Vile Ingratitude! 2
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The 'galley-slave' may forget the hour when he ceased to tug the oar. The poor 'captive' may forget the time when he escaped from the accursed slave-holder's grasp, and became a freeman. The 'sick man' may forget the day when, after being long worn with pain till he was emaciated and at the gates of death, the blood began to leap in his veins, and the glow of health began to invigorate his frame. The 'culprit' who lay shivering beneath the heads-man's axe may forget the hour when suddenly his pardon was granted and his life was spared. But if all these should consign to oblivion their surprising joys, the pardoned soul can never, never, never forget. Unless reason should lose her seat, the quickened soul can never cease to remember the time when, Jesus said to it, "Live!"
Oh! and has Jesus pardoned all our sins and have we sinned still? Has he 'washed' me, and have I defiled myself again? Did he shed his blood to cleanse me and have I returned again to my natural depravity? Oh, these are abominations indeed! I have heard some say that the sins of believers are but trifles. Ah! my brethren, I do think if there is any difference, the sins of disciples of Christ are a thousand times worse than the sins of unbelievers, because they sin against a gospel of love, a covenant of mercy; against sweet experience and against precious promises. The sinner may kick against the goads, that is bad enough; but to kick against the wounds of Christ, is worse still! Yet that is what you and I have done. We have sinned since the dear hour that cleansed our guilt away.
Nor did the gracious things we have mentioned exhaust the loving-kindness of the Lord. When he had washed us, according to the ninth verse, he 'anointed' us with oil. Yes, and that has been repeated many and many a time. "You have anointed my head with oil." He gave us the oil of his grace- our faces were like priests, and we went up to his tabernacle rejoicing. Have you received the Spirit, my brethren? Oh, think how great an honor that God should dwell in man!
The centurion said he was not worthy that Christ should come under the roof of his house, and yet the Holy Spirit has not merely come under your roof but has come into your heart! There he dwells and there he reigns. Yet, my dear brethren, yet you have sinned. With God's oil on your head you have sinned. With the Holy Spirit in your heart you have sinned. Ah! if any man carried God within him, would he go and sin? Shall the body that is the temple of the Holy Spirit be desecrated? Yet that has been the case with us. We have had God within us, and yet we have sinned. Marvel of marvels! He that would defile the house in which the king lived, would certainly be guilty of high insult. But he who defiles the temple in which the Holy Spirit resides — what shall be said of him? This is what we have done! O Lord, have mercy upon your people! Now we see our abomination in this clear light, we beseech you pardon it, for Jesus sake!
But further, we find that he not only 'washed' us, he not only 'anointed' us with oil; but he 'clothed' us, and clothed us sumptuously. The rich man in the parable of Jesus was clothed in scarlet, but we are better robed than he, for we are clothed in embroidered-work. "Jesus spent his life to work my robe of righteousness." His sufferings were so many stitches when he made the embroidered-work of my righteousness. "I clothed you also with embroidered work, and shod you with badgers' skin."
Our shoes have been as iron and brass, and as our day, so has our strength been. We have had always grace hitherto sufficient for us. "And I girded you about with fine linen" — the righteousness of saints. He has given to us the virtues of the Holy Spirit, the robe of sanctification; and then he has covered us with silk, even with that all-glorious robe of righteousness "woven from the top throughout without seam," in which all his people stand arrayed.
There never was any one dressed so well as God's people. Outwardly they may wear fustian and calico; they may come up to the house of God dressed in the garb of poverty, but they have robes which men cannot see, though such as angels can see and admire. A saint's wardrobe would be a matchless thing to look at if we could but see it with the eyes of our understanding illuminated. Have you ever been taken to see the wardrobes of some great personages — their multiplied garments — the robes which they wore in state? You have wondered at their lavish expenditure?
But see your own, see those shoes, that girding of fine linen, and that covering of silk! Why, all the wealth of mankind could not buy an 'accessory' of that stuff- they could not procure a hem, much less the entire robe with which the righteous are adorned and made glorious. And yet they have turned aside and sinned.
What should you think of a bishop in his lawn sleeves defiling himself with outcasts in the street? What would think you of a king with a crown on his head going to break the laws of his kingdom? What would you think if a monarch should invest us with all the insignia of nobility, and we should afterwards violate the high orders conferred upon us while adorned with the robes of state? This is just what you and I have done. We have had all these costly robes and glorious garments, and then we have gone and sinned against our God. O ingratitude of the vilest sort! Where are there words to denounce it? What language can fully express it?
