The World Passeth Away

By Horatius Bonar

THE things that are seen are temporal. Ours is a dying world, and here we have no continuing city. But a few years,—it may be less,—and all things here are changed. But a few years,—it may be less,—and the Lord shall have come, and the last trumpet shall have sounded, and the great sentence shall have been pronounced upon each of the sons of men.

There is a world that passeth not away. It is fair and glorious. It is called “the inheritance in light.” It is bright with the love of God, and with the joy of heaven. “The Lamb is the light thereof.” Its gates are of pearl; they are always open. And as we tell men of this wondrous city, we tell them to enter in.

The Book of Revelation tells us the story of earth's vanity: “A mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all. And the voice of harpers and musicians, and of pipers and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee. And no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any more in thee” (18:21-22).

Such is the day that is coming on the world, and such is the doom overhanging earth,—a doom dimly foreshadowed by the sad commercial disasters that have often sent sorrow into so many hearts, and desolation into so many homes.

An old minister—now two hundred years since—lay dying. His fourscore years were well-nigh completed. He had been tossed on many a wave, from England to America, from America to England, again from England to America. At Boston he lay dying, full of faith and love. The evening before his death, as he lay all but speechless, his daughter asked him how it was with him. He lifted up his dying hands, and with his dying lips simply said, “Vanishing things, vanishing things!” We repeat his solemn words, and, pointing to the world, with all the vanities on which vain man sets his heart, say, “Vanishing things!”

“The world passeth away.” This is our message.

Like a dream of the night. We lie down to rest; we fall asleep; we dream; we awake at morn; and lo, all is fled that in our dream seemed so stable and so pleasant! So hastes the world away. O child of mortality, have you no brighter world beyond?

Like the mist of the morning. The night brings down the mists upon the hills,—the vapor covers the valleys; the sun rises, all has passed off,—hill and vale are clear. So the world passeth off, and is seen no more. O man, will you embrace a world like this? Will you lie down upon a mist, and say, This is my home?

Like a shadow. There is nothing more unreal than a shadow. It has no substance, no being. It is dark, it is a figure, it has motion, that is all! Such is the world. O man will you chase a shadow? What will a shadow do for you?

Like a wave of the sea. It rises, falls, and is seen no more. Such is the history of a wave. Such is the story of the world. O man will you make a wave your portion? Have you no better pillow on which to lay your wearied head than this? A poor world this for human heart to love, for an immortal soul to be filled with!

Like a rainbow. The sun throws its colors on a cloud, and for a few minutes all is brilliant. But the cloud shifts, and the brilliance is all gone. Such is the world. With all its beauty and brightness; with all its honors and pleasures; with all its mirth and madness; with all its pomp and luxury; with all its revelry and riot; with all its hopes and flatteries; with all its love and laughter; with all its songs and splendor; with all its gems and gold,—it vanishes. And the cloud that knew the rainbow knows it no more. O man, is a passing world like this all that you have for an inheritance?

Like a flower. Beautiful, very beautiful; fragrant, very fragrant, are the summer flowers. But they wither away. So fades the world from before our eyes. While we are looking at it, and admiring it, behold, it is gone! No trace is left of all its loveliness but a little dust! O man, can you feed on flowers? Can you dote on that which is but for an hour? You were made for eternity; and only that which is eternal can be your portion or your resting place. The things that perish with the using only mock your longings. They cannot fill you; and even if they filled, they cannot abide. Mortality is written on all things here; immortality belongs only to the world to come,—to that new heavens and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.

Like a ship at sea. With all its sails set, and a fresh breeze blowing, the vessel comes into sight, passes before our eye in the distance, and then disappears. So comes, so goes, so vanishes away this present world, with all that it contains. A few hours within sight, then gone! The wide sea o'er which it sailed as calm or as stormy as before; no trace anywhere of all the life or motion or beauty which was passing over it! O man, is that vanishing world thy only dwelling-place? Are all thy treasures, thy hopes, thy joys laid up there? Where will all these be when thou goest down to the tomb? Or where wilt thou be when these things leave thee, and thou art stripped of all the inheritance which thou art ever to have for eternity? It is a poor heritage at the best, and its short duration makes it poorer still. Oh, choose the better part, which shall not be taken from thee!

