Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 18, 1893
Editorial.
By Editor
"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable."—2 Tim. 3:16.
GOD is the source of all truth, as he is of all good. Christ came to manifest God to the world. "God was in Christ." Therefore Christ says, "I am . . . the truth." The Spirit which should testify of Christ is the "Spirit of truth." Whatever, therefore, is of Christ is of the truth, and whatever is of the truth bears the impress of the Spirit of Christ, which is the Spirit of love.
SATAN, or the devil, is "a liar and the father of it." Error is therefore of Satan. The spirit of error is the spirit of the devil. He who follows error, he who loves it, he who adopts it instead of truth because it seems more expedient, deliberately invites the devil into his heart instead of Christ. He makes Satan the moulding power of his life instead of Christ. He grows to hate truth more and more, and to hate those who are of the truth. It is therefore not immaterial as to what we believe and follow; it is of eternal importance that we know and do the truth.
CHRIST is to us just what our faith or unfaith makes him. He desires, he designs, he died, that he might be to us "wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption;" that he might be Redeemer, Saviour; that we, poor sinners, might by his power be made to "the praise of the glory of his grace." Why not believe, and thus submit ourselves to God's plan? We may reject Christ and make him our condemnation; but why not desire what Christ desires? Why not design what he designs by making God's will ours? Why not be eternally saved by Christ? Reader, why?
WHAT lessons God has given us everywhere in nature! What a picture does the sea present before us! Surge follows surge, billow follows billow, wave follows wave in ever ceaseless motion. Sometimes lashed into tempest, sometimes smooth as polished steel, but ever restless, never still. What a fitting figure of the soul at war with God! It knows no peace. Tossed with the tempest of passion, exhausted by unavailing efforts for repose, or ambitiously engaged in everyday work or pleasure, yet there is no rest. "The wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest;" and it never can rest. Ever and forever raging, pulsating, throbbing, tossing, but never resting. Even so with the wicked. "There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." God does not take the peace from them; in the very nature of the case, they can have no peace.
BUT there is another and better lesson which the sea teaches. Its mighty billows bury effectually and forever the hidden treasures of centuries as well as the corruptions of earth's greatest cities. As stately vessels as ever rode the waves have found in the mighty bosom of the deep both shroud and grave; and many indeed are the souls who have gone down to the sea in ships and have never come back. But souls die on the land, and those who sleep in Him, whether in vaulted crypt, cypress-shaded grave, or the cavernous depths of old ocean, will come forth again to life; for "the sea is His, and He made it; and His hands formed the dry land." Yet to the righteous the sea is a grave which bringeth no regrets or heartaches; it is the grave of his sins; for thus saith the Scriptures: "He will turn again; He will have compassion upon us; He will subdue our iniquities; and Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea."
THE rest of the Christian is in God, who has reconciled the world to himself through Jesus Christ. God has therefore naught against us. He so loved us as to give his Son to die. If we are not at peace with him, it is because we have something within our hearts against him, or his words and ways, which are the same thing. If we surrender that, if we yield all to him, the war is over; we are at peace with God. Trusting in the peace which he has made makes that peace ours, and our confidence in him brings rest, not the rest of the sea, but the rest of the Rock of Ages. The tempest may swirl around us, the waves may beat at our feet, but the foundation stands eternally sure. Christ is our rock of rest, soft and soothing as a pillow of down, but unshakable as the mountain base. His righteousness is ours; we are in harmony with God; our peace is made. "And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever." "Take my yoke upon you," says Jesus, "and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
WHO WILL HEED THE MESSAGE?
IN these days of peril, and to meet the troubles, perils, and needs of these times, one of God's messages to his people, of reproof, warning, and instruction, is the following, in which God also gives the reply of the great mass of religionists:—
"They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace. Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush; therefore they shall fall among them that fall; at the time that I visit them they shall be cast down, saith the Lord. Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein. Also I set watchmen over you, saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet. But they said, We will not hearken." Jer. 6:14-17.
