Note, beloved, the special character of believers,-their divine relationship, their heavenly privilege; they are called “the children of God.” There is a foolish dream about the divine fatherhood toward all men; but it is a figment, a fiction, a delusion, a deception. The fatherhood of God is toward as many as he hath begotten again unto a lively hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead; these are his children. As for the rest of mankind, they are heirs of wrath, even as others. It is the special manner of God’s love that we are bidden in this chapter to “behold” as a wonder, because he has bestowed this “manner of love” upon us “that we should be called the sons of God;” and that he has not bestowed this love upon all men is evident, for it is added, “therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.”

So, you see, out of the special privilege of God’s children there grows a special position which they are called to occupy. They are not of the world, even as Christ is not of the world. They become a holy people, separated unto God. I say not that all who profess the Christian name are so; that is what they ought to be, but it is to be feared that many of them have not yet reached this standard. But true believers, the twice-born, have been regenerated by the Spirit of God. These are not of the world, and the world does not understand them; they are aliens and foreigners, their manners and customs, their modes of thought and their motives are all contrary to those of the ordinary sons of men; and they have to force their way through the world as pilgrims through a Vanity Fair where there is nothing for them to purchase, and nothing worthy of their attention. May God keep you, dear brethren, a separated people! May you obey that voice, “Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.”

Observe also, dear friends, as you read this chapter, what is the blessed hope of the children of God; they are looking for the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ from heaven. As they look back by faith, they see their Lord upon the cross, and then they see him in the tomb, and then they behold him risen from the grave. The last glimpse they catch of him is as a cloud receives him out of their sight. He has gone into the glory, but believers have not forgotten those angelic words to the disciples, “This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.” So we expect him to come; and when he comes, then is to be the time of our highest joy. Even though we are now called the sons of God, “it doth not yet appear what we shall be.” Our glory, our full bliss, is as yet concealed; “but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” So, brethren, our hope is that, when Christ shall come, we shall be perfected, that then we shall be rid of every sin, and shall become holy even as he is holy, pure even as he is pure.

What is our occupation while we are waiting for our Lord’s return? Standing on the door-step of the better dispensation, what are we doing? The third verse of this chapter tells us that “every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as he is pure.” Casting off every sin, mourning that it should be within us, resolving that it shall not master us, determining to go from strength to strength in holiness and true righteousness, endeavouring to perfect holiness in the fear of God,-this is the present occupation of the sons of God who expect that, by-and-by, they shall be made like unto their risen and ascended Lord.

Now, in order that we may carry on this blessed work of purifying ourselves, I want you to think with me upon three matters suggested by our text. The first is, the Christian’s view of sin: “Sin is the transgression of the law.” The second is, the Christian’s hope of rescue from sin. Where does that lie? “Ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins.” And the third is, the Christian’s model, to which he hopes ere long to be conformed: “In him is no sin;” and as we shall be like him when we shall see him as he is, so in us there shall be no sin.

“O glorious hope! O blest abode!

I shall be near and like my God;

And flesh and sin no more control,

The sacred pleasures of my soul.”

First, then, I want you to consider for a few minutes, for I cannot go fully into such a great subject, what is the Christian’s view of sin.

I know that there are some persons who understand by the word “sin” some offence against their fellow-men, or the outward neglect of religion. They regard sin as if it were the same thing as crime,-an offence against the prosperity of the nation or the welfare of their fellow-men. I am inclined to think that even some of my brethren in Christ do not really understand what sin is when they say that they live without it. I fancy that they mean by sin, something very different from what the Scripture means by that word, otherwise they would hardly talk as they do.

Sin is any want of conformity to the perfect mind of God; or, according to our text, “sin is the transgression of the law,” and every transgression of the law is sin. Therefore, we say that, first, every sin breaks God’s law. It does not matter what sin is committed, it breaks the law at some one point. There are ten great commandments of God; and it may be that you think you have never broken No. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6, but if you have broken No. 7, 8, 9, or 10, you have snapped the chain asunder as really as if you had broken all its links. It little matters to miners in a pit, if the chain be broken, at what particular link it came asunder. So, any offence against the law of God breaks the whole law, and spoils any hope of the sinner being saved by keeping it. Every sin is an offence against the law, as you will see if you look at the law in another aspect. You remember that great command, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself;” now, if in anything we come short of that command, or if we do anything contrary to it, we have violated the law. This is what every kind of sin does; either by falling short of the command of God, or going beyond it, the law is broken. This being the case, is there one among us who has not broken the law of God?

Then take the other side of this truth. Every breach of the law is a sin. If thou dost not do what God commands thee, fully, heartily, always, without fail, thou hast sinned; and if thou dost at any moment that which God commands thee not to do, thou hast therein sinned against him. And let it never be forgotten that what I am now saying about actions applies also to words; our Lord told his disciples that for every idle word anyone utters he must give an account in the day of judgment. And remember, too, that this rule applies to thoughts and imaginations and desires, and to those secret motives which hide away within the soul, and never actually come into deeds. God shall bring these hidden things to judgment; and every thought, or word, or deed, that is not in perfect conformity with the law and will of God, is a sin. Who among us can stand before the Lord in his own righteousness if this be true? If God shall “lay judgment to the line, and righteousness to the plummet,” who among us shall not be overwhelmed when “the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding-place?”

Let me further say that sin is mainly sin because it is a transgression of the law. Many a person will say, “I did no harm to anyone.” That is not the point; if you break the law of God, you thereby sin. We must never judge sin merely by its consequences, or we may make great mistakes. A pointsman on the railway does not turn the switch aright, and one train dashes into another, and a hundred lives are lost. He may say to himself, “What a crime I committed by my carelessness,” and everybody denounces him for it. But suppose he forgot to turn the switch, and by a sort of miracle the two trains escaped coming into collision. If by some extraordinary coincidence the two mighty masses of matter rushing onward were stopped in their progress, and no hurt came of it, the pointsman would be just as guilty in that case as in the other. It is not the amount of damage that results from it that makes the sin; it is the thing itself. If you are doing wrong, even though you should feed a nation by your wrongdoing, I say that you would still be committing sin. If you get rich by an unholy trick, it is none the less trickery and deception, and there is a curse upon your wealth. Some sins men can see at once are sins because they bring upon the one who commits them disease of body, or they leave him in rags, or cover him with shame; then men say, “This course of conduct is wrong, for see what comes of it.” But that is a very imperfect way of looking at the matter; the wrong of a thing consists in this, that it is a breach of God’s law; yet how few ever think of this! To break the Queen’s law is bad, but to break God’s law is far worse. I would like to look every unconverted man in the face, and say to him, “I do not accuse you of this or that particular sin, but I lay the axe nearer the root than that, and tell you that your great sin is that you do not serve God, you do not give to your Maker the homage which is his due. Your heart never bows itself in obedience to him, you are a born rebel, you are at enmity against the Most High, and you will not yield to him, your Lord and Sovereign.” This is the very essence and virus of the worst possible sin. I know that some will not think much of this view of the matter; that is because they do not think much of God; and herein is a clear proof of man’s enmity against God, in that he does not think it any great evil that he should trifle with the law of God, and live according to his own will and way.

