“REMORSE is the most painful sentiment that it can, embitter the human bosom," said one who had felt its deadly sting.
“Don't talk to me of pain, woman," said a dying man to his nurse, who sought to alleviate his sufferings. "It is the mind, woman, the mind." Remorse was doing its dreadful work: conscience was calling up the past.
CONSCIENCE.
Take this fact first. Most will admit that man has a conscience—an internal monitor that does duty as a detective. When we do wrong either against God or our neighbor it condemns us. The most wicked, the basest of men have confessed to feeling its condemning power. Truly it makes a strong man the veriest coward. It made Felix tremble on his throne as Paul reasoned with him of righteousness, temperance, and JUDGMENT TO COME.
Where, let us inquire, did conscience come from? If the Creator has not endowed us with a conscience, how can we account for it? Is it not an evidence that though man the sinner has revolted against God's authority, God has still a hold upon him? Yes, man is a responsible creature.
Even professed infidels have confessed to have felt its awful lash to be worse than the sting of scorpions. Lord Byron has written The mind that broods o'er guilty woes Is like a scorpion girt by fire.
Through life, when all was smooth sailing, they fought against it, and even denied that it was any evidence of man's responsibility; yet when the cold hand of death assailed them, the stoutest heart has quailed and shivered with horror or been seized with blank despair.
Men may philosophize and spin theories to try to get rid of "the Fall," but let them first settle where conscience came from.
SIN.
Here is another fact. "Fools make a mock at sin," but it is a stern reality notwithstanding; it is one of the most terrible of facts. Its withering, cursing blight is seen everywhere. The amount of evil and sorrow in its train can scarcely be exaggerated.
Why do we require policemen to protect us? Sin is the answer. Why do we bolt and bar our doors at night to keep out the thief? Because of sin. Why are we so careful that our children should not read the vile and pernicious literature abroad today? Sin is the secret. Why are there jails to lock in the profligate and the assassin? Why have we workhouses to hide poverty from our eyes, asylums to confine the lunatic, and graveyards to hide the corruption of our own flesh? It is all through that one word, sin. Sin is in every man's breast, and because of this the seeds of death are there. Death is the result of sin. Lust is sin in the bud. Sin is lust in full-blown flower.
Man or woman, I challenge you as an honest person to say that at times you have not been guilty of thoughts, if not acts, that have well-nigh horrified you, and which you would not like your nearest friend to know! Where did those abominable thoughts come from if sin does not exist? Admit the truth that, but for the influence of Christianity in these countries and the restraints of the laws of society, we should be quite as bad as the heathen.
Notwithstanding the effects of Christianity and the barriers that delicacy have thrown around us, look at what appears in the daily papers. And what of that which goes on underneath the surface which never comes to light? "But He that formed the eye, shall He not see?" "There is no creature that is not made manifest in His sight." "All things are naked and open to the eyes of Him with Whom we have to do.”
Take another fact—
IMMORTALITY.
Man is immortal. That is, he has got an intelligent spirit which is deathless. He must exist forever. Some men may deny it, as they may deny anything if they have boldness enough for it. But denial is no proof. Man being an intelligent creature, in that sense he is above the beasts. At times immortality asserts itself in every man's breast.
Why do men dread death if man is not immortal? If he dies like a beast and has no further responsibility, why should he at any time be concerned about his future state?
Whence this secret dread and inward horror of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul back on herself and startles at destruction?
“And am I born to die?
To lay this body down?
And must my trembling spirit fly
Into a world unknown?”
Some have said that it is only the young awl the weak that manifest all this concern about the future; that is, when people grow up to manhood they are able to shake it off. Why then have the most learned men and the greatest minds that this world has ever produced been so concerned at death's approach?
Hear what the great master painter and sculptor, Michael Angelo, said before he died—“And how remorseful thoughts the past upbraid, And fear of twofold death my soul alarms.”
Take another fact—
GOD'S JUSTICE.
If the existence of God be admitted, of which there can hardly be any honest denial, we cannot conceive Him to be other than a God of unbending justice and unsullied holiness. The Scriptures give the fullest testimony to this. If God is holy He must hate sin. If He is just He must punish it.
God's law is not less exacting than British law, nor the laws of the Medes and Persians, which it was not permissible to change. When the dastardly outrage was committed in Ireland against Lord Cavendish every upright citizen was filled with horror and indignation. Their only desire was that the individual or individuals who perpetrated the brutal crime should be brought to justice. If British law allowed any outrage to escape it would not be just.
Will God be less exacting, think you? Will He allow to go unpunished all the evil that has been done in the world against His righteous government? Will He allow the murder of His own Son to go unrequited? Though He is long-suffering, the day of reckoning will come, and it is not far off. He will manifest His justice in bringing every transgression to light and giving it its due, reward. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" "For we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, whether it be good or bad.”
