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Sin Slain
A Sermon Delivered on Sabbath Evening, July 29, 1860, by the
Rev. C. H. SPURGEON
At New Park Street, Southwark
"And, behold, as Barak pursued Sisera, Jael came out to meet him, and said unto him. Come, and I will shew thee the man whom thou, seekest. And when he came into her tent, behold, Sisera lay dead and the nail was in his temples."Judges 4:22.
If the story of the world's sufferings under
different tyrants could all be written, there would be no man found who would be capable
of reading it. I believe that even the despots themselves, who have committed the
atrocities to which I refer, would not be sufficiently cold-blooded to sit down and read
the account of the agonies which their own victims have endured. I have been struck in
passing through many lands with the horrible sufferings which in the olden times were
endured by the poor at the hands of the rich kings and lords who were their oppressors. In
almost every town in which you enter, you either have shown to you the rack, the dark
dungeon, the thumb-screw, or the infernal machine, or instruments too horrible to
describethat make one's blood run chill at the very thought and sight of them.
Verily, O earth, thou hast been scarred; thy back has been ploughed with many a furrow;
from thy veins have gushed forth plenteous streams of blood, and thy sons and thy
daughters have had to suffer agonies extreme! But oh! my brethren, I speak in sober
earnestness when I declare that all the sufferings that have ever been exercised upon man
have never been equal to the tyranny which man has brought upon himselfthe tyranny
of sin. Sin has brought more plagues upon this earth than all the earth's tyrants. It has
brought more pangs and more miseries upon men's bodies and souls than the craftiest
inventions of the most cold-blooded and diabolical tormentors. Sin is the world's great
Despot. It is the serpent in whose subtle folds earth's inhabitants are crushed. It is
such a tyranny that none but those whom God delivers have been able to escape from it.
Nay, such a tyranny that even they have been scarcely saved; and they, when saved, have
had to look back and remember the dreadful slavery in which they once existed; they have
remembered the wormwood and the gall; and at the remembrance the iron has entered into
their souls. We have before us, in this chapter, a picture of the children of Israel
attacked by a very wicked and powerful kingJaban, the king of Canaan. It is but a
faint emblem, a very indistinct picture of the oppression which sin exercises upon all
mankindthe oppression which our own iniquities continually bring upon us.
I want to picture to you to-night, if I can, three acts in a great historythree
different pictures illustrating one subject. I trust we have passed through all three of
them, many of us; and as we shall look upon them, whilst I paint them upon the wall, I
think there will be many here who will be able to say, I was in that state once;" and
when we come to the last, I hope we shall be able to clap our hands, and rejoice to feel
that the last is our case also, and that we are in the plight of the man with a
description of whom I shall conclude.
First, I shall picture to you the sinner growing uneasy in his bondage and thinking
about rebellion against his oppressors; secondly, the sinner putting to rout his
sins and seeking their entire destruction; and, thirdly, I shall seek to bring to
you that notable picture of the open door, and I shall stand at it and cry to those
who are seeking the life of their sins"Come hither, and I will show you the man
whom ye seek; here he liesdead; slain by the hammer and the nail; held not in the
hand of a woman, but in the hand of the seed of the womanthe man Christ Jesus."
I. First, then, let us try to picture THE SINNER GROWING UNEASY UNDER THE YOKE OF HIS
SINS, AND PLANNING A REVOLT AGAINST HIS OPPRESSORS.
It is said that when a man is born a slave, slavery is not near so irksome as when he has
once been free. You will have found it, perhaps, in birds and such animals that we keep
under our control. If they have never known what it is fly to and fro in the air from tree
to tree, they are happy in the cage; but if, after having once seen the world, and floated
in the clear air, they are condemned to live in slavery, they are far less content. This
is the case with manhe is born a slave. The child in the cradle is born under sin,
and as we grow up we wear our manacles and scarcely know that they are about us. Use, we
say, is second nature, and certainly the evil nature we have received makes the usages of
sin seem as if they were not so slavish as they are. Nay, some men have become so used to
their bonds, that they live with no true idea of liberty, and yet think themselves free.