We have but time to notice each one of these briefly; we have not only received 'clothing,' but 'ornaments.' "I have decked you also with ornaments, and put bracelets upon your hands and a chain on your neck, and I put a jewel on your forehead and earrings in your ears, and a beautiful crown upon your head." Just like a loving husband, not content with giving his wife an ornament, he gives her many.
And the Lord, you see, gives to his Church all the ornaments she can possibly desire. There are ornaments for her ears, a crown for her head, bracelets for her hands, and a chain for her neck. We cannot be more glorious; Christ has given the Church so much, she could not have more. He could not bestow upon her that which is more beautiful, more precious, or more costly. She has all she can receive. The Lord Jesus has bestowed all his wealth, and all heaven's wealth upon his Church, and you and I are the inheritors and wearers of these precious ornaments.
He has given to us jewels in our 'ears' — a hearing ear; he has given us the jewel in our 'forehead' — a holy courage for his name; he has given us a 'crown upon our head' — a garland crown of lovingkindness and tender mercy; he has given us 'bracelets upon our hands' — that whatsoever we touch may be graced, that our conduct may be beautiful and lovely, an ornament to the profession which we have espoused. And he has been pleased to put a 'chain about our necks' — that we may ever be known to be right noble personages — noble of rank, exalted of station. Nevertheless, in the face of all these, we have sinned against him.
Dear friends, it may seem like repetition when I go over the list of these mercies, but I cannot help it. I should like every one of these to be as a trumpet in your ear to wake you up to look at your sins, and as a dagger in the heart of your pride to stab it and make it die. By these mercies of God, I adjure you to hate your sins! By these lovingkindnesses, these favors, immense, innumerable, unsearchable, by these covenant gifts, every one of them more precious than a world of diamonds, I beseech you hate the sins that have grieved your gracious Lord; and made his Spirit mourn.
To see my sins in the lurid light of Sinai were bad enough, but to see them in the mellow radiance of his countenance and in the light that is shed from the cross of my dying Master — this is to see sin in all its blackness and all its heinousness. Never, dear brethren, never tamper with sin. Never have anything to do with those who think sin is little because grace is great. Shun, I beseech you, any man who comforts his heart with the hope that the crimes of God's children are mere trifles.
No- though there is precious blood to wash it all away, yet sin is an awful thing. Though there are covenant promises to keep the believer secure, yet sin is a damning thing. Though there be eternal love which will not execute the divine anger upon us, yet sin is a thrice-cursed thing. In fact, I would strain language to find an epithet for that sin which dares to nestle in the heart of a man whom God has loved and chosen.
I know that there is a tendency among some ministers — I will not say to whom I allude; you may readily guess — who preach a gospel which does seem as if it tolerated iniquity. Oh, come not into their secret, I beg you. Better for you, though it were one of the worst things that could be, if you were to endorse Arminianism, rather than Antinomianism. Of the two devils I think the white devil is the least devilish. As Rowland Hill said — "The one is a white devil and the other a black one." They are both devils, I doubt not, but still one is more fearful in its character than the other.
Have nothing to do with that horrible spirit which has done more to destroy sound doctrine in our churches than anything else. Arguments will never break Antinomianism down. We are not afraid to meet our antagonists in fair and open battle. The ill lives of some who call themselves Calvinists, and are no more Calvinists than they are Jews, have brought that doctrine into great disrepute, and we often have flung in our faces the wickedness of some professors, and the rash, not to say wicked teaching of some of our preachers, as a reason why our brethren should be accounted worthy of all scorn. The more gracious God is, the more holy you should be; the more love he manifests to you, the more love should you reflect to him.
III. And now, I shall close by noticing in the third place, WHAT OUR SINS REALLY HAVE BEEN.
We will not enter into particulars, we have each one, a different way. It were idle therefore for me to think of describing the sins of such an assembly as the present. The germs, the vileness, the essence of our own sin, has lain in this — that we have given to sin and to idols, things that belong unto God.
"You have also taken your fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given you, and made to yourself images of men, and did commit whoredom with them, and took your broidered garments and covered them, and you have set my oil and my incense before them. My food also which 'I' gave you, fine flour, and oil, and honey, wherewith 'I' fed you, you have even set it before them for a sweet savor."
