05.13. I Have Sinned!
I Have Sinned!
"Do not bring Your servant into judgment, for no one living is righteous before You!" Psalms 143:2
Some years ago I saw a remarkable document. It was a catalogue of the crimes committed by a man who had been at last executed in Norfolk Island, with the punishment recorded which he received for each offence. This terrible, awful list, was nearly three yards in length, and had I not known it for a certainty — I Would have doubted whether it were possible that so much evil could have been crowded into a single lifetime! The thought of this catalogue may suggest to us a profitable, though a humbling lesson. It may lead us to inquire as to the record of our iniquities made with unerring justice by the pen of the Omniscient.
Take the life of one who is yet a stranger to God, and who is walking in the way of his own heart — who shall tell how countless are the transgressions of such a one?
Begin with acts of positive disobedience — the sins of your youth, the dishonor done to parents, lies, dishonest gains, such things as even natural conscience reproves — and does not a still small voice whisper that there is something greatly amiss in these things?
Add to these, sins of the tongue — angry words, murmuring words, backbiting words, words that have a tendency to deceive or to suggest unholy imaginations. Look at these in the light of that saying of Christ, "Truly I say unto you, that for every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment!"
Add to these, multitudes of unhallowed thoughts and desires, crowds of vain and foolish thoughts as many as the motes in the sunbeam, and remember again the word of God, "The thought of foolishness is sin."
Think of the years you have lived; go back to your school days, and to the years that have passed since then. Go back to days of special trial and of special mercy — think what your feelings and motives were, what was the bent of your mind at such times. Think how many evil things in word, thought, or deed, may be found in every one of the many thousand days that you have already lived — and if you are honest with yourself, you will surely confess that the record of your sin, written out by the hand of the Most High God, would reach almost from earth to Heaven! According to that confession of Ezra, "O my God, I am utterly ashamed; I blush to lift up my face to You. For our sins are piled higher than our heads, and our guilt has reached to the heavens!" Ezra 9:6
Perhaps, however, we gain a more impressive view of this truth, if we regard the life of a man without God as one long sin. What was the life of the younger son, spoken of by our Lord in the parable, while he remained in the far country? Was not every moment one of rebellion and ingratitude — and therefore one continuous sin? No doubt there were hours of deeper excess than others, hours when he plunged deeper into the mire of vice and pollution — yet was not his whole life, and every moment of it, until he returned home, sinful and rebellious?
Now it is just so with every sinner, until he yields to the merciful call of God — until he comes home as a penitent to the Father’s house. Each moment is he living a life of practical atheism! Each moment is he nourished and preserved by a Father’s goodness — and yet all the while spurning the hand that feeds and guards him.
O careless, thoughtless sinner! Be assured of this — your life is one long-continued sin, one continued act of provocation in the eyes of your Creator! Wherever you may be, in the house of God or in the house of business, in the field or by the way-side, in some scene of worldly dissipation, or sitting with your family by your own fireside — whatever you may be doing, eating or drinking, talking or sleeping, rising in the morning or going to rest at night — yet, until you return to God with hearty and sincere repentance, you are every moment sinning against Him!
Hence we see how unscriptural is the view that represents the majority of men as vacillating between sin and holiness — neither worthy to be accounted saints, nor so bad as to be reckoned altogether sinners.
Only take the right view of sin — that which represents it as the transgression of a holy law — and you will see at once that until men are renewed in the spirit of their minds, they are altogether sinful and guilty in the sight of the Most High. The Apostle Paul lays it down as the groundwork on which he sets forth the way of God’s righteousness, that man has broken the law, that every one without exception is exposed to the curse and just displeasure of God. He looks at the whole race of mankind in one light, and as being in one position. He places them on the same level, on the same platform of guilt and condemnation. He declares that "there is no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God;" and that the law has so spoken "that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God."
True, in one respect there is a difference, and a very serious one. There is a difference as to the amount of debt which a man owes, as to the amount of guilt for which he is liable to punishment. The man who has reaped twenty acres, will receive a larger payment than the man who has reaped but ten; the man who has done a week’s work, will receive more wages than the man who has worked only a day. So doubtless shall it be with those who are dealt with for their sins. The more sin, the longer in sin — the more guilt and consequently the greater punishment.
Yet let not any reader think that here at least is a point in your favor, because you have been kept from some very glaring iniquities into which others have fallen. Remember that God’s view of sin is very different from your’s. If you were to point out one whom you considered the greatest offender, you might go to some dark prison and point to one about to suffer for his crimes. But if God were to put His finger on one whom He reckoned the worst, He might go to some favored congregation, and find one there in the midst of Christian privileges, who was steeling his heart against a Savior’s love, who was persistently rejecting the offers of salvation, who hated spiritual religion, who was living in unbelief, and thus making God a liar! And thus knowing his Lord’s will and doing it not — he might be ranked in His sight as one of the very greatest transgressors.
