Charles Haddon Spurgeon January 1, 1870
Scripture: Micah 7:19
From: Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Volume 27
“He will subdue our iniquities.”— Micah vii. 19.
BUT lately I tuned my harp to the music of forgiven sin, and
we sang of pardon bought with blood, finding our key-note in the words of
David, — “Who forgiveth all thine 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 sin we
could not be happy with that alone. “Who forgiveth all thine iniquities” is not
perfect music till we add to it the next note, “who healeth all thy 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: ay, 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 labour. 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 lusteth 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— yet nevertheless become 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 well-head. 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 assuaged? This enemy so universally dominant, so strongly
entrenched, how shall he 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 lieth in
the wicked one is ever 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, nay, 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 endeavours because we
would not hazard 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 a 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 him
yet.” Moreover, that mysterious spirit, the devil, is always ready to excite
our flesh, and to urge on the world. I have heard that some people doubt his
existence. Very likely they are so friendly to him that they would not like to
betray him, and so they deny that he hides in their hearts; but those who are
his enemies do not try to conceal him, but own with sad humiliation of heart
that they are very conscious of his power. A wind from him will come sweeping
through our spirit in the calmest hour of devotion, and in a minute we are
disturbed and distracted. We have had our thoughts all going up towards heaven,
and in a moment it has seemed as if they were all sucked down into the
bottomless pit, merely because that evil spirit has spread his dragon wing
mysteriously over us, and created a horrible down-draught which our poor brain
could not at once resist.
We have to fight,
then, not only with sin, but with the flesh, which, like a Gibeonite, has
become a hewer of wood and a drawer of water for the devil: we have to fight
with the world which “lieth in the wicked one,” steeped up to the throat in
sin; and we have to fight with Satan himself. “We wrestle not with flesh and
blood,” or else we would gird on the sword, and go in for knocks and blows, and
cuts and thrusts, and have the battle out; but we wrestle with “principalities
and powers and spiritual wickedness in high places;” and what is to become of
such poor, frail, feeble, weak creatures as we are? Who can subdue these great
and mighty kings? With so many in league against us what can we do? What is to
become of us? My text is the answer to that question: “He will subdue our
iniquities.” That same blessed God who has pardoned our sins will conquer them.
They may fight against us, but he will be more than a match for them: their
fighting will end in their destruction. Omnipotence has marched into our hearts
to trample down the power of sin. Eternal faithfulness has called in invincible
strength and divine majesty to do battle against the serried hosts of darkness,
and we shall overcome. “Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory, through our
Lord Jesus Christ.”
I am going to
speak briefly upon seven points, if time shall hold out for me to do so, and
each of these seven points will show phases of the energy of evil which God
will subdue.
One of the first
powers of evil which a man perceives when the heavenly life begins to breathe
within him is THE FASCINATING POWER of sin. When grace in the soul is only like
a little spark, and has not come to its brightness, yet the man discovers with
alarm that he is held under the enchantment of evil. I do not know any other
word which quite gives my idea except that one. Satan casts a spell over men.
They come and hear the gospel, and they are impressed by it, and they see the
reasonableness of the endeavour to escape from sin; they perceive the beauty of
holiness, and they see that the way of God’s salvation is a very glorious one,
namely, by faith in Jesus Christ, and they begin to yield; but yet they neither
flee from their sins nor lay hold on the salvation of Christ, but remain as
persons besotted, who act contrary to reason. In some cases one sin, in some
cases another, seems to fascinate men like the eyes of the fabled basilisk. As
certain snakes paralyse their victims by fixing their eyes upon them, so do
certain sins paralyze those who are under their influence, so that none can
arouse them to escape. Sin makes men mad. Against their reason, against their
best interests, they follow after that which they know will destroy them. They
are slaves, though they wear no fetters of iron; captives, though no walls
enclose them. The magic arts of evil have taken them in a net, and wrapped them
about with invisible bonds, from which they cannot escape.
In many cases
Satan exercises over men a kind of soporific power. He puts them to sleep. I do
not know whether there is anything in mesmerism or not, but I know that there
is a devilish sleep-creating charm which Satan casts over men. They are no
sooner a little awakened, and startled, and persuaded to escape for their
lives, than suddenly they fold their arms again, and crave a little more sleep.