Like a tent in the desert. They who have travelled over the Arabian sands know what this means. At sunset a little speck of white seems to rise out of the barren waste. It is a traveller's tent. At sunrise it disappears. Both it and its inhabitant are gone. The wilderness is as lonely as before. Such is the world. Today it shows itself; to-morrow it disappears. O man, born of a woman, is that thy stay and thy home? Wilt thou say of it, “This is my rest,” an everlasting rest, remaining for the people of God?

THE WORLD PASSETH AWAY. This is the message from heaven. All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof as the flower of the field.

THE WORLD PASSETH AWAY. But God ever liveth. He is from everlasting to everlasting; the King eternal and immortal.

THE WORLD PASSETH AWAY. But man is immortal. Eternity lies before each son of Adam as the duration of his lifetime. In light or in darkness for ever! In joy or in sorrow for ever!

THE WORLD PASSETH AWAY. What then? This is the question that so deeply concerns man. If the world is to vanish away, and man is to live for ever, of what importance is it to know where and what we are to be for ever! A celebrated physician, trying to cheer a desponding patient, said to him, “Treat life as a plaything.” It was wretched counsel. For life is no plaything, and time is no child's toy, to be flung away. Life here is the beginning of the life which has no end; and time is but the gateway of eternity.

What then? Thou must, O man, make sure of a home in that world into which thou art so soon to pass. Thou must not pass out of this tent without making sure of the city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. When thou hast done this thou canst lie down upon thy deathbed in peace. One who had lived a worldly life at last lay down to die; and when about to pass away he uttered these terrible words, “I am dying, and I don't know where I am going.” Another in similar circumstances cried out, “I am within an hour of eternity and all is dark.” O man of earth, it is time to awake!

“How can I make sure?” you ask. God has long since answered that question, and His answer is recorded for all ages: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”

“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ! I have never done anything else,” you say. If that be really true, then, as the Lord liveth, thou art a saved man. But is it really so? Has thy life been the life of a saved man? No, verily. It has been a life wholly given to vanity. Then as the Lord God of Israel liveth, and as thy soul liveth, thou hast not believed, and thou art not yet saved.

“Have I then no work to work in this great matter of my pardon?” None. What work canst thou work? What work of thine can buy forgiveness, or make thee fit for the Divine favor? What work has God bidden thee work in order to obtain salvation? None. His Word is very plain, and easy to be understood: “To him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Rom 4:5)

There is but one work by which a man can be saved. That work is not thine, but the work of the Son of God. That work is finished,—neither to be taken from nor added to,—perfect through all ages,—and presented by Himself to you, that you may avail yourself of it and be saved. “And is that work available for me just as I am?” It is. God has brought it to your door; and your only way of honouring it is by accepting it for yourself, and taking it as the one basis of your eternal hope. We honor the Father when we consent to be saved entirely by the finished work of His Son; and we honor the Son when we consent to take His one finished work in the room of all our works; and we honour the Holy Spirit, whose office is to glorify Christ, when we hear what He saith to us concerning that work finished “once for all” upon the cross.

Forgiveness is through the man Christ Jesus, who is Son of God as well as Son of man! This is our message. Forgiveness through the one work of sin-bearing which He accomplished for sinners upon earth. Forgiveness to the worst and wickedest, to the farthest off from God whom this earth contains. Forgiveness of the largest, fullest, completest kind; without stint, or exception, or condition, or the possibility of revocation! Forgiveness free and undeserved,—free as the love of God, free as the gift of His beloved Son. Forgiveness ungrudged and unrestrained,—whole-hearted and joyful, as the forgiveness of the father falling on the neck of the prodigal! Forgiveness simply in believing; for, “by Him all that believe are justified from all things.”

Could salvation be made more free? Could forgiveness be brought nearer? Could God in any way more fully show His earnest desire that you should not be lost, but saved,—that you should not die, but live?

In the cross there is salvation—no-where else. No failure of this world's hopes can quench the hope which it reveals. It shines brightest in the evil day. In the day of darkening prospects, of thickening sorrows, of heavy burdens, of pressing cares,—when friends depart, when riches fly away, when disease oppresses us, when poverty knocks at our door,—then the cross shines out, and tells us of a light beyond this world's darkness, the Light of Him who is the light of the world.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Christ Died for the Ungodly

by Horatius Bonar

“And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5).

The divine testimony concerning man is, that he is a sinner. God bears witness against him, not for him; and testifies that “there is none righteous, no, not one”; that there is “none that doeth good”; none “that understandeth”; none that even seeks after God, and, still more, none that loves Him (Psa 14:1-3; Rom 3:10- 12). God speaks of man kindly, but severely; as one yearning over a lost child, yet as one who will make no terms with sin, and will “by no means clear the guilty.”

