Perfection Demanded

Do you want to be saved by your own righteousness? Do you know what kind of righteousness it must be? To be accepted, it must be perfect. That is to say, if you have committed but one sin, you have stained your character in the sight of God, and your hope of perfect righteousness is gone. God's Law requires obedience, from the first moment that the creature understands that Law, as long as ever that creature lives. Mark what it requires of you: "Thou shalt love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind." Have you done that? "And your neighbor as yourself." Have you done that? Why, there is not one of us he has done it. If we had kept the Law of God completely, from the first command to the last, from the first day until now; even that would not save us; for, if there were to be one sinful word or deed during the rest of life, it would spoil the whole, and God could not accept our righteousness.

When a man commits one sin, he is guilty of disobedience to all the commands of God; for "he that offends in one point is guilty of all." Here is a chain containing twenty links. If I break one of them I have broken the chain. True, there are nineteen perfect links; but if number twenty is snapped, down goes the cage over the mouth of the mine, and the miners are killed. Suppose that I should be required to produce a perfect vase of alabaster, or clear crystal, as a present to the Queen. But my servant-maid has chipped it just a little. What is to be done? I may possibly find somebody to use some patent cement, and fasten the little pieces in their places; but when all is done, it is chipped; it is not perfect; and if it must be perfect before royalty can accept it, I must got another vase, for this one will not do.