Sermons to the Natural Man eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 389 pages of information about Sermons to the Natural Man.

Sermons to the Natural Man eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 389 pages of information about Sermons to the Natural Man.
forgive them, for they know not what they do.”  The act of crucifying the Lord of glory was certainly a sin, and one of an awful nature.  But the authors of it were not fully aware of its import.  They did not understand the dreadful significance of the crucifixion of the Son of God, as we now understand it, in the light of eighteen centuries.  Our Lord alludes to this, as a species of mitigation; while yet He teaches, by the very prayer which He puts up for them, that this ignorance did not excuse His murderers.  He asks that they may be forgiven.  But where there is absolutely no sin there is no need of forgiveness.  It is one of our Lord’s assertions, that it will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah, in the day of judgment, than it will be for those inhabitants of Palestine who would not hear the words of His apostles,—­because the sin of the former was less deliberate and wilful than that of the latter.  But He would not have us infer from this, that Sodom and Gomorrah are not to be punished for sin.  And, finally, He sums up the whole doctrine upon this point, in the declaration, that “he who knew his master’s will and did it not shall be beaten with many stripes; but he who knew not his master’s will and did it not shall be beaten with few stripes.”  The sin of thoughtlessness shall be beaten with fewer stripes than the sin of deliberation,—­but it shall be beaten, and therefore it is sin.

The almost universal indifference and thoughtlessness with which men live on in a worldly and selfish life, will not excuse them in the day of accurate accounts.  And the reason is, that they are capable of thinking upon the law of God; of thinking upon their duties; of thinking upon their sins.  They possess the wonderful faculties of self-inspection and memory, and therefore they are capable of bringing their actions into light.  It is the command of God to every man, and to every rational spirit everywhere, to walk in the light, and to be a child of the light.  We ought to examine ourselves; to understand our ruling motives and abiding purposes; to scrutinize our feelings and conduct.  But if we do little or nothing of this, we must not expect that in the day of judgment we can plead our thoughtless ignorance of what we were, and what we did, here upon earth, as an excuse for our disobedience.  God expects, and demands, that every one of His rational creatures should be all that he is capable of being.  He gave man wonderful faculties and endowments,—­ten talents, five talents, two talents,—­and He will require the whole original sum given, together with a faithful use and improvement of it.  The very thoughtlessness then, particularly under the Gospel dispensation,—­the very neglect and non-use of the power of self-inspection,—­will go in to constitute a part of the sin that will be punished.  Instead of being an excuse, it will be an element of the condemnation itself.

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Sermons to the Natural Man from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.