Individual Sin Laid On Jesus

DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, APRIL 10, 1870,

BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned, every one to his
own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." Isaiah
53:6.

I THINK I addressed you from this text four years ago, ("Sin Laid on
Jesus," No. 694, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit), but I feel quite safe
in returning to it, for we shall never exhaust it. It is a verse so
wealthy in meaning that if I had, during the whole four years, dilated
upon it every Sunday, it would be my fault if the theme were stale. On
this occasion I desire mainly to draw attention to a part of the text
upon which little was said on the former occasion. The vine is the
same, but we shall gather clusters from a bough ungleaned before. The
jewels are the same, but we will place them in another light and view
them from another angle. May God grant that some who derived no comfort
from our former word may be led to find peace and salvation in Christ
this morning. The Lord in His infinite mercy grant it may be so.

I shall first give a general exposition of the text. Then in the second
place I shall dwell upon the special doctrine which I wish to teach.
And then, thirdly, we shall draw from that special doctrine a special
lesson.

I. First, we will GIVE A GENERAL EXPOSITION OF THE TEXT. "All we like
sheep have gone astray. We have turned, every one to his own way; and
the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." The text naturally
breaks itself up into these three heads–a confession general to all
penitents–"All we like sheep have gone astray." A personal confession
peculiar to each one, "We have turned, every one to his own way." And
then, the august doctrine of Substitution, which is the very soul and
spirit of the entire Gospel, "The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of
us all."

Our exposition, then, begins with the confession which is universal to
all penitents–it is acknowledged here by the persons speaking who call
themselves "all we"–that they all had, like sheep, broken the hedge of
God's Law, forsaken their good and ever blessed Shepherd, and wandered
into paths perilous and pernicious. A comparison is here used, and its
use shows that the confession was a thoughtful one and not a matter of
careless form. Man is here compared to a beast–for sin brings out the
animal part of us. And while holiness allies us to angels–sin degrades
us to brutes. We are not likened to one of the more noble and
intelligent animals, but to a silly sheep.

All sin is folly. All sinners are fools. Sheep are dishonored by the
comparison here used, for with all their silliness they have never been
known to rush into the fire after having felt the flame. You will
observe that the creature selected for comparison is one that cannot
live without care and attention. There is no such thing as a wild
sheep. There could not long be sheep unless they were tended and cared
for by a shepherd. The creature's happiness, its safety and very
existence, all depend upon its being under a nurture and care far above
its own. Yet for all that, the sheep strays from the shepherd. Man's
happiness lies in being under the direction of the Lord, in being
obedient to God, in being in communion with God. Departure from God is
death to all his highest interests, destruction to all his best
prospects. Yet for all that, as the sheep goes astray, even so does
man.

The sheep is a creature exceedingly quick-witted upon the one matter of
going astray. If there is but one gap in the hedge, the sheep will find
it. If there is but one possibility out of five hundred that by any
means the flock shall wander, one of the flock will be quite certain to
discover that possibility–and all its companions will avail themselves
of it. So is it with man. He is quick of understanding for evil things.
God made man upright, but he has sought out many inven-tions–the
inventions being all to destroy his own uprightness and to do despise
to the Law of God. And that very creature which is so quick-witted to
wander is the least likely of all animals to return.

The ox knows its owner, and the ass knows its master's crib. Even the
swine that will wander by day will return to the trough by night, and
the dog will scent out his master over many a mile. But not so the
sheep. Sharp as it is to discover opportunities for going astray, it
seems to be bereft of all wit or will to come back to the fold. And
such is man–

wise to do evil–but foolish towards that which is good. With a hundred
eyes, like Argus, he searches out opportunities for sinning. But, like
Bartimeus, he is stone blind as to repentance and a return to God.

The sheep goes astray, it is said, all the more frequently when it is
most dangerous for it to do so. Propensities to stray seem to be
developed in the very proportion in which they ought to be subdued.
Whereas in our own land a sheep might wander with some safety, it
wanders less in the Oriental plains, where for it to go astray is to
run risks from leopards and wolves. Those very men who ought to be most
careful, and who are placed in positions where it is best for them to
be scrupulous, are those who are most prone to follow after evil–and
with heedless carelessness to leave the way of

Truth.