Now let me show you that it is a great sin to break the law of God; for the man who habitually breaks the law of God is a traitor to his Sovereign, he impugns God’s right to reign. He practically says, “Who is Jehovah, that I should obey him?” As far as he can, he dashes the sceptre out of God’s hand, takes the crown from his head, and makes himself to be his own king and his own lord. Is this, think you, a little evil?

Again, the man who prefers sin to holiness practically contradicts God’s Word. He says, “It is better not to do God’s will. God commands me to do this or that, but I prefer to do the other, judging it to be to my advantage so to do.” I say to thee, sinner, that thou makest out that God is a fool, and that thou art a wise man; thou sayest, “My course of worldliness, my course of sinful pleasure, is the better way, and God does not know what is best for me.” Dost thou think that thy Maker will permit thee thus, as it were, to give a slap in the face to his infinite wisdom?

The breaking of God’s law is also a questioning of his goodness. The man seems to think that God has denied him something which it would be for his gain to have. If he did not think so, he would not desire the forbidden thing. It is the case with all of us as with mother Eve, we come to think that there is some mysterious gain to be gotten by plucking the forbidden fruit, and the dragon whispers, “God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” And so, preferring our own folly to the wisdom and goodness of the great and glorious God, we conclude that he does not wish our highest good, and that our highest good is to be found in going contrary to his will What is this but a direct insult in the face of infinite love, and saying to God, “Thou dost not love me, after all”?

And, once more, he who dares to break God’s law, seeing that he cannot do it except in the immediate presence of God, for God is everywhere, he that acts contrary to God’s law before God’s own face does, as it were, fling down the gauntlet to his God, and defy his power. By such action as that, he either means to declare that God is not almighty, or that Jehovah will not exercise his omnipotence to defend his honour, or that he himself does not care what God does, so he will leave him to do his worst. Every sin has this venom within its bowels, it is a defiance of the mighty majesty of God; and, O my unpardoned hearer, this is how you have acted thousands of times, yet the Lord hath forborne to strike, and in mercy hath borne with you, even to this day!

So, in the first place, that is what the Christian thinks sin to be, it is a breach of the law of God, and that breach of the law is full of unnumbered ills, and mischiefs, and sins against God.

Now, secondly, let us consider what is the Christian’s hope of rescue from sin. It is revealed in this portion of our text: “We know that he was manifested to take away our sins.”

When I have been pondering upon the sin of men,-and who among us has not that painful matter continually thrust before us for our consideration?-I have found no comfort except in this glorious fact, that Christ Jesus was manifested to take away our sins. This is the source of the Christian’s hope, God’s appearance in human form. If it be so that the great God himself deigned to come to earth, and to take upon him the form of man;-if it be so that the ever-blessed Second Person of the Divine Trinity was actually born of the Virgin, that he might become man like ourselves;-if it be so that he came here to fight the evil, and that he has put his foot down against the advance of the enemy, then I have hope for mankind, I have hope for myself, I have hope that sin may be overcome; and as we know and are sure that God has come down among us, and has taken upon himself our nature, since this is the very fundamental truth of our holy faith, therefore we see how sin can be put away. If thou, great God, dost undertake to put it away, it can be done; but it can be done by none else. If all the angels in heaven had promised to cleanse this Augean stable, it would have remained as foul as ever; and if all the sons of men had resolved to purify with fire this foul and loathsome world, it would have remained still a very Gehenna. But if thou dost undertake it, O thou blessed Son of God,-without whom was not anything made that was made, and by whom all things consist, upholding all things as thou dost, by the word of thy power,-if thou dost undertake the tremendous work, then it will be done!

So, next, our hope lies in Christ’s death. Our sin needed to be removed in two ways. First, as to the guilt of sin; we have already sinned, and by reason of our sin we have incurred the righteous anger of God, and his just displeasure. God must punish sin. If a man stands in the track of an avalanche, he must be buried beneath it; and if a man stands in the way of the laws of God, those laws must crush him. There was but one way of deliverance from the guilt of sin, and that was for God himself, in human form, to take the consequences of human sin upon himself. Would he ever think of doing such a thing? Could he ever condescend to do it? He has done it; in infinite compassion, he that possessed the royalties of heaven has doffed his kingly mantle, and laid aside his crown, and he has come down here to dwell among us in human clay; and being here, he has suffered, he has bled, he has died, “the Just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.” Brothers and sisters, if he that died on Calvary’s cross was indeed the Son of God, if he died there to make an expiation for sin, then I can see how human guilt can be put away. Think of some of the crimes of which it is scarcely lawful for us to speak; how could such crimson stains ever be washed out except with the blood of the Son of God? Think of your own sins, dear friend; even if they have not been so glaring as those of others, yet their turpitude is great. How could they ever be washed away except by the blood of the Son of God? But if thou, O Christ, hast bowed thy head, and given up the ghost,-if thy dear body has been laid in the silent tomb, bearing in it the marks of thy anguish;-if thou hast said, “It is finished,” who shall contradict thee? “It is finished.” The great sacrifice is accomplished, and thou hast, by thy one offering, for ever put away the sin of thy people. “We know that he was manifested to take away our sins.” Do you know it, dear hearer? If you do not, I am very sorry for you, and I pray the Lord to teach you to believe it even now, that you may see your sin put away by Christ’s death.

But then, we need Christ’s life in us by the gift of the Spirit. Even if sin be pardoned, that is not enough for us; we want to have sin put right away from us, from the heart of us, and from the life of us. Do you not, my brethren and sisters, all agree that this is what you want? I think that, if we could be forgiven, and yet not wholly sanctified, we could never be happy while sin was still creeping and crawling over us. O thou venomous reptile, if thou dost coil thyself around my arm, or about my body anywhere, even if thy deadly poison shall be taken from thee, yet thou dost sicken me almost to death by thy loathsome touch! How is this foul thing, sin, to be taken away from us? Well, our Lord Jesus Christ was manifested in order that, after his death, when he had ascended up to heaven, the Holy Spirit might descend, and come and dwell in us, to conquer every evil passion, and to work in us all manner of holy desires, and so abide in us as to speak out of our mouths, to act through our lives, and to make us to live after God’s manner of living, and not according to the way of the flesh, as once we did. Christ was manifested in order that, by his rising again from the dead, and going back into heaven, the Holy Spirit might come and dwell among the believing sons and daughters of men, that he might fashion us into newness of life. And now, this day, the Christ who trod the soil of this poor earth, the Christ who on it died, the Christ who in it was buried, the Christ who from it ascended into glory,-I say that he, by a mighty, secret, and invisible power, is this day working among the guilty children of men, creating them anew, making them new creatures in Christ Jesus. A hoary-headed sinner once said, “I wish I was like that little child, so that I could begin life again.” It is this that Jesus does for thee, my aged friend; he makes thee to become a babe in grace. Dost thou ask, “Can a man be born when he is old?” It is even so, for Christ can make thee to be born again, and to begin to live quite a new life. For this purpose was he manifested, that he might thus take away our sins; and, every day, in those who believe in him, Christ is crucifying the flesh, with its affections and lusts. Every day, he is making the old man to die. Every day, Christ is being formed in us, the hope of glory. Every day, his resurrection-life is giving us the power to rise above the old dead world and its lusts. Every day, our ascended Lord is causing us also to ascend, that we may sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Every day, he is working in us by his blessed Spirit, that he may make us to be perfectly free from every sin, and so to be like himself. This, then, is our hope; is it not a blessed one? “We know that he was manifested to take away our sins.”

