Psalms 19

Psalms 19:1-14

GOD S WORK, WORD AND WAYS Psalms 19:1-14. THE 23rd Psalm as a revelation of God’s grace and love, is probably the best known and best loved chapter of the 150 that make up the matchless Psalter, if not the best known and best loved chapter of the Bible. But when one comes to think of the glory of God, to contemplate His exceeding greatness as that greatness is revealed, and even demonstrated, in the physical universe, his mind turns immediately to the 19th Psalm. Memory forces through his lips the words, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth His handiwork.“Day unto day uttereth speech; night unto night showeth knowledge.“There is no speech, nor language, where their voice is not heard;“Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath He set a tabernacle for the sun,“Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.“His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof”.Our theme for this chapter, if named “The heavens are telling,” would be the most correct translation of the opening sentence of this Psalm. Nature is not dumb, but eloquent instead. The sun does more than smile; it speaks. The stars do more than twinkle; they talk and sing and one theme forever engages their tongues—they tell the glory of God!It will be seen before we shall have finished the study of this Psalm that the theme of their speech,“The Glory of God”, is that of nature, of revelation and of grace, and we can best express it in these sentences. The glory of God as seen in the infinity of His work, the glory of God as revealed in the perfection of His Word, and the glory of God as manifested in His faultless ways.THE GLORY OF GOD IN THE OF HIS WORK “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth His handiwork”.He fills all space with the fruits of His hands. Any attempt to account for this universe apart from God is not atheism only—it is insanity. A creation without a Creator is a conception that dispenses with reason. There are two sentences in sacred Scripture that all infidels vainly resist and insanely reject: Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth”, and Hebrews 11:3, “The worlds were framed by the word of God”.It does not require a vivid imagination to conceive creation. The faith that accepts a Creator has, in the very circumstance of such acceptance, compassed the thought of creation! That God should speak or even will a world, a solar system, a Milky Way, a universe, and that each and all should instantly appear at His pleasure, to take its place in the infinite stretch of space, is natural to faith.Astronomy serves to give us an increasing conception of God’s greatness.

Recently I had through the mails a leaflet published by Prof. Frost of Yerkes Observatory, Chicago, attempting, as an expert, to give some conception of the universe and succeeding marvelously in whelming the reader with immeasurable distances and innumerable worlds and even systems.

