Sinning More by M. E. YERGIN

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 5, 1911

Sinning More

By M. E. YERGIN

M. E. YERGIN

PROBABLY one of the most successful delusions Satan has foisted upon a sinful race, is the idea that if one sins at all, he may just as well go to the limit — commit just as many sins as he can. It is bad enough to commit one sin; but why, because one has committed one sin, should he add to his iniquity, increase his guilt, and use his powers to get just as far from God as he can?

John says: “These things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and he is the propitiation for our sins.” 1 John 2: 1, 2.

Sin is forbidden, yet if we commit sin, the Spirit urges us to remember that we have an advocate present with the Father, who is the propitiation for that particular sin. We should at once take advantage of the sin-pardoning, sin-annihilating grace of Jesus Christ, who is the really righteous One, and immediately terminate our sinful act.

If we sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, who is the propitiation for our sins. O, what a blessed thought that that besetting sin with which we have struggled so long, need not lead us into any further sin! The scripture just quoted, gives us the assurance that we need not add sin to sin by continuing to transgress God’s commands, but we may receive grace to wage successful warfare against the one sin that has brought us into bondage.

God is very wise. He does not ask his weak child to struggle on alone until a whole regiment of sins shall rise up against him. No! If one of the enemy appears, that is enough. He bids us to come at once before the throne and obtain the armament and weapons provided by Jesus Christ the righteous, and attack that one lone sin quickly while it is alone; come upon it unexpectedly, suddenly, with the power of prayer and sincere repentance, and slay it, cause it to die, to cease, to perish miserably; come upon it with the shout of a man of war, even a warrior of the King, the King of Righteousness, and thrust it through, tread it under foot, utterly destroy it, and cast it into the trenches of the abominable and defiled.

“These things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we,” — you and I, dear fellow pilgrim in this world of sinful foes, you and I — “have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” And he is there for the purpose of giving us the equipment,— the weapons as well as the strength necessary to destroy and make away with sin at its first appearance, when, as only one of a hateful, ugly tribe, it sets upon and wounds us.

We are provided with an armor which should always be upon us to protect us from the attack of every sin. Let us keep all the armor on, in full preparation for an unexpected attack; but if at any time we find that we have not been fully heeding the counsel of the Commander-in-chief of our war department, who has bidden us to keep always armed, then let us remember the instruction he has given to meet such an emergency: “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous,” who “is the propitiation for our sins,” and “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Chicago, Ill.