Thomas Watson · 35 of 36

The Sixth Petition in the Lord's Prayer · Part 7

(11) If sin be so great an evil, the evil of evils, see what a bad choice they make who choose sin to avoid affliction! It is as if to save the coat from being rent, one should suffer his flesh to be rent. It was a false charge that Elihu brought against Job: ‘This [iniquity] hast thou chosen rather than affliction.’ Job 36: 21. This is a bad choice. Affliction has a promise made to it, but sin has no promise made to it. 2 Samuel 22: 28. Affliction is for our good, but sin is not for our good; it would entail hell and damnation upon us. Spira chose iniquity rather than affliction, but it cost him dear; at last he repented of his choice. He who commits sin to avoid suffering, is like one that runs into a lion’s den to avoid the stinging of a gnat.

(12) If sin be so great an evil, it should be a Christian’s great care in this life to keep from it. ‘Deliver us from evil.’ Some make it all their care to keep out of trouble; they had rather keep their skin whole than their conscience pure; but our care should be chiefly to keep from sin. How careful are we to forbear such a dish as the physicians tell us is hurtful to us: it will bring the stone or gout! Much more should we be careful that we eat not the forbidden fruit, which will bring divine vengeance. ‘Keep thyself pure.’ 1 Tim 5: 22. It has always been the study of the saints to keep aloof from sin. ‘How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?’ Gen 39: 9. ‘Keep back thy servant from presumptuous sins.’ Psa 19: 13. It was a saying of Anselm, ‘If sin were on one side, and hell on the other, I would rather leap into hell than willingly sin against my God.’ Oh, what a mercy is it to be kept from sin! We count it a great mercy to be kept from the plague and fire; but what is it to be kept from sin!

(13) Is sin so great an evil? It should make us long for heaven, where we shall be perfectly freed from sin, not only from its outward acts, but from the inbeing of sin. In heaven we shall not need to pray this prayer, ‘Deliver us from evil.’ What a blessed time will it be when we shall never have a vain thought more! Then Christ’s spouse shall be sine macula et ruga, without spot or wrinkle. Eph 5: 27. Now there is a dead man tied to the living; we cannot do any holy duty, but we mix sin with it; we cannot pray without wandering; we cannot believe without doubting; but then our virgin souls shall not be capable of the least tincture of sin, but we shall all be as the angels of God.

In heaven we shall have no temptation to sin. The old serpent is cast out of paradise, and his fiery darts shall never come near to touch us.

Use 2. For exhortation.

First to all in general. If sin be so great and prodigious an evil, as you love your souls, take heed of sin. If you taste the forbidden fruit, it will cost you dear, it will cost you bitter tears, it may cost you lying in hell. O therefore flee from sin.

(1) Take heed of sins of omission. Matt 23: 23. It is as really dangerous not to do things commanded, as to do things forbidden. Some think it no great matter to omit reading Scripture. The Bible lies by like rusty armour, which they never use. They think it no great matter to omit family or closet-prayer; they go several months, and God never hears from them. They have nothing sanctified to them; they feed upon a curse; ‘for every creature is sanctified by prayer.’ 1 Tim 4: 4, 5. The bird which may shame many never takes a drop but its eye is lifted up towards heaven. O take heed of living in the neglect of any known duty. It was the prayer of a holy man on his death-bed, ‘Lord, forgive my sins of omission.’

(2) Take heed of secret sins. Some are more modest than to sin openly in a balcony; but they will carry their sins under a canopy, they will sin in secret. Rachel would not let her father’s images be seen, but she put them under her, ‘and sat upon them.’ Gen 31: 34. Many will be drunk and unclean, if they may do it when nobody sees them; they are like one that shuts up his shop windows, but follows his trade within doors. If sin be so great an evil, let me warn you this day not to sin in secret; know that you can never sin so privately but that the two witnesses, God and conscience, are always by.

(3) Take heed of your besetting sin, that which your nature and constitution most incline to. As in the hive there is a master bee, so in the heart there is a master sin. ‘I kept myself from mine iniquity.’ Psa 18: 23. There is some sin that is a special favourite, the peccatum in deliciis, the darling sin that lies in the bosom, and this bewitches and draws away the heart. O beware of this!

[1] That sin which a man most cherishes, and to which all other sins are subservient, is the sin which is most tended and waited upon. The Pharisees’ darling sin was vainglory, all they did was to feed the sin of pride. ‘That they may have glory of men;’ when they gave alms they sounded a trumpet. Matt 6: 2. If a stranger had asked the question, why does this trumpet sound? the answer was, The Pharisees are going to give alms to the poor. Their lamp of charity was filled with the oil of vainglory. Matt 23: 5. All their works they did to be seen of men. Pride was their bosom sin. Oftentimes covetousness is the darling sin; all other sins are committed to maintain this. Why do men equivocate, oppress, defraud, take bribes, but to uphold covetousness?

