The Why's About Sin

"Why do I keep struggling with the same sinful thoughts?"

"Why can't I just gain victory over lust and pride?"

"Why does God allow sin to remain in His people?"

These are questions Christians ask from time to time. We think of how nice it would be if we didn't have to struggle with sinful thoughts, words, and deeds. But, in His sovereignty, God has a reason for allowing sin to remain in His children. Here are some of Thomas Boston's answers:

  1. God has ordered the matter of the believer's sanctification that sin is left to be active in their souls while here on earth, for their further humiliation. For example, God gave Paul a thorn in the flesh to keep him humble. And so, we find David, after his grievous fall, grows in the grace of humility.

  2. The Lord allows sin to remain in His people, so they are stirred to the frequent exercise of prayer. The soul feels the continual need of pardon, and therefore must be much lying at God's footstool. When His children grow remiss in their duty, the Lord sometimes allows them to fall into some grievous sin to awaken them and wound their conscience, so that they cry to Him like a child who falls into a fire.

  3. The sin left in us makes us more watchful of our hearts which still are prone to wander. When a prisoner escapes, and they catch him, they will put him into more close custody than before. We walk through a world filled with many snares; if we were not watchful, we would be caught in them!

  4. Just like God allowed some Canaanites to remain in the land to try His people, so He has left remains of natural corruption in them for their exercise and trial. Indwelling sin makes us lean on Christ's strength and use God's armor in the battle.

  5. Through sin is left in us, we are made more and more to feel our need for Christ and His precious blood for the removal of our guilt daily contracted anew, and for the strengthening of our souls in our Christian course so that we come out of the wilderness resting upon our Beloved.

  6. Through the indwelling sin that remains, Christ is glorified. While the enemy, sin, dwells in us, Christ's grace and Holy Spirit are at work in us so that the enemy cannot overcome, domineer, or destroy us. Because of indwelling sin, we know that we cannot justify ourselves but can only be justified by the perfect obedience of Christ, which we lay hold of by faith. In this, Christ is glorified.

  7. To see how God makes such an excellent medicine from such poisonous ingredients, cannot be but very delightful!

The struggle against indwelling sin is difficult for sure. But when we remember God's sovereign use of indwelling sin in His people for their good and His glory, it helps us press on in the faith with our eyes fixed on Jesus. He will one day graciously give us the full victory over sin! 

[Thomas Boston]

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Jude 24 ...  Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,

Romans 8: 28-29 ... And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.  For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. ❤

The LORD Sends Affliction

Affliction does not rise out of the dust or come to us by chance. It is the Lord who sends affliction, and we should own and reverence His hand in it.

Let the people of God comfort themselves at all times by the doctrine of divine sovereignty. Amidst whatever befalls them, they should rest quietly and submissively in the bosom of God, considering that whatever comes to pass proceeds from the decree of their gracious Friend and reconciled Father, who knows what is best for them, and will make all things work together for their good.

O what a sweet and pleasant life you would have under the heaviest pressures of affliction, and what heavenly serenity and tranquility of mind you would enjoy if you would cheerfully acquiesce in the good will and pleasure of God, and embrace every dispensation, however sharp it may be, because it is determined and appointed for you by the eternal counsel of His will!

See here the evil of murmuring and complaining at our lot in the world. How apt are you to quarrel with God, as if He were in the wrong when His dealings with you, and not according to your own desires and wishes!

You demand a reason, and call God to an account: "Why am I thus? Why so much afflicted and distressed? Why so long afflicted? Why such a severe affliction rather than a lighter one? Why am I so poor, needy and afflicted?"

Thus your hearts rise up against God. But you should remember that this is to defame the counsels of infinite wisdom, as if God had not ordered your affairs wisely enough in His eternal counsel.

Our attitude should be that of Job's, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart.

[Thomas Boston]

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Job 1:21 … And said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.

Job 5:6 … Although affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground;

Isaiah 45:7 … I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.

1 Samuel 2:6-7 … The Lord killeth, and maketh alive: he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up. The Lord maketh poor, and maketh rich: he bringeth low, and lifteth up.❤

One Continued Dream and Delusion!

The natural man's apprehension of divine things is corrupt. The understanding, that leading faculty, is despoiled of its primitive glory, and covered over with confusion.

Tell them how they may advance their worldly wealth, or how they may gratify their lusts and they will quickly understand these things. But it is very hard to make them know how their souls may be saved, or how their hearts may find rest in Christ. They are very stupid and unteachable in the matters of God. What woeful delusions prevail over them! Do we not often see those, who in other things are the wisest of men, yet are notorious fools with respect to their soul's eternal interests?

Many who are eagle-eyed in the trifles of time, yet are like owls and bats in the light of eternal realities. Nay, truly, the life of every natural man is but one continued dream and delusion, out of which he never awakes, until either, by a divine light darted from Heaven into his soul, he comes to himself or, in Hell he lifts up his eyes in torment!

