Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 437
Isaiah 64:6, 7,8.
IT is easy to commit sin but hard to confess it. Man will transgress without a tempter. But even when urged by the most earnest pleader, he will not acknowledge his guilt. If we could but bring men into such a state of heart that they felt themselves to be guilty, there would be hope for them. But this is one of the most hopeless signs concerning our race, that it is so hardened and so perverse, that even when sin stares it in the face, it still pleads innocence and proudly lifts up its head and challenges the accuser.
Transgressors always seek to escape from the painful and humiliating duty of acknowledging their offenses. Some seek to hide it both from themselves and others, silencing their own consciences and throwing dust in the eyes of their companions. As Achan, digging in the earth to hide the Babylonian garment and the wedge of gold, they forget that their sins will surely find them out. As the foolish ostrich, when pursued by the hunters, buries its head in the sand and when it cannot see its enemy thinks it has escaped—so these men take the fact that they are undiscovered by men, and are at peace with themselves, as a good omen. In reality, it is a sad sign of hardness and blindness of heart.
Many pursue yet another course and make excuses for their offenses. They did do wrong, it is true, but then there is much to be said in extenuation. Like Aaron, they urge the clamors of the people, or they will have it that even Providence, itself, compelled them to sin. “I cast gold into the fire and there came out this calf,” as if sin were an accident, and not a willful wickedness. As if disobedience to God were a sort of necessity of nature, and not a direct rebellion of the will against the Majesty of Heaven.
Others, too, will blame their sin on their fellows—a trick which they learned from our first parents, for Adam, in the garden, said—“The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat.” Or they may have learned it from our mother, Eve, for even she understood this stratagem—“The serpent beguiled me and I did eat.” So they will have it that they were dragged into sin by force—they were overly persuaded or craftily enticed, so that they ought not to be considered as accomplices in the crime—but that they are, in fact, only the instruments of others’ sins and could hardly resist. So they say others must take the whole of the guilt and they themselves should go free.
Some who have attained to a higher pitch of brazen impudence will actually deny altogether that they have sinned. They will come before God’s servant as Ananias did before Peter, and say, “Yes, for so much,” while yet they are holding a lie in their right hand. We have some who will stoutly say, “We have not sinned,” and who think themselves insulted if in plain terms you accuse them of having violated the Law of God. There are some, also, and those not a few, who endeavor to color their sins and to cloak them with a profession of godliness, by attending to the ceremonies of religion with ostentatious carefulness.
Like the Pharisees of old, they devour widows’ houses but they make long prayers. They hate Christ in their hearts but they tithe mint and anise and cummin. They violate the precepts of the Law, but they bind them on their foreheads, wear long fringes on their garments, and write texts of Scripture on the doorposts of their houses. These serve at the altar of the devil, in the garb of God’s priests and offer unclean flesh upon the high places, in pretended honor of the God of Israel. We know that all these classes abound everywhere, for a man will do anything to hide sin from himself.
And he will give skin for skin, yes, all that he has, that he may be self-justified. He will do his all so that, he thinks, he may have something to answer when he stands before the Most High. So that he may find food for his pride and a coverlet for the infamous arrogance of his heart, he will dig and labor and strive. He will give his goods to the poor and his body to be burned, that he may win a righteousness of his own.
Beloved, if you and I have ever been partakers of the Grace of God, we have been brought to the distasteful duty of confession of sin, for it is not possible that we have been pardoned if we have refused to acknowledge our guilt. We cannot be partakers of the life of God in the soul if still we can say, “Lord, I am righteous and of myself I can plead exemption from Your curse.” A clear sense of our lost estate is absolutely necessary to make us even seek pardon.
As the man who thinks himself in good health will never send for a physician, as the man who is sufficiently warm will not avail himself of an extra garment which is offered to him, as the man who is not hungry will not accept an invitation to a feast of charity—so we find that none will come to Christ but those who feel that they must come—and that outside of Him they are utterly lost, ruined and undone. Moreover, as none will seek the mercy till they know their need, so we may rest assured that none would value that mercy even if it were given to them before the spiritual poverty had become manifest.