Christ will not allow us to spare a single sin. We may not select some favourite evil, and say, I will give my heart wholly up to God, but this vice is to be spared. Nay, nay, my hearers, ye are not Christ’s if ye have one tampered lust, one sin which you fondly indulge. Sin you will, even though you be Christ’s, but if you indulge sin, if you love it, and delight in it, if it is not to you a plague and a curse, you have no reason whatever to conclude that your name is on his breast, or that you belong to Christ at all. Suppose a house attacked by seven thieves. The good man of the house has arms within, and he manages to kill six of the thieves; but if one thief survive, and he permits him to range his house, he may still be robbed, perhaps still be slain. And if I have had seven evil vices, and if by the grace of God six of these have been driven out, should I yet indulge and pamper one that remaineth, I am still a lost man. I am not his so long as I willingly yield, and joyfully hold fellowship with a single evil and false thing. I contend not for creature perfection; I believe it to be impossible for us to attain it in the present life, but I do contend for perfection in purpose, perfection in design; and if we wantonly and wilfully harbour a solitary sin, we are no friends of Jesus Christ. Not one sin, hen, is to be spared. And as no sin is to be spared, so no duty is to be neglected. If I am Christ’s, I am not to look down his law, and say, “Such-and-such a precept is agreeable to me, I will keep it.” No, as I hate evey foolish way, so much I love every right one. “I count all thy precepts concerning all things to be right.” We have not come yet to be Christ’s verified property, to be Christ’s disenthralled people, unless we feel that in all the commandments of God we desire to walk blamelessly,—not a hoof is to be left behind.
As no sin is to be spared, and no service to be shunned, so no power is to be reserved from entire consecration. Christ bought the whole man, and the whole man must be devoted to Christ; I am not to use my judgment for the Saviour, and let my imagination lie idle; I am not to reserve for sin the freedom of my will, while I give to God my conscience; but the whole man is to be given up, to Christ, he is not enlisted in Jesus Christ’s army, who has not given up to Christ, head, and hands, and feet, and heart, and all. I am old that in Scotland, in the olden times, the farmers used to save one field which they did not sow, they saved that for the devil, it was called, “The gude man’s croft;” so that Satan might range there, as much as he liked, and not disturb the crops elsewhere. A strange whim. Oh! How many Christians have tried to do the like in their hearts. They have had just the gude man’s croft, a little corner where Satan might have his way, but, oh! This will never serve, the whole land must be tilled; every acre must be sown with the good seed, for it is all Christ’s, or else it is none of it Christ’s, we are wholly consecrated, or else unconsecrated. We belong from the crown of our head to the sole of our foot to Christ, or else we do not belong to Christ at all. Man,—the entire nature must be surrendered. The demand is imperative; to a proverb it shall be verified; “there shall not a hoof be left behind.”
Yet, further, if no power is to be unconsecrated, how much less will Christ ever permit our heart to be divided. If we seek to serve God and mammon, God and self, God and pleasure, we do not serve God at all. When the Romans erected the statue of Christ, and put it up I their pantheon, saying that he should be one among their Gods, their homage was worthless. And when hey turned their heads, first to Jupiter, then to Venus, and then to Jesus Christ, they did no honour to our Lord, they did but dishonour him. Their service was not acceptable, and so if you imagine in your heart that you can sometimes service God, and sometimes service self and be your own master, you have made a mistake. Christ will have no such service as this; he will have all or nothing; and indeed, men and brethren, it is necessary for us to escape entirely from the snares of sin, or else we cannot be saved. A quaint old divine uses the following figure: “If,” saith he, “a hart be caught in a trap, and it shall extricate all its limbs except one foot, it has not escaped as long as the foot is in the trap; and if a bird be taken, and if with much struggling it getteth its liberty all but one wing, yet when the fowler comes he will seize it unless that wing also become delivered.” So is it with you and me; if any part of our heart be devoted to Satan we might as well devote the whole, for we are still his bond-slaves. If you say, “Well, I was once bound hand and foot, but now I have broken off the chain from my hand.” Yes, but if the ring of iron encircles one foot, and it is fastened down to the floor, you are still a slave. You may have filed through the chain of your drunkenness, but if you have not filed through the chain of your self-righteousness, you are still as much a bondman as ever. It is all in vain for you to fight half the battle; it is not the half but the whole that gives the victory. It is not the slaying of here and there a sin, like the stopping of here and there a leak in the ship; she must be re-keeled, or else she will sink; she must be new bottomed and new made; and so must you. All those slight amendments and improvements, good as they are in a moral aspect, are worthless as to any spiritual salvation of your soul. Remember this, thou who thinkest thou art a believer, see whether it can be said of thee, “I have wholly come out of Egypt in my heart’s intent, ‘not a hoof has been left behind.’”
But to proceed: what is already true in our intent and purposes shall ere long be true in reality. Tarry a little while, Christian, a few more struggles against the flesh, a little more battling and of warring against the evil powers within thee, and thou shalt put thy foot upon the neck of thy old corruptions: sin and self shall both be slain, and Jesus Christ shall reign triumphantly. What a joy it is to the Christian to believe that he shall one day be perfect. As we have worn the image of the earthy, so shall we also wear the image of the heavenly. The tongue that has spoken many an evil thing, bought with the blood of Christ, shall one day be full of the sonnets of Paradise. There shall be no strife in the soul; the Canaanite shall no more dwell in the land; we shall be vessels fully purged as by fire, fully sanctified and made fit for the Master’s use. When we shall come up dripping from the shelving banks of Jordan, we shall have left behind us all our sins; up those celestial hills our feet shall climb, and our garments shall e whiter than any fuller can make them. Not Jesus in his transfiguration shall be more complete and perfect than we shall be in ours. The black drops of depravity will have been wrung out of our hearts; the virus of deep corruption shall have been extracted, and we shall take our place among the angels, pure as they; among the perfect spirits, the prophets, and the glorious host of martyrs as truly sanctified, as fully redeemed, as effectually delivered from sin, as even they are. The redemption shall be complete; “not a hoof shall be left behind.”
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