Oh, I wish, my dear friends, you who have never seriously thought about this matter, that you really would turn your whole attention to it! It is your only hope. But, perhaps, you have got entangled in some vice; or if not that, a cold lethargy of carelessness is upon you, or else you have grown very worldly. There is no getting out of this condition except through one power, and that power is in the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is but one way to something better, and safer, and more divine; and that way is Christ. Why do you not seek him? Surely, you cannot think that it would make you wretched if you became pure and holy. If you do imagine such a thing, I bear my willing testimony that, albeit I have tried to serve my Master with all my might, I have never found his service to be a servitude. There is no bondage connected with endeavouring to be like Christ. In fact, there is no joy that ever sparkles in the eye like the joy of a reconciled soul. If sin be pardoned,-if evil be conquered, then what is there for me to fear? Death has no sting for the believer in Jesus, and life with its burdens cannot overweight us: we are fit to live, and we are fit to die, if our sin be taken away. Grace has prepared us to suffer, or prepared us for enjoyment. Grace has made us ready for riches, or ready for poverty. Grace makes us ready for the silent chamber of sickness, or for the grave of bereavement, or for the social joy of the little children that clamber about our knee. He is fit for anything who is made like his Lord. If sin be but put away through the manifestation of Christ, it brings nothing that can unfit us for this life or the next, but everything that shall make us fit here and fit hereafter. If I were a secularist, I would wish to be a Christian. If there were no hereafter, yet were it better to have sin forgiven, even as a mortal man, so as to live at peace with the Eternal, and to feel a glow of gratitude to him impelling to self-sacrifice, and moving to intense love toward my guilty fellow-men. I am sure that it is so; Christianity is the noblest of all ethics, even for the present day, and much more for the eternal world whither we are hastening.

Now I conclude with just a few brief remarks upon the third point,-the Christian’s model, to which he is to be conformed. You see what his hope is,-that the manifestation of Christ will take away his sin; what is his model?

First, it is, Christ ever perfect. My lips are unable fully to tell about my perfect Master, Christ Jesus, my Lord; but I may say this, his enemies have looked at him from every side, and they have never yet been able to find a joint in his harness through which to shoot their poisoned darts. Men who have flung aside the great truth of the inspiration of the Scriptures, and have been prepared even to make light of heaven and hell, have nevertheless gazed with astonishment upon the character of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is unrivalled among the sons of men, it is absolutely perfect. As one snow-white peak rises above its brother Alps, a crowned monarch, more than peer of all the highest of them, so does the life of Christ rise above that of all philanthropists, and all teachers, and the loftiest purity that is merely of earth. There is none like him, there is no defect in Christ, and there is no excess. He is the joy of God’s own heart; he is the delight of all the saints above; he is your joy and mine, beloved, to us he is the Altogether-lovely.

Mark, next, that every saint as far as he is in Christ is perfect, too. That part of me that is still my own, oh, how imperfect it is! That part of me that does not yet abide in him,-that old nature that struggles and sometimes breaks loose,-oh, how much I grieve over it! But in so far as Christ comes into contact with us, and we yield ourselves to him, we are affected by his divine purity, so that we become pure even as he is pure. They say sometimes of a Christian man who does something that is not right, “He did so-and-so; that is your religion!” No, it is not; that is the point where, as yet, his religion has not thoroughly saturated him; that is his defect and failing. Pray God that he may be forgiven for the wrong-doing, and ask that the grace of God may sanctify him wholly, spirit, soul, and body.

With this point I close; this is the resolve, the intent, the prayer, the hope, the assurance, of every believer,-that, one day, he shall be perfectly in Christ, and then he will be perfect as Christ. O blessed, blessed hope! There is not a sin within us but must die. Out with thee, sin, out with thee! Thou must die. There is not a Canaanite in the land, though he be a prince, but must be hanged up before the face of the sun. You know how these iniquities try to hide themselves away within our souls, as the five kings hid in the cave at Makkedah; and we have, like Joshua, to roll great stones before the mouth of the cave,-some self-denials that cost us a great effort,-so as to keep them from coming out. But that is not enough, we cannot be satisfied with having sins hidden away as in a cave; we want to slay them as Joshua slew the five kings. So, before the sun goes down, we cry, “Come out with you! Come out with you! You must die, every one of you.” There is not to be any wrong thought, or wrong desire, or wrong action spared; we must put all to death if we would become as perfect and pure as Christ is. “That is a hard lesson,” say you. “It is a blessed hope,” say I. “It is very difficult,” you say. I confess that it is impossible to us, but it is not impossible to him who undertakes it for us. He was manifested to take away our sins; and since the manifestation included the incarnation, and the bloody sweat, and the death upon the cross, what is there that it cannot accomplish? Believe, dear friend, that every sin in you will yet be slain, and that you shall stand before God, “without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing.” “This would be my heaven,” say you. Indeed, you cannot have a better heaven than that. Washed completely from all defilement, delivered from every trace of past sin, and from every tendency to future sin, perfectly in Christ Jesus, and perfect in Christ Jesus,-oh, this is heaven indeed!

Believing this, let us struggle and fight to attain it, and let us never rest satisfied till we get it. “Then,” says one, “we shall never rest satisfied this side of heaven.” Of course you will not; as long as you are here, you will have to fight. As long as you are here, you will have to strive and struggle. If already you have gained the victory to a large degree, go on, and get more and more of it. Some time ago, I heard a man ask, “Can we be perfect in this life?” I smelt that he had been drinking, and I thought to myself, “Well now, you are something like a man who is covered with rags, and has not a penny in his pocket, who asks, “Do you think it is possible that every working-man can be a millionaire?” Had he not better ask first whether he could save five shillings? So, when a man says, “Can I be perfect?” I say, “My dear fellow, you need not bother your head about that matter at present; you are such a long way from it yet that you had better find out how you can even become moral first. There are some overt sins that you can get rid of, and ought to get rid of; but there is a long, long way between a soul that has just begun to perceive the guilt of sin, and to break off outward evil habits and vices, and that same soul being absolutely perfect like unto God himself. There is so great a distance that thou must have God to carry thee across it, or thou wilt never traverse it; and thou must cast thyself as a sinner at the feet of Jesus, or thou mayest never hope for it. Come, let all of us begin at the cross this very moment; let us begin by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, and then he will purify us even as he is pure; and, at the last, when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

God bless you all, for Jesus’ sake! Amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

1 JOHN 3

Verse 1, Behold,-

For there is no greater wonder out of heaven than this: “Behold,”-

1. What manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.

As we are called the sons of God, we are to be made like his only-begotten Son; and here is the beginning of the likeness, that, as the world did not know him, and therefore crucified him, so it does not know the other sons of God, and therefore spends its malice upon them whenever it can. Yet what a marvellous thing is this,-what a wonder of divine condescension, that we who were the slaves of Satan, the children of disobedience, the heirs of wrath, should be called the sons of God! We can well accept the consequence of such a position without any very great sorrow: “Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.”

