IT was recently said of one who had just passed into the shadowless realm of eternal realities, ―one whose great talents had been employed in a lifetime of active revolt against God and His truth, ― “Well, at any rate no one can doubt his sincerity.”
“Sincerity!” I thought, with some bitterness of soul, ― “Sincerity!” why will men not have commonsense?
Look at that ship tossed like a toy on the raging storm. She is making for the port of refuge―running the gauntlet of the winds and waves. It is night, and black indeed is the darkness, which seems in league with the elements.
The captain, well-nigh out of his reckonings, mistakes the wrecker’s false cruel light for that of the lighthouse at the pierhead of the friendly haven of security. In all sincerity he puts his noble vessel’s prow straight for the cruel surf-swept rocks. Will his sincerity save one timber from straining and cracking, or one precious life being engulphed in the angry waves? Never.
Conscience is lulled into sleep behind the terms honest doubter, sincere, and the like. Oh! fellow-travelers to eternity, beware! Satan’s false peace is thus produced. Jeremiah of old could exclaim, in the bitterness of his soul. “They have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is No peace.” Ah! there was the biting sting, ― “Slightly;” “No peace.”
‘Tis the heart that is infidel, and a perverted head readily lends its powers to discuss the case in favor of the heart, but to the eternal discomfiture of the soul. Said a phrenologist in the course of his lecture, “I cannot tell you the future of a boy with a well-developed and evenly balanced brain unless I know something of his heart.” Scripture, with its incomparable analysis, says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jer. 17:99The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9).) Yes, it is the heart that is infidel, and the heart must be reached for your eternal blessing and mine. Saul of Tarsus, changed from the mad persecutor to the zealous apostle of the Gentiles, writes, “With the heart man believeth unto righteousness” (Rom. 10:1010For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:10)).
Sincere belief in error will not reap the advantages of truth. Satan rejoices to find such in his ranks, for nothing succeeds like sincerity.
Friend, let a stranger beg of you to carefully consider your future. Time marched along with unwearied foot yesterday what are today the highways of a past eternity. Soon, soon thy moments of time will have hurried thy soul into a future eternity. Then address thyself to this question of deepest import. Find out what God has said in truth about you. Tried at His bar, you are found guilty for a lifetime of sin. Condemned already, is your present portion; and “without shedding of blood is no remission,” is the dictum of Scripture. “Faithful are the wounds of a friend,” wrote Solomon of old. No false compassion, or unfaithful love, stays the hand of God in penning our true, loathsome condition in His sight, “for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:2323For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; (Romans 3:23)).
But, blessed be His name, side by side with the disease is the remedy. In brilliant contrast to the dark rebellion is His love. If there is a hell, the flames of which are lit by His hand in justice, there is a heaven, whose gates are opened by that same hand, for Jesus has died. If there is the impending doom for the impenitent, there is the way of escape for the repentant. If the debt is beyond our settling, there is the free gift, without money and without price. Jesus has died; God is satisfied, nay, glorified; and the vilest sinner out of hell, trusting in Him, is eternally and righteously saved. For the precious blood has been spilled that God “might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” (Rom. 3:2626To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. (Romans 3:26)).
Let not a false cry of sincerity lure you, like the treacherous will-o’-the-wisp, on to death and judgment; but see to it, as you love your soul, that your hopes are built upon an imperishable foundation, even Christ and His finished work, according to God’s revelation―His Scriptures.
A. J. P.