They have corrupted themselves.
Man corrupting his way
If we consider what this people seemed once to be, and thought themselves to be, we may easily know how they corrupted themselves. If ye look on them at one time (Exodus 19:8; Deuteronomy 5:27) ye would call them children. There was never a fairer undertaking of obedience. But compare all this people’s practice with this profession, and you shall find it exceeding contrary; they indeed corrupted themselves, though they got warning to take heed of it (Deuteronomy 4:15). But, alas! it was within them that destroyed them; there was not such a heart in them as to hear and obey; but they undertake, being ignorant of their own deceitful hearts, which were desperately wicked. And therefore behold what corruption followed upon such a professed resolution: they never sooner promised obedience but they disobeyed; they did abominable works and did no good, and this is to corrupt their way (Psalms 14:1). We may make this song our own. We have corrupted ourselves. Once we had a fair show of zeal for God, of love and desire of reformation of life, many solemn undertakings were that we should amend our doings. But what is the fruit of all? Alas! we have corrupted ourselves more than Israel promised, but we vowed to the most High amendment of life. Lay this rule to our practices, and are we not a perverse generation? Oh! that we were more affected with our corruptions, and were more sensible of them; then we could not choose but mourn for our own and the land’s departing from God. There is a great noise of a public reformation of ordinances and worship; but, alas! the deformation of life and practice outcries all that noise. Every man useth to impute his faults to something beside himself. Ere men take with their own iniquity, they will charge God that gave no more grace. But if men knew themselves, they would deduce their corruption and destruction both from one fountain, that is, from themselves. What was the fountain of this people’s corruptions and apostatising from their professions? The Lord hints at it (Deuteronomy 5:25). Oh, that they had such a heart! Alas! poor people, ye know not yourselves that speak so well; I know thee better than thou dost thyself. I will declare unto thee thy own thought: thou hast not such a heart as to do what thou sayest. If thou knewest this fountain of original corruption thou wouldst despair of doing, and say, I cannot serve the Lord. Why is our way corrupted? Because our hearts within were not cleansed, and because they were not known. If we had dried up the fountain, the streams had ceased; but we did only dam it up, and cut off some streams for a season. We set up our resolutions and purposes as an hedge to hold it in, but the sea of the heart’s iniquity, that is above all things, hath overflowed it, and defiled our way more than in former times. Times do not bring evils along with them, they do but discover what was hid before. All the evils and corruptions you now see among us, where were they in the day of our first love, when we were as a beloved child? Have all these risen up of late? No, certainly; all that you have seen and found were before, though they did not appear. Before they were in the root, now you see the fruit. Now, so it is with us; we have corrupted ourselves still more. Backsliding cometh on as grey hairs, here and there, and is not perceived by beholders. No man becometh worst at first. There are many steps between that and good. Corruption comes on men’s way as in fruits; some one part beginneth to alter, and then it groweth worse, and putrifieth and corrupteth the rest of the parts. An apple rots not all at once, so it is with us. Men begin at leisure, but they run post or all be done. (H. Binning.)
Not the spot of His children.
The secret spot
There are frequently great difficulties in identifying the persons of men, even when they have been distinctly seen. Our police courts have given us most serious evidence that men may be utterly deceived as to the identity of individuals. Turning to the moral universe, identity there is far more difficult to be made out, for both the moral and religious world swarm with pretenders. You cannot know to a certainty who among your acquaintances is a Christian and who is not. You see the text talks about certain secret spots. These are tokens in which men cannot so readily deceive as to their identity. The mother will be able to tell whether this is her child or not by the spot which is known to none but herself. The pretender may be very like her child: the voice may be the voice of Jacob, and the hands may not be dissimilar, and he may be able to relate many things concerning his youth which it would seem that none but the real child could know; but the mother recollects that there was a secret spot, and if that be not there, she turns aside the pretender; but ii she discovers that private token, she knows the claimant to be her child. There are secret marks upon every Christian, and if we have not the spot of God’s child too, it will little avail us how fairly in our outward garb and manner we may conform ourselves to the members of the heavenly family.
I. First, then, at the mention of private spots which are to be the insignia of the regenerate, there are thousands who say, “We do not shirk that examination. Truly, the signs of saints are in us also! Are others Israelites? so are we: we challenge an investigation.” Be it so, then! Let us commence a minute examination. I am not now to deal with anything that is public. We are not speaking now about actions or words, but concerning those secret things which men have judged to be infallible marks of their being saved. Here is a friend before us, and as he lays bare his heart he indicates to us the spot which he thinks proclaims him to be a child of God. I will describe it. The man has embraced sound doctrine. Wherever he goes, his whole talk is of his favourite Shibboleth, “The truth! The truth!” Not that the aforesaid truth has ever renewed his nature; not that it has at all made him a better husband or a kinder father; not that it influences him in trade. Now, sir, we do not hesitate to say concerning you, although you will not be best pleased with us for it, that Four spot is not the spot of the children of God. No form of doctrine, however Scriptural, can ever save the soul if it be only received by the head, and does not work in its mighty energy upon the heart. “Ye must be born again,” is the Saviour’s word; and unless ye be born again, your carnal nature may hold the truth in the letter without discerning the spirit; and while the truth shall be dishonoured by being so held, you yourself shall not be benefited thereby.