2. Beloved, now are we the sons of God,-

Not merely in heaven, or when we come to die, but now, in this place, in our pain, in our sorrow, ay, notwithstanding our imperfections and infirmities, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God,”-

2. And it doth not yet appear what we shall be:

We are made like unto Christ; but when he was here, it did not then appear what he should be. If you had seen the lowly Nazarene, who was “despised and rejected of men,” could you have guessed what he will be in his glory when it shall please God to judge the world by Jesus Christ? So, in like manner, “it doth not yet appear what we shall be.”

2. But we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

Every spiritual sight of him is transforming. Our looking at him here makes us what we are, our looking at him at the last shall make us like what he is. Oh! what joy to know that the medicine for our souls is taken in at the eyes of faith, and by the sight of Christ we are healed!

3. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.

The great object of the Christian’s hope is perfect purification. If we expect to be like Christ, we look for it in the putting away of sin, and in the girding on of all manner of excellence, and holiness, and loveliness, for therein will lie our likeness to Christ. Oh, that God would give us more and more of this Christ-likeness!

4, 5. Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law. And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins;

Not to let us live in them at ease, not to make sin become a pardonable matter, so that we might indulge in it, and yet hope to escape from its consequences. Oh, no! “He was manifested to take away our sins.”

5. And in him is no sin.

Whatever he does, it does not contribute to sin, but is the deadly antagonist of sin.

6. Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him.

The man who dwells in Christ is the holy man; but the man who lives in sin is no child of God, for he proves by his evil conduct that he has no vital union with Christ. The fruit of Christianity is holiness; and if thy life be a sinful one, if that be the main run and tenor of thy life, thou art none of his.

7. Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.

He is practically righteous, he is truly righteous; but let no man talk about being righteous before God while he is wilfully indulging in sin. This cannot be; thou must be divorced from sin, or thou canst not be married to Christ. The gospel demands and also creates holiness of character; and wherever it works effectively upon the heart and conscience, it produces purity in the life.

8. He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.

He did not come to make us easy while under the devil’s sway, but to fetch us out from the tyrant’s dominion, and lead us to live a godly, sober, righteous, pure life unto his praise and glory.

9. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin;

That is to say, he does not live in it, it is not the tenor of his life. He is not outwardly so that others could convict him of it, or inwardly so that his own conscience could chide him with it, a man who loves sin.

9. For his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin because he is born of God.

Immortal principles forbid the child of God to sin; the new-born life within us keeps us holy. We have our imperfections and infirmities over which we mourn; but no child of God can live in sin, and love it. He hates it; he is like a sheep that may fall into the mire, but he will not wallow in it, as the swine do. As soon as possible, he is up again out of the mud and the filth. He goes sorrowing, with broken bones, when he perceives that he has grieved his God. His life as a whole is a holy life.

10. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.

An unlovely spirit is also self-condemnatory as being an unholy spirit; in fact, want of love is want of righteousness. There are some who profess to be so righteous that they condemn everybody else, and they have no bowels of compassion for those who are suffering in consequence of their fault. But oh, beloved, it is one thing to hate sin, and it is another thing to hate the sinner! Let your indignation burn against everything that is evil; but still, towards him who has done the wrong have ever the gentle thought of pity, and for him present the prayer that he may leave his sin, and turn unto his gracious God. It may be difficult to reach this point; but there should always be just that happy mixture in the mind and heart of the child of God,-love to the sinner and hatred of his sin.

11, 12. For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous.

And there is no hate like that,-the hate of a bad man towards a good one, not for doing him any wrong, but simply for rebuking him by the silent eloquence of his holy life. Men who love sin cannot endure the sight of virtue; and if they cannot kill the good man, they will try to kill his reputation. They sneer, and say, “Ah, he is as bad as others, no doubt, if you could only find him out!” That is exactly the spirit of Cain, “who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother.”

13-17. Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you. We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer; and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?

Perhaps he will do it on what he calls “principle.” He thinks it is wrong to help his needy brother, so he says; but however he may put it, the Holy Spirit asks this searching question, “Whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?”

18, 19. My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him.

Full assurance comes very much this way, by a practical carrying out of the law of love.

20. For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.

Which we do not; and, therefore, our condemnation can never be so heavy as the condemnation which God will bring upon us. Let the man, whose own conscience accuses him, question himself as to how he will stand in the presence of the all-seeing God.

21. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God.

If we can feel in our own bosoms that, by divine grace, we have been led to be honest, and upright, and true, before the Lord, “then have we confidence toward God.”

22. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.

Notice those conditions of answered prayer; we cannot expect God to grant us our wishes if we do not conform to his will. Holiness has a great deal to do with power in prayer. It is not every man who prays who shall have whatever he asks for; but it is put so here, and it is notable that it is so put, “Whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.” This is not mere legality, this is not a matter of work-mongering. When we become God’s children, he treats us as a father treats his child. You know what you do with a boy who is disobedient; he asks you for something that he wants, and you say, “No, I cannot grant you that; your conduct is such that I cannot let you have the pleasures that otherwise I would be pleased to give you.” But you have another boy, who is very careful in all things to do his father’s will; and you have marked the anxiety of his heart to be obedient to you, and you say, “Yes, my dear child, you may have whatever you want. I know that you would not have asked for it if you had not thought that it would be agreeable to my mind; and as you have asked that which is suitable for me to give, you may have it, and I am glad to give it to you.” So is it in the fatherly discipline of the house of God; if we do those things which are pleasing in his sight, we shall have power to prevail with him in prayer.

23, 24. And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment. And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him.

That is a great mystery, for us to dwell in God, and for God to dwell in us. It is even so, but only he who knows it can understand it. Experience alone can explain our dwelling in God and God dwelling in us.

24. And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us.

Holy Spirit, dwell in me, and teach me the meaning of this precious Word, for Christ’s sake! Amen.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-257, 561, 506.

APART

A Sermon

Intended for Reading on Lord’s-day, March 28th, 1897,

delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington,

On Thursday Evening, July 16th, 1885.

“And the land shall mourn, every family apart; the family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of Shimei apart, and their wives apart; all the families that remain, every family apart, and their wives apart.”-Zechariah 12:12-14.

