Sermon Bible Commentary
Psalms 51:3
It seldom happens that any person has very deep views of sin till he has learned something of the power of a Saviour. As soon as he has learned to appropriate the one, he has learned to appropriate the other; and it is the man who can say, "My Saviour," who will be able to say, "My sin."
I. There is an ease and satisfaction I might almost say there is a pride in acknowledging sin generally. We like to say, "Lord, there is none that doeth good, no, not one." We find in those words a covert for the conscience. Sin, to affect the mind, must be seen, not in the class, but in the individual.
II. If you desire to cultivate that frame of mind which becomes a sinner before God, you must labour, not only for self-knowledge, but for very accurate self-knowledge, to go into the little details of life. Seek more personal views of sin. You will find this a very different thing from your general confession much harder, much more humbling, much more useful.
III. It is a very serious reflection that there is nothing so much our own as our sins. I do not see on what a man has a title to write, "Thou art mine," unless it be on his sins. Of sin, thus individual and thus possessed, David said that it was "ever before him."
IV. A man's sins must come before him at some time or other; and whenever they do come before him, it is a very solemn time. To some, by God's grace, that meeting comes in mid-life; to some on a deathbed; to some, for the first time, as far as their consent goes, in another world.
V. There are seasons even to a Christian when he must feel, like Job, "I possess the iniquity of my youth." Still, if these things be, they are certainly exceptions. The sense of forgiveness is essential to holiness. Our sins are among the things that are behind, which we are to forget, and to stretch forth to those that are before. "He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit."
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,2nd scries, p. 310.
There are many things in Holy Scripture which teach us that, however natural it may be, it is not a Christian disposition to be dwelling on our good doings and deservings. A habit of daily repentance is the right thing for us; we should every day be going anew to be washed in the fountain opened for sin and uncleanness; in every prayer, whatever else we ask or omit, we must ask for pardon through Christ, and for the blessed Spirit to sanctify, because we have our "sin ever before us" when we come to the throne of grace. Consider what good we may get through doing as David did and having our sins ever before us. There is no doubt the view is not a pleasant one. Yet things which are painful are sometimes profitable, and assuredly it is so here.
I. It will make us humble to think habitually of the many foolish and wrong things we have done. If we would cultivate that grace, essential to the Christian character, of lowliness in the sight of God, here is the way to cultivate it.
II. The habitual contemplation of our sinfulness will tend to make us thankful to God, to make us contented with our lot, and to put down anything like envy in our hearts at the greater success and eminence of others.
III. To feel our sinfulness, to have our sins set before us by God's Spirit in such a way that it will be impossible to help seeing them, and seeing them as bad as they really are, is the thing that will lead us to Christ, lead us to true repentance and to a simple trust in Him who "saves His people from their sins."
A. K. H. B., Counsel and Comfort Spoken from a City Pulpit,p. 110.
I. If there be indeed such places as heaven and hell, if we are in real earnest our very selves to be happy or miserable, both soul and body, for ever, then certainly a light way of regarding our sins must be very dangerous. These sins of ours, which we treat as mere trifles, are the very things which our adversary the devil rejoices to see; for he knows that they provoke God, drive away His Holy Spirit, put us out of His heavenly protection, and lay us open to the craft and malice of the powers of darkness.
II. The New Testament teaches the very serious nature of our sins in the most awful way of all: by showing us Christ crucified for them. Those which we think matters of sport are in God's sight of such deep and fearful consequence, that He parted with His only-begotten Son in order to make atonement for them.
III. Thinking lightly of the past is the very way to hinder you from real improvement in time to come. The wholesome sting of conscience will be dulled and deadened in that man's mind who refuses to think much of his sins. The warning voice of God's Holy Spirit will fall on his ear faint and powerless. Not to spare one's own faults is the true, the manly, the practical way of looking at things; even if there were no express promise of Holy Scripture, one might be sure beforehand that it is the only way to improve.
IV. Through daily knowing more of yourself that is to say, more of your sins you will daily be brought nearer and nearer to Him who alone can save sinners, taught to rely altogether on Him, and made to partake more and more of the pardon and holiness which is only to be found in the Cross.
Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times,"vol. iv., p. 144.
I. When we bid a man, after David's example, to have his sins ever before him, it is not that we mean him to dwell on his sins alone, as sometimes men do when their minds and bodies are distempered, and they wholly swallowed up with a bitter feeling of remorse. That was not David's repentance; that is not Christian repentance. He who reads his Bible humbly and continually, because he has his sins ever before him, will find his Christian care and fear soon rewarded, even in the way of present peace and consolation. He will be often withdrawn from himself to contemplate the glorious and engaging patterns which God's book will show him among God's people. He will feel by degrees as all men, by God's grace, would feel in such holy society: not less sorry for and ashamed of his sins, but more and more enabled to mix with his shame and sorrow steady resolutions of avoiding the same for the future and assured hope, through God's assistance, of becoming really and practically better.
II. Above all, you must think much and often of your sins if you would have true and solid comfort in thinking of the Cross of Christ. Those who do not know something of the misery to which they would have been left if their justly offended God had passed them over how can they ever be duly thankful for His infinite condescension and mercy in dying for them?
III. By such grave thoughts of ourselves, we keep up a continual recollection of God's presence, which to a helpless being, wanting support every moment, must be the greatest of all consolations.
IV. The remembrance of our sins and unworthiness may help us against worldly anxiety, and make us very indifferent to worldly things. So also we shall be braced to endure sorrow, knowing that it is fully deserved, and shall be continually humbled and sobered by the remembrance of what He suffered who never deserved any ill. And thus, not being high-minded, but fearing, we shall make every day's remembrance of our past sins a step towards that eternal peace in which there will be no need of watching against sin any more.
Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times"vol. iv., p. 152 (see also J. Keble, Sundays after Trinity,pp. 188, 200).
References: Psalms 51:3. Bishop Alexander, Bampton Lectures,1876, p. 71; A. C. Tait, Lessons for School Life,p. 249; J. E. Vaux, Sermon Notes,1st series, p. 42.