Endeavoring to keep close to my text

I. Endeavoring to keep close to my text, I shall start with this first point — that THE PLEA OF SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS CONTRADICTS ITSELF. "If I justify myself — my own mouth shall condemn me."

Come, friend, you who justify yourself by your own works, let me hear you speak. "I say that I have no need of a salvation by the blood and righteousness of another, for I believe that I have kept the commands of God from my youth up, and I do not think that I am guilty in his sight — but I hope that I may be able in my own right to claim a seat in paradise." Now, sir, your plea and this declaration of yours is in itself a condemnation of you, because upon its very surface it is apparent that you are committing sin — while you are pleading that you have no sin. For the very plea itself is a piece of high and arrogant presumption. God has said it, let Jew and Gentile stop his mouth, and let all the world stand guilty before God. We have it on inspired authority, that "there is none righteous, no, not one!" "There is none good, but one, that is God." We are told by the mouth of a prophet sent from God, that "all we like wandering sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way." And you, in saying that you are righteous, do commit the sin of calling God a liar. You have dared to impugn his veracity, you have slandered his justice. This boast of yours is in itself a sin, so great, so heinous, that if you had only that one sin to account for, it would be sufficient to sink you to the lowest Hell. The boast, I say, is in itself a sin; the moment that a man says, "I have no sin," he commits a sin in the saying of it — the sin of contradicting his Maker, and making God a liar and a false accuser of his creatures.

Besides, do you not see, you vain and foolish creature, that you have been guilty of pride in the very language you have used? Who but a proud man would stand up and commend himself? Who — but one who was proud as Lucifer, would in the face of God's declaration declare himself to be just and holy? Did the best of men ever speak thus? Did they not all of them acknowledge that they were guilty? Did Job, of whom God said that he was a perfect and an upright man, claim perfection? Did he not say, "If I justify myself, my own mouth shall condemn me?"

Oh! proud wretch, how are you puffed up with pride! How has Satan bewitched you; how has he made you lift up your horn on high and speak with a stiff neck. Take heed to yourself, for if you had never been guilty before, this pride of yours were quite sufficient to draw Jehovah's thunderbolts out of the quiver, and make him smite you once for all to your eternal destruction!

But further, the plea of self-righteousness is self-contradictory upon another ground; for all that a self-righteous man pleads for, is comparative righteousness. "Why," says he, "I am no worse than my neighbors, in fact a great deal better; I do not drink, or swear; I do not commit fornication or adultery; I am no Sabbath breaker; I am no thief; the laws of my country do not accuse, much less condemn me; I am better than the most of men, and if I am not saved, God help those who are worse than I am; if I cannot enter the kingdom of Heaven — then who can?"

Just so — but then all that you claim is that you are righteous as compared with others. Do you not see that this is a very vain and fatal plea, because you do in fact admit that you are not perfectly righteous — that there is some sin in you, only you claim there is not so much in you as in another. You admit that you are diseased — but then the plague-spot is not so apparent in you as in your fellow-man. You admit that you have robbed God and broken his laws, only you have not done it with so desperate an intent, nor with so many aggravations as others. Now this is virtually a plea of guilty, disguise it as you may. You admit that you have been guilty, and against you the sentence comes forth — "The soul that sins — it shall die." Take heed to yourself that you find no shelter in this refuge of lies, for it shall certainly fail you when God shall come to judge the world with righteousness and the people with equity.

Suppose now for a moment that a command is issued to the beasts of the forest that they should become sheep. It is quite in vain for the bear to come forward and plead that he was not so venomous a creature as the serpent; equally absurd would it be for the wolf to say that though stealthy and cunning, and gaunt, and grim, yet he was not so great a grumbler not so ugly a creature as the bear; and the lion might plead that he had not the craftiness of the fox. "It is true," says he, "I wet my tongue in blood — but then I have some virtues which may commend me, and which, in fact, have made me king of beasts." What would this argument avail? The indictment is that these animals are not sheep, their plea against the indictment is that they are no less like sheep than other creatures, and that some of them have more gentleness and more docility than others of their kind. The plea would never stand.