The modern radio comes more nearly giving us a line of measurements that can be used in connection with the infinite distances of space than anything hitherto known—the light wave by which sound travels goes 186,000 miles in a second, and it may be, true as some scientists are contending, that at certain portions of the day it travels at a distance of 60 miles in height from the earth, suggesting the probability that ether is a better conductor than air. The moon Isaiah 240,000 miles remote from the earth, requiring about 1 1/3 seconds for what I am now saying to be heard by ‘‘the man in the moon!” Mars Isaiah 37,000,000 miles from the earth, requiring about three minutes for a light wave from us to reach him. Saturn Isaiah 750,000,000 miles from the earth, requiring a little more than an hour for light to travel from our earth to that planet.When we learn there are suns so remote from us that thousands and millions of years are required for light to travel from them to us, space that goes into mile-measurements that stagger imagination and that the Milky Way is not made up, as was once supposed, of “star dust” but of innumerable stars and even systems packed into the infinity of space, then indeed we come to a clear comprehension of what the inspired writer meant when he said, “The heavens declare the Glory of God; and the firmament showeth His handiwork”.Our text also suggests another thought—He makes their silence as a song. You remember Mendelssohn composed what he called, “A Song without Words”. Surely this text could have been the inspiration of his thought. There are many Scriptures that men have been wont to spiritualize, that better understanding will compel us to literalize. For instance, the Lord says to Job,“Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. “Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? “Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; “When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy”? (Job 38:4-7). To me there is a double suggestion here—the combined music of God’s creation and God’s greatness. The stars do sing! The Psalmist says, “Thou makest the outgoings of the morning and evening to rejoice”, and the word is properly translated “to sing”. Modern science gives a meaning to what was aforetime regarded as mere poetic expression, and now we know that the light wave is God’s medium of conveying sound, and that when the undulations go below a certain point we cannot hear them, and above another point, they are lost; but in neither case do they cease. A scholar of great repute renders the words of the Psalm perhaps with most accuracy, after this manner: “Thou makest the outgoings of the morning and evening (or radiations of light) to sing”, that is, to give forth sound by vibration.Shakespeare, ignorant of the marvelous light discoveries characterizing our day, anticipated it all when he says (and interpreted in a measure this Psalm):“There’s not the smallest orb which thou beholdest, But in his motion, like an angel sings, Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim, Such harmony is in immortal souls; But whilst this muddy vesture of decay Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.” And Arthur Pierson, quoting this, says, “In the future life our senses will doubtless be so delicate and refined that we shall be able to hear not only the separate key notes, but the infinite swelling harmony of these myriad stars of the sky as they pour their mighty tide of harmonious anthems into the ear of God. Then shall we be able to understand the truth of the hymn:“In reason’s ear they all rejoice, And utter forth a glorious voice; Forever singing, as they shine, The hand that made us is Divine!” No wonder God rejoices in His works. He sits in the midst of a universal orchestra—that pours into His ear one ceaseless tide of rapturous song. He dwells in the midst of light; to us it is only ineffable glory; to Him it is music!“Their line has gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world”.He sets centers to every separate system. “In them hath He set a tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it; and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof” (Psalms 19:4-6).Modernists are accustomed to charge conservatives and the Bible itself with all sorts of mental absurdities. Only a few days since, an editor in a Western city, thinking to answer my contention that the Bible is an inspired Book, said, “Why does the Bible teach that the earth is the center of our solar system when the discoveries of Copernicus have proven that the sun instead holds that central place?” In common with so many claims of these gentlemen, this is all baseless. The Bible teaches no such thing and never did!

It makes the sun the center of the system in this very text. “From the heat thereof” radiates all life and light for the entire solar system. Nothing of that sort is ever said of the earth.The Book of Job, one of the most ancient writings extant, says that the “dayspring”, or rising sun, took “hold of the ends of the earth”. (Job 38:13).The only conceivable basis on which even the poorest student of the Bible could ever rest the contention that the Scriptures regarded the earth as the center of the solar system, would be in the prominence given to it in the first chapter of Genesis, a fact which finds explanation in the circumstance that God is not there discussing the heavens or what they contain, but the earth instead and His creative acts therein.If these gentlemen would cease talking about the mistakes of Moses and the blunders of the Bible, and give themselves to a study of the “science morgue” they would find in it some strange and now discarded opinions.

Take the science of materia medica, for example. There are works on anatomy in existence close to 4,000 years old. Does anybody consult them? Hardly! Hippocrates is known as “the Father of Medicine”, and yet his biographer declares that he knew little or nothing of it, not even having studied anatomy!Galen, the Greek scientist, laughed at all the medical sects of his day and originated “electicism”.We have now allopaths, homeopaths, hydropaths, naturopaths, electropaths, chiropractors, osteopaths, Christian Scientists and how many more who shall mention? And yet we are told medicine is a science!We have Darwinian evolution, LaMarckian evolution, Mendelian evolution, and yet we are told evolution is a science!We have Aristotlian philosophy, Descartian philosophy, Newtonian philosophy, Baconian, philosophy, Hutchinsonian philosophy, Nietzscheian philosophy and yet we are told philosophy is a science!It has been confessed by more men than Sir James Simpson that scarce a text-book on any scientific subject survives ten years, and yet superficial thinkers talk of Biblical views that have perished before the “assured results of modern science”.