'I' have done this — let me make confession for myself, and then I admonish you each one apply the case to yourselves. It has been a happy Sabbath day, my soul has enjoyed personal fellowship with Christ: I have gone up in the pulpit and had liberty of speech, and power has attended the words; there has been manifestly the Holy Spirit in the midst of his Church; I have gone home, had access to God in prayer, and enjoyed again communion with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. I go forth once more to unfold the things of the gospel, and with delight to my own soul, have I heard afterwards of saints who have been refreshed, and sinners converted. This was like "fine flour, and honey and oil" that God had given to me. What did he give it to me for? Why, that I might offer it to him, and give him all the glory. And do you know, I have caught myself saying, "Ah, you have done well today; you are growing in grace, and living near to God."
What! am I offering God's blessings before the shrine of my abominable pride? Am I making an offering to Moloch, and bringing the very gifts and love-tokens of my Father, to be laid upon the altar of my own pride? This is abominable indeed! This is so vile that no language can execrate it sufficiently. To offer my own work is bad enough, but to offer God's grace to idols, to spend his mercies in the gratification of my flesh — to look upon my own self as having done it, to sacrifice to my own conceit, to make an oblation to self of that which God has given me — this is atrocious enough to make a man fall very humbly before God, to feel the bitterness of his sin, and ask for pardon.
You have transgressed in like manner, I dare say. When you pray at a prayer meeting, the devil insinuates the thought, and you entertain it, "What a fine fellow I am!" You may detect yourself when you are talking to a friend of some good things God has done, or when you go home and tell your wife lovingly the tale of your labor, there is 'a little demon of pride' at the bottom of your heart. You like to take credit to yourself for the good things you have done. I am speaking of you all; there is no exception here.
Does not a little bit of the old man creep out, just as when Jehu said, "Come see my zeal for the Lord." Now what is that but taking God's fine meal, and oil, and honey, and offering them to yourselves? If there should be an innocent man, one who pleads "not guilty" upon this matter, he can get up and go out if he likes; but I am sure you will all sit still, at least, all who know your own hearts. Your own experience will compel you to say — "I must confess it before God."
But have you not noticed that there are other ways besides this? Sometimes a man has another god besides pride. That god may be his 'sloth'. He does not want to do much; he reads in the Bible that there is a finished righteousness, that the covenant of grace is complete. Have you never detected yourself, when inclined to be dilatory in spiritual things, leaning on the oar of the covenant, instead of pulling at it, and saying, "Well, these things are true, but there is no great need for me to stir myself." Ah! you have been quietly nestling down to sleep, even under the influence of the sweet wine of the covenant of grace. It is sad that it should be so. It would be bad enough if we had picked up an excuse from our own logic; but instead of that, we have gone to God's book to fabricate apologies for our idleness. Was not that taking his mercies and sacrificing them to false deities?
Sometimes it is even worse. God gives to his people 'riches', and they offer them before the shrine of their covetousness. He gives them 'talent', and they prostitute it to the service of their ambition. He gives them 'judgment', and they pander to their own advancement, and seek not the interest of his kingdom. He gives them 'influence'- that influence they use for their own aggrandizement, and not for his honor.
What is this but tantamount to taking God's gold and his jewels, and hanging them upon the neck of Ashtaroth. Ah! let us take care when we think of our sins, that we set them in this light. It is taking God's mercies to lavish them upon his enemies. Now, if you were to make me a present of some token of your regard, I think it would be the lowest and most ungracious thing in the world I could do, to take it over to your enemy, and say, "Here, I come to pay my respects- receive this present." To pay my respects to your foe with that which had been the token of your favor!
There are two kings at enmity with one another — two powers that have been at battle, and one of them has a rebellious subject, who is caught in the very act of treason, and condemned to die. The king very graciously pardons him, and then munificently endows him. "There," says he, "I give you a thousand crown-pieces;" and that man takes the bounty, and devotes it to increasing the resources of the king's enemies! Now, that would be a treason and baseness too vile to be committed by worldly men.
Alas then! that is what you have done. You have bestowed on God's enemies what God gave to you as a love token. Oh, men and brethren, let us bow ourselves in dust and ashes before God; let us turn pride out tonight if we can; but it will be hard work. Let us try, in the strength of the Spirit, that we may at least put our foot on its neck, and as we come to the Lord's table, may we have a joy for pardoned guilt, but may we mourn that we have pierced the Lord, and mourn most that we continue to pierce him still, and sometimes put him to an open shame by our disregard for his laws.
The Lord bless this to his people; and as for those who are unconverted, let them recollect that if the righteous have cause to weep, and if the sins of the saint be abominable, what must be the iniquity of that man who goes on still in his sins and repents not! The Lord grant to such, grace to repent, and pardon, for Jesus' sake.
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