WHAT IS SIN ?

1 John 3:4 "Sin is the transgression of the law."

Sinner, did you ever inquire what sin is? Did you ever study the Word of God, that you might have proper views of this greatest of all evils? If you have never made the inquiry, your state is bad, dreadfully bad. Your salvation is at stake. Look seriously into the text. Lift up your heart to God, and say, "Lord, give me proper views of sin." "Sin is the transgression of the law." What law? The law of the most holy God. Where is this law to be found? It is contained in the ten commandments. Did you ever read them with a trembling heart and a faltering voice, asking, "Have I transgressed this or that part of God's holy law? Did I ever consider that the law may be broken by thought, as well as by word or deed? Did I ever reflect that the law is spiritual, reaching to the thoughts, purposes, and intentions of the heart; that every irregular thought is a transgression of the law; that every unholy desire is sin; that 'every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment,' (Matt. 12:36) - that awful day, when the heart-searching God shall judge the secrets of our hearts? Alas! How many idle thoughts have passed through my mind, without the proper conviction attending each of them, that this is sin! See Genesis 6:5. How many idle words have I every day spoken, without reflecting, that for every one of these I must give an account! Matthew 12:36. When did the evil of my thoughts and words extort an anxious cry from my heart, 'God be merciful to me a sinner?' if sin be the transgression of the law; that is, if falling short of the perfection which the law requires, in thought, word, or deed, be sin, as well as doing that which the law forbids; how much have I to answer for, that perhaps I have never before thought of? Yet I have often confessed, 'We have done what we ought not to have done, and have left undone what we ought to have done, and there is no health in us.' Alas! I have mocked God, by confessing with my lips what I did not feel in my heart."

Let my conscience, O Lord, now be awakened to feel what sin is.