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SIN SEARS THE WHOLE OF MAN NOT LEAST HIS CONSCIENCEThe custom of sinning has robbed us of our sense of sinning: Man has had his conscience seared so often that he has lost all sense of the danger of even one sin. It was but one sin that caused our earth but to go into a convulsion. Look at what sin has done and is doing to our world today. Fear of God is all but missing in society. Sin in Scripture is spoken of like a sickness, a type. Sin is of a spreading nature; it spreads all over the body; it works into every part, the head, stomach, and so on; it disorders the whole body. Sin does not rest in one part but spreads into all the faculties of the soul and members of the body. Isaiah 1:5-6: "The whole head is sick, the whole heart is faint; from the sole of the foot, even unto the head there is no soundness in it but wounds and bruises, and putrefying sores."Sin corrupts the understanding. C. H. Spurgeon calls the understanding "the lamp of reason." But this lamp burns dimly. Ephesians 4:18: "Having their understanding darkened." Sin has drawn a veil over the understanding; it has cast a mist before our eyes so that we neither know God nor ourselves. Naturally, we are only wise to do evil Jeremiah 4:22. We are witty at sin and wise to damn ourselves! The understanding is defiled 1 Cor. 2:14. We can no more judge spiritual objects until the Spirit of God anoints our eyes than a blind man can judge colors. Our understandings are subject to mistakes; we call evil good and good evil; we put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter Isaiah 5:20. A straight stick underwater seems crooked. Just so, to a natural understanding, the straight line of truth seems crooked.The memory is diseased. The memory at first was like a golden cabinet in which divine truths were locked up safely, but now it is like a colander or leaking vessel which lets all that is good run out. The memory is like a sifter, which sifts out the flour but keeps the husks. So the memory lets saving truths go and holds nothing but froth and vanity. Many a man can remember a silly story when he has forgotten Scripture truth. Thus the memory is diseased. The memory is like a bad stomach, all the good food is vomited out. So the most precious truths will not stay in memory but are gone again.The will is diseased. The will is the soul's commander-in-chief; it is the master-wheel; but how irregular and disordered it is! The will in the creation was like that golden bridle which Minerva was said to put upon Pegasus, to guide and rule him: it answered to God's will. This was the language of the will in innocence: "I delight to do your will, O God" Psalm 40:8. But now it is distempered and disordered; it is like an iron sinew which refuses to yield and bend to God. John 5:40: "You will not come to me, that you may have life." Wicked men would rather die than come to their Physician. The Armenians talk of free will but the will is sick. What freedom does a palsied man have to walk? The will is a rebel against God. Acts 7:51: "You always resist the Holy Spirit" because the will is diseased.The affections are sick. First, the affection of desire: a sick man desires that which is hurtful for him; he calls for wine in a fever. So the natural man, being sick, desires that which is bad for him; he has no desire after Christ; he does not hunger and thirst after righteousness, but desires poison. He desires to take his fill of sin; he loves death Proverbs 8:36.The affection of grief is sick. A man grieves for lack of an estate but not for the lack of God's favor! He grieves to see the plague or cancer in his body but not for the plague of his heart!The affection of joy is sick. Many can rejoice in a wedge of gold but not in the cross of Christ. The affections are sick and distempered.The conscience is diseased. Titus 1:15: "Their mind and conscience are defiled." Conscience is erroneous, binding to that which is sinful John 16:2. Acts 26:9: "I truly thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus." Conscience can lead out of the right way. Conscience is often silent, and will not tell men of sin; it is a silenced preacher. And conscience is dead Eph. 4:19. Conscience is stupefied and senseless; the custom of sinning has taken away the sense of sinning.Thus the sickness of sin has gone over the whole soul, like that cloud which overspread the face of the heavens 1 Kings 18:45.