They are nodding over a prospect which, a few hours ago, made their hair almost
stand on end. They go back to do the deed which they dreaded, and which they
know to be evil and destructive. They forget the Saviour whoso charms began to
tell upon them, and renew their covenant with Satan from whom they had almost
escaped. In the matters of the soul you have not merely to get men awake, but
to keep them awake. Over the arctic traveller there comes a tendency to sleep
in the cold— a tendency which he cannot resist. He may be awakened by his
fellow and shaken out of his torpor, but by-and-by he is anxious to sleep
again; they march him on between two, perhaps, and try to keep him awake, but
still he cries, “Let me sleep.” He begs to be allowed to lie down and slumber.
Such is the power of Satan over some of you who are present here: you wish that
we would let you be quiet, and go on in your sins, without worrying you with
our warnings. I have shaken you sometimes; at least, I have tried to do so; and
then, after all, you have gone to sleep, and still you are asleep, nodding with
hell beneath you, with the wrath of God abiding on you. It seems as if you
could not be decided, — you could not be resolute, — you could not run away
from sin, but were held by mysterious bonds— held, worst of all, by a dreadful
indifference which makes you slumber yourselves into ruin. Do you think one
ungodly man in his senses would remain what he is and where he is while there
is a hope of being renewed, if it were not for some strange enchantment which
is exercised upon him by sin? What art of wizard can equal the magic of sin?
What other witchery can cast men into such insensibility? If I were to cry
“Fire! fire!” in this place to-night the most of you would rush to the first
door or window; but yet when we tell you of what is infinitely worse— namely,
of the wrath to come, and the anger of Almighty God, you are in no great alarm,
nay, you sit at your ease and hear all about it. The story of your future
destiny is heard and heard, till men think no more of it than of an old wives’
fable, but still sleep on in their sin.
I have known this
witchery to enthral men who have been somewhat awakened. By the month and by
the year together they have been aroused, and have been apparently very
earnest; and after all sin has charmed them with its siren song, and they have
returned like the dog to its vomit, or the sow which was washed to her
wallowing in the mire.
Now, I am
rejoiced .to think that, if there is any life in you, if the Lord enables you
to look to Jesus Christ, his Son, for salvation, he will subdue your
iniquities. Man, he will help you to escape from the magician’s wand. Sin shall
no longer delude and ensnare you. He will so set eternal things before you by
the power of the divine Spirit that you will not dare to sleep any longer: he
will so convince you of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment to come, that he
will slay the enchanter, break his spell, and free you from his black arts. May
the Lord set every fascinated one free at this good hour. May he pronounce the
word which will unbind the enchanter’s charm, and we shall then have one
fulfilment of the text, “He shall subdue our iniquities.”
A second form of
the force of sin in most men is ITS DEPRESSING POWER. When men are really
awake, and no longer under the witchery of sin, then Satan, and their flesh,
and the sin that dwells in them, conspire to make them think that there is no
hope of salvation for them. The evil ones mutter “It is no use your trying to
be saved. You do not stand the smallest chance.” Jeeringly the tempters cry,
“Look at your sins! Look at your sins!” Satan, who aforetime did not want us to
look at sin, becomes all on a sudden eager that we should take to
self-examination and confession. He who is the father of lies sometimes finds
truth answer his purpose so well that he uses it with terrible effect; but even
then he uses it to support a lie. He suggests to the heart the thought,"
If you had not sinned so much you might have been forgiven, but you have piled
on the last ounce that has broken the back of mercy; you will never be saved.”
Then comes the second suggestion, “You know you have tried already. You did keep
yourself pretty steady for a time, but it all broke down. There is not the
slightest use in venturing again upon this hopeless business. Depend upon it,
there is a divine decree against you: you are one of the reprobate. There is no
hope for you at all. Don’t you see how false you are? You never make a resolve
but you break it You made an awful failure of it last time, and so you will
again.” Then there comes up again in the soul the depressing thought, “Perhaps
it is not true after all that there is any mercy for sinners. It is very
possible that there is no such power in the blood of Jesus as the preacher
wants you to think.” Once get a man upon the rails of doubt and you can draw
him on as far as you please. It is interesting to see a man go on doubting in the
style I once followed. I doubted everything till at last I doubted my own
existence. Now I have at least a little bump of common-sense, and I laughed
outright at myself when I got as far as that, and the ridiculousness of the
situation brought me back again to believe. To run right on to a reductio ad
absurdum and prove the absurdity of your own unbelief is a very useful method
of bringing a doubting spirit to a measure of belief Yes, I know that this is
the way of sin. It depresses the man. “I would, but cannot believe,” says he.
