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So once more, a very good evening to you. The topic I have chosen tonight, ladies and gentlemen, for our consideration is, believe it or not, the topic of sin. And even as I say so, I am all too aware that the very concept of sin is nowadays out of fashion. Would that the practice of sin was out of fashion as well, but I can't say the same about the practice. But certainly the concept of sin is thought nowadays to be very passe and not to be discussed in gentle society.
Of course, if I were talking to you tonight on a campaign to lessen crime, then I suspect you might even be interested, for who isn't interested nowadays in the mounting tide of crime, I don't suppose here in Prince Edward Island with all its peaceful citizens, but in so many parts of the world and where I live too. The mounting tide of crime and juvenile crime, with schoolboys murdering their schoolmates and other such things. Uh, yes, people are interested in what can be done to lessen the rising tide of crime.
But then you see, crime is an offense against the laws of the state. But when it comes to calling something sin, that raises another dimension completely, doesn't it? For sin is not just offense against the laws of the state. Sin is basically an offense against God. And sin adds, therefore, two dimensions to this matter. Sin, of course, touches things that the law of the state cannot touch, such as pride and jealousy and envy.
Sin brings God into the picture, as King David said long ago when he was convicted for having committed adultery and murder, and cried in the anguish of his smitten heart to God, against thee and thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. And sin, of course, carries another big imprecation. If what we have done is sin against God, then conscience tells us it could have eternal consequences that do not disappear at death.
So the concept of sin is nowadays regarded as old-fashioned and distasteful and should be discarded. It's not, of course, that people are not against wrongdoing. People still feel that deeply, do they not? If the head of research department gets envious at the potential discoveries of one of the junior researchers is doing, and in a fit of jealousy, secretly goes and messes up his computer program and interferes with some of his chemical experiments, and does it secretly, and then the fellow's research all comes out wrong, and he gets blamed for it and dismissed from the team.
When it wasn't his fault, then we say it's a dirty, rotten deed that the head of department did. He should be dealt with somehow or other. It has happened to a friend of mine doing his medical research in an institution in a country not far from here, and a fellow student, the next door lab, stole his results and put them as her own and got her degree through it and left him without a degree. You say that again, it's a rotten, dirty business. Yes, we're... we are against bad behavior.
But as I say, to call that bad behavior sin, that raises these others di- dimensions, doesn't it? Not an offense against your fellow student, not perhaps ne- e- e- even an offense against the state, but an offense against God, with potential eternal consequences. So that made that means that tonight we ought to think a bit about ourselves. What is this... sense of right and wrong that we humans have deep in our hearts and consciences?
It's a very real thing, isn't it? Even children have it. They have it, perhaps they have it more strongly than we hard-boiled adults do. Here is Tommy, and there's his smaller brother Joey, you see, and they're playing on the floor. And Tommy, being older and stronger, seizes Joey's toy, you see, and Joey protests, and there's a bit of a fight. Mama, hearing the schmozzle, comes into the door just at the moment to see Joey swiping his brother across the chops.
Well, it's not letting you into a secret to say that, of course, the older is mommy's favorite, really, though she wouldn't confess it. And to see her favorite smitten across the chops by this little upstart. She deals with Joey, takes the toy away, and disappears. Then Tommy gloats over his younger brother. There. And Joey mutters under his breath, it isn't fair. Yes. Did you never feel that as a youngster? Children feel very strongly, don't they?
What isn't fair. I have a deeply ingrained sense of right and wrong. Where does that come from, would you say? Is that merely a childish thing that we ought to grow out of when we get older. Well, we had a case recently in London. A man and wife were having coffee in the railway terminus when thieves came alongside, cut the cords of her handbag and ran off with it and her money. And instinctively she chased them. They got into a car, she tried to stop them, fell on the bonnet, fell off the bonnet, and they ran over her and killed her.
What will you say about that? You say, well, she would have been wiser to let them get away with it and saved a life. There was only twenty pounds in the bag, but that instinctive feeling. This isn't fair. And we got all things of a hundred and one other situations, couldn't we, that are not fair. What is it, where does that feeling come from? The Bible says, of course, that it comes from this fact that God who made us has risen this sense of fairness of right and wrong, in our very hearts.
