This is a Gospel question before the time of the Gospel. All the great conditions of the human mind you find as distinctly in the Old Testament as in the New; all the questions that sharpen themselves into fierce agonies are in the nature of man, and part of his constitution. The inquiry comes to each of us; if any man can answer the question in the affirmative let him do so.
I. The pure man ought to be lifted above fear; the clean soul ought to have a peculiar, a shadowless joy. Have you that gladness? Then why those nightmares of the soul, why those sudden fears, why those peculiar distresses, why those doubts and scepticisms and questionings, why a thousand indications of unrest and tumult? This ought to suggest that you have not completed the task which you suppose yourself to have accomplished in the heart.
II. There is a tremendous responsibility in returning an affirmative answer to the inquiry of the text. If a man were to say, "Yes, I have made my heart clean and am pure from my sin," he would (1) contradict the whole testimony of Scripture; (2) supersede the work of Christ; (3) withdraw himself from all the cleansing, purifying agencies which constitute the redeeming ministry of the universe. There is no heaven along the line of self-hope; there is no pardon in the direction of self-trust.
Parker, Fountain,August 1st, 1878.
References: Proverbs 20:9. H. Hayman, Rugby Sermons,p. 50. Proverbs 20:10-14. R. Wardlaw, Lectures on Proverbs,vol. ii., p. 338.