it to be
true, that "The law of the Lord is perfect," and God requires us to keep
His law. He says, "My son forget not my law, but let thine heart keep my
commandments; for length of days and long life and peace, shall they add
to thee." (Prov. iii:1.) If you and I are faithful in the keeping of
God's law, then we can say like David, "I shall not be ashamed when I
have respect unto all of thy commandments." (Psalm cxix:6.)

Now, if I take this chain, and attempt to break it, I find that God has
not given me sufficient strength. Samson could have snapped it in a
moment, but I am not strong enough. God has given to some men much more
strength than to others.

If I were to pull very hard on this chain so as to break it, where do
you suppose it would break first? Why the weakest link in the entire
chain would be the first to break. No chain is stronger than its weakest
link. So it is with you and with me, our greatest goodness is no greater
than our greatest weakness. When men want to think how good they are,
they think of the best things they have ever done. But the fact is that
no man is better than the worst things he has ever done. A man who has
committed murder is a murderer. He might have done hundreds of good
things, but the law does not estimate him by the best things he has
done. The law estimates that man by the worst thing he has done, and by
that worst thing he is judged and condemned. And so it is with you and
me before God. The worst things which we have ever done will be the
things which will condemn us in the sight of the Judge of all the world.

While I am not able to break this metal chain, yet God has made it
possible for every person to break the chain of the moral law. God has
given human freedom to all men; He has told us what we should do, but
He has left us free to obey or to disobey.

Now, when we examine into the requirements of the Ten Commandments, we
find that everybody has violated some one or more of them at some time.
There is not a man or woman or child any where who is not guilty of
having broken God's law. And when I turn to the Scriptures, I find in
Galatians the third chapter, 10th verse, that God says, "Cursed is every
one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of
the law to do them." I see then by God's Word that we are all sinners,
that we are all guilty before God, because we have violated His law, and
next Sunday I will tell you what is to be done in view