Or use another picture. If in the courts of justice, a thief, when called up, should argue, "Well, I am not so great a thief as some; there are to be found some living in Whitechapel or St. Giles's who have been thieves longer than I have, and if there be one conviction in the book against me, there are some that have a dozen convictions against them." No magistrate would acquit a man on such an excuse as that, because it would be tantamount to his admission of a degree of guilt, though he might try to excuse himself because he had not reached a higher degree. It is so with you, sinner. You have sinned. Another man's sins cannot excuse you; you must stand upon your own feet. At the day of judgment you must yourself make a personal appearance, and it will not be what another man has done that will condemn, or acquit you — but your own personal guilt. Take heed, then, take heed, sinner; for it will not avail you that there are others blacker than yourself. If there be but a spot upon you you are lost; if there be but one sin unwashed by Jesus' blood, your portion must be with the tormentors. A holy God cannot look even upon the least degree of iniquity.

But further, the plea of the self-conceited man is, that he has done his best, and can claim a partial righteousness. It is true, if you touch him in a tender place he acknowledges that his boyhood and his youth were stained with sin. He tells you that in his early days he was a "fast lad;" that he did many things which he is sorry for now. "But then," says he, "these are only like spots in the sun; these are only like a small headland of waste ground in acres of fruitful soil; I am still good; I am still righteous, because my virtues exceed my vices, and my good deeds quite cover up all the mistakes that I have committed." Well, sir, do you not see that the only righteousness you claim is a partial righteousness? and in that very claim you do in fact make an admission that you are not perfect; that you have committed some sins. Now I am not responsible for what I am about to state, nor am I to be blamed for harshness in it, because I state neither more nor less than the very truth of God.

It is of no saving avail to you that you have not have committed ten thousand sins, for if you have committed one, you are a lost soul. The law is to be kept intact and entire, and the least crack, or flaw, or breakage, spoils it. The robe of righteousness in which you must stand at last must be without spot or blemish, and if there be but one microscopic stain upon it, which is supposing what is never true, yet, even then the gates of Heaven never can admit you. A perfect righteousness you must have, or else you shall never be admitted to that wedding feast. You may say, "I have kept such a commandment and have never broken it," but if you have broken another you are guilty of the whole, because the whole law is like one rich and costly vase — it is one in design and fashion. Though you break not the foor, and stain not the margin, yet if there be any flaw or damage, the whole vessel is marred. And so if you have sinned in any point, at any time, and in any degree, you have broken the whole law; you stand guilty of it before God, nor can you be saved by the works of the law, do what you may.

"It is a hard sentence," says one, "and who can bear it!" Indeed, who can bear it? Who can bear to stand at the foot of Sinai and hear its thunders roar? "If so much as a beast touch the mountain it must be stoned or thrust through with a dart." Who can stand when the lightnings flash and God descends upon Mount Paran and the hills melt like wax beneath his feet? "By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh living be justified." "Cursed is every one that continues not in all things that are written in the law to do them." Cursed is the man who sins but once, yes, hopelessly cursed so far as the law is concerned.

Oh! sinner, I cannot help turning aside from the subject for a moment to remind you that there is a way of salvation, and a way by which the law's demands can be fully satisfied. Christ bore all the punishment of all believers, so that they cannot be punished. Christ kept the law of God for believers, and he is willing to cast about any and every penitent sinner that perfect robe of righteousness which he himself has wrought out. But you cannot keep the law, and if you bring up your self-righteousness the law condemns both it and you; Out of your own mouth it condemns you, inasmuch as you have not done all things and have not kept all the law. A great rock lies in your path to Heaven; a mountain insurmountable; a gulf impassable; and by that road no man shall ever enter into eternal life.

The plea of self-righteousness, then, is in itself self-contradicting, and has only to be fairly stated to an honest man for him to see that it will not hold water for a single moment. What need of labored argument to disprove a self-evident lie? Why should we tarry longer? Who but a very fool would maintain a notion which flies in its own face and witnesses against itself?

Next part But now I pass to the second point