And is not this just the picture before us at the present time? Are there not messages sounding throughout the world at the present time calling God's people back to the old paths, in which we find the footprints of patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and the Head of all, Jesus Christ? Is not this especially true as regards the fourth commandment of the Decalogue, the memorial of God's power in Christ, the sign of God's love in Christ? Is not the Lord calling his people, through the "gospel prophet" to take their feet from his "holy day," and call his "Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable," and thus turn from their sins, repair the breach, build up the old waste places, raise up the foundations of many generations, and restore the paths to dwell in? See Isa. 58:1, 12, 13. God is calling men's minds from the precept and practice of men to the precepts of God's word and the example of Christ. So it is that the church as a mass says, "We will not walk therein," that the watchmen as a whole say, "We will not hearken." To these the Lord says:—
"Therefore hear, ye nations, and know, O congregation, what is among them. Hear, O earth; behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto my words, nor to my law, but rejected it." Jer. 6:18, 19.
But, thank God, there are some souls scattered all through the dark places of Christendom who will cleave to God, who will heed his word, who will turn to the old paths, who, in the grace of Christ, will walk therein. There are some faithful watchmen who will hearken to the sound of the trumpet, who will in turn706give the trumpet no uncertain sound. These will thank God for the light which shone, though dimly, through Luther, Zwingle, Calvin, Cranmer, Tyndale, Wesley, Finney; and, following that light beyond these faithful men, who fell at their post, they will go on to greater and clearer light, which shines out from God's word in Christ in the abounding darkness of this evil day. "The morning [of righteousness and life] cometh, and also the night [of sin and death]; if ye will inquire, inquire ye; return, come."
Who will hearken? Who will return? Who will walk in the footsteps of Jesus Christ?
DRIFTING ROMEWARD.
WHAT PROTESTANTS SAY.
ARCHDEACON FARRAR has told us that the Church of England is drifting Romeward. More recently Dr. R. F. Horton preached to his congregation in London, Eng., on the question, "Is Protestantism Decaying?" In his reply he said:—
The answer, if we are candid, if we are determined to face the simple facts in our country, is this: In England, for a time, it certainly is, not by the accession of large numbers at present to the Papal Church, but by the progress of the Catholic principle involving the Catholic claim in the Church of England itself. In many hundreds of parish churches in England to-day almost all the practices which occasioned the Reformation are restored. Prayers are addressed, at any rate in private, to the saints. The mass is a sacrifice again. Solemn strains of the Agnus Dei fill the atmosphere as the Lamb is offered on the altar by the sacrifice of the priest. The claims of the priesthood are identical with the claims of the Catholic priests of the sixteenth century. What is more painful to some of us is this, that when brave and strong men like the Archdeacon of London and the Archdeacon of Westminster, who cherish the principles of the Reformation, attempt to rouse their church to a sense of its condition, they are denounced, not by Rome, but by England, by the papers of the English Church, as if they were traitors to religion.
But it is not in the Church of England alone, or in England, that the drift is Romeward. In free America there are the most indubitable evidences that the great Protestant churches, so called, are in the drift. Their increased observance of the Lenten season, of Easter, of Good Friday, and other various church days, have for years shown the tendency toward Rome. The decided adoption of Sunday for the Sabbath of the Lord in the place of the seventh day of the Decalogue, directly contrary to the uniform and clearest testimony of Scripture, shows that the Protestant churches have departed from the principles of Protestantism to the principles of the Papacy. Says Dowling in "History of Romanism" (book 2, chapter 1):—
"THE BIBLE, I SAY, THE BIBLE ONLY, IS THE RELIGION OF PROTESTANTS!" Nor is it of any account in the estimation of the genuine Protestant how early a doctrine originated if it is not found in the Bible. . . . "THE BIBLE, AND THE BIBLE ONLY, can admit no doctrine upon the authority of tradition." . . . He who receives a single doctrine upon the mere authority of tradition, let him be called by what name he will, by so doing steps down from the Protestant rock, passes over the line which separates Protestantism from Papacy, and can give no valid reason why he should not receive all the earlier doctrines and ceremonies of Romanism upon the same authority.