“I would have a hope, but I cannot believe that my name is amongst God’s elect
ones. I cannot think that the blood of the atonement was shed for me”; and so
on. What is to be done when you feel this, and wish to conquer it? What is to
be done but to fly to a promise like this in the text, “He will subdue our
iniquities”? Yes, this despondency of yours the Lord Jesus will subdue. Believe
that he is able to cut off Giant Despair’s head, and dismantle his castle, and
set his prisoners free. Some have almost gone to the knife and to the halter in
their despair, and yet the Lord Jesus. Christ has restored them to joy. Many a
despairing soul have we had to deal with, and we have seen the Lord vanquish
its misery and chase away its sorrow. Satan did his best to keep the soul from
the joy which it might have had there and then; to keep it from the feast which
was spread for it, from the blessing which God had prepared for it; but he
could not prevail, for the hour of hope had struck. O, cast-down one, be
comforted, the Lord will subdue your iniquities in this respect. If you will
but look to Jesus Christ he will say to you, “Be of good comfort.” He will tell
you that your sins are forgiven, and breathe hope into your soul.
This is a second
blessed way in which God subdues our iniquities: by casting out their
depressing power. This he does by showing what a glorious Saviour Christ is:
how he is divine, and therefore equal to any emergency, how his atonement is of
a value that never can be limited, how he is “able to save them to the
uttermost that come unto God by him.” This he does by applying the precious
promises to the soul by his own Holy Spirit, who leads men to believe in God
despite their despair, hoping against hope, and thus the snare is broken, and
their iniquities are subdued. O glorious victory of all-conquering love, sin’s
iron yoke of dark despondency is broken, and the captives lead their captivity
captive. Hallelujah!
But now, thirdly,
the Lord has power to subdue sin in another form of its force, namely, ITS
DOMINEERING POWER.
What a
domineering thing sin is over men. Any one sin will lord it frightfully over a
man. I know a man in his senses: at any rate, he has never been in Bedlam yet:
in business he is as sharp and cute a man as can be, and yet he drinks himself
into foolishness, into madness, and even into delirium tremens. He has done
this several times, and owns to the madness and wickedness of the deed, and yet
he will repeat his insane and suicidal course. He has drunk away all his
estate; from a man of property he has descended to become a very inefficient
working-man. He has drunk away all his wife earns, for he does not earn much
himself now, and he is mean enough to let the poor woman kill herself to find
him with food. He drank a horse and cart a fortnight ago. He went out of the
house upon a business errand for his wife, pulled up at a drink-shop, drank
till his money was gone, and so he sold the means by which his wife has kept
him out of the workhouse. I dare say he is here: let him take it home to
himself, he knows that it is true. He never went home again till the last ear
of that horse had been drunk. And yet he would not like anybody to say that he
is a fool, though I beg leave to have my doubts. His sin domineers over him.
Only let drink come to him and say, “Go and do a mad thing,” and he does it
directly. Expense, pain, disgrace, disease, poverty, and an early death— all
these are demanded by the drink demon, and his victims cheerfully pay the tax.
