Many people today feel their heart has been tattooed or branded with a record of their sins, like the "A" the adulterous woman had to wear in Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter, or the old brand of a slave or criminal.
Today people bear no outward symbols revealing their sin, but their heart is seared with what they've done. Every thought of their past failures feels like a white-hot branding iron, burning a giant "W" for Wretch on their heart.
That's what slave-trader John Newton felt like during the crisis period of his own conversion. He had trafficked in human cargo, been responsible for the deaths of innocent Africans in trans-Atlantic voyages, caused families to be broken up, parents and children to be separated. Besides his slave-trading sins, he had lived a totally reprobate lifestyle. He was an incorrigible sinner and encouraged others to be the same.
The line from his now famous hymn, "Amazing Grace," "that saved a wretch like me," was not for effect. That is exactly how John Newton saw himself—a wretch who had sinned beyond the reach of God's grace.
Newton had one thing right and one thing wrong. Slave trading was a despicable sin, to be sure. But the apostle James wrote that whoever keeps the whole law, yet stumbles in one point, is guilty of breaking all the law (James 2:10). So from God's perspective, left to himself, John Newton was a wretch—and so am I, and so are you.
When it comes to being a branded sinner, there are no "degrees" of sin or "acceptable" sins. All it takes is one sin to keep us out of heaven, to separate us from the presence of the holy God who created us. All of us deserve to have a giant "W" branded on our hearts forever.
The Cleansed Heart
But that brings up what John Newton had wrong: No sin is permanent. Not his, not mine, and not yours. The only thing that is permanent is the grace of God!
Today, people try to cover their branded hearts with outward shows of success and status and superiority. Like covering a tattoo with a T-shirt, it's only a temporary solution. Only one thing can remove the brand of sin from the human heart, and that is the amazing grace of God.
Jeremiah 17:9 is perhaps the most succinct statement ever penned about the human heart. It says the heart is wicked (or wretched):
"The heart is more deceitful than anything else and desperately sick—who can understand it?" (HCSB)
"The human heart is most deceitful and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?" (NLT)
"The heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful, a puzzle that no one can figure out." (The Message)
"Who can understand the human heart? There is nothing else so deceitful; it is too sick to be healed." (GNT)
Several hundred years later, the apostle Paul penned the antidote to Jeremiah's woeful lament about the human heart: "But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more" (Romans 5:20b). Sin is not the greatest thing nor a permanent thing. The only thing greater, the only thing that can remove sin permanently, is the amazing grace of God!
From Wretched to Redeemed
I don't know how you see your heart today. You may think it has been permanently branded with whatever sin you have committed. Maybe you think it has a big "U" branded on it for unfaithful, unworthy, unlikely, undeserving, or unwilling. But, the brands on your heart from the past or present don't matter. They are not permanent! The only thing that is permanent is the grace of God that is greater than all of your sin and mine.
Christ can come into your heart and change that "S" brand from Sinner to Saint . . . to Saved . . . to Set Apart . . . to Sanctified for the Lord. Jesus transferred the brands from your heart to the palms of His hands, marks that will identify Him forever as the One who set you free from the past—the One who changed your heart from Wretched to Redeemed.
Dr. Jeremiah is the founder of Turning Point for God, senior pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church in El Cajon, Calif., and chancellor of San Diego Christian College. For more information on Turning Point, go to www.TurningPointOnline.org.
Useful link: www.TurningPointOnline.org
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