So that even if we've never read a Bible all our lives, yet the works of the law, says the Bible, are written in our hearts. Just like the laws of nature can be observed in the universe and in the cell in a human body. So the Bible says that this moral sense is placed in us by God. Not necessarily every detail of the law, but that basic moral sense that there is right and there is wrong. But then, of course, as I say, a lot of people shy away from that notion.
Because if God put it there, then it's reasonable to think, is it not, that one day that God will call us to account for how we have behaved. So people, my friends among them, of course, try alternative explanations. No, they say, we mustn't think of God as the authority behind morality. We don't need God in order to have a satisfactory moral system and get people to behave. Say there, you know, the rules of life are like the rules of a game.
You make them up yourself, don't you? You're going to play what, uh, we call football and other people call soccer. You don't have to ask God for the rules, do you? You sit down and and and think out the rules yourself. Of course, then you all have to agree to play by the rules of soccer, and you appoint an umpire, and he has to umpire whether you keep the rules or not. But you made the rules, you and the rest of them, and you agree to them. If later on you think the game could be improved by changing the rules a bit, well, you change them as long as everybody agrees.
And people say that's how it is with morals, you know. We make up our own rules for life. If now and again they seem to need to be improved a bit, well, we change them, but that's all there is. There's no God behind them. We don't need a God. Ah. And what about those people that play that other thing that, uh, Americans call football, uh, but we call rugby? Hmm. That developed when in England at one stage people were not content with soccer, and some chap picked up the ball and ran with it, and thereafter they invented rugby, and, uh, you see there, what is forbidden in football is okay in rugby.
There you may handle the ball. In football, you mustn't. And there they are, you say. Any set of rules would do as long as they're sensible. You don't like my rules? Well, I'm playing a different game from you, old chap. There's no good you're saying your rules are the right rules and my rules are wrong. You keep your own rules if you like, and let me keep mine. We're playing different games. And that's what people say about morality, don't they? You can't say your morals are right, your set of rules are right, and the only right rules. Perhaps the Hindus have a different set of rules, and the Eskimos a third set.
Hmm. Much like cricket, of course. The rules of cricket are vastly different from, uh, soccer or football or rugby, certainly from hockey. But what does it matter? It's just a different game, that's all. You may think cricket is a bit stupid, a lot of people do, but there you are, it's a game with its own rules. All right, let's try that on morality. You don't believe in cooking your next door neighbor, I suppose, and eat him and putting him in a pot and eating him.
But here comes an ancient chappy from Papua New Guinea. He does think it's good, very tasty to cook his neighbor and you, if he gets his hands on you and put you in a pot. Makes good gravy. And if you say we don't like your doing that, you shouldn't do it. So what if he replies, yes, but I'm playing a different game. We have different rules, you see. Who are you to say that our rules are bad? You stick to your own rules if you don't like to eat people's bodies for meat. We do. How will that work?
It can't be right, can it? Is there no higher authority than just ourselves making up the rules to play whatever particular game in life we want to? Well, then what is this, this, this, this feeling of right and wrong that we have deep down inside us? Is it a matter of taste? You see, people with refined taste like caviar. Other people don't like that, they like, uh, tomato sauce.
Well, if you like caviar and I don't, it's no good you're saying to me, you don't like caviar? Well, you're wrong then. What do you like? I like tomato sauce. Oh, how vulgar. No, you shouldn't like that. Well, that's no question of should or should not, ma'am. It's just a matter of taste, isn't it? There's neither right nor wrong when it comes to taste. This feeling of right and wrong can't be a matter of taste, can it? Pol Pot, that infamous dictator in Cambodia, he didn't like intellectuals, so he slaughtered about two million of them.
What if we went to him, if we could, he's dead now, of course, and said, look here, Pol Pot, this is bad, Josie, slaughtering intellectuals. And he replied, oh, don't you like slaughtering inter- intellectuals? Well, of course not. Well, don't do it then. I like slaughtering intellectuals, you see. I don't like the taste of intellectuals. Would you think that were an adequate answer? You say, oh, well, of course not. Morality can't depend on taste. Wha- well, what does it depend on then? And who decides what the morality should be?