Why, now, if I were persuaded that it was the duty of any one of you to go and
spend every penny that you have, and starve your own children, in order to
support a child at the Orphanage, you would not see it, I dare say. I should be
a very long while before I could persuade you to such a thing as that. I am
sure I should not wish you to do so; but even if it were right I could not get
you to do it. Yet things far more preposterous are done greedily at the bidding
of drink. This devil of drunkenness comes to a man, and he says, “Come along
with me. Leave your fireside, and your wife and little ones, and associate with
the lowest of the low. Come and spend everything you have upon stuff that will
muddle your head, harden your heart, and destroy your character. Sell your
household furniture, and drink till all your comrades call you a jolly good
fellow Pawn your children’s shoes, so that the little ones cannot even go to
Sunday-school.” The man goes along as meekly as a lamb. And he has done that
scores of times. He knows what a fool he is, and yet he will do it again if he
gets a chance. Oh, the domineering power of sin! It is not the one sin of
drunkenness only, for there are other men who are domineered over by their
lusts. It is a delicate question to talk about, but I dare say there are some
here who are slaves to the vilest of lusts, and it becomes me to be plain with
them, and assure them that persons living in fornication or adultery cannot
inherit the kingdom of God. Then there is anger, which carries men away as with
a flood; they cannot restrain themselves; the least thing sets them off boiling
with passion. They say they cannot get the mastery in this respect, and it is
perfectly true; but there is a stronger power than ours which can be brought
in, by which the victory can be won. Sin in some form or other has bound us
hand and foot, and made us slaves. Do you wish to be free? Do you wish to be
delivered from the tyranny of sin? Then I do not advise you to do anything in
your own strength in the hope that you can accomplish deliverance; but cry to
Christ at once, whose precious blood can blot out the past, and change you for
the future. Give yourself up to him, and be made a new man in Christ Jesus. Oh,
you did try to mend, you say. One of our kings used by way of swearing to say,
“God mend me”? That was his regular expletive till somebody said that he had
tried that oath long enough; he thought that God could more easily make a new
one than mend him. That is just the truth about you. There is no mending you.
You need to be made new creatures in Christ Jesus. It will be by far the easier
work of the two, though in itself it will be impossible to you. The Lord can do
it, he can make you such a new man that you will not know yourself the next time
you meet yourself; you will be so entirely new that you will begin to fight
against your former self as your worst enemy. Oh for an earnest cry at this
good hour, “Lord, save me! I am sinking in the depths of my sin. Jesus, stretch
out thy hand as thou didst to sinking Peter. Save me, or I perish.” Jesus will
lift his royal hand, and cause both winds and waves to lie still before him;
for it is written, “He will subdue our iniquities.” The domineering power of
sin is readily broken when Jesus enters the heart, but never till then. We
refuse to obey our lusts when we bow our necks to the pure and holy Savour.
What a change he works! Speak ye, who best can tell, ye who have felt it! Ah,
Lord, we bless thee that it is even so “thou wilt subdue our iniquities.”
Now, fourthly
(for I must be brief on each point), there is another power about sin, namely,
ITS CLAMOURING POWER. I do not know any other word just now which so nearly
expresses what I mean. Some of us know that we are forgiven, and we know that
the domineering power of sin is broken in us, and our old sins have been long
washed away by the blood of Christ, so that God does not know anything about
them. You say that is a strange expression. It is no stranger than the
Scriptures warrant, for the Lord says of our sins that he will remember them no
more for ever: and I believe that he means what he says. But as for my
transgressions, I recollect them when God does not, and they come up before me,
and they howl at me. “You be saved?” says one of my sins: “You?” “Remember what
you did while yet a youth.” Sometimes a thousand of them at once make an awful
din, and howl out, “Guilty, guilty, guilty, and doomed to die.” Then one or two
bigger sins than the rest take the lead, howling with a deep bass, “Condemnation!
condemnation! condemnation!” I have tried to argue with these memories of sins.
When the dogs have barked in that fashion I have tried to put them down.
Conscience has come out with his big whip, and he has whipped them till they
howled more than ever. Conscience has said “Why, even now that you are a
Christian you are not what you ought to be. You still fall short of your own
standard. You condemn yourself while you are preaching. You know you do.” Then
all the dogs have howled again, as if they were only now beginning their horrid
music. You have never heard, perhaps, a whole kennel full of sins all howling
at once, but it is a most awful noise at night. If you listen to the voice of
these clamorous dogs you will wish that you had never been born, or could cease
to exist. No voice that I know of, short of the one in the text, can make them
lie still. But the Lord Jesus can subdue our iniquities, and when he steps into
the middle of these dogs they lie cowed at his feet. As he speaks with gracious
words of pardon the hell-hounds vanish; and instead of their baying you hear
the sweet voice out of heaven: “There is therefore now no condemnation to them
that are in Christ Jesus.” Did you ever experience this delightful change? It
is something like the case of a new comer at a court of law, who one day went
with a magistrate and sat on the bench. A prisoner was brought up, and evidence
was given, and the counsel against the prisoner spoke; and this person said to
his friend, the magistrate, “You may as well end it, the man is clearly guilty.