Nay, they take the names of freedom, and call themselves libertines, and free-thinkers,
and free-doers, when they are the very worst of slaves, and might hear their chains rattle
if they had but ears to hear. Until the Spirit of God comes into the heartso strange
is the use of naturewe live contented in our chains; we walk up and down our
dungeon, and think we are at large. We are driven about by our task-masters, and imagine
that we are free. Once let the Spirit of God come into usonce let a word of life and
liberty sound in our earsonce let Jehovah Jesus speak, and we begin to be
dissatisfied with our condition. Now the chain frets us; now the fetter feels too small;
now we long for a wider march than we had before, and are not content to be fettered for
ever to a sinful lust. We begin to have a longing for something better, though we know not
what it is. Now it is that the man begins to find fault with what he at one time thought
was so passing excellent. He finds that now the cup which seemed to be all honey has
traces of bitter in it; the cane once so sweet and palatable has lost its lusciousness,
and he says within himself "I wish I had some nobler food than these swine's husks;
this is not fit food for me." He does not know that God has begun to kindle in him
new life and a diviner nature; but he knows this, that he cannot be content to be what he
was before. He frets and chafes like the lion in bonds that longs to range in the forest
and wilderness. He cannot endure it. And now, I say, it is that the man begins to act. His
first action is the action of the children of Israel; he begins to cry unto the Lord.
Perhaps it is not a prayer, as we use the term in ordinary conversation. He cannot put
many words together. It is a sigha sigh for he knows not what. It is a groan after
somethingan indescribable something that he has not seen or felt, but of the
existence of what he has some idea. "Oh God," saith he, "deliver me! Oh
God, I feel I am not what I should be; I am not what I wish to be; I am discontented with
myself." And if the prayer does not take the actual shape of "God be merciful to
me a sinner," yet it means all that, for he seems to say "Lord, I know not what
it isI know not whether it be mercy or grace, or what the name of it may be; but I
want something. I am a slave. I feel it all. Oh that I could be free! Oh that I could be
delivered!" The man begins now, you see, to look for something higher than he has
seen before. After this prayer comes action; "Now," says the man," I must
begin to be up and doing." And if the Spirit of God is truly dealing with him, he is
not content with prayer; he begins to feel that though it is little enough that he can do,
yet he can do at least something. Drunkenness he forsakes; at one blow he lays that enemy
in the dust. Then there is his cursing and his swearinghe tries to overcome that
enemy, but the oath comes out when he leasts expects it. Perhaps it gives him weeks of
struggling, but at last that too is overcome. Then come the practices of his
tradethese, he feels, hurt his conscience. Here is another chain to be filed
offanother rivet to be torn off. He toils, he strives still crying evermore to God,
and at last he is free, and that enemy is overthrown. He is like Barak; the Lord is
helping him, and his enemies flee before him. Oh my brethren, I speak from experience now.
What a struggle that was which my young heart waged against sin! When God the Holy Ghost
first quickened me, I scarcely knew of that strong armour whereon my soul could venture.
Little did I know of the precious blood which has put my sins away, and drowned them in
the seas for ever. But I did know this, that I could not be what I was; that I could not
rest happy unless I became something bettersomething purer than I felt; and oh how
my spirit cried to God with groaningsI say it without any
exaggerationgroanings that could not be uttered! and oh! how I sought in my poor
dark way to overcome first this sin and then another, and so to do battle in God's
strength against the enemies that assailed me, and not, thank God, altogether without
success, though still the battle had been lost unless he had come who is the Overcomer of
sin and the Deliverer of his people, and had put the hosts to flight. Have I not some here
to-night who are just in this position? They have not come to Mount Zion yet, but are
fighting with the Amalakites in the wilderness. They have not come to the blood of
sprinkling, but somehow or otherthey don't know exactly what condition theirs
is,they are fighting up hill against a dread something which they would overcome.
They cannot renounce the struggle; they sometimes fear they will be vanquished in the end.
Oh, my brother or sister, I am glad to find the Lord has done so much for thee. This is
one of the first marks of divine life when we begin to fight against sin.
Then courage, brethren! There shall be another picture painted soon, and that shall be thy
picture too, when thou shalt be more than a conqueror, through him that hath loved thee.
