Isaiah 1:18 Come now, and let us reason together, said the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow… It is a wonderful instance of Divine compassion that God should be willing to hold a conference with man. Of course, the first person to ask for such a conference ought to have been the offending party. But, instead of man seeking God, and pleading, with bitter tears, "Lord, pitifully hear me; graciously listen to me, and forgive me"; it is God who comes seeking man. Surely it should be a great joy to a man to hear that God invites him to a conference; he should take heart of hope from that fact. God meets man in two ways: first, by the perfect pardon of sin, and, next, by a clean deliverance from the power of sin. I. First, I will suppose that I have before me someone who says, "MY SINS ARE AS GLARING AS SCARLET." How can I ever be the friend of God as my sins are so prominent? Some people's sins are of a drab colour, you might not notice them; other people's sins are a sort of whitey-brown, you would scarcely perceive them; but my sins are scarlet, that is a colour that is at once observed. What sort of sins may be called scarlet? 1. The filthier vices. 2. The universally condemned sins, those sins which are offences against the State, and against the well being and social order of the community, such as dishonesty, theft, peculation in all its forms, knavery, cheating, lying. 3. The louder defiances of God. Some men dare to contradict Scripture, to express their disbelief in it, nay, to contradict God Himself even to express their disbelief in His existence; and, disbelieving in God, they dare to cavil at His providence, to judge His words, and to utter criticisms and sarcasms about the acts of the Most High. 4. Scarlet sins may consist, again, in long-continued dissipations. 5. In repeated transgressions. 6. In any act of sin which is distinctly deliberate. Do you want to know how this can be done? It is through the great atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. II. But there is a second difficulty. The man of whom I first spoke also says, "MY TENDENCY TO SIN IS DEEPLY INGRAINED." He says, "If all my scarlet sins were forgiven, yet I am afraid I should not be all right even then." Why not? "Because I feel impulses within me towards evil which, I think, are stronger than in anybody else. Well, I will take you on your own ground; I do believe that there are some persons who have a greater hereditary tendency to some sins than others have. Still, though your sins be red like crimson, they shall be as wool God knows how to effect this transformation by the working of the Holy Spirit. "Oh!" says another, "I should not mind about hereditary tendencies; but my difficulty is that I have been habitually committing sin." The Holy Spirit will help you to break off every sinful habit at once. You know that scarlet and crimson are colours very hard to get out of any fabric. Neither the dew, nor the rain, nor any ordinary processes of bleaching, will get out the scarlet. But God knows how, without destroying the fabric, to take out a fifty years' crimson habit, and not leave a stain behind. I heard a third person say, "The trouble with me is that I have such feeble mental resistance to evil, I am so weak, such a poor fool. Well, you are not much of a fool if you know you are; the biggest fools are those who never know that they are fools. Still, there are people of this kind. Now, if you will come and reason with God, and yield yourself to the power of the Holy Spirit, He will put a backbone into you. Still, perhaps, I have not quite hit the nail on the head with all of you. Some are entangled by their circumstances. But God's grace can deliver you. There is nothing like making up your mind that you are coming right straight out from everything that is wrong, let it cost whatever it may. "What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" The ship is going down, and if your little boat is tied to it, you will go down too. Up with the axe, and cut the rope! I think I hear another say, "But I am a man of such strong passions." They must be got rid of; and I do not know of any surgical operation that can do it; you will have to be born again, that is the only real cure. ( C. H. Spurgeon.) Parallel Verses KJV: Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. |
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