Some people, some philosophers indeed, having thought long and hard about the topic, come up with the idea that the best way in life to decide what's right and wrong is what they call social contract. I remember that in my university at one stage, some of us got together and we formed an informal forum for discussion, you see. It enabled us to invite people of all sizes, shapes, and beliefs and non-beliefs to come, one at a time, of course, and to talk to us and tell us about their beliefs and this, that, and other.
And our only condition that we laid down is that when they had finished talking, we would be allowed to, uh, ask them questions. And I remember one of our colleagues, a noble man he was, and every inch of him a gentleman, brave man, a commando in the last war and blinded, and in spite of it rose to be a professor of philosophy in the university, very brave man he was. He came and developed his theme to us that you didn't need to, uh, have God in order to have morality, to have some God as the authority behind it. All you needed is people to form a social contract one with another.
And he illustrated it, uh, simply. He said, you see, uh, if we just live doing as we please, um, if you put your finger in my eye, I shall retaliate by putting my finger in your eye. And when we've done that three or four thousand times, we shall find it's uncomfortable and silly. So we then come to an agreement. You won't put your finger in my eye, and I won't put my finger in your eye, you see. That's all you need. And if the nations did it, you see, in the same way, instead of fingers, talk about bombs, if you like, hydrogen bombs. If you swing a hydrogen bomb at me, I shall sw- swing back one at you, you see, and all that kind of thing.
He said, if the whole world were to agree to a social contract like that, then that would be enough to set up morality. It came the question time, and I put up my nervous hand, and he said, yes. I said, um, like to put you a question. I, my name is Adolf Hitler, and I'm proposing to put my finger in your eye in a very big way, you'll see. I'm going to eliminate six million Jews to start with. And you say to me, if you do that, Adolf, I shall put my finger, we shall put our fingers back into your eye.
I said, no, you won't. Because you see, you don't have the forces to resist me just now, do you? So I shall continue putting, putting my finger in your eye and, and ruin you. And then when at last you get an army big enough to come and put your finger back in my eye, I shall shoot my brains out. So you'll never put your finger in my eye. And having shot my brains out, according to you atheists, there's no life to come anyway. So I got away with it. I got away with murders, millions of murders.
What would you say to that, I said to my philosopher friend. His reply, I remember it vividly, I should tell you to go and get lost. I thought it didn't adequately answer my question, really. You see, that raises another big point, doesn't it? If the rules of morality are merely those we invent ourselves, under whatever system, then when death comes, the rules no longer apply. But see what that means. I said just now, Adolf got away with murder, six million of them.
Do you care for justice? Do you think that wrongdoings should be punished? How many millions have suffered gross injustice on this earth and never did get justice done for them. I would say to my Russian friends from time to time, let's have a thought experiment. Come with me, and we'll go to Auschwitz, the German concentration camp where so many were gassed. Come with me, and we'll visit, if we're allowed to in thought anyway, we'll visit the, uh, huts where these men and women are, soon to be guests.
Let's come and speak to them. Um, I say I'll go first. And when I go, these are these weak, emaciated people with that little breath and strength they've got left. I say, what, hello, what are you say? Has everybody got a right to justice?
I say I'll start first. I say I'm deeply, deeply sorry. This is heinous, outrageous injustice. Sorry. You're never going to get justice on this earth. You will be gassed the day after next. But I tell you in the name of God and Christ and all that's holy, that won't be the end of the matter. There is a God, and behind your sense of right and wrong and your cry for justice is the authority of God himself.
And God will see to it that one day these injustices are rightly dealt with. There is hope for you, therefore. And as far as your own sins, whatever they have mean, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, occur, have occurred, Christ died for you, so that you may never suffer the eternal penalty of sin. And if you trust him now, death for you will be immediate entry into God's heaven.
Come on, I say, atheist, you come and talk to them. Watch their emaciated forms. See the terror in their eyes. Hear them as they plead with you. Why don't you do something? We want justice. What will you atheists say? Sorry, you're not going to get justice. Not in this life. You'll be dead by Tuesday. Go on, I say, atheist, tell them the truth about what you believe.
For now, the atheist will have to add, and since there is no life to come, you'll not get justice there either. They will reply to you, are you telling us that all we were taught about your claim, your Marxist claim for justice, has all been hot air and a rope of sand. Justice ultimately is meaningless. Hmm.
