Homilist Isaiah 64:6-8 But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities… I. SIN IS A DEFILING POWER. "We are all as an unclean thing." Sin makes the soul as unlovely as a man in filth. The soul ought not to be unclean. The stain of sin does not belong to it, it is separable from it. Once the soul had no stain. II. SIN IS AN IMPOVERISHING POWER. "All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags." Moral character is indeed the garment of the soul, the garment which it weaves out of its thoughts, emotions, purposes, and actual deeds. This garment ought to be one beautiful whole, and clean also. But through sin it is all in "rags." There is no unity, no wholeness, no completeness. It is all in tatters, and filthy tatters too. Sin indeed makes the soul ugly and hateful. How unlovely is every aspect of sin. III. SIN IS A WITHERING POWER. "We all do fade as a leaf." Sin blasts the hopes, pollutes the loves, curtails the liberty, dims the vision, deadens the conscience, and enfeebles all the faculties and powers of the soul., IV. SIN IS A VIOLENT POWER. "Our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away." (Homilist.) Parallel Verses KJV: But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. |
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