None of us can really tell how weak and useless we are until God has exposed us—and no one wants to be exposed!1
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Sin is at bottom the abuse of things in themselves innocent, an illegitimate use of legitimate gifts.2
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Sin, in addition to anything else it may be, is always an act of wrong judgment.
To commit a sin, a man must for the moment believe that things are different from what they really are. He must confound values—he must see the moral universe out of focus.
He must accept a lie as truth and see truth as a lie. He must ignore the signs on the highway and drive with his eyes shut; he must act as if he had no soul and was not accountable for his moral choices.3
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The only solution that will loose us from our sins here under God Almighty’s broad, blue sky is the blood of Jesus Christ. He loved me and loosed me from my sins in His own blood. Take the sinner and educate him, but you will just educate the dirt in. Refine it—but it is still there. But when Jesus’ blood goes over a soul, he is a free man! You shall know the truth. The truth will lead you to the cross, to the Lamb, and to the blood and to the fountain, and you will be free from your sins. But there must be a moral committal. If there is not, there is no understanding. If there is no understanding, there is no cleansing.4
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In our time we have overemphasized the psychology of the sinner’s condition. We spend much time describing the woe of the sinner, the grief of the sinner and the great burden he carries. He does have all of these, but we have overemphasized them until we forget the principal fact—that the sinner is actually a rebel against properly constituted authority!
That is what makes sin, sin. We are rebels. We are sons of disobedience. Sin is the breaking of the law and we are in rebellion and we are fugitives from the just laws of God while we are sinners.5
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There is a strange conspiracy of silence in the world today—even in religious circles—about man’s responsibility for sin, the reality of judgment and about an outraged God and the necessity for a crucified Savior.
On the other hand, there is an open and powerful movement swirling throughout the world designed to give people peace of mind in relieving them of any historical responsibility for the trial and crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The problem with modern decrees and pronouncements in the name of brotherhood and tolerance is their basic misconception of Christian theology.6
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The defensive attitude of “moral” men and women is one of the great problems confronting Christianity in our day. Many who are trying to be Christians are making the effort on the basis that they have not done some of the evil things which others have done. They are not willing to honestly look into their own hearts, for if they did, they would cry out in conviction for being the chief of all sinners.7
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The wrath of God against sin and then the power of sin in the human life—these both must be cured. Therefore, when He gave Himself for us, He redeemed us with a double cure, delivering us from the consequences of sin and delivering us from the power which sin exercises in human lives.8
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You cannot talk for five minutes about mankind without coming to the ugly, hissing word we call sin. It is sin, the disease of the human stream, that ruined everything. It is sin that has made us greedy, sin that has made us hate. Sin makes us lust for power, sin creates jealousy and envy and covetousness.
Anything that comes close to being peace in our society will be destroyed by the ravages of sin, and men without God and His grace and His will cannot know or attain to the gracious blessings of true peace.9
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Christian believers should be aware of their need to depend upon the Lord moment by moment—for during our lifetime there will never be a time when there will not be at least a possibility of sinning!10
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That is why I have not accepted the doctrine that our Lord Jesus Christ could not have sinned. If He could not have sinned, then the temptation in the wilderness was a grand hoax and God was a party to it!
Certainly as a human being He could have sinned, but the fact that He would not sin was what made Him the holy man He was.
On that basis, then, it is not the inability to sin but it is the unwillingness to sin that makes a man holy.
The holy man is not one who cannot sin.
A holy man is one who will not sin.
A truthful man is not a man who cannot talk. He is a man who can talk and he could lie, but he will not.
An honest man is not a man who is in jail where he cannot be dishonest. An honest man is a man who is free to be dishonest, but he will not be dishonest.11
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You will never have inward peace until you have acknowledged your guilt. This is something you cannot dodge and evade, because you have a conscience and your conscience will never let you rest until you get rid of the guilt!
Guilt must be dealt with and taken away! Oh, you can be smoothed over and given a little theological massage, patted on the head and told that it is all right, but that treatment will not take away guilt and condemnation. Sins that you thought were absolved by religion will always come back to haunt you.
Only the Redeemer and Savior, Jesus Christ, can forgive and pardon and free from guilt—and the sins He has forgiven will never come back to haunt you as a child of God—never while the world stands! He forgives and forgets, burying your old load of guilt so that it no longer exists.12
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If a sinner goes to the altar and a worker with a marked New Testament argues him into the kingdom, the devil will meet him two blocks down the street and argue him out of it again. But if he has an inward illumination—that witness within—because the Spirit answers to the blood, you cannot argue with such a man. He will just be stubborn, regardless of the arguments you try to marshal. He will say, “But I know!13