his
integrity, a rebellion against his government, a discord to his
being and a movement whose final tendency would be to dislodge him
from his throne.

The Bible hates sin and has no mercy for it.

The very leaves of the book seem to curl and grow crisp under the
fire of its hatred. So fearful is its denunciation that the sinner
shivers and hastens to turn away from a book whose lightest
denunciation of sin has in it the menace of eternal judgment. Like a
great fiery eye it looks into the very recesses of the heart and
reveals its intents and purposes. It sees lust hiding there in all
its lecherous deformity and says, he who exercises it solely in his
mind is as guilty in God's sight as though he had committed the act.
It looks into the heart and sees hate crouching there with its
tiger-like fangs and readiness to spring, and says that he who hates
his brother is already a murderer.

The Bible has no forgiveness for sin until it has been fully and
fearfully punished. In this it simply echoes the law stamped and
steeped in nature. Nature never forgives its violated law until it
has punished it. The Bible demands satisfaction, complete and
absolute, before it offers even the hint of forgiveness. It takes
the guilty sinner to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ and shows
him God's hatred of sin to be so great, that the moment his holy and
spotless Son representatively takes the sinner's place, he smites
him and pours out upon him a tidal sweep of wrath in a terror of
relentless judgment and indignation so immense, that the earth
quivers like an aspen, rocks to and fro, reels in its orbit till the
sun of day refuses to shine, and the moon of night hangs in the
startled heavens like a great clot of human blood.

The Bible declares that forgiveness of sin can come to the sinner
only by way of the anguish and punishment of the cross; and that no
sinner can be forgiven till he has accepted the downpour of the
wrath of God on the cross and the substitutional agony of the Son of
God as the punishment he himself so justly deserves.

The Bible teaches that in the awful cry, "My God, my God, why hast
thou forsaken me?" the sinner should hear the echo of his own agony,
as of one forsaken of God and swept out of his presence forever; and
that the only ground of approach to this righteous God is the
atoning blood of his crucified Son; that he who would approach God,
find forgiveness and justification, must claim that crucified