[2] The sin which a man loves not to be reproved for is the darling sin. Herod could not endure to have his incest spoken against; if John the Baptist meddles with that sin, it shall cost him his head.

[3] That sin which has most power over a man, and most easily leads him captive, is the beloved of the soul. There are some sins which a man can better put off and repulse; but there is one sin, which, if it becomes a suitor he cannot deny, but is overcome by it: this is the bosom sin. The young man in the gospel had a besetting sin which he could not resist, and that was the love of the world; his silver was dearer to him than his Saviour. It is a sad thing a man should be so bewitched by a lust that he will part with the kingdom of heaven to gratify it.

[4] The sin which men use arguments to defend is the darling sin. To plead for sin is to be the devil’s attorney. If the sin be covetousness, and we vindicate it; if it be rash anger, and we justify it, saying (as Jonah 4: 9), ‘I do well to be angry,’ this is the besetting sin.

[5] That sin which most troubles a man, and flies in his face in an hour of sickness and distress, is the beloved sin. When Joseph’s brethren were distressed, their sin in selling their brother came to remembrance. Gen 45: 3. So, when a man is upon his sick-bed, conscience says, Dost not thou remember how thou hast lived in such a sin, though thou hast been often warned, yet thou wouldst not leave it? Conscience reads a curtain lecture upon the darling sin.

[6] The sin which a man is most unwilling to part with is the darling sin. Jacob could of all his sons, most hardly part with Benjamin. ‘Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away.’ Gen 13: 36. So says the sinner, this and that sin have I parted with; but must Benjamin go? Must I part with this delightful sin? That goes to the heart. It is the Delilah, the beloved sin. Oh, if sin be such a deadly evil, dare not to indulge any bosom sin, which is the most dangerous of all; and, like a humour striking to the heart, which is mortal, leaves open but one gap for the wild beast to enter. One darling sin lived in, sets open a gap for Satan to enter.

(4) Take heed of the sins which attend your particular callings. A calling you must have. Adam in paradise tilled the ground. God never sealed warrants to idleness. But every calling has its snare; as some sin in living out of a calling, so others sin in a calling. Remember how deadly an evil sin is. Avoid those sins which you are exposed to in your trade. Take heed of all fraud and collusion in your dealings. ‘Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.’ Matt 7: 12.

Take heed of a sinful tongue in selling. The Scripture says of one that goes to heaven, ‘He speaketh the truth in his heart.’ Psa 15: 2. It is the custom of many to say the commodity stands them more, and yet they take less. This is hardly creditable.

Beware of a deceitful balance. ‘The balances of deceit are in his hand.’ Hos 12: 7. Men by making their weights lighter, make their accounts heavier.

Beware of sophisticating, mingling, and debasing commodities. ‘We sell the refuse of the wheat.’ Amos 8: 6. They pick out the best grains of the wheat, and sell the worst at the same price as they did the best. To mix a coarse commodity with the fine, and sell it all for fine, is no better than deceit. Isa 1: 22.

Beware of stretching your consciences too far, or taking more for a commodity than it is worth. ‘If thou sell ought unto thy neighbour, ye shall not oppress one another.’ Lev 25: 14. There is a lawful gain allowed, yet one may not so advantage himself as to injure another. Let the tradesman’s motto be, ‘A conscience void of offence toward God and toward men.’ Acts 24: 16. He has a hard bargain that purchases the world with the loss of his soul.

(5) Sin being so deadly an evil, take heed of the appearance of sin. Abstain not only from apparent evil, but the appearance of evil; if it be not absolutely a sin, yet if it looks like sin, avoid it. He who is loyal to his prince, not only forbears to have his hand in treason, but he will take heed of that which has a show of treason. Joseph’s mistress tempted him, and he fled and would not be with her. Gen 39: 12. An appearance of good is too little, and an appearance of evil is too much.

The appearance of evil is often an occasion of evil. Dalliance is an appearance of evil, and oftentimes occasions evil. Touching the forbidden fruit occasions tasting. Dancing in masquerades has often been the occasion of uncleanness.

The appearance of evil may scandalise another. ‘When ye sin against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, ye sin against Christ.’ 1 Cor 8: 12. Sinning against a member of Christ is sinning against Christ himself.

What means shall we use to be kept from acts of sin?

