The Scriptures and Sin # 2

The Scriptures and Sin # 2

What a word is that in Jeremiah 31:19: "After that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yes, even confounded." Do you, my reader, know anything of such an experience? Does your study of the Word produce a broken heart and lead to a humbling of yourself before God? Does it convict you of your sins in such a way that you are brought to daily repentance before Him? The paschal lamb had to be eaten with "bitter herbs" (Ex. 12:8); so as we really feed on the Word, the Holy Spirit makes it "bitter" to us before it becomes sweet to our taste. Note the order in Revelation 10:9, "And I went unto the angel, and said to him, "Give me the little book." And he said to me, "Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make your belly bitter, but it shall be in your mouth sweet as honey." This is ever the experimental order: there must be mourning before comfort (Matt. 5:4); humbling before exalting (1 Peter 5:6).

3. An individual is spiritually profited when the Word leads to confession of sin. The Scriptures are profitable for "reproof" (2 Tim. 3:16), and an honest soul will acknowledge its faults. Of the carnal it is said, "For every one that loves evil hates the light, neither comes to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved" (John 3:20). "God be merciful to me a sinner" is the cry of a renewed heart, and every time we are quickened by the Word there is a fresh revealing to us and a fresh owning by us of our transgressions before God. "He that covers his sins shall not prosper: but whoever confesses and forsakes them shall have mercy" (Proverbs 28:13). There can be no spiritual prosperity or fruitfulness while we conceal within our breasts our guilty secrets; only as they are freely owned before God, and that in detail, shall we enjoy His mercy.

There is no real peace for the conscience and no rest for the heart while we bury the burden of unconfessed sin. Relief comes when it is fully unbosomed to God. Mark well the experience of David, "When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my moisture is turned into the drought of summer" (Psalm 33:3-4). Is this figurative but forcible language unintelligible unto you? Or does your own spiritual history explain it? There is many a verse of Scripture which no commentary save that of personal experience can satisfactorily interpret. Blessed indeed is the immediate sequel here: I acknowledged my sin unto you, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin" (Psalm 32:5).

4. An individual is spiritually profited when the Word produces in him a deeper hatred of sin, "You that love the Lord, hate evil" (Ps. 97:10). "We cannot love God without hating that which He hates. We are not only to avoid evil, and refuse to continue in it, but we must be up in arms against it, and bear towards it a hearty indignation" (Spurgeon). One of the surest tests to apply to the professed conversion is the heart's attitude towards sin. Where the principle of holiness has been planted, there will necessarily to a loathing of all that is unholy. If our hatred of evil be genuine, we are thankful when the Word reproves even the evil which we suspected not.

5. An individual is spiritually profited when the Word causes a forsaking of sin. "Let every one that names the name of Christ depart from iniquity" (2 Tim. 2:19). The more the Word is read with the definite object of discovering what is pleasing and what is displeasing to the Lord, the more will His will become known; and if our hearts are right with Him the more will our ways be conformed thereto.

There will be a "walking in the truth" (3 John 4). At the close of 2 Corinthians 6 some precious promises are given to those who separate themselves from unbelievers. Observe, there, the application which the Holy Spirit makes of them. He does not say, "Having therefore these promises, be comforted and become complacent thereby," but "Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit" (2 Cor. 7:1).

"Now you are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you" (John 15:3). Here is another important rule by which we should frequently test ourselves: Is the reading and studying of God's Word producing a purging of my ways? Of old the question was asked, "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?" and the Divine answer is "by taking heed thereto according to your word." Yes, not simply by reading, believing, or memorizing it, but by the personal application of the Word to our "way." It is by taking heed to such exhortations as "flee fornication", "Flee from idolatry" "Flee these things" - a covetous love for money," "Flee also youthful lusts", that the Christian is brought into practical separation from evil; for sin has not only to be confessed but "forsaken" (Proverbs 28:13).

~A. W. Pink~

(continued with # 3)