Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1577
“He will subdue our iniquities.” Micah 7:19.
BUT lately I tuned my harp to the music of forgiven sin and we sang of pardon bought with blood, finding our keynote in the words of David—“Who forgives all your iniquities.” It was a sweet subject to all our hearts, for we all have a portion in it, seeing we are all sinful and have need to be forgiven—therefore did our souls dance to the high sounding cymbals as we rejoiced in the complete pardon which our gracious God has given to all who believe in Jesus. But, Beloved, the pardon of sin is not enough for us—we have another equally urgent need. If the Lord would forgive us all our sins we could not be happy with that alone. “Who forgives all your iniquities” is not perfect music till we add to it the next note, “who heals all your diseases.”
We feel that we have within us a tendency to sin and that tendency is our misery. From this tendency we must be emancipated, or we are no more free than the captive who has had the manacles removed from one wrist but feels the iron eating into the other arm! We wish to be delivered from every propensity to sin—yes, to be rescued altogether from its power. God has now given us a new life and this will never be easy till the last link of the chain of sin is utterly removed. Since our new birth there remains no rest for us short of being perfectly like our God in righteousness and true holiness. The heavenly Seed within us must and will grow—and as it increases in the soul, it will expel the power of evil, for it cannot endure the least particle of it.
We may now be called “the Irreconcilables,” for we can never be at peace with evil. We cannot tolerate sin. The thought of it pains us and when we fall into a sinful act we are cut to the quick. We thirst to be pure! We pant to be holy and we shall never be satisfied until we are perfectly so. We, dear Friends, who have been awakened by the Holy Spirit, find that we are by nature under the power of sin. It will not be an easy thing for us to escape from the terrible tyranny of sin—not without the putting forth of great power can the iron yoke be broken. What little experience we have had in the Divine Life leads us to see that there is an immense difficulty before us, making our upward progress one of conflict and labor. A dreadful power has our nature in subjection and that power cannot easily be overcome.
Ever since the Fall sin has taken possession of us. This flesh of ours lusts to evil—the propensities of our nature which are not, in themselves, sinful, are made by our depraved hearts to be the occasions of concupiscence and transgression. We cannot eat, or drink, or talk, or sleep but what there is a tendency to sin in each of these conditions. Out of the simplest movements of our being, evil can arise. Actions which are incidental to the very fact that we are men—actions which are neither morally good nor morally evil become, nevertheless, the nests in which sin lays its eggs and hatches them so that every propensity of ours, even that which is, in itself, natural and fitting, readily becomes polluted and depraved through the indwelling of sin in our nature.
Sin poisons the wellhead! Sin is in our brain—we think wrongly. Sin is in our heart—we love that which is evil. Sin bribes the judgment, intoxicates the will and perverts the memory! We recollect a bad word when we forget a holy sentence. Like a sea which comes up and floods a continent, penetrating every valley, deluging every plain and invading every mountain, so has sin penetrated our entire nature! How shall this flood be stopped? This enemy so universally dominant, so strongly entrenched—how shall it be dislodged? It has to be driven out somehow, every particle of it, and we shall never rest until it is. But by whom shall iniquity be subdued? How satisfactory the assurance of our text, “He will subdue our iniquities”!
We find that our inward enemies are assisted by allies from without. The world which lies in the Wicked One is always ready to assist his dominion within us. We cannot walk down a street but we hear language which pollutes us. We can scarcely transact business in our own counting houses without being tempted. If we stay at home there is temptation there and if we go abroad it is the same. The most retired are not free from sin, no, their very retirement may only be a
sinful selfishness which shirks imperative duty. We cannot do good to others without running some risk, ourselves, and if we cease from godly endeavors because we would not jeopardize our own spiritual comfort, we are already taken in the snare!
We cannot mix in politics in any degree, with the purest desire for our country’s welfare, without breathing tainted air. We cannot try to curb the social evil but we feel that we are on treacherous ground—yet we may not flinch from duty because of its perils. We shrink like the sensitive plant that is touched by the finger—we fold and furl up all the feelings of our being because of the sin which touches us when we mingle with men. We often close up all the gates and windows of the soul because we are conscious that the enemies without are calling to the enemies within and saying, “We will conquer you yet!”