Wind the case up, and let us go to dinner.” But the magistrate said, “You must
listen and hear the advocate on the other side, and the case will look very
different.” When he listened to the advocate on the other side, he began to
whisper, “I have my doubts about that now.” As he listened further, he said, “I
am glad you did not condemn that man. What a mistake I made; he is as innocent
as a new-born babe. That advocate has done his work wonderfully.” The prisoner
was acquitted. It is so with us. When our sins plead against us we readily
allow that we are hopelessly ruined. But, oh, when our blessed Advocate takes
up his brief, when the Wonderful, the Counsellor urges his plea, and pleads
that our sins were laid on him, what a change comes over the face of things!
The sin is owned and then covered, lack of righteousness is acknowledged and
then supplied, condemnation is recognized as just, and then seen to be with
equal justice put away for ever. Picture yourself in court. There are the
bills, and they are put in evidence against you. “Do you owe those bills?”
“Yes.” “Have you anything to say why you should not be treated as a defaulting
debtor?” “No.” But when the man is able to reply, “Yes: the charges are all
paid:” that settles the matter. So when the believer can say, “ Lord Jesus
Christ, thou hast paid all my debts for me”; and when Christ shows his wounds,
and says, “I have put them all away, for I bore them in my own body on the
tree,”— oh, then the case is ended, and the clamour of our iniquities is
subdued; and so the text is again true “He will subdue our iniquities.”
But I shall have
my time gone, otherwise I wanted to say that this text is true as to THE
DEFILING POWER OF SIN. DO you know, brothers and sisters, that after we are
quite forgiven, and after the domineering power of sin has gone, yet the
defiling power of sin is a great affliction to us? Our experience is embittered
by the corruption of sins long ago dead, which send forth a dreadful rottenness,
and make our thoughts a terror to us. Some of you were converted late in life,
and you have very much, I am sure, to trouble you about in the influence of
evil upon your memory. Perhaps this very night while I am speaking there has
come up into your mind—though you cannot bear to think of it—some wretched
scene in which you played a guilty part. Even the holiest words when you are in
prayer will sometimes suggest to you a loose song that you used to sing, and a
casual expression which has no special meaning to others will arouse a thousand
vile remembrances in you. This is what I mean by the defiling energy of sin: it
is a great plague to many believers, especially to those converted after years
of gross sin. In addition to that, many of you may have experienced the
defiling power of sin in another form— when Satan has suggested blasphemous
thoughts and abominable ideas to you. You cannot bear them. You are ready to
fly to the ends of the earth to escape the venom of these hornets, but still
they buzz around you, and will not be quiet. You could almost tear your heart
out of your body if you could thereby expel these vile suggestions, but they
will not go. They descend in perfect floods, they are mud showers, or worse
than that, fire showers, and they fall upon your poor brain, and there is no
getting out of the diabolical tempest. Ah, I remember when words I never heard
from human tongue rushed through my ear, filling my heart with blasphemies
which I never thought of—profane suggestions which made me tremble like a leaf
as they poured through my poor brain; I could have died sooner than they should
be there; and yet they were rushing through my mind, and bearing all before
them. Many of God’s people are tried in that way. What is to be done? If old
memories, and if Satanic suggestions come upon you to defile you, what is to be
done but to fly to this text— “He will subdue our iniquities”? Let us plead
this in prayer. Lord, conquer my memory, and wash it from the filth which
clings to it: put away its pollution from me. Lord, chain up the devil, and
rebuke his suggestions. Let thy poor child have space for breath, and time to
sing, and opportunity to pray; and do save me, I beseech thee, from the
infernal suggestions which now torment me.
Some of you know
nothing about this, and I hope you will abide in happy ignorance of it; but
those of you who do know it will perceive whereabouts I am, and you will
triumph in this priceless promise, “He will subdue our iniquities.” Look to
Jesus Christ for power over infernal suggestions, and over evil memories, and
he will give you that mastery; and it may be you shall never again be tried in
that way as long as you live; for frequently the Lord gives such sudden and
decisive deliverance that, between that one battle and heaven, the Christian
pilgrim pursues his way and never meets Apollyon again.
