10. CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 10 A SENSE OF THE GUILT OF SIN REQUIRED The guilt of the sin – Guidelines for help The multiple dangers involved -

Hardening Temporal correction Loss of peace and strength Eternal destruction -- Rules to manage this consideration The evil of it – In grieving the Spirit Wounding the new creature Taking away a man’s usefulness. The SECOND direction: Grasp the guilt, danger, and evil of your sin

Get a clear and lasting sense in your mind and conscience of the guilt, danger, and evil of the sin that troubles you – 1. Get a clear and lasting sense of the guilt of sin.

One of the deceits of a prevailing lust is to minimize its own guilt. “It is just a little one.” “When I go and bow myself in the house of Rimmon, God be merciful to me in this thing.”141 We say to ourselves, “It is bad, but it is not as bad as some. Other Christians suffer from this one, and they sin far worse than this!” There are many ways through which sin diverts the mind from correctly understanding its guilt. Its foul vapors darken the mind so that its judgment is distorted. Confused reasoning, extenuating promises, raging desires, conditional relinquishment, hopes of mercy, all have their share in distracting the mind from considering the guilt of a prevailing lust. The prophet tells us that when a lust reaches its height, “Prostitution, wine, and new wine take away the heart.”142 That is, lust takes away our understanding, as “the heart” is often used in Scripture. It accomplishes this completely in unregenerate persons, and partially in regenerate ones.

Solomon speaks of someone enticed by a lewd woman. He says he was “among the foolish ones;” he was “a young man without understanding.”143 And what was his folly about? “As a bird to the snare, he did not know his life was at stake.”144 He did not consider the guilt of the evil he was involved in. And the Lord gives a reason why his dealings with Ephraim had the same effect: “Ephraim is like a silly dove without heart.”145 Ephraim had no understanding of his own miserable condition. The only way David could have remained ignorant for so long about the true extent of his atrocious sin, was because his reasoning was corrupted time and again. It hindered him from taking a clear view of its ugliness and guilt in the mirror of the law. This made it necessary to send the prophet to awaken him. He silenced all the subterfuges and pretenses by his parable, so that David might completely grasp the guilt of what he had done. This is the proper consequence of lust in the heart. It darkens the mind so that it cannot rightly judge its guilt. There are many other ways in which it extenuates itself that I will not go into.

Let this, then, be the first caution for someone who wants to mortify sin: rightly judge the guilt of it in your mind. To help you in that regard, consider these:

(1.) Continuing sin in believers is worse than sin in unbelievers.

Although the power of sin is weakened by inherent grace in believers, and it does not have the same control over them that it has over others, the guilt of sin that still remains is intensified by that grace: “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may grow? God forbid. How shall we who are dead to sin, live with it any longer?”146 “How shall we, who are dead to sin?” The emphasis is on the word “we.” How can we who have received grace from Christ for the opposite purpose, continue to do it? Doubtless, we are more evil than anyone else if we do. I will not go into the special aggravations of the sins of such people, or how they sin against more love, mercy, grace, assistance, relief, means, and pardon than others. But let this consideration stay in your mind: there is infinitely more evil and guilt in the sin that remains in your heart, than there would have been in that same sin if you had no grace at all.

(2.) Sin hidden in our heart is worse than sin evidenced by our acts.

God sees more abundant beauty and excellence in the desires of the heart of his servants, than he does in the most glorious works of others. He sees more beauty in the desires of their heart than he does in most of their own outward performances. So God sees a great deal of evil in the lust of their hearts, in fact, more than he sees in the open, notorious acts of wicked men, or in the many outward sins that the saints may fall into. There is more opposition to those outward acts than to their inward lust, and more humiliation generally follows them. Thus, in dealing with his decaying children, Christ goes to the heart of the matter with them. He lays aside their profession of faith: “I know you. You are something different than what you profess, and this makes you repulsive. I will spit you out of my mouth.”147

So, then, let these and similar things lead you to a clear sense of the guilt of your indwelling lust. There should be no room in your heart for thoughts that extenuate or excuse it, through which sin, unfelt, gains strength and prevails.