(1) If you would be preserved from actual and scandalous sins, labour to mortify original sin. If you would not have the branches bud and blossom, smite at the root. I know that original sin cannot in this life be removed, but labour to have it subdued. Why do men break forth into actual sins but because they do not mortify heart sins? Suppress the first risings of pride, lust, and passion. Original sin unmortified will prove such a root of bitterness as will bring forth the cursed root of scandalous sin.

(2) If you would be kept from actual sins, think what an odious thing sin is. Besides what you have heard, remember sin is the accursed thing. Josh 7: 13. It is the abominable thing God hates. ‘Oh do not this abominable thing that I hate.’ Jer 44: 4. Sin is the spirit of witchcraft; it is the devil’s excrement; it is called filthiness. James 1: 21. If all the evils in the world were put together, and their essence strained out, they could not make a thing so filthy as sin is. So odious is a sinner that God loathes the sight of him. ‘My soul lothed them.’ Zech 11: 8. He who defiles himself with avarice, what is he but a serpent licking the dust? He who defiles himself with the lust of uncleanness, what is he but a swine with a man’s head? He who defiles himself with pride, what is he but a bladder which the devil has blown up? He who defiles himself with drunkenness, what is he but a beast that has got the staggers? To consider how odious and base a thing sin is, would be a means of keeping us from sinning.

(3) If you would be kept from actual sins, get the fear of God planted in your hearts. ‘By the fear of the Lord men depart from evil.’ Prov 16: 6. Cavebis si pavebis [You will take care if you fear]; fear is a bridle to sin and a spur to holiness. Fear puts a holy awe upon the heart and binds it to its good behaviour. By the fear of the Lord men depart from evil. When the Empress Eudoxia threatened to banish Chrysostom, ‘Tell her,’ said he, ‘I fear nothing but sin.’ Fear is janitor animae; it stands as a porter at the door of the soul and keeps sin from entering. All sin is committed for want of the fear of God. ‘Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; their feet are swift to shed blood; there is no fear of God before their eyes.’ Rom 3: 14, 15, 18. Holy fear stands sentinel, and is ever watching against security, pride, and wantonness. Fear is a Christian’s lifeguard to defend him against the fiery darts of temptation. Si vis esse securus, semper time. The way to be safe is always to fear.

(4) If we would be kept from actual sins, let us be careful to avoid all the inlets and occasions of sin. Run not into evil company. He that would not have the plague will not go into an infected house. Guard your senses, which may be the inlets to sin. Keep the two portals, the eye and the ear; especially look to your eyes. Much sin comes in by the eye; the eye is often an inlet to sin; sin takes fire at the eye; the first sin in the world began at the eye. ‘When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and was pleasant to the eyes, she took of the fruit thereof.’ Gen 3: 6. Looking begat lusting. Intemperance begins at the eye. Looking on the wine when it is red and gives its colour in the glass, causes excess of drinking. Prov 23: 31. Covetousness begins at the eye. ‘When I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment, and a wedge of gold, I coveted and took them.’ Josh 7: 21. The fire of lust begins to kindle at the eye. David walking upon the roof of his house saw a woman washing herself, and she was, says the text, ‘beautiful to look upon,’ and he sent messengers and took her, and defiled himself with her. 2 Samuel 11: 2. therefore look to your eyes! Job made a covenant with his eyes. Job 31: 1. If the eye be once inflamed, it will be hard to stand out long against sin. If the outworks are taken by the enemy, there is great danger of the whole castle being taken.

(5) If you would be kept from actual gross sin, study sobriety and temperance. 1 Pet 5: 8. Sobrii este, be sober. Check the inordinance of appetite, for sin frequently makes its entrance this way. By gratifying the sensitive appetite, the soul, that is akin to angels, is enslaved to the brutish part. Many drink to drowsiness, if not to drunkenness. Not denying the sensitive appetite, makes men’s consciences full of guilt, and the world full of scandal. If you would be kept from running into sin, lay restraint upon the flesh. For what has God given reason and conscience but to be a bridle to check inordinate desires?

(6) If you would be kept from actual sins, be continually upon your spiritual watch.

Watch your thoughts. ‘How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee?’ Jer 4: 14. Sin begins at the thoughts. First, men cherish revengeful thoughts, then they dip their hands in blood. Set a spy over your thoughts.

Watch your passions of anger and passions of lust. The heart is ready to be destroyed by its own passions, as a vessel to be overturned by its sails. Passion transports beyond the bounds of reason; it is brevis insania (Seneca), a short frenzy. Moses in a passion ’spake unadvisedly with his lips.’ Psa 106: 33. The disciples in a passion called fire from heaven. A man in a passion is like a ship in a storm that has neither pilot nor sails to help it, but is exposed to waves and rocks.

