The Desert of Sin
Galatians 3:10
For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written…


Though some sins are greater than others, yet there is no sin but deserves damnation. Consider —

1. The party condemned by the law. Every sinner. Condemned for omissions as well as commissions.

2. The doom pronounced. God's wrath and curse.

I. I shall show, WHAT IS GOD'S WRATH AND CURSE WHICH EVERY SIN DESERVES.

1. God's wrath is no passion nor is there any perturbation in God, though an angry God. His wrath may be taken up in these two things.

(1) God's displeasure against the sinner (Psalm 5:4, 5). Sin makes the soul loathsome and hateful in God's sight, kindles a holy fire in His heart against the sinner (Psalm 90:11).

(2) God's dealing with sinners as His enemies, whom He is incensed against (Nehemiah 1:2; Isaiah 1:24). The wrath of a king is as the roaring of a lion; what then must the wrath of God be, an enemy where we can neither fight nor flee from, neither outwit nor outbrave? Of this wrath it is said, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

2. His curse is His separating one to evil (Deuteronomy 29:21). It is a devoting the sinner to destruction, to all the direful effects of the Divine wrath.

II. I shall show, WHAT IS GOD'S WRATH AND CURSE IN THIS LIFE AND THAT WHICH IS TO COME.

1. In this life they comprehend all the miseries of this world which one meets with on this side of time, miseries on the body, relations, name, estate, employment; miseries on the soul, as blindness, hardness, vile affections, horrors of conscience, etc., and, finally, death in the separation of soul and body. Thus they make a flood of miseries in this life.

2. In the life to come they comprehend eternal death and damnation, and an eternal being under the punishment of loss and sense in hell. So they make a shoreless sea of miseries in the life to come.

III. I proceed to show, that THERE IS NO SIN WHICH DOES NOT DESERVE THESE, BUT THAT EVERY SIN DESERVES THIS WRATH AND CURSE,

1. The wages of every sin is death (Romans 6:23).

2. Every sin is a breach of the law; and he who breaks it in erie point is guilty of all (James 2:10). The commands of the law have all one Author, whose majesty is offended by whatsoever breach. The law requires universal obedience.

3. Christ died for all the sins of all His elect (1 Peter 3:18; 1 John 1:7).

4. The least sin will condemn a man if it be not forgiven (Matthew 5:19); even idle words (Matthew 12:36, 37).

IV. I come to show, WHY EVERY SIN DESERVES SO MUCH. The reason is, it is a kind of infinite evil; and, therefore, since the punishment is deservedly proportioned to the offence, it deserves infinite punishment. Sin is an infinite evil in two respects.

1. In respect that the guilt and defilement of it is never taken away, but endures for ever, unless the Lord Himself in mercy do remove it.

2. In respect it wrongs an infinite God. The creature, being finite, is not capable of punishment infinite in value, therefore it is necessarily infinite in duration, There is a manifold wrong to God in the least sin.

(1)  It wrongs His infinite sovereignty (James 2:10, 11).

(2)  It wrongs His infinite goodness (Exodus 20:1, 2).

(3)  It wrongs His holiness (Habakkuk 1:13).

(4)  It breaks His law, the eternal rule of righteousness (1 John 3:4).

(T. Boston, D. D.)



Parallel Verses
KJV: For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.

WEB: For as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse. For it is written, "Cursed is everyone who doesn't continue in all things that are written in the book of the law, to do them."




The Curse Realized
Top of Page
Top of Page