THE LOVE OF GOD.
Take yet another fact, namely, the love of God. "God is love." It is the nature of God to love. If so, He will express it; He will devise means whereby His banished be not expelled from Hint. He will open a way whereby the sinner be brought back to Him righteously.
How could this be brought about consistently with His justice and holiness, and with man's condition as a sinner in God's sight? Had He acted in justice only, He would have swept the whole race to destruction? But where would His love have been seen?
Why should men quarrel with God's just dealings if in love He gave His Son to meet all that the justice of His throne demanded? If sin has come into the world and ruined man; and if God has shown His love to such an extent as to provide the way to meet it, so that rebel man—ruined and guilty—might be lifted into far higher blessedness than Adam lost, why should men quarrel with God?
The cross of Christ is the perfect reconciliation of God's justice and His love. There we see the perfect righteousness of God against sin and His deepest compassion for the sinner. There mercy and truth have met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other. What justice demanded love has provided. Divine love has triumphed by meeting them, not by setting aside the demands of the throne. David sacrificed justice to affection in bringing back Absalom; but God could not act thus.
PEACE IS MADE
by justice being upheld and vindicated. It is in justice to God's beloved Son, the Vindicator of His righteous claims, that He justifies those that believe. None need perish since Christ has died. "He suffered for sins, the just for the unjust." He died for the UNGODLY. "It is God that justifieth, who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God!”
God has been so honored and all that He is so magnified by the work of Christ, that in perfect accord with strict justice He has come out to bless rebels. His death avails for the blackest, the vilest, the most polluted sinner, and therefore it avails for YOU.
The way is now so clear and open that all who come in the confession of their guilt will be received and welcomed into God's present and everlasting favor, and will thus realize the forgiveness of all their sins. Of all who come to Him through Christ, God has declared most emphatically that "their sins and iniquities He will remember no more.”
Who but God could act thus?
Reader, discard the thought forever that God is now asking payment from your hands for your past misspent life. He demands not the fulfillment of the holy law from you to make you righteous. This is the rock on which many split and make eternal shipwreck. None can be justified by works of any kind, but by faith alone in God, Who gave His Son to do all the work. "NOT OF WORKS, LEST ANY MAN SHOULD BOAST." "IT IS FINISHED.”
However hard and diligently you try to work out a righteousness for yourself, you will not be satisfied. It will only prove to you, as it has proved to all before you who have come the same way, that you are absolutely without strength. STRENGTHLESS is your state. All your trying will not bring peace to your troubled conscience, nor give you the sense of God's favor. The more sincere your desire to be good, the more you will prove the truth of the words, "When I would do good evil is present with me. How to perform that which is good I find not" (Rom. 7:18, 2118For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. (Romans 7:18)
21I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. (Romans 7:21)).
As the blessed God stripped Adam and his wife of the fig leaves they had sewed together and clothed the guilty pair with coats of skins of His own providing, so He offers to clothe you in a moral way. You want to be consciously righteous to stand in the presence of His unsullied holiness. He will in Christ make you that, if you believe in Him. "And by Him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses.”
The weakest, most trembling believer is viewed in all the perfections of Christ. Before God Christ is everything and we nothing. It is not from what God thinks of ME that I derive peace or comfort, but what He thinks of Christ. As, in the simplicity of a little child, I rest in God's satisfaction with and appreciation of Christ, my peace flows like a river and my joy is unbounded. "Who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption." “As He is, so are we in this world." “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace IN BELIEVING.”
As well might the throne of God fall from the heavens, as well might the pillars of the universe be shaken, as well might you try to extinguish the light of the sun at midday with a rushlight, as that God's justice could fail to those who believe in His Son.
Why not believe God in spite of all that you are, and in face of all that the devil might put in your way to hinder you? Say like the noble-minded Paul when standing on the vessel that was to become a total wreck, with the captain, passengers, and providence seemingly against him: "I BELIEVE GOD THAT IT SHALL BE EVEN AS HE TOLD ME.”
Hear what Dr. Chalmers said, who before his conversion to God had himself been a strict law-keeper: "I am now most thoroughly of opinion, and it is an opinion founded on experience, that on the system of DO and LIVE no peace and even no true worthy obedience can ever be attained. It is Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.'
“When this belief enters the heart, joy and confidence enter along with it. We look to God in a new light: we see Him as a Father; love enters the heart, and with a new principle of action and a new power we become new creatures in Christ Jesus." “If any man be in Christ he is a new creation: old things are passed away, and all things are become new.”
“Go thou and work, the law commands,
But gives us neither feet nor hands.
The gospel tells of better things;
It bids us fly, but gives us wings."
P. W.