True repentance is always accompanied by sorrow. It has been said by some of those of modern times who disparage repentance that repentance is “nothing but a change of mind.” These words sound as if there was merely some superficial meaning to them; and so, indeed, they are intended by those who use them, but they are not so intended by the Spirit of God. Repentance may be and is a change of mind; but what a change it is! It is not an unimportant change of mind such as you may have concerning whether you will take your holiday this week or the next, or about some trifling matter of domestic interest; but it is a change of the whole heart, of the love, of the hate, of the judgment, and of the view of things taken by the individual whose mind is thus changed. It is a deep, radical, fundamental, lasting change; and you will find that, whenever you meet with it in Scripture, it is always accompanied with sorrow for past sin. And rest you assured of this fact, that the repentance which has no tear in its eye, and no mourning for sin in its heart, is a repentance which needs to be repented of, for there is in it no evidence of conversion, no sign of the existence of the grace of God. In what way has that man changed his mind who is not sorry that he has sinned? In what sense can it be said that he has undergone any change worth experiencing if he can look back upon his past life with pleasure, or look upon the prospect of returning to his sin without an inward loathing and disgust?

I say again that we have need to stand in doubt of that repentance which is not accompanied with mourning for sin; and even when Christ is clearly seen by faith, and sin is pardoned, and the man knows that it is forgiven, he does not cease to mourn for sin. Nay, brethren, his mourning becomes deeper as his knowledge of his guilt becomes greater; and his hatred of sin grows in proportion as he understands that love of Christ by which his sin is put away. In true believers, mourning for sin is chastened and sweetened, and, in one sense, the fang of bitterness is taken out; but, in another sense, the more we realize our indebtedness to God’s grace, and the more we see of the sufferings of Christ in order to our redemption, the more do we hate sin, and the more do we lament that we ever fell into it. I am sure it is so, and that every Christian’s experience will confirm what I say.

In the case of these people mentioned by the prophet Zechariah, one of the prominent points about their repentance was, that all in the land were to mourn. They were to look upon Christ whom their sins had put to death, and they were to mourn for him as one mourns for his only son, and to be in bitterness for him as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. In fact, the lamentation which was to accompany this repentance is said to be as great as the mourning of the whole nation when Josiah fell in the battle with Pharaoh-nechoh at Megiddo: “In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon.”

Another special characteristic of this mourning described by Zechariah, which also distinguishes genuine repentance for sin, is that it is personal, the act of each individual, and the act of the individual apart from any of his fellows. The watchword of true penitence is this word “apart.” How it rings out in the text, “Every family apart; the family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of Shimei apart, and their wives apart; all the families that remain, every family apart, and their wives apart.” Sham repentance can do its work in the mass; it talks about national sin and national sorrow, which generally means the mere notion of sin and the notion of repentance. But when it comes to a true work of the Spirit of God, and men do really mourn for sin so as to obtain pardon, it is a thing in which each individual stands in a personal solitude, as much apart from everybody else as if he had been the sole man that God ever made, and was without father and without mother and without descent, and had himself alone so sinned that the whole anger of God for sin had fallen upon him. A man in this condition gets alone, he bears his sin apart, quitting the company of his fellows, and all the charms that once lured him to destruction; and his lamentation on account of sin is his own sole act and deed. It wells up from his own heart, it is not borrowed from others; but, by the effectual working of the grace of God, everything about it is of himself.

It is to this important matter that I now call your attention, and in doing so our first point will be, the individualizing effect of sorrow for sin.

Let me remind you, first, that this individualizing is seen even when the mourning it universal. Read the text again: “The land shall mourn, every family apart.” If there should ever come such a blessed visitation of grace to England that all men should repent of sin, and mourn over it, yet each man would repent of sin, and mourn over it as much as if he were the only penitent in the entire country. This point is worth noticing, because there are some who fancy that, if there should come a great revival, they would get converted. Perhaps some of you think that, in such a case, you would get into the swim, and be carried onward by it, as people are sometimes borne along in a great crowd. Let me tell you that, if you were thus swept along by the stream, and had not exercised individual repentance of sin, and personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, it would be of no value to you. It would be a false religion that you would receive in that way, and it is better for you to recollect and know of a surety that you cannot enter the strait and narrow gate in a crowd, borne in by others, but you must come in separately and distinctly yourself. Why should not that be the case with you even now? When there shall be times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord, the brightest days that ever shone on Christendom, yet, even then, every true conversion must be an individual one. All true faith that shall ever come to you must be a looking with your own eye; and all drawing near to God in repentance must be the act of your own spirit, under the drawing of the Holy Spirit. Whatever is done by others, even by multitudes of genuine converts, will be of no avail for you; if it is to bring blessing to you, it must be the work of the Spirit of God upon you individually.

Do notice that foundation fact, and let none of us ever forget it; but let this day of mourning for sin, throughout the whole Church of God, be as much a time of mourning for sin, for me and for you, as if you and I were the only persons in the world who were aware of that sin, or who had felt at all the evil and the wickedness of it. Otherwise, we shall lose all true repentance in the idea of a national repentance, we shall lose all sense of sin in the notion that everybody has a sense of sin, that everybody is humbled in penitence before God, and that everybody is seeking the Lord.

Notice, next, that while this apartness is seen when holy mourning becomes universal, it also is manifest when there are some few households humbling themselves before God. Even then, when there are only a few repenting households, the separation of one family from another will be seen. The whole of the penitents are separate from the ungodly around them, they are distinguished as those who are mourning before God; yet even then, each individual family will be separated the one from the other. If it should come to pass that all the families of this church should begin unitedly to mourn by reason of the great sin of the times,-and I heartily hope that it may be the case,-yet even then, if it is true sorrow for sin, there will be a distinctness between one family and another family; there will be a sort of idiosyncrasy about the mourning for sin in this house, or in that house, which will distinguish the mourners there from all others. You can manufacture man-made things by the gross; but God’s creations are made one by one, he puts his seal of variety upon all that he creates. Painters can make replicas of their great works, and you may see here and there copies of paintings that are, stroke for stroke, the same, but God does not repeat himself. There is a distinctness about the face of every man and every woman; you may mistake one man for another, but it is from casual observation, or from partial knowledge; but a man’s own wife does not make a mistake about who is her husband, his child knows which is his father, and does not mistake another man for him. So, whatever resemblance there may be, there is a difference which is readily discernible; and if it is so in the natural face of a man, much more is it so in spiritual features. One man differs from another, and one family differs from another, and, consequently, in the mourning even when it becomes general throughout all the families of Christ, yet each family still keeps itself somewhat apart from the rest, and differs from every other.

This individualizing is further seen in the distinction between family and family when both fear the Lord. In our text, we have quite a little list of families given in order to make this truth clear. Each family has its peculiar sin, and a speciality must be made in confessing it.

There is, first, the family of the house of David, that is, the royal household; and the house of David was, as kings went in those days, a superior household. Kings’ households have not often been of much account; but David’s, though it was a long way off being perfect, was better than the best of the ungodly royal houses in those days. Yet there was something for the house of David, and all the kings of the house of David, to mourn over; for the sins of royalty are royal sins, and those are sins indeed which come from those who wear crowns, and are leaders among the sons of men. Hence, the family of the house of David must mourn apart.