We ask, “How assured are they?” And what assured results in modern science exist today that do not harmonize absolutely with what is spoken in the Word of God? The Bible does not teach a flat earth; it never did; but a round earth instead; for when Christ shall come, it will be midday in one place, midnight in another, and at cock-crowing in a third!The Bible does not teach a four cornered earth but employs a general figure of “the four quarters” known to this day and oftentimes used by navigators themselves.

The Bible falls into no scientific absurdity and when we remember that great portions of it are three thousand years of age and all of it two thousand, it stands absolutely alone as a text-book that can remain serviceable to man, dependable under all circumstances and worthy of eternal consideration! “For ever, O Lord, Thy Word is settled in heaven”!That remark leads us naturally to our next point and to the further study of this chapter.THE GLORY OF GOD AS IN THE OF HIS WORD “The Law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the Testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. “The Statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the Commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. “The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever; the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. “More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold; sweeter than honey and the honeycomb. “Moreover by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward” (Psalms 19:7-11). Consider the claims herein set forth! Some critics have thought that this second portion of this Psalm was probably written by another than David. How absurd, unscholarly, superficial! David, while keenly appreciating the works of God and recognizing in them His unspeakable glory, was no mere Nature worshiper. To him, the Word of God was altogether as wonderful as were the works of God; Revelation as marvelous as Creation.God’s Law is both perfect and beautiful. You will find no flaws in it.

What man has reason to think he could strengthen it by subtracting something from it, or make it more efficient by adding something to it? The Book of Revelation concludes,“For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book; “And if any man shall take away from the words of the hook of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city” (Revelation 22:18-19). Why? Is God such an autocrat that He will have no man speak after He has spoken, or such an egotist that He will have no man detract from what He has said? No, the reason lies deeper than that. When God has finished, there is nothing more that needs to be said. In fact, there is nothing more that can be said, and when God has finished, to take from what He has uttered, the least particle, is to mar the perfect.Men rave against “static revelation,, and imagine that such a conception makes no provision for “progress”, and that a “fixed religion” must necessarily grow obsolete with the flight of time, but all such arguments forget that God’s work and God’s Word are alike perfect and on that account nothing can be added, nothing dare be subtracted. If anything could have been added, we would have new and better commandments than those found in the Bible.

Who will name them? If anything could be subtracted, and the race profit, some passages would long since have been put in discard and portions of whole books piled on the ash-heap, but to this hour not one jot or tittle has failed, and we have the prophetic Word of God that it will forever remain.Oh, ye blind infidels, how futile is your fight; oh, ye timid and quaking Christians, alarmed lest Modernism dethrone God, discredit the Bible and destroy the Christian faith; how poor is your appreciation of the greatness of the first, the eternal accuracy of the second, and the all-sufficiency of the third! As long as man lives on the earth, the Law of the Lord will abide in perfection and power! The Testimony of the Lord will continue to make wise the simple, the Statutes of the Lord to rejoice the heart of the righteous; the Commandments of the Lord to purify the life and enlighten the eyes of them that obey; the fear of the Lord will continue as a cleansing power and the judgments of the Lord will be regarded as true and righteous altogether, “more to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb, * * and in keeping of them there is great reward”!But we conclude with the third occasion of Glory!THE GLORY OF GOD AS SEEN IN HIS WAYS Here we have a strange combination effecting a contrast. One would imagine a distinct break in the thought of the chapter. He has been dealing with God, speaking of His greatness as manifested in the physical universe, and of the marvels of His Word. Then suddenly he drops that whole subject and turns to a consideration of himself. But that is no non-sequitur. It is the most logical process conceivable.One can’t forget himself when once he sees the glory of the Lord. “In the year that King Uzziah died”, Isaiah saw “the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple.

Above it stood the seraphims * ** * and one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory”. Then he turned from that vision straight to himself and cried, “Woe is me! for I am undone: because I am a man of unclean lips and dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips”, and he assigns his reason for so feeling, “for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts”.The perfection of God throws a blinding light upon the imperfections of man!