But I dare say this is not the picture of all here. There are some of you who say you are
not slaves, and, therefore, you do not wish to be freed. But I tell you, sirs, if any
earthly potentate could command you to do what the Devil makes your do, you would think
yourselves the most oppressed beings in the world. If there should be a law passed in
Parliament, and there should be power to put it into execution, that you should go and sit
several hours of the nigh until midnight, and drink some vile poisonous stuff that would
steal away your brains, so that you have to be wheeled home, you would say, "What
vile tyranny! to force men to destroy their souls and bodies in that way;" and yet
you do it wilfully of yourselves. And of the one blessed day of restthe only one in
seven that we have to rest inif there were an enactment passed that you should open
your shops on that day, and pursue your trade, you would say," This is a wretched
land, to have such tyrants to govern it;" you would declare you would not do it and
yet the devil makes you, and you go and take down your shutters as greedily as if you
would win heaven by your Sunday trading. What slaves do men make of themselves when they
most think themselves free! I have seen a man work harder and spend more money in seeking
pleasure in that which makes him sick and illwhich makes his eyes red and his whole
body feverishthan he would have done if a thousand acts of parliament had tried to
drive him to do so. The devil is indeed a cruel tyrant with his subjects, but he is such a
tyrant that they willingly follow him. He rivets on them his chains, and whilst they think
they are going of their own free will, he sits grinning all the while and thinking how
when their laughter will change to bitterest tears, they shall be undeceived in the dread
day in which hell's fire shall burn up their delusion, and the flames of the pit shall
scatter the darkness that has concealed the truth from their eyes. Thus much, then,
concerning the first picturethe sinner discontented and going to war with his sins.
II. And now we have the second pictureTHE SINNER HAVING GONE TO WAR WITH HIS OWN
SINS, HAS, TO A GREAT EXTENT, BY GOD'S GRACE, OVERCOME THEM; but he feels when this is
done, that it is not enoughthat external morality will not save the soul. Like
Barak, he has conquered Sisera; but, not content with seeing him flee away on his feet, he
wants to have his dead body before him. "No," says he, "it is not enough to
vanquish, I must; destroy; it is not sufficient to get rid of evil habits, I must overcome
the propensity to sin. It is not sufficient to put to flight this sin or the other; I must
trample the roots of corruption beneath my feet, that sin itself may be slain." Mark,
my dear hearers, that is not a work of the Spirit which is not a radical work. If you are
content merely to conquer your sins and not to kill them, you may depend upon it, it is
the mere work of moralitya surface workand not the work of the Holy Spirit.
Sirs, be not content with driving out thy foes, or they will come back again to thee; be
not satisfied with wearing the sheep's skin; be not content till thy wolfish nature is
taken from thee, and the nature of the sheep imparted. It is not enough to make clean the
outside of the cup and the platter, it must be broken and a new vessel must be given; be
not satisfied with whitewashing the tomb. The charnel house must be empty, and where death
reigned, life must reign. There is no mistake perhaps more common in these dangerous times
than to mistake externals for internals, the outward sign for the inward grace, the
painted imitation of mortality for the solid jewels of spirituality. Up, Barak! Up, thou
son of Abinoam! thou hast routed the Sisera of thy drunkenness; thou hast put the hosts of
thy sins to flight: but this is not enough. Sisera will return again upon thee with twice
nine hundred chariots, and thou shalt yet be overcome. Rest not content till the blood of
thine enemy stain the ground, until he be crushed and dead, and slain. Oh, sinner, I
beseech thee never be content until grace reign in thy heart, and sin be altogether
subdued. Indeed, this is what every renewed soul longs for, and must long for, nor will it
rest satisfied until all this shall be accomplished. There was a time when some of us
thought we would slay our sins. We wanted to put them to death, and we thought we would
drown them in floods of penitence. There was a time, too, when we thought we would starve
our sins; we thought we would keep out of temptation, and not go and pander to our lusts,
and then they would die; and some of us can recollect when we gagged our lusts, when we
pinioned their arms, and put their feet in the stocks, and then thought that would deliver
us. But oh, brethren, all our ways of putting sin to death were not sufficient; we found
the monster still alive, insatiate for his prey. We might rout his myrmidons, but the
monster was still our conqueror. We might put to flight our habits, but the nature of sin
was still in us, and we could not overcome it. Yet did we groan and cry daily, "Oh
wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" It is a
cry to which we are accustomed even at this day, and which we shall never cease to utter,
till we can say of our sins, "They are gone," and of the very nature of sin,
that it has been extinguished, and that we are pure and holy even as when the first Adam
came from his Maker's hands.
