Defiled, loathsome & abominable
Back to Next Part Man's religion & God's religion 2
Sin has defiled us individually, and personally made us loathsome and abominable to God. Sin had brought us under the stroke of God's justice, opened to us the door of hell, and shut against us the gate of heaven.
Sin also, as a polluted thing, has contaminated us from head to foot—clothed us in filthy garments, so as to render us unclean in body and soul, and, as such, unfit to enter into the pure courts of heavenly bliss.
This one point of divine truth on which the Scriptures are very express and plain, and yet is most stoutly resisted by the pride and self-righteousness of man's heart—the completeness of the fall. This truth is unpalatable to man's self-righteous nature.
How few are willing to admit that man is in such a state as the word of God describes him to be—"dead in trespasses and sins;" "alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in him, because of the blindness of his heart;" "serving diverse lusts and pleasures;" "living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another," "having no hope, and without God in the world."
And yet these unquestionable and express declarations of Scripture are so opposed to that natural principle which exists in all of us, that we think we are not so thoroughly helpless as not to be able to do something to please God and obtain salvation.
When this truth contained is brought forth and enforced—then it is that the enmity manifests itself. He hates God's Word, because it condemns him—and he knows if he were to live under its power and influence he must give up those practices which that Word condemns.