Quiet Talks by Samuel Dickey: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Personal Problems: 03. Six Sides of Sin.

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Quiet Talks by Samuel Dickey: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Personal Problems: 03. Six Sides of Sin.



TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Personal Problems (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 03. Six Sides of Sin.

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Six Sides of Sin.

I ran through the Bible one time rather carefully and found there six words used for sin. I found the word sin itself. Sin, the word underneath our English, literally means missing the mark. Here is a shooting-target; a man stands with rifle up, taking aim; he presses the trigger and the little leaden bullet flies from the rifle's mouth, but it doesn't hit the centre of the target, the bull's-eye; it goes off into one of the rings or clear outside the target. That is the literal meaning of sin. It is failing to hit that at which you have aimed. Let me ask you, softly, have you ever done that? Have you ever failed to hit the true mark of life at which you have aimed? I do not say you have, and I do not say the mark that somebody else has set up for you to reach. But, just now, as you see things yourself, have you ever failed to reach the true aim of a true life as you have thought of it yourself? once? just once back there somewhere? Because if you have that is sin, and sin earns wages, and the wages of sin is death.

There is a second word I found; the word transgression. It means simply going over a boundary line where you have no right to go. Here is a line at the side of your path. You have a right to be here in your own path. You have no right over beyond the line. There is a sign up, "No trespassing allowed." But you go over that line to the other side. That is transgression.

May I ask you quietly, please—have you gone over the line in your conduct where you should not have gone? I do not mean just now the line that others may have set for you. But as you saw things yourself, the line that you regarded as the proper boundary line for a true, pure life. Have you? once? You pulled back again, maybe; but as you look back there's a sure jog over the line there; it's dented in, over and back; two obliques, is that so? I do not say it is; but as you see things yourself? Because if it is so that is transgression; and transgression is sin; and sin earns wages; and the wages of sin, I regret to remind you, is death.

The third word is iniquity; that is, un-equity, not equity, not equal. It thinks of the path of life as a level, even-faced road, without any breaks-down, no sags, no inequalities; all parts evenly up to a standard level. Whatever breaks that even level surface is un-equity, iniquity. May I ask you again, softly, just for yourself to hear, as you look back over the road of your life thus far, how does it look to you? Is there one sag-down back there? one place where it isn't plumb up to the level which you have thought of as the right level? just one? Maybe more than one; but we are not talking about numbers just now, but about single facts; once so, did you say? Because if it be so that one break-down back there is iniquity, and iniquity is sin, and sin carried with it a return, and, I am very sorry to say, that return is death.

A fourth word I found in this strangely frank book is the word wickedness. Its old, first meaning seems to have been crookedness; that is, winding aside, turning away, falling back. It thinks of the path of conduct as a straight path without any curves or crooks or bends. To turn aside this way or that is wickedness. Would you kindly turn around for a few moments of steady looking? What sort of a line has your life made? Is there any zig-zag in it? any jog? maybe "not much" you say, but some? any? a jog off once from the straight line? If so, that is described by this old word wickedness, and wickedness is sin, and sin is a wage-earner, and the wages to be paid in is, I much regret to say, death.

The fifth word that pushed its ugly face up into mine in these pages is the word guile. Guile means sneakiness, shakiness, trickiness! It means being one thing inside, and trying to have folks who see only the outer side think you're something else. It means putting clean white-painted shutters up around your life so folks may think that's what you are like clear through. How about that? Has the life always been a clear reflector of the motives and purposes within? If once back there somewhere there has been something of that sort, the intention to deceive another, that is guile, and guile is sin, and sin has wages, and the wages spells out the one word death.

There still is another word used, a very strange word that at first flush may seem to many to be quite too strong, a sort of an extreme putting of the thing. It is in the Revised Version. Jesus' bosom friend, John, says "sin is lawlessness." (1Jn_3:4) It would sound a bit extreme to call some persons whom we know lawless; yet when the matter is sifted down to the controlling spirit within, underneath, that is found to be the accurate word to use. For all true law is the expression of God's will; all true law is the fine rhythmic swing of God in action. And whatever is different from that, preferring our will to His, maybe in ignorance oftentimes of just how much that involves, that is against law, it is without law, and so lawless. May I ask you most softly yet—any of that in you? any preferring your own way when that dead-sets you against God's will? a little? Because however little it may seem in our thought of size, that is lawlessness, and lawlessness is the very seed of sin, and sin carries with itself a result, and that result is called death.

Sin is not a disease, a moral disease, nor a misfortune, nor a weakness to be overlooked and maybe gradually overcome. It is an act of the will. When a man sets himself to do the thing that is not right, or to omit the thing that he should do, whether in imagination, or in his speech, or in action, that is the thing called sin.