The sheep goes astray ungratefully. It owes everything to the shepherd,
and yet forsakes the hand that feeds it and heals its diseases. The
sheep goes astray repeatedly. If restored today it may not stray today
if it cannot, but it will tomorrow if it can. The sheep wanders further
and further, from bad to worse. It is not content with the distance it
has reached, it will go yet greater lengths. There is no limit to its
wandering except its weakness. Do you not see you own selves, my
Brethren, as in a mirror? From Him that has blessed you, you have gone
astray. To Him you owe your all, and yet from Him you continually
depart. Your sins are not occasional–they are constant. Your
wanderings are not slight, but you wander further and further–and were
it not for restraining Grace which has prevented your footsteps–you
would have wandered even now to the utmost extremities of guilt and
utterly destroyed your souls.

"All we like sheep have gone astray." What? Is there not one faithful
soul? Alas, no! "There is none that does good, no, not one." Search the
ranks of the blessed in Heaven and there is not one saint before the
Throne who will boast that when on earth he never sinned. Search the
Church of God below and there is not one, however closely he walks with
God, but must confess that he has erred and strayed from God's ways
like a lost sheep. Vain is the man who refuses to confess this–for his
hypocrisy or his pride, whichever may be the cause of such a base
lie–proves that he is not one of God's chosen. The chosen of God
unanimously, mournfully, but heartily take up this cry, "All we like
sheep have gone astray." A general confession, then, is uttered in our
text.

This confession by the mass is backed up by a personal acknowledgment
from each one, "We have turned, every one to his own way." Sin is
general but yet special. All are sinners, but each one is a sinner with
an emphasis. No man has of himself turned to God's way, but in every
case each one has chosen "his own way." The very gist of sin lies in
our setting up our own way in opposition to the way and will of God. We
have all done so, we have all aspired to be our own masters, we have
all desired to follow our own inclinations and have not submitted
ourselves to the will of God.

The text implies that each man has his own peculiarity and special sin.
All are diseased, but not all precisely with the same form of disease.
It is well, my Brothers and Sisters, if each of us, in examining
himself, has found out what is his own peculiar transgression. It is
well to know what evil weeds flourish most readily in the soil of our
heart–what wild beast that is most native to the forests of our soul.
Many have felt that their peculiar sin was so remarkably evil and so
surpassingly vile that it separated them altogether from the common
rank of sinners. They felt that their iniquities were unique, and like
lone peaks, lifted themselves defiantly towards the pure heavens of God
provoking the fiercest thunderbolts of wrath. Such persons have almost
been driven to despair under the belief that they were peculiarly great
sinners–as Paul puts it–the very chief of sinners.

I should not wonder if this feeling which each one imagines to be
peculiar to himself may have come over very many of us, and the shadow
of despair may for awhile have fallen upon very many of us. It is no
unusual thing for an awakened conscience to feel its own sinfulness to
be above measure and parallel, the worst that has ever defiled mankind.
This special sin happens to be the point to which I desire to call to
your attention. I wish to show that the atoning sacrifice of Christ not
only applies to sin in general, since "all we like sheep have gone
astray," but applies to special sin, for "we have turned, every one to
his own way."

I pass over it slightly now and introduce you further in the exposition
of the text, to what I called the august doctrine of the Substitution
of Christ, "The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." We have
seen the confession of sin made by the mass. We lightly touched the
peculiar confession made by each awakened individual–put all these
together and you see a mass of sin–did I say you see it? It is a mass
of sin too great to be beheld by the human understanding–an enormous
load of iniquity against God. What is to be done with the offenders?
The only thing that can be done with

them, in the ordinary rule of justice, is to punish them for their
offenses. And that punishment must be such as was
threatened–indignation, wrath, destruction, death.

That God should punish sin is not a matter of impulse with Him. It was
not with Him an alternative as to whether He might or might not punish
sin. We speak always with holy awe when we speak of anything concerning
Him, but with reverence we say it was not possible that God should wink
at the iniquity of man. It was not possible that He should treat it
with indifference. His attribute of Justice, which is as undoubtedly a
part of His Glory as His attribute of Love, required that sin should be
punished. Moreover, as God had been pleased to make a moral universe to
be governed by laws, there would be an end of all government if the
breaking of those laws involved no penalty whatever.

If, after the great King of all the earth had promulgated a Law, with
certain penalties annexed to the breach of it, He did not cause those
penalties to be exacted, there would be an end to the whole system of
His government. The foundations would be removed. And if the
foundations are removed, what shall the righteous do? It is infinitely
benevolent of God, I will venture to say, to cast evil men into Hell.
If that is thought to be a hard and strange statement, I reply that
inasmuch as there is sin in the world, it is no benevolence to tolerate
so great an evil. It is the highest benevolence to do all that can be
done to restrain the horrible pest.