We have now
reached sixthly. The Lora our God will subdue sin in ITS HAMPERING POWER. I am
speaking, of course, to Christians in these latter points. There is a hampering
power about sin. I will just hint at some instances of it.
Many believers
might do a great deal of service for Christ and his church, but they are
hampered by shame. They are ashamed, afraid, alarmed, where there is nothing to
be troubled at. They indulge a foolish distrust of God. Their fear may once
have been modesty, but it has grown rank, till it is not now the kind of
modesty which is wholesome. They might serve God, but they are ashamed to make
the attempt: ought they not to be ashamed of such cowardice? Some, again, are
hindered in their joy and their peace by unbelief. They are always doubting,
inventing fears, planning suspicions, compiling complaints. This cometh of evil
and leadeth to no good. It is a dreadful thing to be hampered from doing good,
and hampered from glorifying God, by an inveterate tendency to unbelief.
Others are
hampered by frivolity. Many of us have merry spirits, but some are all levity.
They were cradled in a bubble, and made to ride upon thistle-down. It is a pity
when a man has no solidity of character, and runs to froth, for this sin dwarfs
his manhood and dries up his vigour. Oh that the Lord would subdue this form of
iniquity.
Some I know, too,
are very unstable: they are never the same thing two days together. They might
have borne fruit if they had kept where they were, but they have been
transplanted every week, and so have never taken root. They have undertaken a
dozen works, but they have done nothing. Unstable as water, they shall not
excel.
Some, again, are
hampered by pride. There is no use in denying it. The natural tendency of many
persons is to a silly pride. When they were children they could not have a new
frock but they gloried in it; and since then they cannot have twopence more
than their neighbours but they become almost unbearable. I know some who I hope
are Christians, but they have a dreadful tendency to swell; they will grow
before jour very eyes if any one will but favour the process. They have always
looked upon the many— the multitude— as being far inferior to them because
their grandfather’s grandfather was either a knight, or a baronet, or a
foreigner of unknown degree: they feel that they are superior sort of people.
This is a great drawback to godly workers, especially when it makes them feel
that they could not go amongst poor people. Those who do go to visit the sick
poor are often quite unable to reach their hearts, because of their stiffness
of manner.
Some professors
are slothful. They have a torpid liver, and are always afraid of doing too
much. They are lethargic, Dutch-built, broad-wheeled-waggon sort of Christians,
and slow are all their movements in the work of the Lord. They do not move at
all by express; indeed, they are distressed by zeal, and disgusted by enthusiasm.
The Lord subdue these iniquities for us.
Others are
hampered by a quick temper. They cannot take things calmly; they snap and
snarl, and scarcely know why. They boil over so soon; they are very sorry for
it directly afterwards, but that does not cure the scalds. There is no use in
breaking the tea things because you can rivet them afterwards: they are not
much improved by it. Some must be for ever fighting, for peace is stagnation to
their burning spirits.
I have given a
long list of these hampering sins. What is to be done with them? “Well,” says
one, “I do not think we can do anything, sir; these are our besetting sins.”
Now, do not make any mistake about it, if there is any sin that gets the
mastery over you, you will be lost: you are bound to conquer every sin, mind
that. You may call it a besetting sin or not, but it must be either overcome by
you, or it will be your ruin. A man may plead that a certain fault is his
besetting sin; but I am not so sure of it. A sin that you wilfully indulge, is
that a besetting sin? Certainly not. If I had to cross Clapham Common to-night
and three stout fellows beset me to take away what- ever I had got, I would do
my little best in self-defence. That is what I call besetting a man. A
besetting sin is a sin that sometimes surprises a man; and then he ought to
show fight and drive the besetting sin away. If I were to walk over the common
every night, arm-in-arm with a fellow who picked my pocket, I should not say
that the man “beset” me. No, he and I are friends, evidently, and the robbery
is only a little dodge of our own. If you go wilfully into sin, or tolerate it,
and say you cannot help it— well, you have to help it or you will be lost. One
thing is certain— either you must conquer sin or sin will conquer you, and to
be conquered by sin is everlasting death. Well, what is to be done? Fall back
upon this gracious promise— “He will subdue our iniquities.” They have to be
subdued: Jesus will do the deed, and in his name we will overcome. If we are
slothful, we will, in God’s strength, do ten times as much as we should have
done had we been naturally of an active turn. If we are angry we will school
ourselves till we become meek. Some of the most angry men that ever I have
known have come to be the meekest of men. Remember Moses, how he slew the
Egyptian in his heat, and yet the man Moses became very meek by the grace of
God. You must overcome your sin, my dear hearer, be that sin what it may.