Ladies and gentlemen, if it were merely crime, an offense against the state, then we must reconcile ourselves to the fact, in spite of all the injustices have been perpetrated, there will be millions that will never have any justice done. And all their hopes throughout life of seeing justice done were futile. And if you say, ah, but, uh, shall we not decide what's right and wrong by the majority in any country? Let the majority decide.
Well, I ask you, in your knowledge of history, has the majority always been right? Haven't majorities been guilty of the most awful perpetrations of injustice upon minorities? Mm. We come back to the Bible's account of it. Justice is not such a fragile thing as that. The hope that justice will be done starts here.
But that sense of right and wrong that you have in your breast and I in mine... is implanted there by God. He is the authority... behind the moral law. Moreover, you will notice another thing. You not only have inside you... that sense of right and wrong. You have a faculty called conscience, haven't you? You didn't put it inside you anyway either, did you?
It can on times be highly inconvenient for the businessman who's fiddling the books with the income tax inspector, say. And its gnawings keep him awake some nights, lest he's found out. Of course, uh, conscience is a little bit like an alarm clock, you know. I have to confess to the way I treat my alarm clock sometimes. I set it to go off at the hour when I should get up. And good alarm clock, it goes off. I reach out and bash it on the head, and it stops, you see.
Then it doesn't trouble me, and I go to sleep again. Of course, you can do that with conscience, can't you? When it's troublesome, you can practice bashing it. And if you do, you can put it almost permanently out of action. It's a very dangerous thing to do. Where did this apparatus of conscience come from? It's like a pilot stepping into an airplane, isn't it, and finding on the dashboard there's a indication there of what's going wrong with the engines or something. Useful, that. He didn't put it there himself. Nor did you or I put the conscience in our beings.
By God who wrote the works of the law on our hearts, says the Bible. So God put within us this apparatus of conscience to alert us to our wrongdoings, if need be, to keep us from doing wrong. And then there's another thing about most people, not all people, of course, but the white races at least have another system built into them, that when they get discovered doing something wrong, they blush up to the roots of their hair, some of them.
That's very embarrassing. Mm-hmm. You can deal with that as well if you care. One of the Old Testament prophets complains of some people, they've got so used to sinning, they can sin and not even blush. Isn't that interesting, that such a physical, uh, reaction put into our bodies. We didn't invent it. And so, we come to, at least I come, ladies and gentlemen, to the Bible's view of sin.
That sin is not merely a crime, it may not even be a crime against the state. It is a sin, an offense, personally, against our maker. And because he is eternal, our sins against him have the potential of eternal consequences. Certainly it means that we must give an account of ourselves to God.
Somebody says, but that's, that's unfair, because I couldn't help sinning. It's in my genes. That's a modern escape route, that one, isn't it? And all the more influential because there's a tiny bit of truth in it. We are all damaged goods, aren't we? According to the Bible, we belong to a race estranged from God and therefore defective in many ways. It is true that some people are so seriously affected in mind that they get overwhelming urges.
Schizophrenics, for instance, overwhelming urges to murder people. And deserve sympathy for their mental de- defects, those serious mental defects. Nobody are going to say, of course, it doesn't matter if they murder. But nowadays, it is commonly said that we have genes, for instance, that control us. For instance, the homosexual lobby will say that they have a gene that makes them homosexual, and therefore it's perfectly natural and right to do it, even if the Bible says it is sin.
But you know, it's not true. The more research that is done on the genes, the more the experts will tell you that there are very few single genes that are responsible for defects. There are one or two. Homosexuality is not among them. And when just the other month, the Genome Project announced the full results of its investigation of the human genome, there was a gigantic surprise, was there not? The experts had thought that the, the, the DNA and all that, and the genes, they would be, uh, tremendously more than they turned out to be.
The difference between the human genome and that of some other curious, uh, b- insects and beings was comparatively very small. And that showed at once that the notion that certain genes are one-to-one related to certain defects is not true, cannot be true. We have in England, of course, a professor of genetics, well, a professor of zoology, actually. His name is Richard Dawkins. He tells us that we are nothing but genes. Now listen to this bit to find out what you are, according to him. You're nothing, you as a human being, you're nothing but genes.
