To Be Rid of Sin

If some of us are ever delivered from the former hangovers of the old life, we will have to be terribly determined in our attitude.

• To be rid of sin—with a furnace of desire red hot.

• To be rid of sin as sin—not merely its inconvenience or its misery or its bondage. If sin only troubles us and humiliates us, we do not yet see sin as sin, as that “abominable thing that God hates.”

• To be rid of all sin. Shall we still dabble with some sin? Dare we desire reformation with reservation? From now on shall we tell a few less lies?—drink a few less gallons of liquor?—steal less than we used to?—recite fewer smutty stories?—kill fewer people each year?—get angry only once a week?—flirt with fewer women than before we were married?

• To be rid of all sin for all coming time. We may be so tormented and so tortured by sin’s power that we feel we would gladly be freed there from. Yet we may not intend to be rid of it for all coming time. We may secretly entertain the hope that, even though delivered, we may someday be able to return to border lines without being caught and enchained by sin’s power.

Let us then be determined on total abstinence—to be rid of sin, to be rid of sin as sin, to be rid of all sin and that for all coming time. Our determination must be “never more to speak evil of any man; never to lose patience; never to trifle with wrong whether impurity, untruth, or unkindness; never in any known thing to evade our Master’s will; never to be ashamed of His name. I emphasize again and again this ‘never,’ for there is the point.”