II. What is the true secret spot which infallibly betokens the child of God? “As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.” Here it is, then: if I have received Christ Jesus into my heart, then I am a child of God. That reception is described in the second clause as a believing on the name of Jesus Christ. If, then, I believe on Jesus Christ’s name, I am a member of the family of the Most High.
III. The discrimination of defiling spots. The term “spot” as used in the text will not be read usually as we have read it. It will, no doubt, to most readers suggest the idea of sin, and very properly so--then the text would run thus: the sin of the people mentioned here is not the sin of God’s people. There is a difference between their guilt and the offences of the Lord’s chosen. There is a discrimination to be made, even as to sinful spots. God forbid that you should imagine that I wish to excuse the sins of believers. In some views, when a believer sins, his sin is worse than that of other men, because he offends against greater light; he revolts against greater love and mercy; he flies in the teeth of his profession; he does despite to the Cross of Christ, and he brings dishonour upon the name of Jesus. Believers cannot sin cheaply. The very least speck on a Christian is more plainly seen than the foulest blot on the ungodly, just as a white dress shows the dirt the sooner. Sin is a horrible thing, and, it is above all things detestable when it lurks in a child of God; yet the sins of God’s people do differ from the sins of other men in many important respects: they do not sin with cool determination, meaning to sin and sinning for its own sake. A sinner in his sins is a bird in the air, but the believer in sin is like the fish that leaps for a while into the air, but must be back again or die. Sin cannot be satisfactory to an immortal spirit regenerated by the Holy Ghost. If you sin, you “have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous”; but if you sin and love sin, then you are the servant of sin, and not the child of God. Again, the child of God cannot look back upon sin with any kind of complacency. The ungodly man has this spot, that after the sin he even boasts of it,; he will tell to others that he enjoyed himself greatly in his wicked sport. “Ah,” saith he, “how sweet it is!” But no man of God ever sins without smarting.
IV. An exhortation. To make sure work for eternity, and to make it clear to your own consciences that you are the children of God. A famous case is now pending, in which a person claims to be the son of a deceased baronet. Whether he be or not I suppose will ere long be decided by the highest authorities; meanwhile the case is pending, a very weighty case for him, for upon the decision will hang his possession or non-possession of vast estates and enormous property. Now, in your case you, many of you, profess to be the children of God, and heaven hangs upon the question of the truthfulness of your profession. A child of God! Then your portion is eternal life. An heir of wrath, even as others! Then your heritage will be eternal death. Is it uncertain now whether you are a child of God or not? Is it uncertain now whether your spot is the spot of God’s children? Then let not an hour pass over your head till you have said, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The children and the spots
I. God’s children have their spots in this life. How many spots does the holy eye of God observe upon us every day!
II. There is an essential difference between the spots of God’s children and the spots of the unregenerate. Certainly ill the sight of God there is no difference in sin. Its nature is the same. And sin upon one of God’s children, abstractedly considered, is hateful.
1. Unregenerate men sin deliberately and habitually. When did you find a good man that was an habitual sinner?
2. Unregenerate men sin freely: there is no principle in their heart which stands opposed to sin.
3. In unregenerate minds there is always a love to some particular sin; but in the regenerate there is no one sin but he desires the death of it.
4. How different are the feelings of the regenerate and unregenerate, after having committed the same sin, both alike in the sight of men! An unregenerate man may weep bitterly: what is the cause? Shame! Men know it; he is afraid of punishment. But what produces the grief which a believer feels? Because he has given blasphemy among men; because he has offended his God, and has built up a wall between God and his soul. If a child of God has fallen, it will render him watchful and prayerful: if a wicked ,man gain peace, he will go his way, and sin on. (John Hyatt.)
The spot of God’s children
I. God’s people have their spot or distinctive symbol. The term spot is here plainly employed in allusion to the distinctive badge which idolaters were wont to receive upon their foreheads, faces or hands, to show what God they worshipped (Revelation 20:4). Now, the Lord’s worshippers have their distinct mark, impressed not upon their persons, but upon their spirit, temper, principles, conversation, and behaviour, which is holiness unto the Lord (Jeremiah 2:3). This has been the mark of God’s people from the beginning, and is so still (Zechariah 14:20).
II. The dishonour of those who have “not the spot of His children.” The marginal reading gives a remarkably important turn to the meaning of the text. “They are not His children, this is their blot.” That all are not His children who are so accounted, will be readily admitted, seeing the visible Church embraces many who do not exhibit the distinguishing mark. And, if within the pale of the Church are found those who are not God’s children, what estimate shall we form of those who are without? And if all who are not God’s children might be if they would, what a fearful blot is this upon their character!
1. What a reflection on any man’s understanding to think lightly of so great a benefit:
2. Again, what must be his peril who is living in this state? What his misery who is without hope and God in the world? Shall such a blot remain long upon any of us? (J. Burdsall.)