Hm. In fact, you are just a mechanism that genes use to replicate themselves and pass on to the next generation. So everything about you, your mind, your intellect, your emotions, your desires, everything else is controlled by your genes. All you are is a machine that genes use in order to re- re- replicate themselves and uh d- and uh perpetuate themselves forever. It's like saying that an oak tree is nothing more than a machine for making acorn. Well, if we're nothing but genes, of course, well, we can't help what we do, can we?
And we're not responsible. If we're nothing but genes, I can murder you and your wife and then say, well, I, I, I can't help that because I'm nothing but genes. My genes did it. Don't think you would agree, would you? Wouldn't like it anyway. Professor Dawkins sees the difficulty, so he says, we must learn to fight against our genes. Marvelous advice, because if I'm nothing but genes, how can I fight against my genes? What bit in me can ran w- which isn't genes and can fight against the genes. It's sheer piffle, you know.
And if I'm nothing but genes, my view of morality is just as good as anybody else's view of morality. And neither matters anything becau- but they are the products of mindless cells and genes in our bodies. Ladies and gentlemen, what fragile escapes people do make for themselves, trying to avoid the fact that our sense of morality is put there by God. We are accountable for God, for all the sins that we have committed against his law.
Somebody says, well, I think that is horrible and hard. I do my best to do what's right, and like everybody else, I fail, and if God is going to judge me for that and I'm going to be condemned to some horrible eternity, that isn't fair. I've done my best. So let us turn to the other side of this, this topic. What is our relationship to God's law? God has not only put the works of the law into the hearts, but God has in his Bible written out his law in words and in detail.
What is our relationship to the law? Now here I want to, uh, uh, uh, uh, point out a view that I find is very, very common and widespread about God's law, and is completely mistaken. People say, well, yes, God gave us his law. Then they fall to the idea that God gave us his law so that we should do the best we can to keep it, and thus in the end qualify, if possible, for final acceptance with God and entry to God's heaven.
And that the way to get to God's heaven, so to speak, is ardently to do your best to keep his law. And if you manage to keep it, what, let's say seventy five percent, God will have mercy on the fact that you came a bit short and will let you into heaven. But of course, you can't know until the end whether you'll get into heaven or not, whether you're going to pass. In my country, in the universities that I served for some years, we had a slightly different, uh, system from what perhaps you have. Our students would only take two lots of exams in three years, and three years were the finals and decided everything.
And therefore, if they were ever going to get a degree, two things had to be done. First, they had to get the qualifications and get into the university, moderately easy. Then they had to study their studies, chemistry or whatever, and learn the laws and be able to practice it in the laboratories, you'll see. And the teachers, for we were a very kindly bunch, I ask you to believe it, aha, you'll see, would help the student to do it and help him in his experiments and encourage him. You're the best student we ever saw. Well, not always, but you know. And help him as best we could to face the final exams.
But when it came to the final exams, he had to take them, of course, not we. And he never could be sure, not absolutely sure, that he was going to pass, till he got through finals. You know, a lot of people think of getting to heaven like that. They think, well, if you're going to ever get to heaven, you have to join a church or something to start with, and that sort of puts you onto the course. Then you have to do your best to, uh, keep God's laws, and God himself or Jesus will help you to keep those laws. But... whether you eventually do it well enough to qualify to get into heaven...
must remain uncertain. And people like that will tell you straight, but nobody can be sure of ever getting into heaven until the final judgment. Do you know, ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to be able to tell you, on the authority of God's word, that that view is both mistaken and cruel. God is more loving than you think. And the Bible itself tells us, one, that you never could possibly get to heaven and have God's final acceptance by your effort to keep God's law.
That cannot be done. I read it to you so you see I'm not making it up. This is the Bible itself. This is the epistle to the Romans in the New Testament, you see. And it says, because by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for through the law cometh the knowledge of sin. No one will ever be justified that is regarded as being right by God on the basis of their trying to keep his law. Why is that? Because every time you go to God's law and see what God's law says you've got to do, and then you set about doing it, and you come back and measure your results by the law, the law will tell you that you have fallen short.