2. Consider the multiple dangers of continuing to sin:

(1.) The danger of being hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. This is what the apostle strongly instructs, “Pay attention brothers, so that none of you has an evil heart of unbelief that revolts against the living God. Instead, exhort one another each day, or you will be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.”148 He is saying, “Pay attention! Use all means; consider your temptations; watch diligently. There is a treachery, a deceit in sin, that tends to harden your hearts against the fear of God.” The hardening mentioned here is absolute and complete insensitivity to wrongdoing. Sin tends to do that. Every compulsion and lust will make at least some progress towards it. Those of you who were tender, who melted under the word and under trials, will grow “sermon-proof and nausea-proof.” Those of you who trembled at the presence of God, at thoughts of death and your appearance before him, will have such brazenness in your spirit that you will no longer be moved by these things. Your soul and your sin will be spoken about, and you will not care, hear, or notice. You will be able to pass over your Christian duties like praying, hearing, and reading, and your heart will not be affected in the least. Sin will become easy for you. You will ignore it as nothing. This is what it will grow to be. And what will be the result of such a condition? Can a sadder thing happen to you? It is enough to make the heart tremble, to think of getting to a point in life when thoughts of sin are inconsequential, when thoughts of grace, mercy, and the blood of Christ, of the law, heaven, and hell, leave little impression on us. Take care, this is what your lust is working towards: hardening the heart, searing the conscience, blinding the mind, dulling the senses, and deceiving the whole soul.

(2.) The danger of receiving serious correction in this life. The Scripture calls these corrections “vengeance, judgment, and punishment.”149 Though God would not completely cut you off for this abhorrent lust in your heart, he will nonetheless visit you with the rod. Even though he may pardon and forgive, he will still take vengeance on your methods. Remember David and all his troubles! Look at him fleeing to the wilderness, and consider the hand of God on him. Does it mean nothing to you that God might kill your child in anger, ruin your home in anger, break your bones in anger, allow you to be a scandal in anger, kill you, destroy you, lead you into darkness, all in anger? Is it nothing that he would punish, ruin, and cause the downfall of others for your sake? Do not misunderstand. I do not mean that God does in fact send all these things every time he gets angry. God forbid! But I do say that when he does deal with you in this way, and your conscience bears witness with him that you provoked this response, you will find his dealings with you full of bitterness to your soul. If you do not fear these things, then I fear you are hardened.

(3.) The danger of losing of peace and strength all your life. The promises of the covenant of grace can be summed up in these two things: to have peace with God, and to have the strength to walk before him. In these are found the life of our souls. If we do not have them to some comfortable degree, then to live is to die. What good is life if we cannot see the face of God in peace, or if we do not have the strength to walk with him? An unmortified lust will certainly deprive us of these things. This is so evident in David; nothing can be clearer. How often does he complain that his bones are broken, his soul tormented, and his wounds made painful because of his sin? Take other instances: “Because of the evil of his greed, I burst out in anger and struck him. I hid myself in rage.”150 I ask you, what peace is there for your soul while God hides himself, or strength while he strikes you? “I will go and return to my place, until they acknowledge their offense and seek my face;”151 “I will leave them, hide my face.” And what will become of their peace and strength when God does that?

If you ever enjoyed peace with God, if his terrors ever made you afraid, if you ever had strength to walk with him, mourned in your prayer, or were ever troubled because of your weakness, then think of this danger that hangs over your head. It may only be a short time before you see the face of God in peace no more. Perhaps by tomorrow you will not be able to pray, read, hear, or perform any of your Christian duties with the least bit of cheerfulness, life, or vitality. And it may be possible that you will never see another quiet hour while you live. You may carry around broken bones, full of pain and terror, all the days of your life. Perhaps God will shoot his arrows at you, and fill you with anguish and torment, fears and bewilderment. He may make you a terror and a shock to yourself and others, or show you hell and fury every moment. He may frighten you with anticipation of his hatred so bad that the sores of your sin will open and seep, and your soul will refuse to be comforted. You will wish for death rather than life. Consider this a little. Although God would not utterly destroy you, he might just throw you into this condition where you will have immediate and living visions of your destruction. Move your heart to think of this. Let your heart know what it is like to be the product of its sinfulness. Do not leave this imagery until you have made your soul tremble within you.

(4.) The danger of eternal destruction. To properly manage this consideration, take note,

[1.] That there is a connection between continuing in sin and eternal destruction. Though God does keep some from continuing in their sin so they will not be destroyed, he pardons no one from destruction that does continue in sin. Because this is true, while anyone is under the abiding power of sin, the threats of destruction and everlasting separation from God must be presented to him. Hence we are cautioned not to harden our hearts and depart from God.152 We are admonished that if God’s people draw back from living by faith, God will not be pleased with them.153 This is the rule for God’s course of action: If any man “departs” from him, that is, “draws back” through unbelief, then “God’s soul takes no pleasure in him.” That is, his indignation will pursue that man to destruction. That is evident in this passage addressed to believers, “For he that sows into his flesh will reap ruin from the flesh; but he that sows into the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit.”154

[2.] Someone who is so entangled and dominated by the power of a lust, as described above, has no clear proof that he is a child of the covenant; and therefore he has no shelter from the fear of destruction. So he is right to fear destruction from the Lord, and he ought to look at it as the definite outcome of his course and ways. You may argue, “There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.”155 That is true, but who has the comfort of this assertion? Who may assume to be in Christ Jesus? “Those that walk after the Spirit, and not after the flesh.” You may ask, “Does this not persuade men to unbelief, and to doubt their salvation?” I answer, No.