Well, I have some here, I have no doubt, who are like Barak pursuing after Sisera, but who
are faint-hearted. You are saying, "My sin can never be forgiven, it is too great, it
must escape from me, and, even if it were put to flight it never could be overcome; I am
so great a stinner, a sinner of such a double dye, a scarlet sinner I must always be. I
was born in sin, and I have grown up in it; and as the twig is bent the tree is inclined.
Who can make straight such a gnarled oak as I am? Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or
the leopard his spots? if so, I, who am accustomed to do evil, may learn to do well."
You begin to think that rivers might sooner run up-hill, than you could run to God and
righteousness. You are tired of the battle, and ready to lay down your arms and die. But
you cannot, you must not go back to be the drunkard and the swearer that you were before,
and die in despair of ever overcoming the sin within; nor must you think, "Oh, I have
entered upon a fight that is too much for me, I shall yet fall by the hands of mine
enemy."
III. Come hither, I bring you to the third picture. I stand at THE DOOR today, not of a
tent, but of a TOMB, and as I stand here I say to the sinner who is anxious to know how
his sins may be killed, how his corruption may be slain, "Come, and I will show thee
the man whom thou seekest, and when you shall come in, YOU SHALL SEE YOUR SINS LYING DEAD,
AND THE NAILS IN THEIR TEMPLES."
Sinner, the sin thou dreadest is forgiven, thou hast wept sore before God, and thou hast
cast thyself on Christ and on Christ alone. In the name of him who is the Eternal God, I
assure thee that thy sins are all forgiven. From the book of God's remembrance they are
blotted out. They are as clean gone as the clouds that floated through the sky last year,
and distilled their showers on the ground. Thy sins are gone; every one of them; the sin
over which thou hast wept, the sin which caused thee many a tear is gone, and is forgiven.
Furtherdost thou ask where thy sin is? I tell thee thy sin is gone, so that it never
can be recalled. Thou art so forgiven that thy sins can never have a resurrection. The
nail is not driven through the hands of thy sins, but through their temples. If thou
shouldest live twice ten thousand years no sin could ever be laid to thy charge again if
thou believest in Christ Jesus. Thou hast no conscience of sin left. "As far as the
east is from the west," so far hath he removed thy transgressions from thee. God hath
spoken and said,"Be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee," and it is
done; none can reverse the sentence. He has cast thy sins into the depth of the sea, and
they can never be found again. Nay, further, sinner, for thy peace and comfort, thy sins
are not only forgiven and killed so that they cannot rise again, but thy sins have ceased
to be. Their dead bodies, like the body of Moses, are brought where they never can be
found. More than this, they do not exist. Again, O child of God, there doth not remain so
much as a shadow of sin: "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's
elect?"much less prove it against them. What dog can wag his tongue to
accuse?much less, what witness shall rise up to condemn? God hath justified thee, O
sinner! if thou believest; and if thou art so justified, thou art as much accepted in
God's sight as if thou hadst never sinned. Had thy life been blameless and thy path been
holy even to perfection, thou hadst not been more pure in the eyes of Divine justice than
thou art to-night if thy faith is fixed on the cross of Christ. Right through the brain of
all thy sins, the hammer has driven the nail of Christ's grace. The spear that pierced the
Saviour's heart, pierced the heart of thine iniquity; the grave in which he was buried was
the tomb of all thy sins; and his resurrection was the resurrection of thy spirit to light
and joy unspeakable. "Come, and I will show thee the man whom thou seekest."
This is a refreshing sight, even to the child of God, who has seen it long ago, and it
will ever be solemn for us to contemplate the sin. It must ever be a direful spectacle;
for an enemy, even when dead, is a ghastly sight. The head of Goliath, even though it
makes us smile when it is cut off, is yet the head of a grim monster, and he is a monster
even when he is slain. God forbid we should ever glory in sin, but it is a theme for joy
to a Christian when he can look upon his sins drowned in the blood of Jesus,
"Plunged, as in a shoreless sea;
Lost, as in immensity."
My soul looks back to the days of my youth, and remembers her former transgressions,she drops a tear of sorrow; she looks to the cross, and sees them all forgiven, and she drops there tears of gratitude. My eye runs along the days of manhood, and observes, with sorrow, omissions and commissions innumerable; but it lights up with a smile most rapturous when I see the flood of Jesus' blood swelling over the sands of my sins till they are all covered and no eye can behold them. Oh! child of God, come and see the man whom thou seekest, here he lies slain before thee. Come and see all thy sins for ever dead; fear them not; weep for them; avoid them in days to come, and remember they are slain. Look at thy sins as vanquished foes, and always regard them as being nailed to his crossto his cross who
"Sang the triumph when he rose."
