"For your name�s sake, O Lord, pardon my guilt, for it is great" (Psalm 25:11).
Posted : 1 Sep, 2011 05:06 PM
The knowledge of indwelling sin�its existence and power�is often exceedingly defective at conversion. And this ignorance may continue for years after. You see just enough sin to alarm your conscience, awaken conviction, and drive you to Christ. As a thing against God, you hate it, mourn over it, and seek its pardon through the atoning blood of Jesus. This is followed by a sweet and lively sense of its blotting out, and a growing desire after conformity to God.
But, oh, the unknown depths of sin! These you have never explored. What infinite wisdom and love are seen in hiding these depths from you at first! If our Lord were fully to have revealed the hidden evils of your heart when grace was only in the bud, when faith was feeble, when your views of the Lord Jesus where dim, when the "new creature" yet in its infancy, then deep and dark despair would have engulfed your soul. With, perhaps, just enough knowledge of Christ to go to him as a Savior; with just enough faith to touch the hem of his garment; the Eternal Spirit disclosed to you just the existence and the guilt of sin. A full disclosure might have shut you up in hopeless despair.
O beloved, it is sweet to remember the tender love of our Lord in your wedding to him. It is sweet to trace the gentleness of his first dealings with you in conversion. It is also sweet to bear in mind that what he then was, he still is�at this very moment.
But trace the work of the Spirit in the after days of your experience. Having called and regenerated you, he comes�in accordance with the design of the covenant of grace�to sanctify you. He is about to hallow God's Name within you. He is about to enlarge God's kingdom within you. He is about to stamp more deeply, and bring out more vividly and extensively on your soul, the varied contours of God's image. He is about to purify his temple more thoroughly. He is about to take a fresh possession for God. He is about to expel every rival that by slow and imperceptible degrees may have insinuated itself there. In a word, he is about to sanctify you.
And how does he commence this work? By disclosing to you the depths of indwelling sin. He shows sin, whose existence you had never imagined, to have its foremost dwelling inside your heart! He reveals iniquity, that you had never thought of, as lurking in secret ambush within.
Oh, what darkness, what evil, and what harmful principles are found to have so long existed, where you thought all was light, holiness, and decency! You startle, you shudder, and you shrink away, aghast at the discovery! "What!" says your alarmed soul, "does all this evil dwell within me? Do I have the seeds of such deep and dark depravity dwelling in me? Have I so long carried about these vile affections? It is amazing that these deep evils have not long ago broken out, to the wounding of my peace, and to the dishonoring of my God and Savior."
Thus better acquainting you with your own heart, almost a stranger to you before, the Holy Spirit awakens in your soul an ardent panting for holiness. In view of such a discovery, where can you fly except to the throne of grace? And so there you go, weeping, mourning, confessing. And your prayer is, "Lord, subdue these evils of my heart. I am overwhelmed with astonishment! Yes, 'I lie down in shame, and my dishonor covers me' (Jer. 3:25), that for so long I should have harbored these treacherous foes against you, O God of holiness and love. 'Save me, O God! For the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me' (Ps. 69:1�2). 'Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!' (Ps. 139:23�24)."
And now the Spirit deepens and strengthens your panting for sanctification. You, O believer, become set upon earnestly seeking holiness of heart. You see such an iniquity in sin as you never saw before. And seeing it, you abhor it. And abhorring it, you take it to the Spirit of holiness, that he might overcome and subdue it.
In this way, O believer, by leading you into a deeper acquaintance with the existence and power of indwelling sin, the blessed Spirit sanctifies you by making it the occasion of stirring up your desire for holiness.
And so, beloved, do not be utterly demoralized at the discovery of the hidden evil of your heart. That very discovery is sweet evidence to the fact that the Holy Spirit himself is working there. Whatever the sin that is brought to light�pride, deceit, carnality, inordinate affection, evil thoughts, unbelief, impatience�whatever it is, he is revealing it to you, not to wound and grieve you unnecessarily�oh no, he is a living and a gentle Spirit�but to beget this earnest desire in your heart, "O Lord, please conform me to your image. Please make me holy, as you are holy."