It would be far from benevolent for our government to throw wide the
doors of all the jails, to abolish the office of the judge, to suffer
every thief and every offender of every kind to go unpunished. Instead
of mercy it would be cruelty. It might be mercy to the offender, but it
would be intolerable injustice towards the upright and inoffensive.
God's very benevolence demands that the detestable rebellion of sin
against His supreme authority should be put down with a firm hand, that
men may not flatter themselves that they can do evil and yet go
unpunished. The necessities of moral government require that sin must
be punished. The effeminate and sentimental talkers of this boastful
age represent God as though He had no attribute but that of gentleness,
no virtue but that of indifference to evil.

But the God of the Bible is glorious in holiness! He will by no means
spare the guilty. At His bar every transgression is meted out its just
recompense or reward. Even in the New Testament, where stands that
golden sentence, "God is Love," His other attributes are by no means
cast into the shade. Read the burning words of Peter, or James, or
Jude, and see how the God of Sabaoth abhors evil! As the God who must
do right, the Lord cannot shut His eyes to the iniquities of man. He
must visit transgression with its punishment. He has done it, has done
it terribly, and He will continue to do it. Even to all eternity He
will show Himself the God that hates iniquity and sin.

What, then, is to become of man? "All we like sheep have gone astray."
Sin must be punished. What, then, can become of us? Infinite Love has
devised the expedient of representation and substitution. I call it an
expedient, for we can only use the language of men. You remember,
Brothers and Sisters, that you and I fell originally from our first
estate by no act of our own–we, all of us, fell in the first Adam's
transgression. Now, had we fallen individually and personally, in the
first place, apart from another, it may be that our fall would have
been hopeless. As the fall of the apostate angels, who having sinned
one by one and not representatively, are reserved in chains of darkness
forever under the condemnation and wrath of God–so might we have been.

But inasmuch as the first fountain of evil came to us through our
parent, Adam, there remained for God a loophole through which His
Divine love might enter without violation of Justice. The principle of
representation wrecked us– the same principle of representation
rescues us. Jesus Christ the Son of God becomes a Man and re-heads the
race. He becomes the second Adam, obeys the Law of God, bears the
penalty of sin, and now stands as the Head of all those who are in Him!
And who are these but such as repent of sin and put their trust in Him?
These get out of the old headship of the first Adam where they fell,
and through the atoning sacrifice are cleansed from all personal guilt,
brought into union with the second Adam, and stand again in Him,
abiding forever in acceptance and felicity!

See, then, how it is that God has been pleased to deliver His people.
It has been through carrying out a principle with which the very system
of the universe commenced, namely, that of representation. I repeat it,
had we been always and altogether separate units, there might have been
no possibility of our salvation. But though every man sins separately,
and the second clause of our text confesses that fact, yet we all sin
in connection with others. For instance, who shall deny that each man
receives propensities to sin from his parents, and that we transmit
peculiarities of sin to our own children?

We stand in connection with race, and there are sins of races peculiar
to races and to nationalities. We are never put on a probation of
entire separation–we always stand in connection with others, and God
has availed Himself of this,

which I called a loophole, to bring in salvation for us by virtue of
our union with another Man, who is also more than Man–the Son of God
and yet the son of Mary–the Infinite who once became an Infant. The
Eternal who lived, and bled, and died as the representative of all who
put their trust in Him.

Now you will say, perhaps, that still, albeit this might have been at
the bottom of the whole system of moral government, you do not quite
see the justice of it. The reply to that remark is this–if God sees
the justice of it you ought to be content with it. He was against whom
every sin was aimed. And if He pleased to gather up the whole bundle of
the sin of His people and say to His Beloved Son, "I will visit You for
all these," and if Jesus, our Representative, joyously consented to
bear our sins as our Representative–who are you and who am I that we
should enter any caveat against what God the infinitely just One
consents to accept?

The text does not say that our sins were laid on Christ Jesus by
accident, but, "the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." We
sing sometimes, "I lay my sins on Jesus." That is a very sweet act of
faith, but at the bottom of it there is another laying, namely, that
act in which it pleased the Lord to lay our sins on Jesus. Apart from
the Lord's doing it, our sins could never have been transferred to the
Redeemer. The Lord is so just that we dare not think of examining His
verdicts. He is so infinitely pure and holy that what He does we accept
as being necessarily right. And inasmuch as we derive such blessed
results from the Divine plan of Substitution, far be it from us to
raise any question concerning it!

