The heart of man is a restless deep, ever casting up mire and
dirt (Isa. 57:20); but in the sins of God's children there is
a pre-eminence of guilt.
Jonah could not sin himself out of the love of God; therefore,
sinning himself out of communion with God, he had the greater
guilt.
I count myself more vile than the murderer who suffers death by
the hangman's hand, because the atoning blood of the Son of God
acquaints me with myself.... That which shows me my forgiveness
reveals to me my pollution.
By far the greater part of the sins of God's children are sins
of ignorance. How needful therefore the cry, "Cleanse Thou me
from secret faults" (Ps. 19:12)—faults hidden from mine own
eye and from mine own conscience. Without atoning blood they
would bring down God's curse on the offender's head. Oh, let
us not make light of sins of ignorance!
The sins of our unregenerate state should indeed be ever before
us; but by frowardness, since we tasted that God is gracious,
we sin (as natural men cannot sin) against the heart of Christ,
against God's love and His Spirit, who seals us unto the day
of redemption. The natural man is a rebel against his Maker;
but it is against a Father that we, the saved, offend. Forgetting
the cross, we go astray. The remedy is true and speedy confession;
for we have an Advocate with the Father. (1 John 2:1.)
We must be ever waging war with the secret workings of sin. Where
it is but in a little measure allowed, God may suffer His child
to go further and further in that allowance, until the seven
locks are shorn on Delilah's lap.
To be doubting Christ's love, to be limiting His grace, is alike
unworthy of us and grieving to Him. The last offence of Joseph's
brethren (Gen. 50:15-21) was not the least.
There is no fault in our character that the grace of God cannot
cure. It becomes us therefore to give no quarter to the Canaanites.
(Judges 2)
God deals with us after conversion otherwise than before it:
He, as a wise Father, has a rod of correction for His children,
and smites them when He might let them alone, did they not know
His love.
Peculiar temptations bring forth peculiar corruptions, after
neglected warnings.
The Lord Jesus took loving pains to make Peter acquainted with
Himself, and was compelled to humble him by his threefold denial
of his Lord, but without exposing him to the eye of enemies.
Overcome by a sudden temptation, he was quickly forgiven and
restored. (Luke 22:55-62.) Whereas David, who had deliberately
transgressed, and who had long been in a backsliding state of
heart, was exposed to the people as well as made loathsome in
his own eyes. (2 Sam. 12; 16) When Christ restores a fallen one,
He often makes that disciple stronger than before his fall. "When
thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren" (Luke 22:32). So
it will be with those who, like David and Peter, have been wont
to follow the Lord fully.
The people of God are in general slack and slothful in searching
out sins of ignorance; but if we persevere in the search, asking
God to reveal them to us, He will give us very humbling knowledge
of ourselves and of our secret faults; with it also blessed comfort
and communion, which otherwise we could not enjoy.