Sin has closed the windows of the soul, and darkness covers the whole. The prince of darkness reigns there, and nothing but the works of darkness are framed there. We are born spiritually blind and cannot be restored without a miracle of grace!

[Thomas Boston]

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Romans 3:11 … There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.

1 Corinthians 2:14 … But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Ephesians 4:18 … Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:

Ephesians 5:8 … For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:❤

Hallelujah!

None were so compassionate as the saints when on earth, during the time of God's patience but now time is at an end. Their compassion for the ungodly is swallowed in joy in the Mediator's glory, and His executing just judgment, by which His enemies are made His footstool.

Though, when on earth, the righteous wept in secret places for their lost friends and family, because they would not hear yet "The righteous will rejoice when he sees the retribution; he will wash his feet in the blood of the wicked." (Psalm 58:10) 

No pity shall then be shown to the lost, even from their nearest relations. The godly wife shall applaud the justice of the Judge, in the condemnation of her ungodly husband! The godly husband shall say Amen! to the condemnation of her who lay in his bosom. The godly parents shall say Hallelujah! at the passing of the sentence against their ungodly child. And the godly child shall, from the bottom of his heart, approve the condemnation of his wicked parents, the father who begat him, and the mother who bore him.

[Thomas Boston]

Revelation 19:1-3 … And after these things I heard a great voice of much people in heaven, saying, Alleluia; Salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto the Lord our God:  For true and righteous are his judgments: for he hath judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand. And again they said, Alleluia And her smoke rose up for ever and ever.

Revelation 19:6 … And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.

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God Would Be Voted Out

Men set up for themselves an idol of their own imagination, instead of the true God and then fall down and worship it.

Every natural man is an enemy to God as He is revealed in His Word. The infinitely holy, just, powerful, and true God is not the God whom he loves, but the God whom he loathes! The Pagans finding that they could not be like God in holiness, made their gods like themselves in filthiness; and thereby they show what sort of a god the natural man would have. God is holy and just; can an unholy creature love His unspotted holiness?

There is not a man, who is wedded to his lusts, as all the unregenerate are but would desire to blot out the God of justice. Can the malefactor love his condemning judge? Can a heinous sinner love a just and holy God? No, he cannot!

Men naturally would rather have a blind idol than the all-seeing God! They no more love the all-seeing, everywhere present God than the thief loves to have the judge witness to his evil crimes. If it could be carried by votes, God would be voted out of the world; for the language of the carnal heart is, "Leave us alone! We have no desire to know Your ways!"

[Thomas Boston]

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John 7:7 … The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil.

John 15:24-25 …  If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause.

Romans 1:30 … Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,

Job 21:14 … Therefore they say unto God, Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways.

Mark 15:13-14 …   And they cried out again, Crucify him.  Then Pilate said unto them, Why, what evil hath he done? And they cried out the more exceedingly, Crucify him.❤

Into the Depths of The Sea!

The sinner outside of Christ is bound over to the wrath of God. He is under an obligation in law to go to the prison of Hell, and there to lie until he has paid the utmost farthing.   But "there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." (Romans 8:1)

The believer's sins are pardoned, and the guilt of them is removed. The bond obliging him to pay his debt is canceled. God the Father takes the pen, dips it in the blood of His Son, crosses off the sinner's accounts, and forever blots them out of His debt-book!  Being united to Christ, God says, "Deliver him from going down to the pit for I have found a ransom!" (Job 33:24)

The sentence of condemnation is reversed, and the believer is absolved and set beyond the reach of the condemning law. His sins, which previously were set before the Lord, (Psalm 90:8) so that they could not be hidden.  God now takes and casts them all behind His back. (Isaiah 38:17)  Yes, God "will tread our sins underfoot, and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea!" (Micah 7:19) 

What falls into a brook may be retrieved but what is cast into the sea cannot be recovered.  But there are some shallow places in the sea. True, but their sins are not cast there but into the depths of the sea. The depths of the sea are devouring depths, from whence their sins shall never come forth again.

But what if they do not sink? God will hurl them in with such force that they shall go to the bottom, and sink as lead in the mighty waters of the Redeemer's blood!

Their sins are not only forgiven but forgotten. (Jeremiah 31:34) "I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." And though their after-sins do in themselves deserve eternal wrath, and do actually make them liable to temporal strokes, and fatherly chastisements, according to the tenor of the covenant of grace, (Psalm 89:30-33) yet they can never be actually liable to eternal wrath.

[Thomas Boston]

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Fitter To Be Loathed, Than Loved!

You are no longer a child of wrath but an heir of God, and joint heir with Christ!

