, millions of men say, "We will
be justified by the works of the Law"! So, coming to God with the
pretense of worshipping Him, they offer Him that which He abhors and
give the lie to Him in all His solemn declarations. If God says that by
the works of the Law no flesh shall be justified, and man declares,
"But I will be so justified," he makes God a liar–whether he knows it
or not his sin has that within it. Man is much like a silkworm–he is a
spinner and weaver by nature. A robe of righteousness is worked out for
him but he will not have it–he will spin for himself–and like the
silkworm, he spins, and spins, and he only spins himself a shroud. All
the righteousness that a sinner can make will only be a shroud in which
to wrap up his soul, his destroyed soul–for God will cast him away who
relies upon the works of the Law.
In other ways men stain the horns of their altars. Some do it by
carelessness. Some of you who come here are filled with vain thoughts.
I thank God that I have not to complain of inattentive audiences, but
still, how often during prayer your hearts are anywhere but at the
Throne of God? And when the sacred song is rising up to the Majesty of
Heaven your lips are moving, but your hearts are not praising God! Ah,
my Friends, if secret things were testified abroad how many times it
would be seen that the horns of your altar have been stained by
irreverence and carelessness! Those lips must be depraved, indeed,
which even in prayer and praise still continue to sin!
The horns of our altars are defiled by hypocrisy. Into our Churches
there will come men who, like Demas and Judas intrude themselves,
uncalled, sitting at the Master's Table. They are baptized into His
name and yet for all that are hollow and rotten, deceivers and
deceived. You may have seen two fencers practicing their art and
noticed how they seem to be seeking each other's death–how they strike
and thrust as though they were earnestly contending for life–but after
the show is over they sit down and shake hands and are good friends.
Often so it is in your prayers and confessions–you will acknowledge
your sins and profess to hate them–and make resolutions against
them–but it is all outward show-fencing, not real fighting! And when
the fencing is over, the soul shakes hands with its old enemy and
returns to its former ways of sin.
Oh, this foul hypocrisy is a staining of the horns of the altar with a
vengeance! But I shall not detain you longer. The fact is clear that
men do this and the inference is also logical that if men love sin in
their hearts, and if even in their religion they still perpetrate sin,
then it must be deeply engraved in them as with the point of a diamond.
III. Thirdly and briefly, WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF THIS? How did sin get
such a firm footing in humanity? How is it that the Evil One has so
stormed the city of Mansoul as to entrench himself in the impregnable
castle of the heart, and bid the black banner float thereon? The answer
is, first, we must never forget the Fall. Certain theologians ignore
the Fall–but for all that it remains the saddest and the second
greatest event in human history. We are fallen. We are none of us today
as God made us. "God made man upright, but he has sought out many
inventions."
Our first parent was the perfect man but he polluted the fountain of
life, and, "Behold," as David said, "we are born in sin and shaped in
iniquity." In sin do our mothers conceive us. The human judgment is out
of balance–it uses false weights and false measures. "It puts darkness
for light and light for darkness." The human will is no longer supple,
as it should be to the Divine will–our neck is naturally as an iron
sinew and will not bow to Jehovah's golden scepter. Our affections,
also, are twisted away from their right bent. Whereas we ought to have
been seeking after Jesus and casting out the tendrils of our affections
towards Him, we cling to anything but the right and climb upon anything
but the true. "The whole head is sick, and the whole heart is faint."
Human nature is like a magnificent temple all in ruins. Where there
ought to be shouts of sacred joy and rising paeans of incessant praise,
you can hear the howling of the dragon and the hooting of the owl.
Magnificence is there, but for all that the ruin is complete. This
accounts for the depth and fixedness of sin in us–that it is a matter
of birth. Original sin, let it be denied and explained away as it may,
remains a great Truth of God and there are problems in human history
which never can be explained without the belief in it. Indeed, every
man is in himself such a problem that if you deny his original
depravity you miss the key to his life–but if you believe that
doctrine you may then understand what manhood is–and you are on the
right track towards getting to find out how manhood can be made better
and holier.
In addition, however, to our natural depravity, there comes in, in the
second place, our habits of sin. Well may sin be deeply engraved in the
man who has for 20, 40, 50, or perhaps 70 years, continued in his
iniquity. Put the wool into the scarlet dye, and if it lie there but a
week the color will be so ingrained in the fabric that you cannot get
it out. But if you keep it there for so many years, how shall you
possibly be able to bleach it? Man has continued in sin, therefore the
Prophet says, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his
spots? If so, then he that is accustomed to do evil may learn to do
well."
Use is second nature. Nature originally is bad, but the use comes in as
a second mischief and makes us doubly inclinable towards evil. You must
remember, in addition to this, that sin is a most clinging and defiling
thing. Who does not know that if a man sins once it is much easier to
sin that way the next time? No, that he is much more inclinable towards
that sin? This is conspicuous in certain sins of the flesh which we all
condemn. Let any person once have given way, and it becomes an awful
struggle–a struggle in which the major part are defeated altogether
when they attempt it–to break loose from their bands of
lasciviousness. I mention that one sin because its power to return upon
us is so conspicuous, but it is an illustration of the same thing in
every other sin.