The least iniquity looms! What has been regarded as a mere error passes understanding, and what one has hidden away as a secret fault is suddenly exposed to the glare of the noonday sun. It is in the presence of God’s greatness that we feel our littleness. It is before God’s wisdom that our ignorance is exposed, and in the presence of God’s perfections our presumptuous sins seem dominant.Years ago, in my pulpit, I discussed a series of four subjects: little sins, secret sins, presumptuous sins, the unpardonable sin. I searched the Scriptures and found a separate text for each and treated it in its turn, and shortly after I had finished the four sermons, I was reading my Bible and stumbled upon all my texts in two verses, the 12th and 13th of this very chapter: “errors”, little sins, “secret faults”, “presumptuous sins”, “the great transgression”! Truly, here is an evolution worthy of the name, and yet when we so speak we have to do what the scientists insist upon, use language loosely, for this is development rather than evolution.

There is no new species created here. An error may be a little sin, but it is a sin.

Secret faults may be hid from the eyes of men, but they are larger sins. Presumptuous sins are simply sins overgrown and the great transgression is sin in its final form, in its fixed and eternal estate! The overwhelming consciousness of it all comes in consequence of the contrast with the character and conduct of the Mighty God! As was-said of His Son, You will “find no fault in Him”. As was true of Christ, that, though tempted in all points like as we are, yet He was without sin, so God the Father cannot be tempted by sin, and yet when one remembers the unspeakable love that led the Father to give His only Begotten Son that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, then the “great transgression” takes on its unpardonable proportions. What a condition!

How wretched is guilty man when once brought into the presence of the great and mighty God! How black and foul his every breath as compared with the purity of Jehovah’s person! “Who, then, can be saved”?Listen to the last word.

It has in it hope; it points the way. “Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my Strength and my Redeemer”.There is with man no power to resist the Adversary; of himself he can do nothing. There is with Christ all power in heaven and in earth. His strength is our sufficiency. We can “do all things through Christ which strengthened” us. Man has voluntarily sold himself into slavery, the slavery of Satan and into the slavery of sin. Where and how is his redemption? In the Lord of Hosts, his Redeemer!Modernism has no message for the man of error. It has no way out for the victim of secret faults.

It even invites to presumptuous sins, and it has no gospel against the great transgression. But go now to the old Gospel, and the only Gospel, and let it speak, and lo, the way is opened. “He was manifested to take away our sins” (1 John 3:5); the plan of God is placed before us, “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the Devil” (1 John 3:8). The Redeemer is presented, “The Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). The sinner may hope, for “Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15). Salvation is at hand, “For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).O man, look unto the Lord. He is your Strength and your Redeemer!

Psalms 19:13

SINS Psalms 19:13THERE is no bigger word in the human language than this that we spell with three letters, Sin, save one. The biggest word is God! But the blackest word, and the word that stands second in the experience of men is sin. It is Satan’s first word, the one that he loves most and best. Upon it, he plays as the musician does upon the scale of seven notes. One he tempts to this sin and another to that, one to a small, one to a secret sin, one to a presumptuous sin, and another to an unpardonable sin.

No one escapes his appeal to some sort of a sin. It is a little sin that undermines man’s character, the secret sin that seduces him to deeper depths, the presumptuous sin that plunges him headlong into evil and the unpardonable sin that utterly destroys his soul; but the end of all sin is the same, for “sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death” (James 1:15).We wish to consider one of these, ‘‘Presumptuous Sins.” David prayed wisely, “Keep back Thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me; then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression”.There are three questions which I want to raise concerning “Presumptuous Sins”: What are they? Why are they especially dangerous? How shall We escape them?WHAT ARE THEY? Unquestionably they are sins against the light, against knowledge. If we go back to the Old Testament Scriptures, we will find them so defined in the Levitical Law. There were certain sins committed with open eyes in violation of God’s commandment for which no mercy was to be shown, and they called them “Presumptuous Sins.” The same word describes them to this day. We say a man is presumptuous when he dares to do a thing knowing, in advance of his action, that it is an imposition and wrong. To illustrate: Some years ago, I was with a party in Central Indiana, squirrel hunting. We were walking along a road where the sign “posted” appeared full before us on the farmer’s gate.