Remember that in the day our Lord first took you by the hand, you were in no better a condition than others. O, what moved Him to take you when He passed by so many others who were much better than you? He found you a child of wrath, even as others but He did not leave you so. He came into the common prison where you lay in fetters, even as others. From among the multitude of condemned malefactors, He picked you out, commanded your fetters to be taken off, put a pardon in your hand, and brought you into the glorious liberty of the children of God while He left others in the devil's fetters!

Remember there was nothing in you to engage Him to love you, in the day He appeared for your deliverance. You were a child of wrath, even as others. You were fit for Hell, and altogether unfit for Heaven! Yet the King brought you into His palace. The King's Son loved you, a condemned criminal, and espoused you to Himself on the day in which you might have been led forth to eternal execution! "Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight!"

Remember you were fitter to be loathed, than loved, in that day. Be amazed and wonder that when He saw you in your blood, that He did not look upon you with abhorrence and pass you by!

Remember it was He who took off your prison garments, and clothed you with robes of righteousness, garments of salvation! He took the chains from off your arms, the rope from around your neck; and put you in such a dress, as you might be fit for the court of Heaven even to eat at the King's table!

Admire that matchless love which brought you out of the state of wrath! Christ's love brought your soul from the pit of corruption! He gave His life for your life. He gave His precious blood to quench the flames of wrath which otherwise would have forever consumed you! He took you out of the horrible pit, and out of the miry clay. How broad was that love, which covered such a multitude of sins! See the length of it, reaching from everlasting to everlasting; the depth of it, going so low as to deliver you from the lowest Hell;  the height of it, raising you up to sit in heavenly places!

That your soul is not overwhelmed with the wrath of God, is owing purely to Jesus Christ! That your heart is not filled with horror and despair, is owing to Him alone! That your eyes are not now blinded with the smoke of the bottomless pit; your hands not now fettered with adamantine chains of darkness; your tongue is not now broiling in the fire of Hell; and your feet are not now standing in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone is owing purely to Jesus Christ!

Walk humbly, as it befits debtors to free grace!

You have no reason to complain of your lot in the world, whatever it is. Well may you bear the cross for Him who bore your curse; who has freed you from eternal wrath; and who has quenched Hell-fire for you!

[Thomas Boston]

Ephesians 2:12 … That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:

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People Are Like Grass

"All people," even the strongest and most healthy people, are like the grass that dies away. Their beauty fades as quickly as the beauty of flowers in a field.

The grass is flourishing in the morning; but, being cut down by the mowers, in the evening it is withered. Likewise, man sometimes is walking up and down at ease in the morning and in the evening is lying as a corpse, being struck down by a sudden blow, with one or another of death's weapons.

The flower, at best, is but a weak and tender thing, of short continuance wherever it grows. But observe, man is not compared to the flower of the 'garden'; but to the "flower in the field" which the foot of every beast may tread down at any time.

Thus is our life liable to a thousand accidents every day, any of which may cut us off. But though we should escape all these yet at length the LORD sweeps them away, and they are gone!

[Thomas Boston]

Psalm 90:5-6 … Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which groweth up.  In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.

Psalm 103:15-16 … As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.   For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.

Isaiah 40:6-7 … The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field:   The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass.  ❤

The Ant's Nest!

Never did any sin appear in the life of the vilest wretch who ever lived but look into your own corrupt nature, and there you may see the seed and root that sin and every other sin! There is atheism, idolatry, blasphemy, murder, adultery, and whatever is vile in your heart! Possibly none of these are apparent to you; but there is more in that unfathomable depth of wickedness than you know.

Your corrupt heart is like an ant's nest, which, while the stone lies on it, none of them appear. But take off the stone, and stir them up but with a straw and you will see what a swarm is there, and how lively they are! Just such a sight would your heart afford you did the Lord but withdraw the restraint He has upon it and allow Satan to stir it up by temptation!

Christian! the remembrance of what you are by nature, should keep you humble.

[Thomas Boston]

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Jeremiah 17:9 … The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

Mark 7:21-23 …  For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness:  All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.

Acts 8:22 … Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee. ❤

The Ant's Nest

Never did any sin appear in the life of the vilest wretch who ever lived; but look into your own corrupt nature, and there you may see the seed and root that sin and every other sin. There is atheism, idolatry, blasphemy, murder, adultery, and whatever is vile in your heart! Possibly none of these are apparent to you; but there is more in that unfathomable depth of wickedness than you know.

 

Your corrupt heart is like an ant's nest, which, while the stone lies on it, none of them appear. But take off the stone, and stir them up but with a straw and you will see what a swarm is there and how lively they are! Just such a sight would your heart afford you did the Lord but withdraw the restraint He has upon it and allow Satan to stir it up by temptation!

 

Christian! the remembrance of what you are by nature, should keep you humble.

 

[Thomas Boston]

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Genesis 6:5 ... And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

 

 

 

Jeremiah 17:9 ... The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

 

 

Mark 7:21-23 ... For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.❤