Jesus was accepted as the natural Substitute and Representative of all
those who trust Him, and all the sins of these were laid on Him so that
they were freed from guilt. Jesus was regarded as if all these sins
were His sins. He was punished as if these were His sins. He was put to
shame, forsaken of God, and delivered to death as if He had been a
sinner. And thus, through Divine Grace, those who actually committed
the sins are permitted to go free. They have satisfied justice through
the sufferings of their Substitute.

Beloved Brethren, the most fit Person to be a Substitute for us was
Christ Jesus. And why? Because He had been pleased to take us, His
people, into union with Himself. If He were our Head, and He had made
us to be members of His Body, who more fit to suffer for the body than
the Head? If He had, and Scripture tells us so, entered into a
mysterious conjugal union with us, who more fit to suffer for the
spouse than her Husband? Christ is Man, therefore His fitness and
adaptation to be a Substitute for man. The creature that sins must be
the creature that suffers–man breaks God's Law–and man must honor it.
As by man came death, by Man also must come the resurrection from the
dead–and Jesus Christ was undoubtedly Man of the substance of His
mother.

He was fit to be our Substitute because He was a pure Man. He had no
offense in Him. Neither Satan, nor the more searching eye of God could
find any evil in Him. He was under no obligation to the Law except as
He put Himself under the Law. He owed nothing to the great moral
Governor until He voluntarily became a subject of His moral government
on our behalf. Therefore, being without obligation Himself–having no
debts of His own–He was fit to take upon Himself our liabilities. And
as He was under no obligations for Himself, He was a fitting One to
become under obligations for us.

Moreover, He did all this voluntarily, and His fitness much lies here.
If a substitute should be dragged to death for us unwillingly, if such
could be the case, an injustice would be perpetrated in the very act.
But Jesus Christ, taking up His Cross, and going forth willingly to
suffer for us, proved His fitness to redeem us. Once more–His being
God as well as Man, gave the strength to suffer–gave Him the power to
stoop. If He had not been so lofty as to be Fellow with the eternal
God, He would not have stooped so low as to redeem us, but —

"From the highest Throne in Glory To the Cross of deepest woe,"

was such a descent that there was an infinite merit in it. When He
stooped, even to the grave itself, there was an infinite merit by which
Justice was satisfied, the Law was vindicated, and those for whom He
died were effectually saved.

I do not want to proceed to the other point until everyone here has got
the thought, and grasped it, and received it. We have gone astray, but
the straying of as many of us as believe, were laid on Christ. We have
each chosen our own way of sin, but those sins are not ours now–they
are laid on our great Substitute–if we are trusting in Him. He has
paid to the utmost farthing all the debt of those sins. He has borne
the fullness of Divine wrath, and there is no wrath against us. Just as
the bullock was laid on the altar to be burnt, God's wrath came like
consuming fire and burnt the bullock, and

there was no fire left. So when the wrath of God fell on Christ, it
consumed Him, and there was no fire left, no wrath left–it spent
itself.

God has no anger against a soul that believes in Jesus. Neither has
that soul any sin, for its sin has been laid on Christ, and it cannot
be in two places at once–Christ has carried it and the sin has ceased
to be. The believing soul, though in itself as black as Hell, is now as
bright as Christ Himself when He was transfigured, for Christ has
finished transgression, made an end of sin, and brought in everlasting
righteousness. Thus we conclude our general exposition of the verse.

II. I now desire for a short time, but with all the earnestness of my
soul, to dwell on THE SPECIAL DOCTRINE taught in the central clause of
the text–"We have turned, every one to his own way; and the Lord has
laid on Him the iniquity of us all." Each man and each woman, from a
natural difference of constitution, from the variations in education,
and from the diversities of circumstances, has sinned somewhat
differently from every other. Two brothers educated by the same parents
will yet display diversities of transgression. No man treads exactly in
the same footsteps as another, and some take roads which, though
equally wrong, are diametrically opposite. One turns to the right hand,
and another to the left, both equally renouncing the onward path.