Watch your temptations. Satan continually lies in ambush, and watches to draw us to sin; stat in procincto diabolus [the devil stands girded for battle]. He is fishing for our souls; he is either laying snares, or shooting darts. Therefore we had need watch him, that we be not decoyed into sin. Most sin is committed for want of watchfulness.

(7) If you would be kept front the evil of sin, consult the oracles of God; be well versed in Scripture. ‘Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee.’ Psa 119: 11. The word is anceps gladius, a two-edged sword, to cut asunder men’s lusts. When the fogs and vapours of sin begin to rise, let but the light of Scripture shine in the soul, and it dispels them. ‘Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.’ Col 3: 16. Alphonsus, king of Arragon, read over the Bible fourteen times. The word shows the damnable evil of sin; it furnishes us with precepts, which are so many recipes and antidotes against sin. When Christ had a temptation to sin, he beat back the tempter, and wounded him three times with the sword of the Spirit: ‘It is written.’ Why do men live in sin, but because they either do not read the word or do not believe it?

(8) If you would be preserved from gross, presumptuous sin, get your hearts fired with love to God. Love has great force in it; it is ’strong as death;’ it breaks the league between the heart and sin. Two things in God cause love.

[1] His glorious beauty. Moses desired to see some glimpse of it. ‘Lord, show me thy glory.’ [2] His amazing love. What a prodigy of love was it, to give his Son out of his bosom, and lay such a jewel to pawn for our redemption! The glories of God’s beauty, and the magnitude of his love, like two loadstones, draw our love to God; and if we love him, we shall not sin against him: he that loves his friend, will not by any means displease him. I have read of four men meeting together, who asked one another what it was that kept them from sinning? One said, the fear of hell; another said, the joys of heaven; the third said, the odiousness of sin; the fourth said, that which keeps me from sin is love to God; shall I sin against so good a God? shall I abuse love? Love to God is the best curbing-bit to keep from sin.

(9) If you would be kept from the evil of sin, be diligent in a calling. Dii laboribus omnia vendunt [Work buys all things from the gods]. Adam in paradise must till the ground. Such as live idly, expose themselves to sin. If we have no work to do, Satan will find us work; he sows most of his seed in fallow ground. A woman being much tempted to sin, came to the reverend Mr Greenham, and asked him what she should do to resist temptation? He answered, Be always well employed, that when Satan comes he may find thee busied in thy calling, and not at leisure to listen to his temptation.

(10) If you would be kept from sin, fix the eye of your mind upon the ‘beauty of holiness.’ Holiness consists in conformity to God. It is the sparkling of the divine nature, a beam of God shining in the soul. How lovely is Christ’s bride when decked and bespangled with the jewels of holiness! What makes the seraphims angels of light, but their holiness? Do but think with yourselves what a splendid, glorious thing holiness is, and it will cause a disgust and hatred of sin, which is so contrary to it. The beholding of beauty will make us out of love with deformity.

(11) If you would keep from the evil of sin, meditate frequently on death. Think of the unavoidableness of it. Heb 9: 27. Statutum est. ‘It is appointed unto men once to die.’ We are not so sure to lie down this night in bed as to lie down in the grave. Think of the uncertainty of the time. We are but tenants at will. We hold our life at the will of our landlord, and how soon may God turn us out of this house of clay! Death often comes when we least look for it. The flood, as some learned writers observe, came in the month Ziph, or April, in the spring; when the trees were blossoming, and the birds singing, and men least looked for it; so, often in the spring of youth, when the body is most healthy, and the spirits most sprightly and vigorous, and it is least thought on, then death comes. Could we think often and seriously of death, it would give a death’s wound to sin. Nihil sic revocat peccata quam crebra morbis contemplatio [Nothing restrains from sin so much as the frequent thought of death]. Augustine. No stronger antidote against sin than the thought I am now sinning, and to-morrow may be dying. What if death should find me doing the devil’s work, would it not send me to him to receive my wages? Would the adulterer but think, I am now in the act of sin, but how soon may death come, and then I who have burned in lust, must burn in hell! it would strike a damp into his soul, and make him afraid of going after strange flesh.