If you fall into covetousness, you will find it very hard to be
generous. And if you continue to be grinding and grasping, generosity
will become an impossibility. The muscles of the arm, if you never
exert them except in one fashion, will become set so that you cannot
move them–like the Indian Fakir who held his arm aloft so long that he
could not take it down again. Man, continuing in sin, becomes fixed in
its habit. Only the other day we read of a great millionaire in New
York who was once weak enough to resolve to give a beggar a penny. He
had grown old in covetousness and he stopped himself just as he was
about to bestow the gift, saying, "I should like to give you the penny,
but you see I should have to lose the interest of it forever, and I
could not afford that."
Habit grows upon a man. Everybody knows that when he has been making
money, if he indulges the propensity to acquire, it will become a
perfectly tyrannical master ruling his entire being. Therefore the
reason why sin being in the nature, and secondly, coming upon us in the
use and the habit, and thirdly, being in itself a thing which naturally
clings to us and gets a dominance over us, it is written within us as
with the point of a diamond. I may add that the Prince of the power of
the air, the Evil Spirit, takes care, so far as he can, to add to all
this. He chimes in with every suggestion of fallen nature. If we say
"One," he is always ready to say, "Two." If we want a lie to help us in
any of our plans, he will be at our beck and call at once.
He knows when to use the bellows when he sees that the fire is
beginning to burn. He will never let the tinder lie idle for lack of
sparks, nor the ground lie waste for lack of the seeds of thorns and
thistles. He has an aptitude for dealing with human nature for his own
purposes, and so is never far away when a sin is to be produced. When
we begin to fasten a nail, he is ready to drive it home and clinch it,
too, so that the sin of Judah may be written as with an iron pen and
engraved as with the point of a diamond.
Up to now, my dear Brothers and Sisters, I have had to enlarge upon a
very dreary statement. What I have said I feel persuaded is true, but I
feel no satisfaction in speaking it. I have declared what I believe to
be the Truth of God as it is in Jesus, but it is a burden to have to
state these things. Let no man imagine that we are the inventors of
these doleful doctrines. If they are not true, they certainly are among
the most miserable of human conceptions. But if they are true, it is
among the most honest things that man can do to tell people plainly of
them, that they may be prepared against them. But we will not so
finish–we will advance to a more cheering topic.
IV. Our fourth point will be, WHAT IS THE CURE FOR ALL THIS? Sin thus
stamped into us, thus ingrained into our nature–can it ever be
removed? It must be, or we cannot enter Heaven, for there shall by no
means enter within those pearly gates anything that defiles! None but
the perfect can enter into the land of the perfect, where the
thrice-holy God is the center of a perfectly holy company!
We must be cleansed and purified, but how can it be done? It can only
be done by a supernatural process. You cannot do it yourself. The dead
in the grave can sooner raise themselves than you, who are accustomed
to do evil, can learn to do good! Even those who are saved by Divine
Grace will tell you that they can do nothing without the Spirit of God,
much less can you who are dead in sin. If the vessel that is well
rigged and manned cannot move upon the waters without the breath of
Heaven, much less can the unformed timber which lies in the merchant's
yard make itself into a ship and then cross the seas!
If the living Christian needs Divine assistance, much more do you. You
have destroyed yourselves, but your help is not in yourselves. In God
your help is to be found. Your only help–to make short matter of
it–lies in Jesus Christ, the Son of God who became the Son of Man that
He might lift the sons of men up from their natural degradation and
ruin!
How does Jesus Christ, then, take away these deeply-inscribed lines of
sin from human nature? I answer, He does it first in this way–if our
heart is like granite and sin is written on it, Christ's ready method
is to take that heart away! "A new heart also will I give you, and a
right spirit will I put within you."
Has it ever struck you what a wonderful thing it is for God to promise
to give man a new heart? If you get a tree and saw a branch or two off,
you may regret that the branches are gone but a new branch may come.
And though you may grow a new branch on the tree, you could not obtain
a new heart for it. When once the tree gets thoroughly rotten in the
center you must give it up as hopeless–you cannot put new sap into it.
But here God promises by the hand of His Son that He will give us new
hearts–hearts in which there shall be no sin! Hearts which shall have
no tendency towards evil, but which shall be pure hearts–hearts in
every part renewed and filled with Divine love–perfect and right, and
pure and good–a copy of His own heart!
The Lord Jesus Christ has for many now present worked this miracle! He
has given them the new heart and though the old heart is still there,
contending and fighting, yet the new heart will get the victory. We
have now new loves, new hates–the name of God is now the sweetest bell
that ever rings! The thought of God's Law is marrow and fatness to us.