Next, we are told that the family of the house of Nathan shall mourn apart. Take that to be the family of a prophet; the family down at the Manse, if you like. There is some particular sin in the minister’s household which makes it proper that his family should mourn apart. Or, it may refer to the family of that good man in the church who is distinguished for his walk with God; yet, even in his family, there is a something which, when God the Holy Spirit visits it as a Spirit of intercession and of mourning for sin, will cause it to mourn apart.

There will be something about each household which it does not like to tell to others; and even in the house of Levi, which is so near to that of Nathan,-for the prophet and the priest often go hand in hand,-yet, when their families are gathered together to confess sin, Nathan prefers that the family of Levi should not be at his house, and Levi is anxious that there should be a closed door when he and his household are mourning before the Lord. You will be right if you let the family of Levi represent the household of a gracious people; for now that the priesthood is the common property of all the elect of God, I do not care to distinguish Levi otherwise than as a believing man in whose house there is a church for God, and all whose family are of priestly rank. Still, even there, among the holiest and the best of saints, among those devoted to the service of God, among those whose very lives are spent in work for God, there will be some sin that shall make the house of Levi wish to mourn apart from all others.

Then there was to be the mourning of the family of Shimei. We do not know who this Shimei may have been; some commonplace person, perhaps; possibly, his was a household in which there had not been the fear of God. But when the grace of God comes to it, then the house of Shimei begins to mourn apart for its own special sin.

You see, dear friends, that the one blow I have kept striking upon the anvil is this, “apart, apart, APART.” All this mourning, however similar it might be in the one case to the other, is presented to God separately by each family; and if ever families were marked off the one from the other by a most manifest line of demarcation, it was in that night of weeping when, as at Bochim, they drew near unto God in prayer apart.

Notice, next, that this separateness is carried very far by the fact that, in each case, it put the family apart, and their wives apart. These people were one flesh; but when their hearts were made flesh, they had to offer separate supplications. The common sin of husbands and wives should be confessed unitedly, and there is nothing more natural, more beautiful, and more edifying, than for husbands and wives to pray together, to confess sin together, and to offer thanksgiving together. In all these they may be most fittingly one; yet there is and there must be some sin which the man shall bring before God, and before God alone, feeling that oven his dearest one would be an intruder in that act of personal mourning for sin; and when the Spirit of God is in the woman’s heart, she feels that, though she has no earthly secret from her husband, yet there is something between God and her soul into which even her husband cannot enter. Her mourning for her sin, when she first seeks the Saviour, would be hindered by her husband’s interposition, so she gets alone; and his mourning for sin, when first he seeks the Saviour, or when afterwards he is conscious of some backsliding, and longs to return to his Lord, must be apart and alone. No, ye dearest ones, when we enter into the closet, and shut to the door, you must enter your closet, and shut to the door; for, in the dealing of a soul with God, it must be One and one, the one Mediator standing between them twain, but no other individual interposing. This family or that family was to mourn apart as a family; but then the individuals composing each family were also to be separate in their confession before the Most High: “every family apart, and their wives apart.”

Now, secondly, how does this individuality generally show itself?

Well, in many ways. So truly is mourning for sin a personal thing, that each individual sees most his own sin, and feels himself to be alone as to character. That man who has truly repented of sin believes that, under some aspects, he is the greatest of all sinners. He is not so absurd as to charge himself with certain sins which he never committed, which probably he never had the opportunity to commit; but he is wise enough to see that our guiltiness before God not only depends upon the act committed, but upon the will to commit it, and upon the spirit, and very much upon the light against which a man has sinned, and upon the peculiar circumstances of favour and mercy which the man himself may have forgotten, but which prove him to have been most ungrateful in the commission of sin. I do not know about your sin, dear brother; you may be worse than I am, but I do know my own sin so far as to feel that I hope you are not worse than I am, and to believe that I myself must take no other place than among the guiltiest, and cry, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” Hence, each man’s confession is necessarily apart, because there is a different character in it.

Generally, mourning for sin is separate as to place. When a man is under a sense of sin, he likes to get quite alone. I knew one who, in his soul-trouble, resorted to a saw-pit; many have hidden behind a haystack, some have gone into the barn. Into all manner of queer nooks and corners we go when we are mourning for sin, but solitude has wonderful charms to a bleeding heart. You feel above all things that, even if it be the open street, you must get into some sort of solitude,-if necessary, even the awful solitude of being lost in a crowd. Thus, man recognizes the individuality of his sin by wishing to get apart even as to place.

And I am sure that it is so as to time. True mourning for sin is not a matter of hours and days. You cannot say, “Now it is time for me to mourn over my sin, and I must keep on so many minutes, and then have done.” Ah, no, dear friends! When a man is ill, when he is consumptive, or has a bad cough, if he comes to chapel, you think to yourself that you would like him to cough during the pauses in the service, and not at other times; but, poor soul, he cannot help himself, he must cough when he must cough. And when a man has a groan in his soul, he cannot groan according to the position of the sun. He cannot take down a book of prayers, and say, “Now is the time for confession of sin; and now is the time for this, and now is the time for that” He cannot follow the rules that may have been best in somebody else’s case. All the time some are praising God, he will be still mourning; and when others are lamenting with broken hearts, he is smiting his heart to think that it will not lament, and will not break. The things of eternal life cannot be set according to carnal time; they will come according to their own way; and thus, every man and every woman must mourn for sin apart, and there is no regulating them by the movements of the clock.

Not only are they separate as to place and time, but they get apart as to manner. Some can weep over their sin; but others could not shed a tear if they were offered a world for it. Some are silent in their agony; others cry aloud. One man feels that his heart is broken; another envies him, and wishes that his hard heart would break. One person is full of misery on account of sin, another says,-

“If aught is felt, ’tis only pain,

To find I cannot feel.”

There is a separate form of mourning about each true penitent, and let no one say of himself, “I have not mourned for sin because I have not mourned as somebody else has done.” Perhaps, if you had been exactly like somebody else, there might be a suspicion that you were a mere copyist, and not an original work of the grace of God. So, true mourning differs in its manner.

Do you not also know, dear friends, that each person who mourns for sin has his own secret,-a secret which he must not tell to anyone but the Lord? It were a pity that he should tell it to human ears There is a something in each individual case into which a stranger cannot enter. You may have read John Bunyan’s Grace Aboundiny, and you may have noticed that most of his biographers say that Bunyan’s account of himself was generally blackened by a morbid consciousness,-which also shows how little they know about the matter, for the man who has led the purest life, when he is brought before God by the humbling influence of the Holy Spirit, is the man who almost invariably considers himself to have been viler than anybody else. It is possible that John Bunyan was no worse than any other gipsy tinker, he may have been a great deal better, that is to say, in the judgment of the blind bats that try to see what he was like; but he knew himself better than they knew him, for he had seen himself in the strong light of the Holy Spirit. God had turned the bull’s-eye of the great lantern of the law full into that man’s face, and so he had a better idea of his own character than you and I have; and what he did tell us was not all he knew, he would not have dared to tell it all, it would have been wrong that he should. As there are words in heaven so high that it were not lawful for a man to utter them, so are there words down here in the deep corruption of our fallen spirits that it were not lawful for a man to utter save in the ear of the Most High. Therefore, each individual must mourn apart.