By the law comes the knowledge of sin. The law demands one hundred percent perfection, of course, it could ask no less. And therefore, whenever we consult God's law, as we should, it will show we have come short. You see, I thought God gave the law in the Old Testament that people had to keep it to lead a- lead a decent life. Well, yes. Certain it is if you try to keep God's law, it will lead to a better lifestyle than if you disregard it. The law says you shall not tell lies and bear false witness. If you disregard God's law in daily life and you tell lies, and everybody tells lies, then nobody trusts anybody.
And it results in confusion and injustice, uncertainty and worry and insecurity. The law as a guide to life is an excellent thing. God gave it for that reason, but God never gave his law so that by keeping it, we could earn acceptance with God and entry into his heaven. And if that sounds strange to you, let me read you again. This is Bible I hold, this is New Testament. Let's read again what God himself says was the reason he gave his law.
Here it is. Now we know that what thing soever the law says, it speaks to them that are under the law. For what purpose? For what reason? Not so that we should keep it and gain a place in heaven. The law was given us to shut our mouths, bring us to the point where we confess we have broken God's law and deserve its penalty. That's what it was given for. Not so that by keeping it we could attain salvation.
The law, you know, is a little bit like a thermometer. Thermometers? Well, they show people's temperature and therefore how ill they are. Here is Mrs. Floppity, and she's a very kind woman, and the family depends on her, and she's running a high temperature, really, but of course, mother, she cannot, uh, afford to go to bed. There's her little children, there's her husband, and, uh, she must keep on her legs, and she can scarce stand up. And at last, husband insists that the doctor come, you'll see, and the doctor gets out his, uh, thermometer thing, as they used to in my day. I was born after the flood. And, uh, uh, and, uh, uh, he pops it in her mouth or elsewhere, do you see, and reads the old thermometer, Phew, one hundred and seven point six.
He says, my dear woman, you're dangerously ill. To bed you go and you stay there. Good old thermometer. It's shown the dear lady how ill she is and, uh, prevailed upon her to go to bed, where if she hadn't gone to bed, she'd have been dead by next Tuesday. That's the proper use of the thermometer. But now here's an improper one. One of these days you hear this gooding man is sick and in bed, and in your tenderness of heart, you think you'll come and visit him to cheer him up. And you arrive in my bedroom, and there am I sitting up in bed with a thick blanket around my shoulders and a thick hat on my head, you'll see, and I'm got a thermometer in my mouth, and I'm sucking it for all I'm worth.
And you say, good thing, what's wrong with you? Which I can't say, I'm ill. Yes, I can see you're ill. But what, what are you sucking that thermometer for, for? I said, don't be silly. The doctor said that I got such a high temperature, and I must somehow get the temperature down, else I shall be dead. I'm doing my best. I'm sucking it as hard as I can to get the temperature down. What would you say? You would say, well, Gooding, you are ill. You're more ill than you think you are. Thermometers are for showing how ill you are, not for making you better, are they?
But unless God can convince us how ill we are, we shan't be ready for his remedy, shall we? What is his remedy? When God has brought us to the point where we see we have sinned in the past, and even if we live to a hundred and one, it will still be true that we still come short of God's standard. And there's nothing we can do. And we're prepared to repent and agree with God that we deserve the just punishment of his law.
And if we'll do that, God has his answer, God has his provision, and he will then point us to the Lord Jesus Christ, his son. God has set him forth, says this passage, to be a propitiation, to be the sacrifice that meets the just requires of God and his holy standards, that has satisfied the wrath and indignation of God against our sin, given his son, that his son might bear the pain and penalty that our sins deserve. For all we like sheep have gone astray, we've turned everyone to his own way.
The Lord hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all. If we will come to that Savior and accept him as our only way of salvation and forgiveness in that very moment, God will receive and accept us for Jesus Christ, his Son's sake. Not only grant us forgiveness, but declare us to be right with him and guarantee us a place in his heaven. And not only sure assure us, but we have us to know already that whatever happens in life, we are accepted by God, not because of what we have done, but because of what Christ did for us when he died to bear our sin at Calvary.
And we can know it now and go through the rest of life absolutely secure in the knowledge we have been accepted by God and shall be forever. Why don't, why doesn't everybody who hears that wonderful news accept it? Well, in many cases it is, harsh though this might sound, people are not prepared to repent. I remember, years ago, in the city of Cambridge in England, there was an evangelistic tent mission on the outskirts of Cambridge.