Just after passing it, two squirrels crossed our path and the hunters went after them into the posted ground, and shot them out of the trees in the man’s barn lot. Later in the day, having unconsciously made a circuit back to almost the same point, but coming up to the place in such a way as not to recognize it, some other squirrels were shot in the same lot.

In the action of the morning there was a presumptuous violation of law, for we saw the sign “posted” and dared to pass it in pursuit of game. In the afternoon, we did not consciously violate the law for we knew not that we were on posted ground; so that while the same act, at the same point, was committed, it was ignorant violation in the afternoon, while in the morning, it was presumption.Charles Spurgeon, in a sermon on this subject, argues the same idea. He says, “Young man, you were once tempted, and perhaps it was but yesterday, to commit a certain act. The very moment you were tempted conscience said, it is wrong, it is abominable in the sight of the Lord. Your fellow apprentice committed the same sin without the warning of conscience. In him, it was the guilt that needs to be washed away with the Saviour’s Blood, but it was not such guilt in him as it was in you because your conscience checked you, your conscience told you of the danger, warned you of the punishment, and yet you dared go against God knowing that it was against God, and therefore you sinned presumptuously.

I beg of you to be slow in the commission of such sins, for do you not remember what Paul said to the Hebrews, “If we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries” (Hebrews 10:27).Presumptuous sins, also, are sins deliberately planned. You remember that under the ancient Levitical system there were cities of refuge for certain offenders against God’s law.

The man who had wronged his neighbor, or in hot-blood had committed murder, might escape to these cities and be saved. Once within their gates, no avenger could touch him; or he might go to the altar and throw himself upon that, and his enemy dare not slay him on the altar of God; but in Exodus, the 21st chapter, we read, “But, if, a man come presumptuously upon his neighbor (that is with planning to slay him with guile), thou shalt take him from mine altar, that he may die”.It ought to make a vast difference whether a man’s evil doings are deliberately planned or not. The poor fellow with a hot temper who strikes his neighbor down in one moment and sorrows over the act all his remaining days is a subject of our pity.In an adjoining state, a young man killed a game-warden, a few years ago, because the game-warden shot down his dogs that were in pursuit of protected game. In the fever of excitement, he lifted his gun to his shoulder, it flashed and the game-warden fell dead. Since that time he has been paying the price in the state penitentiary; but I know not a few people who are personally acquainted with him, who say that there was no more noble-hearted, generous fellow in all the vicinity, and instead of condemning him as a murderer, they commisserate him as a man who had the misfortune of a hot temper coupled with a tender heart; and so long as the cell holds him as a subject these people will not be satisfied. They feel that he ought to be free.

No such sentiment as that is possible toward the midnight assassin who plans for days to put a fellow-man to death and make way with his pocket-book. All society hates such a man and stands ready to hunt him into the penitentiary or even unto the gallows.

Both men have been guilty of the fearful sin of slaying a fellow, but the one did it impetuously and we pity him; the other presumptuously and we condemn him, and call for the gallows. God is not subject to like passions with us. He shews more commisseration to one than we do, and perhaps more of proper condemnation to the other than we do, and yet God does distinguish between the impetuous, unintentional offender, and the cool, calculating, planning, presumptuous sinner.Sins committed under the sentiment, “God is good,” are also presumptuous. The practical outworking of Unitarianism and Universalism is presumptuous sin. The moment we allow that God will not surely punish sin, men take advantage of the admission and presume to commit it at pleasure. There is already no sentiment so well calculated to set the soul in the way of destruction as this.