He declares man to be a lost one, a stray one, a rebel, a “hater of God” (Rom 1:30); not a sinner occasionally, but a sinner always; not a sinner in part, with many good things about him; but wholly a sinner, with no compensating goodness; evil in heart as well as life, “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph 2:1); an evil doer, and therefore under condemnation; an enemy of God, and therefore “under wrath”; a breaker of the righteous law, and therefore under “the curse of the law” (Gal 3:10). The sinner not merely brings forth sin, but he carries it about with him, as his second self; he is a body or mass of sin (Rom 6:6), a “body of death” (Rom 7:24), subject not to the law of God, but to “the law of sin” (Rom 7:23).

There is another and yet worse charge against him. He does not believe on the name of the Son of God, nor love the Christ of God. This is his sin of sins. That his heart is not right with God is the first charge against him. That his heart is not right with the Son of God is the second. And it is this second that is the crowning, crushing sin, carrying with it more terrible damnation than all other sins together. “He that believeth not is condemned already; because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:18). “He that believeth not God, hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record which God gave of his Son” (1 John 5:10). “He that believeth not shall be damned” (Mark 16:16). And hence it is that the first sin which the Holy Spirit brings home to a man is unbelief; “when he [the Holy Spirit] is come he will reprove the world of sin because they believe not on me” (John 16:8-9).

Man need not try to say a good word for himself, or to plead “not guilty,” unless he can shew that he loves, and has always loved, God with his whole heart and soul. If he can truly say this, he is all right, he is not a sinner, and does not need pardon. He will find his way to the kingdom without the cross and without a Saviour.

But, if he cannot say this, “his mouth is stopped,” and he is “guilty before God.” However favourably a good outward life may dispose him and others to look upon his case just now, the verdict will go against him hereafter. This is man's day, when man's judgments prevail; but God's day is coming, when the case shall be tried upon its real merits. Then the Judge of all the earth shall do right, and the sinner be put to shame. This is a divine verdict, not a human one. It is God, not man, who condemns; and God is not a man that He should lie. This is God's testimony concerning man, and we know that this witness is true. It concerns us much to receive it as such, and to act upon it.

“Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else” (Isa 45:22), a “just God and a Saviour” (v21). “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon” (Isa 55:7).

Turn your eye, the eye of faith, to the cross and see these two things—the crucifiers and the Crucified. See the crucifiers, the haters of God and of His Son. They are yourself. Read in them your own character. See the Crucified. It is God Himself; incarnate love. It is He who made you, God manifest in flesh, suffering, dying for the ungodly. Can you suspect His grace? Can you cherish evil thoughts of Him? Can you ask anything further, to awaken in you the fullest and most unreserved confidence? Will you misinterpret that agony and death, by saying either that they do not mean grace, or that the grace which they mean is not for you? Call to mind that which is written—“Hereby perceive we the love of God, that he laid down his life for us” (1 John 3:16). “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10).
____________________________________________________________________

God’s Nearness to Man

by Horatius Bonar

“Not far from every one of us.”–Acts 17:27

It is to the men of Athens that Paul is preaching. His sermon is about the one living and true God, and Jesus Christ whom He hath sent. He proclaims to them the God whom they knew not. He fills up the inscription on the altar to the unknown God with the name JEHOVAH. Of this God he has much to say; something that they knew not; something that they knew; something of which their philosophers and prophets knew a little; something of which they knew nothing; something of which they had faint glimpses; something of which they were in total darkness. He preaches God to Athens. He tells them more in a few minutes than Plato had done in all his life. On Mars’ hill he proclaims the sacred name Jehovah, and Jesus. But he brings the matter closely home to them, and makes them feel as if in contact with God; not with an idea, but with God. These idols, these altars, these statues, these temples, —What are they all? It is Him who is a Spirit that Athens needs to know; Him who with all her fancied religion, she knows not.

Let us then look (1) at the fact; (2) at the lessons from it.

