Jeremiah 17:1 The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond: it is graven on the table of their heart… I. WHAT IS SIN? If you ask the Pharisee of old what sin was — "Well," he said, "it is eating without washing your hands; it is drinking wine without having first of all strained out the gnats, for those insects are unclean, and if you should swallow any of them they will render you defiled." Many in these days have the same notion, with a variation. We have read of a Spanish bandit, who, when he confessed before his father confessor, complained that one sin hung with peculiar weight upon his soul that was of peculiar atrocity. He had stabbed a man on a Friday, and a few drops of the blood of the wound had fallen on his lips, by which he had broken the precepts of holy Church, in having tasted animal food on a fast day. The murder did not seem to arouse in his conscience any feeling of remorse at all — not one atom — he would have done the same tomorrow; but an accidental violation of the canons of mother Church excited all his fears. Singular, indeed, are the ideas which many men have of transgression. But such is not God's view of sin. Sin is a want of conformity to the will of God; sin is disobedience to God's command; sin is a forgetfulness of the obligations of the relation which exists between the creature and the Creator. This is the very essence of sin. Injustice to my fellow creature is truly sin, but its essence lies in the fact that it is sin against God, who constituted the relation which I have violated. It is a great and intolerable wrong that, being created by God, we yet refuse to yield to His will. It is right that He who is so good to us should have our love: it is sin that, living upon God's goodness, we do not return to Him our heart's affection. It is right that, being sustained by Divine beneficence from day to day, we should give to Him constant thankfulness; but, being so sustained, we do not thank Him, and herein lies the very soul of sin. Now, in the light of this truth, let me ask the believer to humble himself very greatly on account of sin. That I have not loved my God with all my heart; that I have not trusted Him with all my confidence; that I have not given to Him the glory due unto His name; that I have not acted as a creature should do, much less as a new creature is bound to do; that, receiving priceless mercies, I have made so small a return — let me confess this in dust and ashes, and then bless the name of the Atoner who, by His precious blood, hath put even this away, so that it shall not be mentioned against us any more forever. II. HOW IS THE FIXEDNESS OF SIN WHICH IS DECLARED IN THE TEXT PROVED? The prophet tells us that man's sinfulness is as much fixed in him as an inscription carved with an iron pen in granite. How is this fixedness proved? It is proved in two ways in the text, namely, that it is graven upon the table of their heart, and secondly, upon the horns of their altar. It clearly proves how deeply evil is fixed in man, when we reflect that sin is in the very heart of man. When a sin becomes intertwisted with the roots of the affections, you cannot uproot it; when the leprosy eats deep into the heart of humanity, who can expel it? It becomes henceforth a hopeless case, so far as human power is concerned. Since sin reigns and rules in man's affections, it is deep ingrained indeed. The second proof the prophet gives of the infixedness of human sin is, that it was written on the horns of their altars. These people sinned by setting up idols and departing from Jehovah: we sin in quite another way. When you get the unconverted man to be religious — which is a very easy thing — what form does the religion take? Frequently he prefers that which most gratifies his taste, his ears, or his sight. If your heart is touched, that is the worship of God; if your heart is drawn to God, that is the service of God; but if it is the mere ringing of the words, and the falling of the periods, and the cadence of the voice that you regard, why, you do not worship God, but on the very horns of your altars are your sins. You are bringing a delight of your own sensuous faculties and putting that in the place of true faith and love, and then saying to your soul, "I have pleased God," whereas you have only pleased yourself. When men become serious in religion, and look somewhat to the inward, they then defile the Lord's altar by relying upon their own righteousness. Man is much like a silkworm, he is a spinner and weaver by nature. A robe of righteousness is wrought out for him, but he will not have it; he will spin for himself, and like the silkworm, he spins, and spins, and he only spins himself a shroud. All the righteousness that a sinner can make will only be a shroud in which to wrap up his soul, his destroyed soul, for God will cast him away who relies upon the works of the law. In other ways men stain the horns of their altars. Some do it by carelessness. Those lips must be depraved indeed which even in prayer and praise still continue to sin. The horns of our altars are defiled by hypocrisy. You may have seen two fencers practising their art, and noticed how they seem to be seeking each other's death; how they strike and thrust as though they were earnestly contending for life; but after the show is over, they sit down and shake hands, and are good friends. Often so it is in your prayers and confessions; you will acknowledge your sins, and profess to hate them, and make resolutions against them, but it is all outward show — fencing, not real fighting — and when the fencing bout is over, the soul shakes hands with its old enemy, and returns to its former ways of sin. Oh, this foul hypocrisy is a staining of the horns of the altar with a vengeance! III. WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF THIS? First, we must never forget the fall. We are none of us today as God made us. The human judgment is out of balance, it uses false weights and false measures. "It puts darkness for light and light for darkness." The human will is no longer supple, as it should be, to the Divine will; our neck is naturally as an iron sinew, and will not bow to Jehovah's golden sceptre. Our affections also are twisted away from their right bent. Whereas we ought to have been seeking after Jesus, and casting out the tendrils of our affections towards Him, we cling to anything but the right, and climb upon anything but the true. "The whole head is sick, and the whole heart is faint." Human nature is like a magnificent temple all in ruins. In addition, however, to our natural depravity, there come in, in the second place, our habits of sin. Well may sin be deeply engraven in the man who has for twenty, forty, fifty, or perhaps seventy years, continued in his iniquity. Put the wool into the scarlet dye, and if it lie there but a week, the colour will be so ingrained in the fabric that you cannot get it out; but if you keep it there for so many years, how shall you possibly be able to bleach it? You must recollect, in addition to this, that sin is a most clinging and defiling thing. Who does not know that if a man sins once, it is much easier to sin that way the next time, nay, that he is much more inclinable towards that sin? I may add that the prince of the power of the air, the evil spirit, takes care, so far as he can, to add to all this. He chimes in with every suggestion of fallen nature. He will never let the tinder lie idle for want of sparks, nor the ground lie waste for want of the seeds of thorns and thistles. IV. WHAT IS THE CURE FOR ALL THIS? Sin thus stamped into us, thus ingrained into our nature, can it ever be got out? It must be got out, or we cannot enter heaven, for there shall by no means enter within those pearly gates anything that defileth. We must be cleansed and purified, but how can it be done? It can only be done by supernatural process. Your only help lies in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became the Son of Man that He might lift the sons of men up from their natural degradation and ruin. How does Jesus Christ then take away these deeply-inscribed lines of sin from human nature? I answer, He does it first in this way. If our heart be like granite, and sin be written on it, Christ's ready method is to take that heart away. "A new heart also will I give you, and a right spirit will I put within you." Next to that, inasmuch as the guiltiness of sin is as permanent as sin itself, Jesus Christ is able to take our guilt away. His dying upon the Cross is the means by which the blackest sinner out of hell can be made white as the angels of God, and that, too, in a single instant. The Holy Spirit also comes in: the new nature being given and sin being forgiven, the Holy Ghost comes and dwells in us, as a Prince in his palace, as a God in his temple. Do I hear any say, "Then, I would to God that I may experience the Divine process — the new nature given, which is regeneration, the washing away of sin, which constitutes pardon and justification, and the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, which insures final perseverance and complete sanctification. Oh, how can I have these precious things?" Thou mayst have them, whoever thou mayst be, by simply believing in Jesus. ( C. H. Spurgeon.) Parallel Verses KJV: The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond: it is graven upon the table of their heart, and upon the horns of your altars; |
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