Our time is running so fast, that I must go on to notice, thirdly, how we account for this individuality. Why is it that each man thus mourns apart?

Well, in part, it is to be accounted for by that natural and justifiable shame which prevents our confessing all our sins before others. I take it to be an awful violation of the natural delicacy of the human mind when any person is invited to make oral confession to a priest. I can myself scarcely conceive of anything that could be more degrading to the heart, and more injurious to the conscience, than the infernal brazenness of heart that permits anybody to attempt such a thing. As the inspired prophet would have said, they must have “a whore’s forehead” before they can dare to unmask their hearts before their fellow-men. No, no, brethren, such a thing must not be so much as named among us; what shame remains in us, ought to prevent such a shameful or shameless thing as that. Hence, our mourning must be apart.

Secondly, in such a case, the heart desires to go to God himself, and the presence of anybody else seems like an intrusion between our soul and our God. The man looks round the room, he is afraid that somebody may come in to disturb his devotion, so he turns the key in the door. “Now,” he says, “my God, it is to thee that I would speak. I should not like a dog to hear what I have to say to thee, now that I come, and honestly and openly lay bare my heart for thine inspection, hating the very garment spotted by the flesh, and desiring to be washed throughly from mine iniquities.”

Further, the man is conscious that his guilt has been all his own. He dissociates himself, when he truly repents, from everybody else. He does not think of laying the blame on those who tempted him, or on ungodly parents who neglected his education. He looks for nobody to be his scapegoat except the appointed Scapegoat. He says, “I have sinned and done this evil in thy sight, O my God, and I stand before thee alone to confess it;” and therefore he gets the pardon of his guilt.

This, indeed, is a sure sign of sincerity. If thou canst only pray in public, thou dost not pray at all. If thou canst only join in the general confession, thou hast uttered a public lie. Thou art only right before God when it is thine own sin, felt in thine own heart, confessed by thyself before thine own God, unknown to anybody else, and altogether known to him.

Dear hearers, have you all done this? Have you all repented of sin? I am glad that so many are willing to spend a week-evening in listening to the gospel, and I always have hope that there is some religious sense about you that leads you to this mid-week service; but still, permit this personal question,-Has religion been to you only a family matter? Are you what you are because your mother was so or your father was so? Are you of this religion or that because it is the national faith,-because your pedigree has brought down with it your creed? This will not do. Remember, you have to be born alone, you will have to die alone, you will have to be judged alone, and you must be born again alone; and therefore, there must be for yourself a personal sense of sin, a personal seeking to Christ, a personal acceptance of pardon through the precious blood. Is it so with you all? Our days are running swiftly away; we are all getting older, and coming nearer to the end of life. If you have never confessed sin, I entreat you do it now. If you have never been delivered from its terrible curse, seek to be delivered now; ere you close your eyes in what may be the last sleep you shall ever know, confess your sin, and trust in Jesus. O God, help us each one separately thus to come to thee! It is with this plea that I close my discourse, let us make personal, complete, and searching investigation into our own case before God; let us go before him with our own personal acknowledgments, with nothing borrowed from others; let us not make a masquerade of religion, but let us go before God as we are, and confess our sinful state, and seek pardon for the sake of him who died, the Just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.

And then, dear friend, if you have really made this confession, and have found peace with God, then go forth, and try to bring others. Having lighted your own torch, let it not burn in your private chamber only, but go through the street with it; go into the darkest place, and let that light flame forth; but take care that it is not dimmed by any repetition of the sin you acknowledge. It is no use pretending to mourn for sin, and then to keep on in it.

“Repentance is to leave

The sin we loved before,

And show that we in earnest grieve

By doing so no more.”

May true holiness spring out of our repentance, and may this go side by side with an earnest endeavour, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to bring others to repent apart as we have done, through him whose cross is the sole hope of sinners, who himself, living and pleading for sinners at the Father’s right hand, is the one lone star that makes glad the midnight of our guilt. Oh, look ye away from self to Christ! If your confession of sin is offered without thought of him, away with your confession of sin. Repentance is nothing apart from Christ. Look to him through your tears, through your depression of spirit, and say, “Just as I am, I cast myself at those dear feet that bled out life for me, and look up to the riven side which is the one cleft of the rock where the sinner may hide himself away from the tempests of eternal wrath.”

God bless you, beloved! May we meet in heaven to sing together, though on earth we must mourn apart, for Christ’s sake! Amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

PSALM 51.

Although we may have been preserved by divine grace from any gross and open sin, yet let us read this Psalm in the spirit of penitence. I always feel afraid of myself if I cannot read this Psalm from my heart. Surely some pride must have encrusted my spirit, and taken away its humility and its tenderness, if I cannot join in David’s penitential prayer. I think that all of us who have the Spirit of God within us will feel that these words are suited to us as well as to poor broken-hearted David.

Verse 1. Have mercy upon me, O God,

“I cannot do without mercy, though I am thy child; and thou must give me great mercy, or it will be no mercy to me, for little mercy will not serve my turn. ‘Have mercy upon me, O God,’ without stint, and without end.”

1. According to thy lovingkindness:

“If I must set thee a measure, let thine own nature be the measure of thy mercy; I would view thee in the tenderest, brightest light: according to thy kindness,-ay, thy lovingkindness.” Surely, that is one of the sweetest words in our dear mother tongue, and no other language contains a sweeter one: “according to thy lovingkindness.”

1. According unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.

“Thou canst not blot out such multitudes of sins unless thou hast multitudes of mercies; but inasmuch as there is no counting of thy mercies any more than there is counting of my sins, let the bright drops of thy mercy be equal to the black drops of my transgression. When I view my sin in its blackness, then I cry for mercy according to thy lovingkindness; and when I view my transgressions in their multitude, then I cry for pardon ‘according onto the multitude of thy tender mercies.’ ”

Is not this a blessed prayer? It could not have come from David if he had not felt the greatness of his sin; and it will not suit you, dear friends, unless you also are taught by the Spirit of God to know what a bitter thing sin is.

2. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

What a washing that is! The penitent desires to have it done thoroughly: “Wash me throughly from mine iniquity.” “Leave not a single spot, for one speck would be sufficient to shot me oat of heaven; I must be spotless to be admitted there. ‘Wash me throughly.’ Wash not only this outward stain, but this inward defilement. Wash me through and through,-‘throughly,’-till there is no trace of my sin. So wash me till I am cleansed, and made perfectly clean.” There is none but the Lord himself who can wash us after this fashion. Each of us may say with Job, “If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean; yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me.” If we made the sea to be our bath, we should sooner crimson every wave with our iniquities than one single stain of guilt should be washed away by the waters of old ocean. It is a divine work to cleanse from sin; therefore say, dear friend, “Lord, thou must wash me if I am to be washed; but do it thoroughly: ‘Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.’ ”

3. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.