(12) If you would be kept from gross, scandalous sins, beware of a covetous heart. Covetousness is a dry drunkenness. He who thirsts insatiably after the world will stick at no sin; he will betray Christ and a good cause for money. Cui nihil satis, eidem nihil turpe [The man for whom nothing is enough holds nothing shameful]. Tacitus. ‘The love of money is the root of all evil.’ 1 Tim 6: 10. From this root comes theft. Achan’s covetous humour made him steal the wedge of gold. Josh 7: 21. Covetousness makes the gaols full. From this root comes murder. Why did Ahab stone Naboth to death but to possess his vineyard? 1 Kings 21: 13. Covetousness has made many swim to the crown in blood. From this bitter root of covetousness proceeds fraud. It is the covetous hand that holds false weights. From this root of covetousness comes uncleanness. You read of the hire of a whore. Deut 23: 18. For money she would let both her conscience and chastity be set to sale. Oh, if you would be kept from the evil of sin, beware of covetousness, which is the inlet to so many sins!

(13) Let us be much in prayer to God, to keep us from engulfing ourselves in sin. ‘Keep back thy servant from presumptuous sins.’ Psa 19: 13. We have no power inherent to keep us from evil. Arnoldus says, that man in his corrupt estate, has aliquas reliquias vitae spiritualis, some relics of spiritual life left. And Arminius says, man has a sufficiency of grace within himself whereby he may abstinere a malo, abstain from evil; that freewill is a sufficient curb to check and pull him back from sin. But what needed Christ to have taught us this prayer: Libera nos a malo, ‘Deliver us from evil’? If we have power of ourselves to keep from sin, why pray to God for power? Alas! if David and Peter, who in a habit of grace fell, for want of a fresh gale of the Spirit to hold them up, much more will they be in danger of falling who have only the power of freewill to hold them.

Let us therefore sue to God for strength to keep us from sinning! Let us pray the prayer of David, ‘Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe’ (Psa 119: 117); and that other prayer, ‘Hold up my goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip nos.’ Psa 17: 5. Lord, keep me from dishonouring thee; keep me from the defiling sins of the age, that I may not be worse for the times, nor the times the worse for me. ‘Keep back thy servant from presumptuous sins.’ Lord, whatever I suffer, keep me from sin. The child is safe in the nurse’s arms; and we are only safe from falling into sin while we are held up in the arms of Christ and free grace.

Secondly, this exhortation has an aspect to God’s children. You that are professors, and carry Christ’s colours, I beseech you, above all others, to take heed of sin; beware of any action that is scandalous and unbecoming the gospel. You have heard what a prodigious hyperbolical evil sin is. Come not near the forbidden fruit. ‘Though Israel play the harlot, yet let not Judah offend.’ Hos 4: 15. So, though wicked men run into sin, yet let not the spouse of Christ defile the breasts of her virginity. Sin ill becomes any, but least becomes professors. Dung is unsightly in the street; but to see it in the temple is much more offensive. Leprosy in the foot is ill, but to see a leprous sore in the face is much worse: to see sin break forth in those who have a face of religion, is most to be abominated. The sins of the wicked are not so much to be wondered at. ‘The wicked shall do wickedly.’ Dan 12: 10. It is no wonder to see a toad spit poison. It was not so wonderful to see Cain or Ahab sin; but to see Lot’s incest, to see David’s hands stained with blood, was strange indeed. When the sun is eclipsed every one stands and looks at it; so when a child of light is eclipsed by scandalous sin, all stand and gaze at such an eclipse.

The sins of God’s people do, in some sense, provoke him more than the sins of the wicked! We read of the provocations of his sons and daughters. Deut 32: 19. The sins of the wicked anger God, but the sins of his people grieve him. The sins of God’s people have a more malignant aspect, and are of a blacker dye than others. There are aggravations in the sins of his people, which are not to be found in the sins of the unregenerate, in eight particulars:

(1) The godly have something which may ponere obicem [set up a barrier], restrain them from sin. When wicked men sin, they have no principle to restrain them; they have wind and tide to carry them, they have nothing to pull them back from sin; but a child of God has a principle of grace to give check to sin; he has the impulses of God’s Spirit dissuading him from evil. For him, therefore, to commit sin is far worse than for others. It is to sin more desperately; it is as if a woman should go about to kill the babe in her womb. Christian, when thou sinnest presumptuously, thou doest what in thee liest to kill the babe of grace in thy soul.

(2) The sins of God’s people are greater than others, because they sin against more mercy. It is like a weight put in a scale to make sin weigh heavier. God has given Christ to a believer; he has cut him off from the wild stock of nature, and grafted him into the true olive; and for him to abuse all this mercy is to outdo the wicked, and to sin with a higher aggravation, because it is to sin against greater love. How was Peter’s sin enhanced and accented, by Christ having done more for him than others! He had dropped some of the holy oil upon him; he had taken him into the number of the apostles; he had carried him up into the mount of transfiguration, and shown him the glory of heaven in a vision. For Peter to deny Christ after all this mercy was heinous, and could not be forgiven but by a miracle and prodigy of love.