What have been our privileges and opportunities,
what knowledge we have had of His Word and of those who have loved it,
what warnings and invitations to repentance we have heard,
what life we have lived in the inner world of our own hearts
— all this must be taken into account before we can determine whose sin is most heinous in the sight of our Judge. But in another sense there is no difference. Every soul of man, until forgiven, is liable to everlasting damnation. The most moral gentleman, as well as the most degraded monster — stands alike in this position. A conqueror passing through a country which he has subdued bids the inhabitants of a certain town not to cross a boundary line which he has marked out, and threatens death against all who shall go beyond it. If one of them cross it, though it be but a yard’s space — he is equally exposed to the penalty as one who might go several miles. The holy law of God is like that boundary line. Whoever transgresses it, is guilty. He may go but comparatively a little way — or he may go very far indeed — yet in either case he comes within the curse. "Cursed is every one that continues not in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them."
Believe it, reader, and ponder it, that were it possible that through your whole life you had committed but one sin, and that one but a vain thought cherished within — you are as truly brought within the iron grasp of a strict and holy law as if you were the most notorious offender! Would you therefore stand on a firm foundation that neither death nor judgment can ever shake — begin here. Be sure that the law fastens a charge of deadly guilt on every single member of the human family. Hence put aside all thought of your own personal merit. Lean not so much as the weight of a single grain on your own doings or feelings. Try not to lessen your danger or blunt the edge of the law by any excuses, or extenuating circumstances — or the greater evils that others may have wrought. Have you broken God’s holy law, or have you not? If you have, confess it plainly; regard yourself as wholly undone; take your right place — a lost sinner in the dust before God. Make the prayer of David your own: "Do not bring Your servant into judgment, for no one living is righteous before You!" But why insist so much on the necessity of this? Why does Paul so urge men to self-condemnation? Is it to shut them up to despair? Is is to make them doubt the possibility of their salvation? Nay, it is the very reverse.
It is to show men the suitableness and the all-sufficiency of the righteousness which God has provided. It is to show men that the same glorious Gospel of the grace of God, can meet the needs of every living soul. Were the one man partly condemned, and another, further fallen into sin, wholly condemned — there would be a need for two systems, two gospels — a little gospel for the one sinner, a great gospel for the great sinner. But now the same message comes to all. What says it but this: "I cannot receive you while you rest in any measure on your own merits. Only come to Me only a sinner, and here is a glorious righteousness wrought out for you by the obedience and death of My Son. Consent to be clothed with His glorious righteousness, and you shall never be condemned, but shall inherit everlasting life! Do you accept the offered gift? It is bestowed freely. It is without money and without price. By faith embrace it, and it is your own forever. What reply does your heart make? The careless heart says, "Why should I seek for it? What profit will it bring to me? Give me health, give me success in my plans, give me prosperity in my affairs — and it will be time enough by and by to think of the world to come." The self-righteous heart says, "I thank You, Lord, that I am not as other men. I have much that will stand me in good stead when judgment approaches. Many have sinned more deeply than I. Let me have some part at least in the merit of my salvation." So it puts away the gift and perishes. The doubting heart says, "It cannot be for me, I am too unworthy, I am too great a sinner. I must first pray more, and repent more — and perhaps at length God may be willing to bestow so great a blessing upon me." So here again the consolation and the hope is cast aside. But the believing heart, taught of the Holy Spirit, answers far otherwise: "Gladly, O Lord, do I welcome Your offered mercy. Sin is the only thing that I can call my own. My own righteousness is but a garment spotted by the flesh. But I thank You from the very bottom of my heart for a righteousness in which I can stand guiltless before You. May I never cease to abhor myself for all that is mine, and to bless You for all that is Yours."
Thus does peace with God arise in the soul. Thus does true humility abound side by side with hope, and joy, and love. Thus does the justified one desire evermore to keep low before God under a sense of his own deficiencies. And the goodness which has been shown towards him, becomes the strongest ground for life-long contrition of soul. He fears not to call God his Father, for the righteousness in which he trusts is the righteousness of the righteous One. He fears not to search out and to confess the very utmost of his iniquity, for it cannot go beyond the reach of Christ’s atoning blood.
"Almighty and everlasting God, who forgives the sins of all them that are penitent — create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, lamenting our sins, and acknowledging our wretchedness — may obtain from You, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."
Jesus, we rest in Thee,
In You, ourselves we hide:
Laden with guilt and misery,
Where could we rest beside?
’Tis on Your meek and lowly breast
Our weary souls alone can rest.
O Holy One of God!
The Father rests in Thee,
And in the savor of that blood
Once shed on Calvary.
The curse is gone — through You we’re blest,
God rests in You — in You we rest.