When a soul is awakened to the realization of his sins, is not his first effort, the natural effort, to turn over a new leaf, forsake his sins, and so get into the presence of God without them? But this can never be done. 'Whenever one meets God for the first time, he will find himself in his sins in His presence. Nobody ever met Him in any other way.
God picked out the best man on the earth, and that was Job. The Lord said, "Hast thou considered My servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man?" There was not one like him, and God says it; but when Job finds himself in the presence of God, what does he say? abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes."
The Prophet Isaiah found himself in the presence of God, and probably he might have been the best man in Israel in his day; and he saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphim; each had six wings; with twain he covered his face, with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried to another, and said, "Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts," etc. And what does Isaiah say? "Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts." (Isa. 6.)
You are not in bad company when you are in company with Job and Isaiah; but what they found when they got into the presence of God was that they were undone sinners. God alone can remove sins. If you get into His presence in the day of His grace, you will find Him for you. If you get into His presence in the day of judgment, you will find Him against you. In the day of judgment, He will be a just judge; in the day of grace He is a just Savior. Beloved friends, if you find yourselves in the presence of God in the day of grace, it will be to find He is for you and not against you; and to be in His presence as a sinner is salvation.
Job found it so; it was the end of his difficulty. "I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes" lifted him right out of where he was, and gave him more than he had before. That confession of Isaiah's, "Woe is me! for I am undone; because 1 am a man of unclean lips," brought the live coal in the seraph's hand to cleanse his lips; "Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged." And here we get a sinner with his sins, with a stopped mouth in the presence of God; and it is only to find God for him and not against him.