But are there not with you, even with you, sins against the Lord your God?
A home question
This question is pertinent to--
1. Nations.
2. Sects.
3. Classes.
4. Individuals. I shall--
I. Put a home question to--
1. The moralist.
2. The accuser of the brethren.
3. The outwardly religious.
4. Those who make no profession of religion.
5. Other classes I may have omitted. “Are there not with you, sins against the Lord your God?”
II. Put a common-sense question: “Who are you that you think to escape the punishment of sin?”
III. Give a little advice.
1. Leave other people alone with regard to finding fault.
2. Treat yourselves as you have been accustomed to treat others.
3. Look to the eternal interests of your own souls. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Home sins
Anobject may be placed in such close proximity to the eye as to escape all distinct perception. It may be brought into such near contact with the organs of vision as to become wholly invisible. Analogous to this natural difficulty of a close self-inspection is the general inability or indisposition of men to form a correct estimate of their own moral and spiritual character. Consider--
I. Some of our distinguishing privileges and advantages.
II. The solemn and awful question, as it relates--
1. To public, national, legalised transgressions.
(1) Want of deference to God’s supreme authority.
(2) Sabbath profanation, its diversion from its appropriate objects upon a gigantic scale, as exemplified on our railways, in our public-houses, and in various departments of industrial occupation.
2. To social and individual sins.
(1) Drunkenness.
(2) Impurity.
(3) Blasphemy and profaneness.
(4) Covetousness, intense and unscrupulous competition of interests.
(5) Vague scepticism and decided infidelity. (J. Davies, D. D.)
A home sin
At a meeting of the Mission to Foreigners in London, Lord Shaftesbury said he remembered taking tea with a notorious German Socialist who propounded the most destructive theories about society. His lordship mentioned to this German a nobleman who was one of the richest men in the world. The Socialist boiled over with indignation, and said that the possession of such wealth was a degradation and a scandalous robbery. Perceiving that he wore a brilliant diamond breast-pin in his shirt-front, probably worth £50, his lordship said to him, “You have a diamond, I see; now if you will accompany me to-night to my ragged school, I will show you ragged, shoeless children, and if I were to say, ‘Here is a diamond worth £50 that this gentleman wears in his shirt,’ they too might boil over with indignation, and declare it was iniquitous, scandalous, and a crime.” He replied, “Well, my lord, you have me this time.”