But this is just what Protestants have done in this very generation. While the Sabbath question was not agitated, it was not investigated, and the major part of the church believed that the word of God was the authority for Sunday substitution and observance; but now that the question has been and is agitated, and the church has found out that there is no ground for Sunday sacredness in God's word, she stands culpable, for, as Sir Wm. Domville says:—
Not any ecclesiastical writer of the first three centuries attributed the origin of Sunday observance either to Christ or his apostles.—Examination of the Six Texts, Supplement, pp. 6, 7.
By none of the fathers before the fourth century is it [the first day of the week] identified with the Sabbath; nor is the duty of observing it grounded by them either on the fourth commandment or on the precept or example of Jesus or his apostles.
Neander, the great church historian, writes:
The festival Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance; and it was far from the intention of the apostles to establish a divine command in this respect,—far from them, and from the early apostolic church, to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday.—Church History, Rose's Translation, p. 168.
The Augsburg Confession, drawn up by Melancthon, states:—
The observance of the Lord's day [Sunday] is founded not on any command of God, but on the authority of the church.—Cox' Sabbath Manual, part 2, sec. 10.
Lyman Abbott, editor of the Christian Union (now The Outlook), says in that paper of January 19, 1882:—
The current notion that Christ and his apostles authoritatively substituted the first day for the seventh is absolutely without any authority in the New Testament.
The Christian at Work, of January 8, 1885, declares:—
The selection of Sunday, thus changing the particular day designated in the fourth commandment, was brought about by the gradual concurrence of the early Christian church, and on this basis, and none other, does the Christian sabbath, the first day of the week, rightly rest.
Rev. Geo. S. Mott, D.D., president of the American Sabbath Union, says, "We admit there is no such [divine] command" for Sunday observance.
We might quote more. The above quotations state the simple truth. The Protestant churches have therefore stepped down from the Protestant rock, "the Bible and the Bible only," have accepted tradition, and can give no logical reason why they should not accept every other heresy of the Roman Church on the same authority.
Further, Protestants have taken the next logical step Romeward. As the early church departed from God's word and adopted for the word of God the teaching of men, she could not claim the power of God's Spirit to reach hearts and "persuade" men to accept her teaching; and, therefore, she laid hold of civil power and endeavored to force men's consciences. Out of this principle, which was a logical outgrowth of departing from the word of God, grew the Papacy and the Dark Ages. Protestantism is doing the same thing. Not having God's word for Sunday, she cannot claim or obtain his Spirit to awaken conscience and persuade hearts to observe it, and therefore she is laying hold of civil law, the power of man, to enforce the traditions of men. Thus are the Protestant churches, so called, not only drifting Romeward, but, inasmuch as they have committed themselves to these principles of Rome, they have become Romanized. It is not name which makes the character, it is principle. And "Protestantism" has adopted the principles of Romanism. By the adoption of these very principles the Protestant churches identify themselves with the great harlot Babylon. Would that they might be aroused! God's message to every honest soul is, "Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins." Rev. 18:3.
THE HUMAN VERSUS THE DIVINE METHOD.
By Editor
DR. R. F. COYLE (Presbyterian), of this city, in a recent sermon, discussed the “Dangers of the Times,” especially as connected with the labor question. He thinks that we are on the eve of a great revolution of some kind, approaching a great crisis in earth's history. He says (we quote from the Examiner of Sept. 4): “In the line with all this are the increasing predictions of the near advent of Christ and of the end of the present dispensation.” And all these evils which are mentioned by Dr. Coyle are given in the Bible as especially characteristic of the last days. Of the power of gold he says:—
Gold is king. The race for wealth is so intense, so absorbing, so supreme, that it is driving men into all sorts of unscrupulous methods and practices. Mammonism bribes the voters, corrupts the ballot box, buys legislators, and influences the decisions of courts. Its spirit is back of the lottery, back of gambling of all sorts, back of the wild speculations in boards of trade, back of the rum power, back of the fierce and savage competitions of commerce which have become so terrible within the last few years. It is said that the love of money runs in the veins of the Anglo-Saxon, and it looks like it. Among Anglo-Saxon people, especially in this country, it is not blood, not birth, not titles, but money, that makes the aristocracy. The circles from which the poor, though educated and refined, are barred out, give a hearty welcome to the person who has wealth. According to our ordinary social judgments, it is cash that counts and not character. Dives is on top, and, being on top, is lionized, and no questions are asked as to how he got there. The haste to be rich is one of the most suspicious and dangerous symptoms of the times.