It is a great mercy when it is so with us; for when our sins are before our face, God will put them behind his back. When we do not see our sin, then God sees it; but when we see it aright, then God will not see it, for he will put it away for ever. As for you who think yourselves innocent, by that very fact you are proved to be naked, and poor, and blind, and miserable; but you who are in a spiritual sense poverty-stricken, you who confess your guilt, shall find pardon, for the plea of “Guilty, my Lord,” is that which God answers by a sentence of acquittal.

4. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.

David’s great iniquity was a sin against many, but he had been brought to learn what few see, that the virus of sin lies in its being against God. Last Sabbath evening, our subject* was that “sin is the transgression of the law,” and I tried to show that the very essence of its sinfulness lies in the fact that it is rebellion against the will of God. So, David here puts his finger on the great black blot, and shows that he knew where the chief mischief lay: “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.” Let God do what he will with us, he cannot treat us worse than we deserve. If we were banished from his presence into a hopeless eternity, we should not dare to complain. He is justified when he speaks, he is clear when he judges.

5. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

“I am bad from the fountain-head of my being, and wrong all through. It is not only what I do that is wrong, but I myself am wrong; I am a double-dyed traitor, and of a traitress born.” I doubt not that David’s mother was as good as any mother, probably she was a true child of God; but, for all that, David and all of us have the old tendency to sin from the very fact of our descent from fallen parents. “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one.”

6. Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parte: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.

Ah, friends, that is the troublesome part of the matter! We might be able to rectify the external wrong, and to reform our outward actions; but who can make his heart clean? You can prune the tree, you may cut it to almost any shape you like; but you cannot make the deadly tree bring forth healthy fruit, you cannot change the sap, or alter the nature of the tree’s roots. What but a power divine can do this? “In the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom; “but nobody else can.

7. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

I do think that this is grand faith, for a man, blinded by his tears, broken-hearted through his sin, to feel that God can make him clean. “Take thou the hyssop, as I have seen my father do on the Passover night, when the lamb was slain, and the blood of it caught in the basin. Have I not seen him dip the hyssop in the blood, and then sprinkle it on the lintel and the side posts of the door? Have I not seen the priest dip his bunch of hyssop into the sacrificial blood, and then sprinkle all the people, and so make them ceremonially clean? Lord, thou hast a better hyssop dipped in better blood. ‘Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.’ ”

Possibly you know, dear friends, that the verse may be read in the future tense: “Thou shalt purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Thou shalt wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” This is grand faith. I do not know that the faith of Abraham, as a saint, when he offered up his son, was greater than the faith of David, as a sinner, when he believed that God could make even him whiter than snow.

8. Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.

Beloved, it is a sweet thing when we come to close dealings with God like this. David wants cleansing, but he will not have it except from God; he wants peace and comfort, but he will look only to God for them: “Make me to hear joy and gladness.” If you go out into the streets when you are sad, you may hear sounds of joy and gladness, which will seem like a mockery of your sorrow. “As vinegar upon nitre, so is he that singeth songs to a heavy heart.” But when God speaks in mercy, when he opens the ear to hear his melodious accents of pardon, then the very bones which have been broken begin to rejoice. Probably there is no more refined pleasure of a human kind than that which comes to a man who is getting convalescent, one who is gradually being restored after a very severe illness; so there is certainly nothing more sweet than that calm quiet happiness which comes of pardoned sin when the broken heart begins to be healed: “Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.”

9. Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.

It is not, “Let the evil be hushed up, let not my people hear about it,” but, “Hide thy face from my sins.” It is not, “Help me to forget that I have been a criminal.” No; but, “Hide thy face from my sins.” “And, Lord, when thou art blotting out mine iniquities, blot them all cut; those that have never come to such a public head as this great sin with Bathsheba. Lord, when thou dost begin blotting out my sins, make a clean sweep of them all. Draw thy pen right down the page of my guilt; strike out every item that ever has been recorded there: ‘Blot out all mine iniquities.’ ”

10. Create in me a clean heart, O God: and renew a right spirit within me.

Do you notice how David blends justification with sanctification? His prayer for pardon is always accompanied by a prayer for purity also. He does not want to have his sin blotted out, and then to continue sinful; but he cries, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” “I have marred it; so come, Lord, and renew it. Thy handwriting on my conscience has grown dim; come and write upon me in bolder characters which can never be effaced.”

11. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.

Are you praying these prayers, dear friends, as we are reading them? I am sure you are if you have ever enjoyed the presence of God, if the Holy Spirit is your daily companion. And if you have lost that heavenly company, if you have lost that comfortable presence, I know that you are crying to get it back again; and it will come back at your cry.

12. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.

“Make me happy, O Lord, but oh, make me steadfast! In delivering me from my sin, deliver me from ever going into it again. Make me like a burnt child that keeps clear of the fire. O my God, come back to me!”

13. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.

Dear friends, there is nothing that helps us to preach so well as a sense that we are sinners, and that God has had mercy upon us. Come up fresh from the washing, dripping with the blood of cleansing, and every drop will seem to plead with sinners that they, too, would come and be washed. Live near to the cross, and there is no fear about your preaching so that sinners shall be converted unto God. Sometimes, we seem to get into a kind of spiritual rosewater; we appear to be so very superfine ourselves, that we have to condescend to poor sinners, and preach down to them from our supreme heights, and they never get a blessing that way; but when, by deep experience, we are put upon their level, and feel that, as Christ has saved us, so he can save them, then do we speak with power and unction.

14, 15. Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness. O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall show forth thy praise.

David is going to preach, and to sing, too; and he will do it all himself; just now he wants nobody to help him. He is so given up to the service of his Master that he will be preacher and precentor, too. He will say, and he will sing, that God is a righteous God. That was a singular theme for a blood-washed sinner: “My tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.” But, believe me, nobody understands the righteousness of God but the man who understands sin, and who also understands the wondrous mercy by which it is put away through the bleeding sacrifice of Christ. When we have reached that point, then can we and then will we show forth his righteousness.

16, 17. For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit:

Bring these sacrifices, dearly beloved, bring them to God now. Bring your broken spirit, bring your troubled conscience, bring your bleeding heart, bring all your trembling on account of sin; bring it all to God’s altar now.

17-19. A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion: build thou the walls of Jerusalem. Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering: then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar.

There must be great sacrifices of joy when great sin is put away by a great ransom: “Then shall they offer bullocks”-not lambs, but bullocks,-“upon thine altar.” God help each of us henceforth to offer bullocks upon his altar, not the poor little things, such as we have previously brought; but some great consecrated offering let us bring unto the God who hath forgiven all our transgressions, and blotted out all our iniquities.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-552, 580, 570.