Now, the glory of the text that I want to bring out is this–that if
you believe in Jesus Christ, this special sin of yours was laid on Him,
as well as all those other sins in which you stand on an equality with
your fellow men. There was a publican–he had been a common, gross
offender–rough and harsh to his brother Jews in demanding an
inordinate tax. He was a man of low habits, indulging in drunkenness,
fornication, and other defilements. Yet when that publican went up to
the house of God and said, "God be merciful to me a sinner," the
Atonement just met the publican's iniquity, and exactly took away the
publican's transgression.

But, on the other hand, there was a Pharisee–the opposite of the
publican–proud and self-righteous, not submitting himself to the
righteousness of God. He considered himself to be in all things better
than other men. But remember that when he fell off his horse as he was
riding to Damascus, and heard a voice that said, "Why do you persecute
Me?" that very same Pharisee said, "God forbid that I should glory save
in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." There was in Christ precisely
that which met the Pharisee's sin. In our Lord's day there were
Sadducees, too–that is, men who said there was neither angel nor
spirit They were infidels, skeptics, free-thinkers–your Broad Church
sinners.

Now these men neither went into coarse transgression with the publican
nor into superstition with the Pharisee, but they had their direct
antagonism to the Truth of God. And I doubt not cases occurred to prove
that in the pardoning blood of Christ the Sadducee's case was met. No
matter in what peculiar direction any one of the Lord's sheep has gone
astray, the Lord has laid that particular straying upon the Savior.

I want to speak, now, so as to fetch forth some individuals here this
morning. It may be that one here today is saying, "I sinned against an
early Christian training. No one ever had a better mother or a more
tender father. I knew the Word of God, like Timothy, from my youth–but
I did despite to all this teaching and sinned with aggravation of
infamy. I sinned against the clearest light."

Brothers and Sisters, your sin is very great, but the Lord has laid on
Jesus your iniquity. Look to the Cross, and see it laid there. "Yes,"
says another, "but I have had the strivings of God's Spirit. In
addition to an early Christian education, I have sat under an earnest
Gospel ministry. I have often been impressed. I have been driven to my
chamber to pray, but I have quenched the holy emotions, and have
continued in sin." O guilty One, the Lord has laid on His dear Son your
iniquity! Can you look to Jesus now and trust Christ–"The Lamb of God
which takes away the sin of the world"? Then this offense of yours
against the Holy Spirit is put away.

"But," says another, "I am conscious of having had naturally a
remarkable tenderness of spirit. From my early childhood I knew right
from wrong, and when I sinned it cost me much trouble to sin. I have
had to wound my conscience before I could speak an ill word, or commit
an evil action." Ah, my Brethren, that is a very condemning thing, to
sin against a tender conscience. It is a great benefit, and in this age
a very unusual benefit, to have much sensitiveness and delicacy of
moral constitution. And if you have violated it, it is certainly a
great transgression. But though, "we have turned, every one to his own
way, the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." Let no
despairing thought come upon you as though this sin were unpardonable.
The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin." Look,
now, by faith to Jesus, and you shall find that your sin is blotted
out.

There may be one in this place who says, "Sir, I committed a sin under
certain remarkable circumstances which I would not, could not, mention.
But the remembrance of that one sin rankles in my soul at this hour. If
I had not deliberately, and with malice aforethought, having not the
fear of God before my eyes, chosen that sin, there might have been
hope–but that sin, like a millstone, is about my neck and will sink me
forever and ever." Look, Soul! Can you see Christ on the Cross? Will
you now confide in Him? If so, though your sins are as scarlet they
shall be as wool, though they are red like crimson they shall be as
snow.

I know not what your sin may have been, but if it were murder itself,
if you would now trust the Son of God, your sin should vanish quite
away from you, and you should be clean, clean every whit, before the
all-seeing Eyes of Eternal Justice. O that you would believe, and this
should be true to you. "No," cries another, "but mine has been a life
of peculiarly gross sin. I would not have my character unmasked before
this congregation on any account." Consider then, my Friend, what it
will be to have it published before a greater congregation, before the
entire universe!

"Ah," you say, "I fear my condemnation is certain, for my
transgressions have not been those of thought, merely, but of act. The
members of my body have been the instruments of uncleanness." Listen, I
pray, "All manner of sin and of iniquity shall be forgiven unto men."
There is no sin so black, save only one, but it may find forgiveness.
Yes, and without exception, there is no sin that is possible to man but
what it shall be forgiven to any man who comes to Christ, and with
simple trust, does cast himself on Him. Your extreme evil was laid on
Christ. Though you have turned unto your own way, yet this, too, was
laid on Him.