Other dangers mentioned by the doctor are centralization of power, socialism, and anarchy:—
Power of all sorts seems to be concentrating. Politics are centralizing. There is vastly more power in the government at Washington than there was at the close of the civil war. The pendulum has swung from the States rights question of the last generation over to the other extreme. In the financial world these are the days of pools and trusts and syndicates. Capital is centralizing. Labor is centralizing too. Organization is going on among the workingmen as never before. Population is consolidating. The drift is everywhere toward the cities. This is an age of rapidly growing socialism. We are told that the socialistic vote in Germany was 124,655 in 1871, and 1,341,587 in 1890. The statistics of socialistic growth in this country I cannot give, but we are assured by Professor Walker that “socialism was never more full of lusty vigor, more rich in promise of things to come, than now.”
Of Anarchists, though few in number, he says:—
See how busy these destructionists are to-day. They are injecting their poison into the lifeblood of the masses. They are making the poorer classes sour, sullen, and rebellious.
And then as to the duty of the church he utters the following, to which we say, Amen:—
Israel should awake. These are no days for dreaming and creed-thinking and theological hair splitting. The church was built for stormy seas. To run us under lee shores and come to anchor in sunny707harbors is to be false to her high calling. No new gospel is needed, but new and harder application of the old gospel. Israel must take the cross down from her altars and steeples and into all the dealings of man with man.
But here Dr. Coyle more than hints at methods which will never accomplish the work which needs to be done. He says:—
The church has been too long in the habit of dividing human affairs into things secular and things sacred. This has kept her out of touch with the world. Her business is as much to save society as to save the individual.
True, it is not the business of the church to divide “human affairs” into secular and sacred. They are so divided by a Higher Power than man, and it is the business of the church to respect that division and labor in her own sphere. It is not to be an object sought to come into “touch” with the world. It is her business to first know Christ and then reveal Christ to the world, in her speech, her deeds, her spirit, her whole life. Getting “in touch” with the world will then care for itself. The church has no business with society as such. Her business is to hold up Christ and win men, not en masse, but as individuals, because that is the only way she can help them.
The fact is that just as soon as the church endeavored to “save society,” to control things “secular,” she fell under the corrupting power of politics. Principle was yielded to expediency. There is where she stands to-day,—“in touch” with the world, a very part of the world, but “out of touch” with Jesus Christ. The only way to save society is to save individuals. As recently remarked by a writer in one of our missionary magazines, “A nation is only transformed as its individual members themselves become transformed.” It is just as true of society. If the church would cut loose from the world, and lay hold upon Christ; if the church would stop trying to save society and nations, keep out of politics, and go to work preaching, living, ministering the gospel of Christ, God would care for the rest. To do this the church needs a new commission, but she will not admit it. Some of her great men see her danger, and know a little of her diseases, but they know not the remedy.
CIVIL GOVERNMENT AND THE DECALOGUE.
By Ellet Joseph Waggoner
BY ELDER E. J. WAGGONER.