And a friend of mine and myself did what we could. I was a young student in those days. My friend was older, he was in business in Cambridge City. And one day after this tent mission, my friend was invited by a business friend of his to tea and took me along with him. And our hostess was a chemist in the town, and she was sizably rich. She invited us to tea, and our feet sank into the pile of the carpet, and the silver tea service and all that was very pleasant. And then she turned to my friend and she said, William, what do you tell the people in your mission?
She never came, of course. Well, he told her this and that and the other, and in the course of his remarks, he happened to say that he himself was saved through faith in Christ and was sure of heaven. She said, William, nobody can be sure of heaven, William. And then turning to me, she said, young man, what about you? Are you sure of heaven? I said, yes, ma'am. Now come now, she said, you're a very young man, aren't you? I'm sure you're a very good young man, but you know, you might do something bad later on, mightn't you? Then what would happen to your being saved and sure of heaven?
I said, ma'am, you'll see my salvation depends not on what I do, but on what Christ has done. And because his sacrifice is perfect, God gave it for me. I trust in that. I'm sure of heaven because it depends not on my works, good or bad, but on Christ. Oh, she said, oh no, young man, no, no, that's impossible. We all have to work for our salvation. And that must remain uncertain until the final judgment. Well, I was very young, and I suppose very brash and not too courteous, like some young people are, but not all, of course.
I said, ma'am, tell me, what do you think God is going to say to you when you come to the final judgment? Well, she said, I don't quite know. What, what I think is that God will say, now, my dear, you did do one or two things. They weren't too good, they were rather bad, but you know your heart was good, and he'll say, never mind, and have mercy on me and let me in. I said, ma'am, he won't say anything of the sort. He said, how do you know? Well, I said, if you come to God on the grounds of your good works and keeping his law, I can tell you already what God will say because he's already said it in his word.
What is that, she said. Well, I said, and I read this verse to her that we have just read. Now we know that whatever things the law says, it speaks to them that are under the law, that every mouth might be stopped, and all the world be brought under the judgment of God. I think I can see her face now. It went deathly white. God would never damn me, she said. I said, ma'am, it's no good knocking our heads against Gibraltar.
This is what God says. If we come to him on the ground we've done our best to keep his law, then God has already told us his law has no option but to condemn us. We know that whatever it says, it says that our mouths might be shut, and we brought to be- uh, to to the observation that we deserve the penalty of that law. By the law comes knowledge of sin. Why God gives us this law is to bring us to be realist, and to agree with God, and to confess ourselves sinners, many sins or few sins, but deserving of God's displeasure.
And if we will repent, not just of being jealous of our mother-in-law or something, but repent in this basic sense, that unless Christ save us, we are lost eternally. If only we repent, then God has a salvation to offer at once and immediate. Because it depends on not what on, not on what we do, but on what Christ has done, we can enter into its benefits forthwith and at once, and enter into peace with God, and utter certainty of God's heaven.
So then, we have talked about sin and its seriousness and the authority of God that lies behind the moral law. And they are serious things, but they're serious only in the sense of a medical diagnosis is serious. Here's a man, he comes to a doctor, he's been a smoker all his life, he's now choking, and he comes to the doctor, and the doctor examines him and says, you've ruined yourself by smoking. The only cure now is that I shall have to excise one of your lungs. That's the only cure. And the man says, no, doctor, it can't be as bad as that.
I promise to give up smoking as best I can. And the doctor says, yes, but you could give up smoking now forever. It won't undo the damage. And the man thinks it's enough just to say I'll give up smoking. No, what he must do is to face the reality and say he's damaged. And the only hope is to give himself into the hands of the surgeon to conduct the radical. And Christ is waiting, ladies and gentlemen, that we face the verdict of God's law. We've already sinned enough to deserve its penalty.
No good promising to do better in time to come. The damage is already done. If we will face the reality of the situation, then God has a savior waiting to throw his arms around us and kiss us with the pardon of God and grant us peace with God on the basis of his sacrifice. Why should we not repent in that radical sense and fly into the arms of the savior?