The moment the man gets to the point where he walks into iniquity consoling himself with the thought, “Well, this is wrong, but God is good and He’ll forgive me,” that man is in the toils of Satan, the control of every devilish spirit. When I hear such people talk, it reminds , me of what A.

C. Dixon said touching the conduct of a certain girl in Baltimore, Maryland. Her mother used the garret for her sweet-meats, jams, jellies, and so forth, and among them there was one jar for which this bit of femininity had a peculiar liking. At last the mother discovered that the little daughter was dipping her fingers into the jam daily and disposing of the same in considerable quantities. She thought to correct her by saying, “This is wrong and God will be angry if you do it again.” The next day she discovered the little Miss in the same jar, her fat hands covered with the stains and her face bearing unspeakable evidence of her sin. Her mother said, “Did not I tell you that it was wrong and God would be angry.” To which she replied, “Yes, I know mamma, He would not like it, but I am asking Him to forgive me all the time.” There are better grown people whose conduct is upon the same basis.

They presume on the kindness of God, the very thing against which the Word is most explicit and which is most offensive to the Father. What father among you overhearing your boys say, “Well, we ought not to do this and papa said we should not, but then he is good and he’ll let us off easy,” would not immediately proceed to abolish that theory; and the Heavenly Father will not certainly tolerate sentiments that are so evil to mortal man.

It is distinctly declared in His word that “the righteousness of the upright shall deliver them; but transgressors shall be taken in their own naughtiness” (Proverbs 11:6). “When a wicked man dieth, his expectation shall perish: and the hope of the unjust men perisheth” (Proverbs 11:7), and again, “The desire of the righteous is only good: but the expectation of the wicked is wrath” (Proverbs 11:23).WHY ARE SUCH SINS ? In the first place, because they despise the light. One of the chiefest sins that men ever commit exists in doing that very thing. That is why Paul said, “It is impossible for those who were once enlightened and have tasted of the Heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good Word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance” (Hebrews 6:4-6).Charles Spurgeon thought that the greatest sinners were those who sinned against the influences of holy instruction and Christian example, which is only another way of saying what we have just asserted. Children of godly parents, says he, who have been brought up and instructed in the fear of God from their youth are among the chief of sinners, if they turn aside from the way of Life. When they transgress there is a heavy weight about their act which is not to be found in the common sin of the children of the slums, or the Arabs of the gutter, the offspring of the degraded who know no better—poor souls—and hence their transgressions are sins of ignorance.I remember how this came home to my heart when I was convinced of my sin. I had not engaged in any of the grosser vices, but then I had not been tempted to them, but had been carefully guarded from vicious influences, but I remembered that I had been disobedient to my parents, proud in spirit, forgetful of God’s commands; I knew better —knew better from the very first.

This put me in my own estimation among the chief of sinners. It had cost me much to do evil for I had sinned against the clearest light and I beg some of you tonight, children of Christian parents, taught in the Scriptures from your infancy, prayed over by importunate mothers and affectionate fathers, prayed for by friends, preached to by Godly men; having had the way of light shown you from your infancy, and yet, shutting your eyes against it, to understand that yours is a presumptuous sin against which God’s indignation justly burns, and for which He must call you into judgment.

It was to that very thing that Jesus referred when He pronounced the doom of Capernaum, He had walked in her streets. He had talked to her people. He had told her the way of life. He had prayed for her repentance. He had preached His heart out in her midst and she had remained impenitent, and so He said in departing, “And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto Heaven, shalt be brought down to hell”; and you remember His words touching those other favored cities, “Woe unto thee, Chorazin! Woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works that have been done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sack-cloth and ashes, but I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you;” and I declare it as my profoundest conviction that the poor sin-besotted children, born out of wed-lock, bred in the alleys, educated of ignorance, unconsciously cultured into crime have a better chance with God and ought to have than the children of favor who know the right, the whole circumstance or whose life keenly impresses the right, and yet dare to do wrong, defying God.