THE advocates of Sunday legislation are earnestly trying to find a basis for their proposed action, in the fourth commandment. It is true that that commandment says nothing about the first day, which is the only day that Sunday reformers would consent to have the State set apart, while it does specifically enjoin the observance of the seventh day; and it is also true that if they could find in the fourth commandment some authority for Sunday observance, that would show beyond the possibility of cavil that their movement is simply an effort to secure religious legislation; but none of these things move them. They have, however, through the kind offices of the Signs of the Times, American Sentinel, and other publications, been brought to see that civil governments have to do only with civil matters; and, therefore, in order to have a show of reason for their work, they are claiming that there are civil elements in the ten commandments, inasmuch as some of those precepts relate to man's duty to his fellow-men.
There has been in the past a great deal of unnecessary discussion over the two tables of the Decalogue. It has been rightfully claimed that with the first table of the law civil governments have nothing to do; and the Sunday-law people themselves more than half believe this. Rev. W. F. Crafts, who has stood for the American Sabbath Union, has spent a great deal of time in trying to readjust the tables of the law, so as to make the action of his association consistent with the principle just stated. Instead of dividing the Decalogue into two tables, the first containing four commandments, and the second the last six, which is the most common division, he makes the division just after the first clause of the fourth commandment, putting the bulk of the fourth, and the last six, into the second table. Of course this is entirely arbitrary, having no authority but Mr. Crafts' assertion; but it serves to show that Mr. Crafts appreciates the truth of the statement that civil governments have of right nothing to do with the first table of the Decalogue.
But that statement tells only a part of the truth, and is misleading; for the fact is that civil governments have nothing whatever to do with any of the ten commandments, whether in the first table or in the second. The discussion as to the two tables of the law is entirely unnecessary, and will be seen to be so when the character of the whole law is understood. The proposition which we lay down is this: Civil laws are not based upon, and do not derive their force from, the divine law; and civil government has nothing whatever to do with any commandment of the Decalogue. This we think can readily be made to appear.
1. The law is a unit. It is, as a whole, the expression of God's will, the transcript of his character; and therefore whatever is true of one part of the law is true of the whole.
2. The inspired declaration is that "the law is spiritual." Rom. 7:14. This is spoken, not merely of the first four commandments, but of the whole law. Let us consider this point.
While it is true that the first four commandments pertain to our duties to God exclusively, and the last six relate to duties that also affect our fellows, it is not true that there is any less morality or spirituality in the last six than in the first four. Although they define human duties, there is in them no human element. They are spiritual, and obedience to them must be spiritual. Anything else is not obedience.
Take for illustration our Saviour's comments on certain commandments, recorded in Matt. 5:20-28. In that passage we find that a word may be sufficient to constitute a violation of the sixth commandment, and that the seventh may be broken by a single look, or even a thought. It is worthy of note that the commandments whose breadth the Saviour thus indicated, are found in the second table. Now what did he do?—He simply showed what those commandments require. From his words we learn that the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," forbids malicious thoughts and words. He who indulges in these does not keep the commandment at all, although he may never have laid4violent hands on any man. The commandment which says, "Thou shalt not commit adultery," forbids impure desires. It does not stop short of that. He who indulges in these violates the seventh commandment, although he may have lived a hermit all his life.
From the words of the apostle Paul, and the illustrative application of Jesus, we learn that the law—including every commandment—is wholly spiritual. If it is not kept spiritually, it is not kept at all. There is no such thing as degrees in the commandments, so that a man may keep them half way, and receive credit therefor, as seems to be supposed by those who talk about keeping the law outwardly. It is true that, as the greater includes the less, strict compliance with the letter of the law is demanded, and is necessarily included in spiritual obedience; but the man whose apparent conformity to the law is only outward, has not yielded any obedience to it whatever. The law is wholly spiritual, wholly divine.
3. But civil government is not spiritual. No one can gainsay this proposition. Inasmuch as civil government cannot enforce spirituality, and cannot make men spiritually minded, it has no right nor power to require spirituality. "God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." A spiritual ruler justly requires spiritual obedience. He can punish for violations of a spiritual law. But a civil ruler cannot execute spiritual law. Therefore the proposition is proved that civil government has nothing whatever to do with spiritual law, and such a law is the Decalogue. This proposition becomes self-evident as soon as one views the law of God in the light in which he himself sets it forth.