Whatever else you forget of this evening’s sermon I want to leave that in your
heart: you must overcome sin. By the blood of the Lamb it is to be done. By the
power of divine grace it must be accomplished. Up! slay this Agag that you
thought to spare. Hew him in pieces before the Lord, or else the Lord will hew
you in pieces one of these days. God give you grace to get the victory.
Now, the last and
seventh point, God will deliver you from THE INDWELLING POWER OF SIN. Sin
nestles in our nature. Its lair is in the jungle of our heart, and if we are
believers in Jesus Christ we must hunt it out. The first thing the Lord does
with this indwelling sin is to neutralize it. He puts in his indwelling Spirit
to subdue it and overcome it. Next, he begins to drive it out. He said of the
Canaanites, “By little and by little I will surely drive them out.” Thanks be
to God, he has driven out certain of our sins already. I know that I speak to
some who are not tempted now to vices that once ruled them with a rod of iron.
You have conquered the grosser shapes of sin. Brother, the day will come when
there will not be one Canaanite left in the land; when, if you should search
through and through, there will be no tendency to sin, no wandering of heart,
no error of judgment, no failure of righteousness, no inclination to
transgression. You will be as perfect as your covenant head, Jesus Christ. Where
will you be then? Not here, I trow. I notice that God always puts his jewels
into fit settings, and the proper setting for a perfect man is the perfect joy
of heaven. In a pure region the pure heart shall dwell; and you, believer,
shall go on towards that sacred height, till, one of these days, your Lord will
say, “Dear child, you have fought long enough with corruption and sin; come up
hither; the conflict is all over now.” You will look back when you get up to
heaven, and you will say to yourself, perhaps— if you can have any such
regrets— “I wish I had conquered those sins earlier, fought against them more
earnestly, watched against them more vigilantly. Oh, that I had honoured and
glorified my Lord more.” However, forgetting all about regrets, what a song we
will raise when we find ourselves quite free from the power of sin! What a
song! O, you bad-tempered brother, when that anger is all gone, and you will
never be angry again, will you not sing? Ah you, brother, a little inclined to
laziness, when you find that you can serve God night and day, will you not
sing? And some of us who are inclined to despondency, when our gloom is all
gone, and life becomes everlasting joy and sunshine, will not we sing? Yes, I
was going to say—
“Then, loudest of the crowd I’ll sing,
While heaven’s resounding mansions ring
With shouts of sovereign grace”;
I did utter that resolution once in the pulpit, and when I
came down the stairs an aged woman said to me, “You made a mistake in your
sermon to-night.” “Dear soul,” I said, “I dare say I made a dozen.” “Ah,” she
said, “but you made one great one. You said that you owed more to God’s grace
than anybody, and therefore you would sing the loudest. But,” she said, “you
won’t, for I shall.” I find all my fellow Christians, both men and women, are
resolved that they will sing the loudest to the praise of grace divine. This
shall be heaven’s only contest. There shall be a grand contention among the
birds of paradise which shall sing most sweetly of free grace and dying love.
What a heaven there will be, and what music there will be in heaven, when our
iniquities are subdued. How will the Lord look down with joy upon us all when
he shall see us all made like his Son, perfect, faultless, glorious. Then we
will sing, “He has subdued our iniquities. Oh, come let us sing unto the Lord,
for he has triumphed gloriously, and all our iniquities has he cast into the
sea.”
Anticipate that
joy, and begin to sing to-night, and let this be the matter of your song,
“Thanks be unto God which giveth us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
May that victory be yours and mine. Amen."
Charles Haddon Spurgeon January 1, 1870
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