It is a fearful thing to sin against the Light.Such sins are essentially dangerous also because they act directly on the soul. The man who drinks is destroying his body.

The man who smokes is destroying his body, more slowly perhaps, but none the less surely. The man given to lust is destroying his body, but the man who presumes to sin, despising the Law of God, is deadening his soul. You cannot cross the law at one hundred points and keep any conscience. When Pharaoh defied God, his heart hardened in consequence, and when the man of today does the same, he annihilates, in a measure, his moral sense and it is a fearful thing to have a dull or dead conscience; a fearful thing to be indifferent to the Light; a fearful thing to give God no consideration in your conduct; a fearful thing to forget the interests of soul. The man who succeeds along these lines perfectly has sunk himself forever. So long as there is conscience, there is hope.

So long as we sorrow over our sins, Jesus Christ stands ready to save us from them and the Word of God is likely to prove his power in lifting us up out of it.I remember as a boy that a man was drowned near to my home in Kentucky. When they had failed to find the body with grapple hooks, they carried a canon to the spot and fired it above the waters and the jar brought the body up; so, says some one, the thundering artillery of God’s justice by those good gunners—memory and conscience— bring up to our eyes the hidden sins which we thought were buried forever, and it is infinitely better for us to see them, loathsome as they are, for we know that when we see them and confess them, our Lord is faithful to forgive them, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.In the next place such sins are especially offensive because they defy God.

We read in Number 15:30-31, these words, “The soul that doeth ought presumptuously, whether he be born in the land, or a stranger, the same reproacheth the Lord; and that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Because he hath despised the Word of the Lord, and hath broken His Commandment, that soul shall utterly be cut off; his iniquity shall be upon him! (Numbers 15:30-31)”Foster tells of an Italian Prince, who in the old despotic age became celebrated for his forbearance, but he had a servant who took advantage of his kindly disposition. With every pardon the servant became more reckless and impudent and eventually presumed to do anything with impunity. One day he entered the presence of the Prince with his hat on, and when rebuked, he said, “I have a cold and it is not necessary to take it off.” The much-enduring master said, “I will take care that you never catch a cold again,” and that day he was beheaded. One of the Prince’s friends expressed surprise at this severe sentence, saying, “You often pardoned him of more serious crimes.” “Yes,” said the Prince, “but when the cup is full to the brim it will not do to add a single drop, unless you will run it over,” and we do well to remember that the overflowing cup of God’s mercy is wrath and destruction to the impenitent.My third question is this:HOW SHALL WE ESCAPE SUCH SINS? Let David lead us here. He has been guilty of them and he has escaped out of them and is a saint today at God’s right hand. Shall he not show us the way?First of all be it understood that we must repent of them. David did. The 51st Psalm is the penitential Psalm in which he pours out his heart to God in a pitiful strain of repentance. It is a Psalm of Sorrow, the “godly sorrow” that “worketh repentance”.

He cries out in the midst of it, “Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight: that Thou mightest be justified when Thou speakest, and clear when Thou judgest”. No self defense in that.Charles Spurgeon says repentance is an old-fashioned word, not much used by modern revivalists. “Oh,” said a minister to me, “it is only a change of mind.” This was thought to be a profound observation. Only a change of mind with regard to everything. Instead of saying it is only a change of mind, it seems more truthful to me to say, it is indeed a great and deep change, even a change of the mind itself. Whatever the Greek word may mean, repentance as an experience is no trifle. You will find few better definitions of it than the one given in the children’s hymn.“Repentance is to leave, the sins we loved before, And show that we in earnest grieve, by doing so no more.” That is your first step!But David had another suggestion in this text.He says that God must help us. “Keep back Thy servant also from presumptuous sins” was an appeal to the power of God. He dare not trust himself against their temptations. The man who does is doomed. The man who looks to God for help has an occasion of hope. He lays hold on the Almighty and He will lift him up.Dr. Gordon says, “I go into my garden after a terrific storm and find that my grape vine is fallen, its leaves are all torn, its boughs bespattered with mud, and I begin to talk to my vine. ‘Oh, vine, thou needest to be pruned and enriched.