1. The fact. Not far from every one of us.

(1) That means, VERY NEAR. I call this a fact, or a state of things in actual existence; not a truth merely; not a proposition, nor a doctrine; but something more, something deeper. It is a truth that I am a sinner; but it is more, it is a fact. It is a truth that God sees me; but it is more, it is a fact. For God is not an abstraction, but a personality. God is not far from every one of us. He is nigh. He is as near as I am to myself; nearer than the outward world; nearer than friends; nearer than the sky which covers me, or the ground I tread upon, or the raiment I wear. He is around me, above me, underneath me. Not in the materialistic, pantheistic sense of all things being God; but as a living, personal God. The two personalities are distinct; that of man, and that of God. In Him I live, and move, and have my being. We see Him not, hear Him not, feel Him not; but He is near for all that, just as if we saw Him, heard Him, felt Him. His works are near, but He is nearer. So near, as to hear me, see me, touch me, fill me, and compass me about. It is not merely said, He is our life, our motion, our existence,—as if He were simply the fountainhead or mainspring of these; the apostle’s words imply something far deeper and more intimate,—“In Him we live, and move, and have our being.” He is more necessary to our being than head or heart, or organs, or limbs. All this has been intensified by the incarnation of the eternal Word.

2. The lessons. These are very many. We take up but a few. They are all solemn,—some of them blessed, some fearful.

(1.) How close the relationship between God and us.
I speak of that natural relationship which results from His being what He is, and our being what we are; a relationship not affected by sin or rebellion on our part, nor by banishment and condemnation on His. Between the created and the uncreated, God and man, there subsists a necessary bond which cannot be broken; a bond to which the apostle calls the attention of these Athenians. All their idolatry and wickedness had not weakened this connection. They could not cease to be His property. They were still His offspring. In Him, they still lived, and moved, and had their being. What ties can be compared to this for closeness and indissoluble firmness? All
earthly relationships in comparison with it are a mere thread; this is a chain of iron; and though invisible and impalpable, it is immeasurably the strongest of all bands. God is not only nearest to us, but He is most closely related. Not that this relationship is saving. No. In the case of lost men and angels it will be awfully condemning.

(2.) More, important that that relationship be one of friendship.
One so nearly related to us as God is must be more to us, either for good or evil, than all the universe. He is the source of all blessing; He is infinitely able to bless us; He desires to bless us; how momentous, then, that there should be friendship between Him and us; yes, friendship between us and the great Father of spirits; friendship between us and Him in whom we live, and move, and have our being. Friendship with others is nothing; friendship with Him is everything; seeing He is so near to us, and possessed of such power over us and in us, how needful that God and we should be at one. How essential to our well being that this indissoluble tie should be one of happy friendship; we loving God, and God loving us. Yes; how important both for body and for soul; both for time and for eternity.

(3.) How sad if there be estrangement.
If God, as it were, retires from us, leaves us alone, to our own resources, even without any positive infliction, how sad our case. What loneliness, what solitude, what utter, endless dreariness without God! We often hear the complaint of being lonely, and having no society; but how far short does anything of this sort experienced among ourselves, come of that dismal solitude of the soul, when God is away. Even granting that He does not go from us, yet if He does not smile, how lonely! Even if He does not speak words of anger, if He merely keeps silence, how sad for us! The silence of God! The absence of God! The distance of God! What infinite and unutterable solitude would that make for the soul. At present we can drown the sense of solitude in pleasure, gaiety, business. Soon this will be impossible. And then the sadness! The profound and eternal melancholy! Will not that be hell?

(4.) How terrible if there be wrath.
The anger of a far distant enemy is nothing; but that of one as near as He is mighty, is a fearful thing. The wrath of Him whose offspring we are, in whom we live and move! How terrible.
The nearness and authority over us which He has in virtue of our connection, makes that connection infinitely terrible, if God be turned to be our enemy. Instead of eternal friendship, nothing but eternal enmity between us and the God who made us! No hiding from Him in whom we live and move! No screen, either of distance, or rocks, or mountains between us and Him! What an eternal terror will He be to us! So near, so awfully near, and our enemy! Our enemy forevermore!

(5.) How blessed to enter into friendship with Him now.
He is ready to do this. He makes proposals to this effect. Acquaint thyself now with God. He has no pleasure in estrangement or anger. He seeks for reconciliation. He urges it,—urges it now,—on each of you. Father, Son, and Spirit join in this urgency. Be reconciled they say. Why refuse the friendship, and the love, and the blessedness? That connection with God which you cannot shake off, would thus become the most blessed of all blessed relationships. The feeling that you are so near Him would be one of the most blessed of all feelings. And then, being one with the incarnate Son would draw this union closer. You would be doubly near, and thus doubly blessed! Oh what an immeasurable source of gladness would this double relationship, this double nearness, become to you! Make sure of it now!