We can say, then, without the slightest fear of successful contradiction, that human laws are not based upon, and do not derive their force from, the divine law. The State rightfully makes laws against the taking of human life, but not in any sense as an enforcement of the divine commandment, or of any part of it. Does anybody suppose that a murderer who is legally hanged for his crime, will receive less punishment in the great Judgment day than if he had escaped the civil penalty?—Of course not. Man punished him for his inhumanity; God punishes for immorality; and the sixth commandment of God's law is not human, but divine.
The great cause for confusion lies in a wrong use of terms. Like the hypocritical Pharisees of old, men have come to confound morality and respectability. A man who does nothing to shock the sensibilities of his neighbors, and who does not interfere with their rights, is called a moral man, when in fact he may be grossly immoral. He is a good citizen, but if he is not pure at heart, he is not a keeper of the divine law in any sense whatever. The law is spiritual, and that which is not spiritual is not to the slightest degree obedience to it.
If National Reformers and national Sunday-law advocates had any just conception of the nature of divine law, they would cease their insane attempt to make men moral by law, or to enforce the law of God. But because they have no real knowledge of divine government, and fancy themselves competent to act as its high executive officers, they also lose sight of the prime object of civil government, and ruthlessly trample upon human right.
THE SPARROWS HAVE FOUND A PLACE TO BUILD.
By Fannie Bolton
BY FANNIE BOLTON.
The sparrows have found a place to build their nest,
Even thine altars, O thou Lord of all.
They sing and twitter, flying to their rest,
And thou dost note their rise and mark their fall,
And thy great heart beats softly, lest its throb
Should fright them from the shelter of thy breast.
And will thine ear of love hear not the sob
Of mourners who would fain find place to rest?
The sparrows have found a place to build their nest,
Even thine altars. O rejoice, sad heart;
God loves thee, yearns to fold thee to his breast;
He gives thee in his infinite love a part.
Oh, as the sparrows fly with confidence
Unto his altars, o'er their young to brood,
So nestle thou beneath his wings, and hence
Know all things work together for thy good.
The sparrows have found a place to build their nest.
Praise to the Lord for this sweet hint of him.
He will not even a bird of air molest,
And will he look on those whose eyes are dim
With bitter tears in vengeance and in hate?
Oh, no! behold, he gently, gently pleads,
“Come unto me, O heart most desolate,
Behold, my heart with all thy sorrow bleeds.”
The sparrows have found a place to build their nest;
And so have we, aye, we may brood our young
Under his wings, aye, in his very breast,
And we may sing with joy as they have sung.
Day after day we may fly forth to be
Still in his radiant love, our rise and fall
Noted by him in love, and, glad and free,
Know that his breast is open to us all.
The sparrows have found a place to build their nest.
No hand can harm them there, no bird of prey
Fall on their young. In oversheltering rest
We too may praise and work and sing and play,
Nestling as birds beneath a downy wing,
Nestling as children at a father's breast,
Here we may play or work, or weep or sing,
But all be joy—we've found a place to rest.
O glory unto God, O shelter blest,
What wings 'twill give us, swift to fly for him!
What song will rise in such a place of rest!
And even when our eyes with tears are dim,
How sweet those tears will be when his dear hand,
Nail-marked for us, will wipe them all away!
O come, poor hearts, from every weary land,
Fly to the shelter of his breast to-day.
The One Thing That Separates Us
THERE is but one thing which can separate us from God, and that is selfishness, or cherished sin. “But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you.” Isa. 59: 2. These are cherished iniquities, sins that we put in the place of God, between us and God, so that we cannot see the Divine Image. When we choose God instead of self and sin, it matters not how great sinners we are, God will banish the sin, and the light of his countenance will shine away the darkness; but if one little sin is cherished in the heart, it will shut God out; for it puts us on the side of that sin. We choose the sin first and God second; and God cannot be minister to sin; he will not therefore come into the heart which cherishes it; for sin cherished breeds unbelief (Heb. 3: 12), or what is the same thing, selfishness breeds unbelief (John 5: 44). Doubt, or unbelief, is therefore a sure sign of cherished sin, or selfishness. Do you desire clear faith, reader? Put away the sin, renounce self.
