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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadQuiet Talks by Samuel Dickey: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Personal Problems: 09. Sin Needs Double Treatment.
TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Personal Problems (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 09. Sin Needs Double Treatment.
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Sin Needs Double Treatment.
The third qualifying fact goes to the heart of the whole matter. It really has been said already in another way, but should be put in again for the emphasis of repetition, and for the plainest putting of it into words. It is this: there is one sin that even the blood—say it very softly and reverently—that even the blood of Jesus cannot cleanse away; that is, the sin, any sin, that I cling to. This is going to the very tap-root of the whole matter. His blood avails only against the sin that I break with, turn out of doors. Sin needs double treatment if it is to be thoroughly gotten rid of, first by the man who sins, then by that Man who never sinned; the first must use a sharp-edged knife, the Second will use a red stream, and then fire; the first must cut it out, and cut it off, so far as his will can do that, and it can do it fully; the Second will take away its guilt and power.
Oh! for a band of sin-fearers; men with a horror and dread of sin in any shape, and under any guise; a band of sin-haters and sin-fighters, who will fight it tooth and nail, day and night, mercilessly, relentlessly, with all the power of loving tact and diplomacy, and all the rugged, immovable obstinacy of mountain rock; and who will give Jesus full entrance into their lives, push the door clear back till its knob scratches the inner wall, that so He may come in full face with all His glorious flood tide of life.
There's a simple story told of a longshoreman in Scotland. He was a rough, ignorant man, and a hard drinker. One night he went in an intoxicated condition to a mission hall, intending to make a disturbance and break up the meeting. But a tactful Christian gentleman came and sat down by his side and began talking with him. He quieted down and listened. Then the two kneeled in prayer. And that strange thing, called in religious talk conversion, must have taken place, for when they rose from their knees he was evidently a different man. There was a, new look in his face, a changed spirit looked out of his eyes, and his manner was gentle and deferential.
In a voice affected by the deeper feelings within he thanked the gentleman, saying he must go home and tell his wife, and went out. As he entered his home his wife was just going up the stairs with their son to put him to bed. He called to her, "Come down stairs, lassie, with the lad; I've been converted; we must have prayers in our house." And she muttered aloud, "Hehh! drunk again!" But he said, "Nay, nay, lassie, I'm am drunk; I tell you I've been converted; bring down the lad, and we'll have prayers." And wondering in her heart what had come over her husband she came down, and the three of them knelt on the bare floor to pray.
But he didn't know how to pray. He never had prayed. His lips didn't know any word of that sort. And the situation was getting embarrassing. There they are, the three, kneeling in silence, the sleepy boy wondering, and the awed wife wondering, and the man himself wondering what to say. Then like a quick flash he remembered how they had done in the city years before when the Queen had been there. And as that come to him, he picked his knit cap from his head and, whirling it in the air, cried out with an earnest, reverent cry, "Hooray for Jesus! hooray for Jesus!" Then they went to bed.
When I realize how Jesus came down here, and stepped into man's place, and bore a death that naturally would not have come to Him, I feel like uncovering head, and heart, and will, and with the deepest reverence of love, repeating the longshoreman's prayer, "Hooray for Jesus."
The wages of sin is death; but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.