The Lower Courts

“Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God.”

The fault of many is that they will not lay spiritual things to heart at all, but treat them in a superficial manner. This is foolish, sinful, deadly. We ought to put our case upon serious trial in the court of our own conscience.

Certain of a better class are satisfied with the verdict of their hearts, and do not remember the higher courts; and therefore either become presumptuous, or are needlessly distressed. We are about to consider the judgments of this lower court. Here we may have—

I. A CORRECT VERDICT AGAINST OURSELVES.

Let us sum up the process.

1. The court sits under the King’s arms, to judge by royal authority. The charge against the prisoner is read. Conscience accuses, and quotes the law as applicable to the points alleged.

2. Memory gives evidence. As to the fact of sin in years past, and of sin more lately committed. Items mentioned. Sabbath sins. Transgressions of each one of the ten commandments. Rejection of the gospel. Omissions in a thousand ways. Failure in motive, spirit, temper, etc.

3. Knowledge gives evidence that the present state of mind and heart and will is not according to the Word.

4. Self-love and pride urge good intents and pious acts in stay of proceedings. Hear the defense! But alas! it is not worth hearing. The defense is but one of “the refuges of lies.”

5. The heart, judging by the law, condemns. Henceforth the man lives as in a condemned cell under fear of death and Hell.

   • If even our partial, half-enlightened heart condemns, we may well tremble at the thought of appearing before the Lord God.
   • The higher court is more strictly just, better informed, more authoritative, and more able to punish. God knows all. Forgotten sin, sins of ignorance, sins half seen are all before the Lord.
   • What a terrible case is this! Condemned in the, lower court, and sure to be condemned in the higher!

II. AN INCORRECT VERDICT AGAINST OURSELVES.

The case as before. The sentence apparently most clear.

But when revised by the higher court it is reversed, for good reasons.

1. The debt has been discharged by the man’s glorious Surety.

2. The man is not the same man; though he sinned he has died to sin, and he now lives as one born from above.

3. The evidences in his favor, such as the atonement and the new birth, were forgotten, undervalued, or misjudged in the lower court; hence he was condemned. Sentence of condemnation does not stand when these matters are duly noted.

4. The evidence looked for by a sickly conscience was what it could not find, for it did not exist, namely, natural goodness, perfection, unbroken joy, etc. The judge was ignorant, and legally inclined. The verdict was therefore a mistaken one. An appeal clears the case: “God is greater than our heart, and knows all things.”

III. A CORRECT VERDICT OF ACQUITTAL.

Our heart sometimes justly “condemns us not.”

The argument for non-condemnation is good: the following are the chief items of evidence in proof of our being gracious—

1. We are sincere in our profession of love to God.

2. We are filled with love to the brethren.

3. We are resting upon Christ, and on him alone.

4. We are longing after holiness.

   • The result of this happy verdict of the heart is that we have—
   • Confidence towards God that we are really his.
   • Confidence as to our reconciliation with God by Jesus Christ.
   • Confidence that he will not harm us, but will bless us.
   • Confidence in prayer that he will accept and answer.
   • Confidence as to future judgment that we shall receive the gracious reward at the last great day.

IV. AN INCORRECT VERDICT OF ACQUITTAL.

1. A deceived heart may refuse to condemn, but God will judge us all the same. He will not allow self-conceit to stand.

2. A false heart may acquit, but this gives no confidence Godward.

3. A deceitful heart pretends to acquit while in its center it condemns.

   • If we shrink now, what shall we do in judgment?
   • What a waking, to find ourselves condemned at the last!

Quotations

When Sir Walter Raleigh had laid his head upon the block, says an eloquent divine, he was asked by the executioner whether it lay aright. Whereupon, with the calmness of a hero and the faith of a Christian, he returned an answer, the power of which we all shall feel when our head is tossing and turning on death’s uneasy pillow—“It matters little, my friend, how the head lies, providing the heart be right.”—Steele.

As Luther says: “Though conscience weigh us down, and tell us God is angry, yet God is greater than our heart. The conscience is but one drop; the reconciled God is an ocean of consolation.”

Critical English Testament.

A seared conscience thinks better of itself, a wounded worse than it ought: the former may account all sin a sport, the latter all sport a sin; melancholy men, when sick, are ready to conceive any cold to be the cough of the lungs, and an ordinary pustule to be no less than a plague-sore. So wounded consciences conceive sins of infirmity to be sins of presumption, sins of ignorance to be sins of knowledge, apprehending their case to be far more dangerous than it is indeed.—Thomas Fuller.

Conscience works after the manner so beautifully set forth in the ring that a great magician, according to an Eastern tale, presented to his prince. The gift was of inestimable value, not for the diamonds and rubies and pearls that gemmed it, but for a rare and mystic property in the metal. It sat easily enough on the finger in ordinary circumstances, but as soon as its wearer formed a bad thought, designed or committed a bad action, the ring became a monitor. Suddenly contracting, it pressed painfully on his finger, warning him of sin. Such a ring, thank God, is not the peculiar property of kings; the poorest of us, those that wear none other, may possess and wear this inestimable jewel; for the ring of the fable is just that conscience which is the voice of God within us, which is his law, engraved by the finger of God, not on Sinai’s granite tables, but on the fleshy tablets of the heart, which, enthroned as a sovereign in every bosom, commends us when we do right, and condemns us when we do wrong.—Dr. Guthrie.

The spirit of man, that candle of the Lord, often gives but a faint and glimmering light; but the Spirit of God snuffs it, that it may burn brighter.—Benjamin Beddome.