The really pardoned man also desires to be rid of all sin. I know some who can never hope to obtain forgiveness, for they continue in their iniquity. Can a woman expect to find peace with God while she goes on taking her sly drop and becoming intoxicated in private? Can a man find joy in God who still clings to the drunkard’s vice? Will God receive into his favor those who continue to practice dishonesty in trade? Shall sin be fondled and yet pardoned? No one dares to expect it, and yet deceitful hearts attempt to think so. They will condemn other people’s pet sins, and yet excuse their own. They pretend to much sorrow for sin in. general, and yet hold to one favourite sin in particular. Their delicate Agag must live. Kill all the rest, but surely as to this one the bitterness of death has passed!
O sirs, be not deceived; you must be willing for all sin to go. If you desire one sin to live you will not live yourself. The honest-hearted sinner – he whom the Lord absolves of iniquity – desires to see all his sins brought forth and hung up like the kings whom Joshua found in the cave at Makkedah – hung up in the face of the sun that they might die the death.
The dearest idol I have known, Whate’er that idol be, Help me to tear it from thy throne, And worship only thee.
We are not perfect, but every really pardoned man wishes that he were so. Though there are sins into which we fall there are no sins which we love. Though we come short of the glory of God, yet we do not rest happy in falling short, and we can never be wholly content till it is no longer so with us. Beloved, the pardoned man is cleansed from the guile which would ask for quarter for darling sins.
From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled “Guile Forsaken When Guilt Is Forgiven,” delivered March 25, 1877.
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