A sense of God's love is like honey dropping from the honeycomb. Now,
the thought of Hell, solemn as it is, does not alarm us! The thought of
Heaven is bright and lustrous, and cheers us in traversing this
wilderness. Now, to muse upon eternity and the fact that we shall see
the Lord forever, face to face, is our daily delight! We are not what
we ought to be, nor what we want to be, but still our leanings and
inclinations are towards better things.
The new heart has its helm turned in an opposite direction from that in
which the old heart was steering. We are sailing under a new flag
now–we have enlisted under a new Prince and by God's Grace we shall
conquer–and we shall enter into the joy of our Lord Jesus Christ! It
is a part of the Covenant of Grace and a part of His Gospel that Jesus
can give to us hearts in which there shall not be this tendency to sin,
and so the deep-seated sinfulness of our nature shall be overcome.
Next to that, inasmuch as the guiltiness of sin is as permanent as sin
itself, Jesus Christ is able to take our guilt away. His dying upon the
Cross is the means by which the filthiest sinner out of Hell can be
made white as the angels of God, and that, too, in a single instant!
You understand the doctrine of the Atonement, but let me sound it in
your ears again. Sin is a thing which God must punish–the eternal laws
of the universe demand that there shall never be an offense committed
against the rules of God which shall escape without a penalty. The
penalty of sin is death and God has never seen fit to mitigate
this–its justice makes it perpetual.
The Lord has been pleased to open a way of mercy by sending His only
begotten Son into this world as our Substitute. He became Man and He
suffered for His people what they ought to have suffered. He endured at
the hand of God what all the redeemed ought to have endured. Now, God,
at this day, never pardons a sin without having first punished
it–punished it on Christ for us. God never punishes the man for whom
Christ died, but all besides must bear their iniquity. If you believe
in Jesus Christ, then Jesus Christ died for you and God cannot put two
to death for one offense, nor can He ask for payment twice for one
debt–you are therefore free. Christ paid the debts of all His people
and obtained their full discharge when He rose again from the dead. And
now every soul that believes in Him is clear at the bar of Divine
Justice, because it is written, "Who is he that condemns? It is Christ
that died." "The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son cleanses us from all
sin."
See then, my Brothers and Sisters, Jesus Christ can take away the
deeply-engraved inscription of our sin and can remove the horrible
stains of our iniquity–justly remove them through what He has suffered
on our behalf! The Holy Spirit also comes in–the new nature being
given and sin being forgiven, the Holy Spirit comes and dwells in
us–as a Prince in His palace, as a God in His temple. Oh, wondrous
mystery, that God should dwell in a human heart! He who fills Heaven
and earth–whom all worlds cannot comprehend! He, before whom angels
bow with veiled faces, deigns to make Himself a habitation within the
body of the man that trusts in Him! If you are now relying alone on
Jesus Christ, then the Holy Spirit is in you this morning, and, being
there, He controls your passions–passions which otherwise would master
you.
He rules your will, a stubborn thing, like a bullock unaccustomed to
the yoke! He guides your affections, wandering things, like wild asses
of the desert not to be tamed. He sits, this day, within your soul as
God's lieutenant in the kingdom of your humanity–ruling, preventing,
directing–and making you meet to be partaker of the inheritance of the
saints in light. Do I hear any say, "Then, I would to God that I may
experience the Divine process–the new nature given which is
regeneration–the washing away of sin which constitutes pardon and
justification, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit which insures
final perseverance and complete sanctification. Oh, how can I have
these precious things"?
You may have them, whoever you may be, by simply believing in Jesus.
Does it seem too simple? Try, and you will find it effectual. The most
potent remedies for disease are not always the most elaborate–the
simplest may often be the most effectual. I tell you, you who gad about
after your ceremonies, and repentance, and tears–you will never get in
all these that which you can have by simply coming to Jesus and
trusting in Him! Now have done with your own doings! Cast yourself on
Him who has done everything for you! Spin no more, but take the raiment
already woven! Work no more, but take the ransom already paid!
Strive no more in your own energy after the works of the Law, but take
the great accomplished work which Jesus Christ has performed! Believe
and live! These are the words which God emblazons across the brow of
Truth–which I would gladly write across the brow of Heaven
itself–which I would gladly have thunder out of every wave, whispered
by every gale, and spoken by every breath of air!–BELIEVE AND
LIVE!–Trust Christ and live! The remedy will meet the disease–this
heavenly chisel will cut out the diamond-worked inscription! This
hammer which Christ wields will dash to pieces the granite upon which
the pen of iron has written your sin. Trust in the Lord to save you and
you shall yet be made as Adam was at the first–in the image of God!
And you shall stand before the Eternal Throne, among the white- robed,
pure as they! You shall stand among the celestials as heavenly as they,
and near to God, even made a partaker of the Divine Nature, "having
escaped the corruption which is in the world through lust." God bless
you, for Christ's sake!
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The Privileged Man
A Sermon