Jeremiah 17:1 - Homiletics

Engraved sin.

I. SIN LEAVES A RECORD OF ITSELF . It is not an isolated act. It begets consequences—plants memories, creates guilt. The record remains even if we do not read it. God still notes it, and will some day confront us with it. Hence it is not enough to amend our ways for the future. We need to have past transgressions blotted out if we are to be restored to peace with God.

II. THE RECORD OF SIN IS ENGRAVED ON HEART OF THE SINNER .

1. It is written on the memory. Men who have forsaken the scenes of their evil deeds cannot shake off the clinging burden of the memory of them. The criminal is haunted by his crimes. They people his dreams with horrors; they overshadow his waking hours with gloom. Even when sin is put out of mind it is probably buried in the secret chamber of memory, to be ultimately brought to the light of consciousness. The experience of those who have been recovered from drowning and from delirium suggests the idea that forgotten memories can be revived, and that probably the whole of the soul's experience is indelibly written upon the memory. No other recording-angel may be wanted. The soul carries its own indictment in the record it bears of its own conduct.

2. This is also written on the affections . Sin begets the passion for sin. Vice springs from the heart, and it corrupts the heart. That which is first committed under the stress of temptation comes at length to be sought with the hunger of a natural appetite.

III. THE RECORD OF SIN IS ENGRAVED ON THE ALTAR OF SACRIFICE . Judah desecrated the altar of Jehovah with idolatrous rites. We desecrate Divine things by sinful conduct.

1. We cannot leave our guilt behind us when we enter the temple of worship. If it is not repented of it will vitiate the worship. The sin of the week-day renders worthless the offerings of the Sunday.

2. Sin directly connected with religion is peculiarly wicked. The altar is defiled. Thus the offering of gifts from base motives, deceit, and unholiness in worship, stamps our sins with peculiar guilt on the altar of God.

IV. THIS RECORD OF SIN IS NATURALLY INDELIBLE . It is graven with an adamant.

1. It is, therefore, useless to ignorant .

2. It is vain to try to wash it away by any effort of our own.

3. It is foolish to expect peace with God till this terrible hindrance has been removed out of the way.

4. We have every motive to seek in penitence and in faith that God should blot out our sin, not only from his book of remembrance, but also from our hearts, even though it is so deeply written there that nothing short of the creation of a new heart will remove it ( Psalms 51:10 ).