Do I not hear, here and there in the congregation, hearts sighing out,
"He does not strike my case yet! Mine has not been gross sin, but I
have hardened my heart. I used to feel at one time I had great drawings
towards the Lord Jesus, but I gave Him up. I have backslidden. I have
from time to time rejected Gospel invitations, until now, at last, the
Lord has sworn in His wrath that I shall not enter into His rest. My
transgressions have gone over my head like overflowing waters, I sink
in them as in deep mire where there is no standing."

Yes, but Soul, I must bring you back to the text. You have turned to
your own way, but, if you believe, the Lord has laid on Jesus even this
iniquity, also. If you will trust Him, your hardenings of heart shall
now be forgiven you. You are not too late–the gate of Mercy still
stands wide open. If you trust in Jesus, this iniquity shall be blotted
out. "Alas," says another, "but I have been a hypocrite. I have come to
the Lord's Table, and yet I have never had an interest in Christ. I
have been baptized, but yet I never had true faith."

Well, now, I will say this to end all matters–if you have perpetrated
all the sins that ever were committed by men or devils. If you have
defiled yourself with all the blackness that could be raked out of the
lowermost kennels of Hell. If you have spoken the most damnable
blasphemies and followed the most outrageous vices–yet Jesus Christ is
an infinite Savior, and nothing can exceed the merit of His precious
blood! "The blood of Jesus Christ, God's dear Son, cleanses us from all
sin." Can you believe this? Can you do Christ the honor to believe
this, and come and crouch at the feet that once were pierced? Ah, Man,
you shall find mercy now, and you shall clap your hands and say, "He
has blotted out my sins like a cloud, and like a thick cloud my
iniquities."

I am afraid I do not convey to you the pleasure of my own soul in
turning over this thought, but it has charmed me beyond measure. Here
were Lot's sins, scandalous sins. I cannot mention them–they were very
different from David's sins. Black sins, scarlet sins, were those of
David, but David's sins are not at all like those of Manasseh. The sins
of Ma-nasseh were not the same as those of Peter–Peter sinned in quite
a different track. And the woman that was a sinner, you could not liken
her to Peter. And if you look to her character you could not set her
side by side with Lydia. Nor if you think of Lydia, can you see her
without discovering a great divergence between her and the Philippian
jailer.

They are all alike. They have all gone Astray. But they are all
different, they have turned, every one to his own way. But here is the
blessed gathering up of them all! The Lord has made to meet on the
Redeemer, as in a common focus, the iniquity of all these! And up
yonder Magdalena's song joins sweetly with that of the woman who was a
sinner. And Lydia, chaste, but yet needing pardon, sings side by side
with Bathsheba and Rahab–while David takes up the strain with Samson
and with Gideon! And these with Abraham and with Isaac–all differently
sinners–but the Atonement meeting every case.

We always think that man a quack, who advertises a medicine as healing
every disease. But when you come to the great Gospel medicine–the
precious blood of Jesus Christ–you have there in very deed what the
old doctors used to

call a catholicon, a universal medicine. It meets every case in its
distinctness It puts away sin in all its separateness of guilt as if it
were made for that sin, and for that sin, alone.

III. My time has gone, and therefore I must close with this, A SPECIAL
DUTY ARISING OUT OF THE SPECIAL DOCTRINE. My dear Brothers and Sisters,
if in my discourse I have at all described you, or if not having
described you, I have yet from that very reason indicated you as an
indescribable, look to Christ and find mercy! And then ever afterwards
make it a rule with your soul that as you have been a special sinner
you will have special love and special gratitude, and do your Lord
special service.

Oh, if it takes twenty times the Grace to save me than it does another,
then I will render to my Savior twenty times the love and twenty times
the service. If I am an out-of-the-way straying sheep, peculiarly and
specially black, defiled and disgraced–then if He loves me I will go
upon this rule–that having had much forgiven I will love much.

Brothers and Sisters, I wish you did feel, I wish I did feel, more and
more the peculiarity of the weight of our personal sin, for I am sure
it is the way to drive us into manliness of Christian service. If you
perform homage to Christ as one of a crowd, you do but little, and that
little badly. For eminent service you need to get away from the crowd
and serve the Lord personally by yourself, and as an individual. Get
alone, I mean in a sense of obligation. Separate yourself, as if you
were a marked man, and must serve Jesus Christ in a marked way. The
separation of pride is detestable, but individuality of service is
admirable. Those who stand steadily in the rank and file do well, but
those who step forward to lead the forlorn hope do better.