There are two judgments that a man may make about himself. The first is about his person, and the second, about his ways. It is the judgment of his ways, not his person, that I am speaking about. He should get the best evidence about his person that he can. But it is his duty to judge whether an evil way will end in destruction; not to do that is atheism. I am not saying that when a man is so dominated, he ought to throw away the evidence he has of his personal interest in Christ. But I am saying that he cannot simply store it away in an attic as a thing of the past.

There are a two condemnations a man may consider about himself. First, he may consider his punishment, when he concludes that he deserves to be cast out of the presence of God. This is so far from unbelief that, in effect, it is faith. Second, he may consider the proclamation and event of his condemnation, when he concludes that he will be damned. I am not saying it is anyone’s duty to condemn himself, nor am I calling anyone to do that. But I do say that a man ought to consider that the outcome of his ways will be death, so that he may be provoked to fly from it. This is something else that a man should dwell on if he desires to be freed from the entanglement of his lusts.

3. Consider the evils of continuing to sin; By this I mean its present evils. Danger refers to what is to come; evil refers to what is present. Some of the many evils that attend an unmortified lust follow below:

(1.) It grieves the holy and blessed Spirit. The Spirit is given to believers to dwell in them and persevere with them. After discouraging the Ephesians from many lusts and sins, the apostle gives this as the primary motive. “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit, through which you are sealed for the day of redemption.”156 He is saying, “Do not grieve that Spirit of God through which you receive so many and such wonderful benefits.” He specifies a remarkable and comprehensive one, “sealing to the day of redemption.” The Spirit is grieved by the sin. As a tender and loving friend is grieved at the unkindness of a man he has served well, so is it with this tender and loving Spirit. He has chosen our hearts for a place to dwell, and there he does all that our souls desire for us. He is grieved when we harbor his enemies beside him in our hearts, those he is charged to destroy. “He does not willingly depress or cause grief.”157 Why should we daily grieve him? Sometimes he is said to be “annoyed,” sometimes “grieved in his heart,” to express the strongest sense of our provocation.

Now, if there is anything left of gracious imagination in the soul, if it is not completely hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, considering this will certainly affect it. Consider who and what you are, who the Spirit is that is grieved, and what he has done for you. Consider why he has come to your soul, and what he has already done in you. And then be ashamed. Among those who walk with God, there is no greater incentive to universal holiness than this: to know that the blessed Spirit who dwells in them as temples of God, preserves them fit for himself. He continually considers what they entertain in their hearts, and he rejoices when his temple is kept undefiled. The aggravation of the sin of Zimri was that he brought his adulteress into the congregation in the sight of Moses and the rest, who were weeping for the sins of the people.158 Is it not a similar aggravation to approve of a lust, or to allow it to remain in your heart, when it is entertained in the sight of the Holy Ghost who is taking care to preserve his tabernacle as a pure and holy place?

(2.) The Lord Jesus Christ is wounded again by it. His new creature in the heart is wounded; his love is foiled; his adversary is gratified. Relinquishing Christ completely, by the deceitfulness of sin, is like “crucifying him again, and putting him to open shame.”159 In the same way, each time we harbor the sin that he came to destroy, we wound and grieve him.

(3.) It will take away a man’s usefulness in his generation.

If he continues to sin, then his works, endeavors, and labors will seldom receive blessing from God. If he is a preacher, God blows like a billows on his ministry, so that he labors in the fire.160 He is not honored with any success, nor is he honored for doing any work for God. The world today is full of poor, withering professors of Christ. How few walk in any beauty or glory! How barren, how useless they are! Among the many reasons for this sad state of affairs is that many men harbor spirit-devouring lusts in their hearts. They are like worms at the root of their obedience, eating away at it, weakening it day by day. All graces, all the ways and means by which any graces might be exercised and improved, are compromised by this consuming lust. And as to success, God blasts the labor of such men.

This, then, is my second direction. Oppose lust which has taken up habitual residence in your soul. Keep alive in your heart the considerations of its guilt, danger, and evil. Meditate often on these things. Make your heart dwell on them. Engage your mind to consider them. Do not let your thoughts wander from this until they begin to have a powerful influence on your soul, and make it tremble.