Acts 17:30 - And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:

TRUTH ABOUT FAITH

Horatius Bonar (1808-1889)

I shall not attempt a definition of faith. This only let me say in a few words, that the faith which goes no farther than the intellect can neither save nor sanctify. It is no faith at all. It is unbelief. No faith is saving but that which links us to the Person of a living Saviour. Whatever falls short of this is not faith in Christ. Hence, while salvation is described sometimes in Scripture as a “coming to the knowledge of the truth;” it is more commonly represented as a “coming to Christ Himself.” “Ye will not come to me that ye might have life.” “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out” (Joh 5:40; 6:37).

But whatever view of faith we take, one thing is obvious, that it is from first to last “the gift of God” (Rom 6:23). Make it as simple as you please, still it is the result of the Holy Spirit’s direct, immediate, all-quickening power. (Never attempt, I beseech you, my dear friend, to make faith simple, with the view of getting rid of the Spirit to produce it.)

This, I believe, is one of the wretched devices of Satan in the present evil day. By all means correct every mistake in regard to faith by which hindrances are thrown in the sinner’s way, or darkness thrown around the soul. Show him that it is with the object of faith, even with Christ and His Cross, that he has to do, not with his own actings of faith; that it is not the virtue of merit that is in his faith that saves him, but the virtue and merit that are in Christ Jesus alone. Tell him to look outward not inward for his peace. Beat him off from his self-righteous efforts to get up a peculiar kind of faith or peculiar acts of faith in order to obtain something in himself—something short of Christ, to rest upon. Simplify, explain, and illustrate faith to such a one; but never imagine that thereby you are to make the Spirit’s help less than absolutely necessary.

This, I believe, is the aim of the propagators of the new theology. Their object in simplifying faith is to bring it within the reach of the un-renewed man, so that by performing this very simple act he may become a renewed man. In other words, their object is to make man the beginner of his own salvation. He takes the first step, and God does the rest! He believes, and then God comes in and saves him!

This is nothing short of a flat and bold denial of the Spirit’s work altogether. If at any time more than another the sinner needs the Spirit’s power, it is at the beginning . And he who denies the need of the Spirit at the beginning cannot believe in it at the after stages— nay, cannot believe in the need of the Spirit’s work at all. The mightiest and most insuperable difficulty lies at the beginning. If the sinner can get over that without the Spirit, he will easily get over the rest. If he does not need the Spirit to enable him to believe , he will not need Him to enable him to love . If when a true object is presented to me, I can believe without the Spirit; then when a lovable object is presented I can love without the Spirit. In short, what is there in the whole Christian life, which I cannot do of myself, if I can begin this career without help from God? The denial of the Spirit’s direct agency in faith and conversion is the denial of His whole work in the soul—both of the saint and the sinner! (Chapel Library • 2603 West Wright St. • Pensacola, Florida 32505 USA - Sending Christ-centered materials from prior centuries worldwide. - © Copyright 2007 Chapel Library; Pensacola, Florida.)

Do you have true saving faith? Do you have the faith that is the work of The Holy Spirit?

2Co 13:5 - Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?

Bro Pat

The True Confessor and the False

by Horatius Bonar (1808-1889)

"I have sinned"–Matthew 27:4

This is confession, so far as words go; we shall see what it amounts to. God lays great stress upon confession in his dealings with sinning man. It is as a confessor of sin that he draws near to God; and it is as such that God receives him. This is the only position, the only character in which God can deal with him. Covering over sin will do nothing for us; it only doubles the transgression (Isa 30:1).

Confession is the closest and most personal of all kinds of dealing with God. As praise is the telling out what we see in God, so confession is the telling out what we see in ourselves. It specially comprises matters which can be spoken in no ear but God's. There is, no doubt, public confession—but the largest part of confession is private. Man cannot be trusted with it; man must not even hear it. Hence, the potential wickedness of any man setting himself up to be a confessor. Hence the potential sin of a dishonest confession—and the necessity of dealing honestly with God and our own consciences in a matter so entirely private and confidential. The attempt to deceive God, or to hide anything from Him, is as dangerous as it is wicked and inexcusable.

False Confession

There are two kinds of confession, a false and a true. We have instances of both of these in Scripture. They both make use of the same words, "I have sinned"; yet they do not mean the same thing, nor indicate the same state of feeling. Let us note some of the instances of the false. There is…

1) Pharaoh. Twice over he says, "I have sinned against the Lord" (Exo 9:27, 10:16).