I pour ashes about thy roots and pour water above thee, to cause thee to revive, and then thou wilt lift thyself in the light and health,’ and then I do my best at pruning and enriching, but each day as I walk in my garden I see the vine there. It stretches up its tendrils indeed like supplicating fingers to the sky, but because it can find nothing upon which to lay hold it still is prostrate on the ground.

Suppose instead of talking any more to my vine, I build a trellis above it, then it can lift itself up to the sunlight.” Oh, that is Christ’s method. He said, “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me”. Christ is the Divine Trellis for lifting men’s affections to God. The heart that was striving in vain to love the Father and was only falling back to earth, beaten and baffled after its effort, finds it possible in Jesus Christ to rise right up and lay hold upon Him, and in Him is help.But we must ask His assistance. No man has ever yet been saved without having sought salvation. Hard-shell Baptists that I knew in my youth were such fatalists that they taught the doctrine of election without any reference to the disposition of the sinner; so many were elected and those were going to be saved.

An old colored man, accustomed to the political methods of the south, said, “I believes in the doctrine of election, but I notes that no man ever gets elected to office down here unless he’s a candidate.” It is equally true with reference to salvation. “All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me”, says Christ, and “Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37). The coming belongs to you, the acceptance and salvation belongs to Christ.

He will fulfil His part. Will you perform yours? Once or twice in my life I have had people request prayers in after-meetings and when I came to talk with them and ask them if they were saved, they said they thought not; and when I asked them if they had prayed to be forgiven, they said they had not prayed at all. How can man be saved when he does not pray? Desire that does not voice itself to God is feeble indeed, undeserving of answer. If you would be saved from sin, presumptuous, as well as any other sort, you must ask it at God’s hands. The publican said, “God, be merciful to me a sinner”, and went down to his house justified. You can do the same, if you will.

Peter said, “Lord, save, or I perish”, and immediately Christ stretched forth His hand and lifted him up. No matter how deeply you have sunk in the sea of sin, the same cry on your part tonight will bring the same response from Jesus Christ and He will lift you up, and set your feet upon a rock.It seems a strange thing that one needs to plead with men to accept the salvation that is in Jesus Christ when that salvation carries with it pardon from the guilt of sin, and the freedom of a redeemed life. Men condemned to cells, or to the gallows for crime put forth every possible effort to secure pardon. You may remember how it was with Mr. Painter, condemned to die in Chicago, on the charge of having murdered his wife. His case was tried in every possible court in the hope of getting his sentence revoked and when all effort there had failed, his friends secured a large petition and presented it to Illinois’ pardoning Governor, hoping that he would intervene, and either set him free or commute the sentence.

When that failed, some prominent politicians from Chicago made a trip to Springfield in the same interest. So it is with man’s disposition to be pardoned by man from the sentence of crime, but God offers His pardon freely to sinners condemned to eternal death.

How gladly we should accept it. With what praise for His forgiving love, with what joy should we hold aloft the pardon promised in this book, and say it is mine, and I am free from the sentence of sin.Mr. Moody tells of a man on trial for his life. The witnesses came, testified to his guilt, the jury speedily brought in a verdict against him, and the judge passed the sentence of death. Through it all, he was perfectly calm, perfectly undisturbed. The judge marveled and wondered if the man was sane, but he understood what he meant when the man put his hand in his bosom, pulled out a document which proved to be a pardon from the King, presented it to the judge, and walked out of the dock unmolested.

Now the King offers to every one of you a pardon. If you accept it and hide it away Under your bosom until the day of final judgment, there will be no danger of condemnation, for even if sentence were passed against you, you could present that and be free.

Will you receive it? Your will in this matter determines your eternal destiny.