But I hear you say, "Well, I have faith enough to believe that my sins are overcome in that way, and that they are conquered and dead in that respect; but O, sir, as to this body of sin within meI cannot get it killed, I cannot get it overcome." Now, when we begin the divine life, we believe that we shall get rid of our old Adam entirely. I know most of you had a notion when you first started in the pilgrimage, that as soon as ever you received grace, depravity would be cast outdid you find it so, brethren? I have heard some preachers laugh at the theory of the two natures. I never answered them, for I dare say they would not have comprehended me if I had tried the experiment; but one thing I knowthat the theory of the two natures in a Christian is no theory to me, but a truth which daily proves itself. I cannot say with Ralph Erskine
"To good and evil equal bent,
And both a devil and a saint;"
but if that is not the truth it is very
near to it; it is next door to it; and while on the one hand I am able to see sin
perishing within, on the other hand I cannot fail to see the struggle which my soul has to
wage against it, and the daily warfare and fightings that necessarily ensue. I know that
grace is the stronger principle, and that it must overcome at last; but there are times
when the old man seems for a little to get the upper handIshmael prevails, and Isaac
is cast to the ground; though this I know, that Isaac has the promise and Ishmael must be
driven out. Well, child of God, if you have to look upon the Sisera of your sin still
fleeing from yoube of good cheer; it is but the experience of all the people of God.
Moreover, there have been many who have said they did not feel this; but my dear brethren,
they did feel it, only that they did not use the same language as we do who have felt it.
I know one or two good brothers who say they believe in perfection, but I find all the
perfection they believe in is the very perfection that I preach. It is perfection in
Christ, but they do not believe in perfection in themselves. Nor do I believe that any
Christian who reads his own heart for a single day, can indulge the idea of being totally
free from the risings of depravity, and the risings of the heart after sin. If there be
such, I can only say, "I wish I could change places with thee, brother, for it is my
hard lot to have wars and fightings day by day, and it seems difficult to say sometimes
which way the matter will end, or how the battle will be decided." Indeed, one could
not know it at all except by faith, for sight seems to lead to an opposite opinion. Well,
be of good cheer, Christian. Though the old man is not slain in you, as you know
personally yet I would have you remember that as you are in Christ, the old man is
crucified. "Knowing that your old man is crucified with him." And know this,
that the day shall come when the angels shall open wide the door, and ye that have been
panting after your enemy, like Barak pressing after Sisera, shall hear the welcome Spirit
say, "Come, and I will show thee the man whom thou seekest," and there shall lie
thine old inbred lusts, and he who is the father of them, old Satan himself, all chained
and bound and cast into the lake of fire. Then will you sing indeed unto the Lord,
"Oh! sing unto the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; his right hand and his holy
arm hath gotten him the victory." Till then, brethren, pursue after your sins. Spare
them not, neither great nor small, and God speed you that you may fight valiantly, and by
his aid utterly overcome them.
As for thee, poor sinner, whom I lately reminded that thou canst not slay thy sins, nor
work out thy salvation, thou canst not be thine own deliverer. Trust in thy Master. Put
thy soul into the hands of him who is able and willing to preserve and keep it, and to
protect it; and mark me, if to-night thou wilt have nothing to do with thyself, but wilt
give thyself to Christ entirely, then to-night thou art saved. What if my Master should
give me to-night some fishes at the first shaking of the net, and what if some poor sinner
should say within himself
"I'll go to Jesus, though my
sin,
Hath like a mountain rose;
I know his courts, I'll enter in,
Whatever may oppose."
Come, sinner, come! Nay, do you say you
cannot come? "My sins, my sins!" Come, and I will show thee thy sins nailed to
the cross of Christ. "But I must not come," says one; "I have so hard a
heart." Come, and I will show thee thy hard heart dissolved in a bath of blood
divine. "Oh! but," still thou sayest, "I dare not come." Come, and I
will show thee those fears of thine lulled into an eternal sleep, and thy soul resting on
Christ shall never need to fear again, for thou shalt be his in time, his in life and
death, and his in an eternity of bliss.
May the Lord add his blessing now, for Jesus' sake. Amen.
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