2) Israel. After deliberate disobedience, and as a declaration of farther disobedience, "We have sinned" (Num 14:40).

3) Balaam. He said to the angel of the Lord, "I have sinned" (Num 22:34).

4) Achan. "Indeed, I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel" (Jos 7:20).

5) Saul. "Saul said unto Samuel, I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord" (1Sa 15:24).

6) Judas. "I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood" (Mat 27:4).

These are examples of false confession. And its falsehood consisted in this,—

1) It was constrained. It was extorted by terror and danger. It was not spontaneous or natural. These men would rather not have made it; but they could not help themselves. It was merely the natural heart crying out in trouble.

2) It was selfish. It was not the dishonour done to God, nor the injury to others, that they thought of, but the consequences to themselves. It was not sin, as sin, that was confessed and hated.

3) It was superficial. It was not the conscience, the inner man, that was stirred, but the mere external part of man's being. The real nature of sin was unfelt. Self was not abased nor loathed. There was no broken nor contrite heart (Psa 51:17).

4) It was impulsive. Some judgment smote, or was to be averted; some affliction overwhelmed them; some sermon roused them. And under the impulse of such feelings they cried out, "I have sinned."

5) It was temporary. It did not last. It was like the early cloud; it passed away. The words of confession had hardly passed their lips when the feeling was gone.

Let us beware of false confessions. Let us not cheat our souls, nor lull our consciences asleep, by uttering words of confession which are not the expressions of contrition and broken-heartedness. Let us deal honestly, searchingly, solemnly, with God and our own consciences. Godly sorrow is one thing, and the sorrow of the world is quite another. "Be not deceived; God is not mocked" (Gal 6:7). He wants real words.

But we have some examples of no-confession. We have Adam trying to hide his sin (Gen 3:7, 12); Cain refusing to confess (Gen 4:9); and Lamech glorying in his shame Gen 4:23, 24). They are specimens of the immoveable and impenetrable, showing the lengths to which a human heart can go.

True Confession

But we have many notable instances of true confession; proclaiming to us the truth of the promise, "Whoso confesseth and forsaketh his sins shall have mercy" (Pro 28:13); "If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins" (1Jo 1:9). David said, "I have sinned" (2Sa 12:13), and his confession brought forgiveness. Daniel said, "we have sinned" (Dan 9:5), and he found forgiveness. Yes, true confession brings certain pardon. We have but one Confessor and one Confessional; and both are heavenly, not earthly; we need no more.

In true confession we take our proper place. We take the only place in which God can deal with us, the only place in which it would not dishonour him to pardon us—the sinner's place. And he who is willing to take this place is sure of the acceptance which the forgiving God presents. The Spirit's work in convincing of sin is to bring us to our true place before God. He who takes this but in part gets no pardon. He who tries to occupy a higher or better place must be rejected. He, who tries to deal with God as not wholly a sinner, as something better than a mere sinner, shuts himself out from favour. He who goes to God simply as a sinner, shall find favour at the hands of Him who receiveth sinners, who came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance (Mat 9:13). Everything depends on this. If he goes to God with some goodness to recommend him, some good feeling, some softness of heart, some excellence in his own faith or repentance to recommend him, he cannot be received. But he, who goes simply as a sinner, will taste that the Lord is gracious (Exo 34:6, 33:19).

In true confession we come to see sin somewhat as God sees it; and ourselves somewhat as God sees us. I say somewhat, because we cannot here fully enter into his mind regarding sin and the sinner; we see but in part, and feel but in part. It is but a faint glimpse we get of sin and of ourselves. But it is with this that we go to God, having learned something, though but in the remotest degree, of what sin is and deserves, and of what He thinks of it. We take His report of what sin is, and of what we are, whether we feel it or not. We believe what He has said about these things. And accepting His testimony to the evil of sin, even in spite of our own want of feeling, we confess it before Him, and receive at His hands that forgiveness which, while it pacifies the conscience, makes sin more odious, and our own hearts more sensitive and tender.

We take the prodigal's words, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight" (Luk 15:21). We turn our eye and our feet homewards. We remember the past; we look round us on the desolation of the "far country"; we listen to the good news of our Father's open door and loving heart; we arise and go. And at every step, as we draw near, our view of sin intensifies; our self-abhorrence increases; our sense of ingratitude deepens—and yet the certain knowledge of our Father's profound compassion and unchanged affection sustains us, cheers us (Luk 15:11-32). So that we draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, knowing that "if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins" (1Jo 1:9).