(From “Christ’s Famous Titles”)
“Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires!” Galatians 5:24
Crucify your sins—which have crucified your Savior!
Did the rocks rent, when Christ died for our sins—and shall not our hearts rent, who have lived in our sins!
Oh, that the nails which pierced His hands—should now pierce our hearts!
Oh, that they should wound themselves with their sorrows—who have wounded Christ with their sins! Oh, that they who have grieved His heart—should be grieved in their hearts! Oh, that I should be such a bad a child to Him—who has been such a good a Father to me! My sins have been my greatest terror—and my Savior has been my choicest helper!
Oh! put sin to death—for sin was the cause of Christ’s death! If someone killed your father—would you hug him and embrace him as your friend, and let him eat at your table? Would you not rather hate and detest the very sight of him! If a snake should sting your dearly beloved spouse to death—would you preserve it alive, warm it at the fire, and hug it in your bosom? Would you not rather stab it with a thousand wounds! And were not our sins the cause and instrument of Christ’s death? Were not they the whips that scourged Him; the nails, the cords, the spear, the thorns that wounded Him, and fetched the heart-blood from Him! And can we love our sins—which killed our Savior? Can a wife truly love her husband—and still embrace an adulterer?
We complain of the sins of Judas, and seem to hate them, and shudder at their mention! And can we love our Judas sins—which put Christ to death? And yet how many are there—who had rather have sinful-self satisfied, than to have sinful-self crucified.
Oh, sin is that mark at which all the arrows of Divine vengeance are shot! Were it not for sin—death would never have had a beginning! And were it not for death—sin would never have an ending! Man began to be sorrowful—when he began to be sinful. The wind of our lusts—blows out the candle of our lives. If man had nothing to do with sin—death would have nothing to do with man.
Oh, did sin bring sorrow into the world? Oh, then—let sorrow carry sin out of the world.
Of all evils—sin is the great evil! “The wages of sin is death!” Romans 6:23. Oh, sin is worse than punishment, banishment and imprisonment! Sin kills both body and soul—it throws the body into cold earth rotting, and the soul into the hot hell burning!