THE SINFULNESS OF SIN.
By Elder J. H. Durland
BY ELDER J. H. DURLAND.
IN order that we may forsake sin, the Spirit of the Lord, through the word, shows us its exceeding sinfulness. Until we are led to see its terribleness we will not desire to cut loose from it. The Lord can see when we will sin long before we get to it. He desires that we may see the deceitfulness of the nature of sin, that we may be willing to give it all up and hate it as a man hates a snake after being once bitten.
David learned the nature and power of sin by a sad experience, and this experience has been recorded for our benefit, that we might keep away from it. When he saw where he was, he had not words that were strong enough to express his feelings towards it. He says it is transgression—a going out of the way; it is sin—a mistake, a missing the mark; it is iniquity—an injustice, a wrong; it is a guile—a cheating, a lie.
Thus a penitent sinner sees sin. He looks back and sees sin as a going out of the way. He stepped out of the path; it was only a step—he thought he could easily come back again, he would not go far—only to see just what was over there. So it began, and so it went on, day after day, thoughts growing into acts, acts into habits, habits ever growing stronger. Then some day the man wakes. Where is he? Hanging to the edge of the precipice he looks up. Oh, how different that way of the Lord appears now! He used to think of it as a restriction, a being too particular. But now he wakes to find innocence lost, and the man who was going to be free is the helpless slave of his own sin. And he cannot get back, cannot get up again. What memories crowd around him! Thoughts in which God's way appears a way of pleasantness, but so far from him that he can only cry out, "O wretched man that I am!" He sees that he is far out of the way, and is unable to return. He cannot climb up, and down below him is that terrible darkness of destruction.
When sin is revealed to the sinner, he may at first try to hide it by making excuses for his transgression. He says, "I am not worse than others." If there ever was any blame it was not his. Blame his nature if you will, in which fiery passion slept—he could not help that. Blame occasion and temptation; these were answerable for what happened, not himself. But underneath the covering there is an accuser that torments him day and night. No, he cannot get rid of sin by denying it. It still remains there, in all its hideous nakedness, standing out in the glaring light of God. Memory meets him and whispers in his ear. Faces rise up, and come near and look at him, dumbly clamoring against him. Fingers point at him. Nature seems allied with conscience. As he goes on there come strange voices, looks, hints, whispers, as if all the world knew all about it and shrank from this dreadful man. Above him is a God whom he fears to face. Beneath him is a blackness of which he shudders to think. No, he cannot bury his sin. As in the weird and tragic story in which the poet tells of the man who tried to bury his crime, the black pool would not hide the secret, and there, in the dried-up river bed, lay the victim. The wind swept away the leaves and flung the dead again into sight. We have no power to undo the past; we cannot hush it up. Its voices go on and on forever clamoring against us. We cannot bury it. It rises and pursues us. The height of blessedness cannot be reached by this path. "When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring."
Does sin always mean such anguish, and fear, and remorse? No, not always. Only as long as the light of God's word is within the soul, and speaks to the sinner. That light may be put out. That voice may be silenced. Then the sinner will come to laugh a wild and hardened laugh at these things. Right and wrong have ceased to mean anything. Love is lust, and truth is but a name, and purity is a hypocrite who wears a white robe, and friendship is only the disguise of selfishness. Better a thousand times the madness that raves at the memories of sin than this. The eye that sees truth is put out, the ear that hears the voice of God is stopped. Then the soul can go untroubled, unburdened, because hardened.
"He that covereth his sins shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy." When God shows us our sins, the best way for us to do is to say, "I acknowledge my transgression." Then the Lord answers, "I forgive." Then he who sees how wicked it is to sin, can turn his eyes to the Lord, and say, "Praise the Lord, for his mercy endureth forever."