O for more Davids to come forth and say, "Who is this uncircumcised
Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?" O that
the Christian Church had more self-sacrificing men, like old Curtius,
who, when there is a chasm to fill up, leaps into it and feels it an
honor to be swallowed up for Christ's sake and the Truth's sake. O for
many a Christian who, like the Roman hero, will hold his hand in the
fire if need be, and flinch not, feeling that all suffering were little
to bear for one who bled for us. We want more consecrated men. May God
raise them up. And He will if you who feel your special sinnership find
special mercy–and then render to God special returns.

It has struck me that we need more and more in the pulpit, and in the
pew, individuality in our Christian experience and service. You see, we
are all individuals in sinning, we have turned, every one to his own
way, and yet many Christian people want to have their experience
modeled after the example of someone else. They do not like to grow
like God's trees in the forest, with their gnarled roots and twisted
boughs. They want to be clipped like Dutch trees into one uniform
stiffness. Why, you lose the beauty of Christianity when you lose the
individuality of Christians!

In preaching and Sunday school teaching, and everything else, the
tendency is to go too much to ill ruts and grooves. One might fancy
that men and women were made by machinery, like pens at Birmingham, all
of a sort. We would have every man in Grace as individual as he was in
sin. We need the originality of saintly life as well as of sinnership.
It were well if a Christian man would step out of the beaten track and
carry out his individuality and be what God especially meant him to be.
Brethren, there is a part of this world which can never get a blessing
except through you. Christ has power over all flesh, and He has given
His servants power over their little portions of that great mass.

All the ministers that ever lived cannot bring to Christ those souls
whom God has ordained that I shall be the means of turning to Christ.
And neither I, nor my Brethren, preach as we may, can bring to Christ
the man whom God has ordained to save through yonder obscure village
preacher who is now standing on a log on the village green, or holding
forth in a wooden shed in the backwoods of America. There is a place
for every man–and the way for every man to find that out is to be
himself and nobody else. As he used to be himself when he was a sinner,
so let him be himself now he has become a saint, and follow out, under
God's guidance, the movements of his own individualities, the
singularities of his own nature.

Do not think about planing off your edges and getting rid of the points
God has made in you distinct from other men. It will never do. You lose
of Christianity the very beauty and excellence if you do this. Your
fine critics would have Rowland Hill preach like Thomas
Chalmers–Rowland Hill must never utter a witticism in the pulpit, yet
he could not be Rowland Hill if he did not. He must, therefore, be
transformed into someone else, for these superfine gentlemen will not
allow that Rowland Hill as Rowland Hill can honor God. Wisdom will be
of all her children. Whether you speak with the learning of Apollos, or
with the eloquence of a Paul, or with the blunt homeliness of a Cephas,
the Lord will get to Himself honor, if you speak sincerely.

And it is not for Paul to mimic Cephas, nor for Cephas to copy Apollos.
As we have turned, every one to his own way, and our peculiar sin has
been laid on Christ, so let each Believer now, in his own way, under
the direction of Christ, seek to serve his Lord and Master. My great
practical lesson from it is this–you are always seeing new inventions
in the world, men are evermore bringing out some new system or scheme.
We tunnel the earth, we split the clouds, we speak by lightning, we
ride on the wings of the wind. But in the Christian Church how few
inventors we have!

Robert Raikes invented the Sunday school. John Pounds invented Ragged
schools–have we come to the end of gracious ingenuity? Oh, if we loved
Christ better, every man would invent something–he would have a mode
of action growing out of his own peculiar capacities. He would feel
that God meant to meet a case by him that would never be met by anybody
else. Men are all alive about this world, and all asleep about the
world to come. I would urge you each to have a mission, to espouse a
work, to obtain a calling. Ask God not to put you into the Sunday
school as a matter of mere Providence, but as a matter of special
ordination.

And if you are ordained to be a Sunday school teacher, ask Him to put
you into some particular class, not as by an accident, but as a special
sphere for your special character and taste, and mode of thought, and
manner of action. Follow, as God the Holy Spirit shall help you, the
promptings of the Divine life that God has put within you. And as you
served Satan with all your individuality, even so serve Him upon whom
the Lord of old did lay your iniquity. The Lord bless you for Christ's
sake.
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The Sine Qua Non