My Very First Lie

Submitted by Alan Marsden on Sun, 29/01/2017 - 20:40

When I attended Sunday school, the superintendent was a lady called Sheila Christie. Before we went into our different classes, she would lead all the children in traditional Christian children's songs accompanied by her accordion. As a family, we once visited her home and I would've been about four years old. I had asked to go to the toilet and was allowed upstairs to conclude my business. In one of the bedrooms adjacent to the bathroom sat the accordion. Not only did I love its sound, I had an obsession with its many buttons and the beautiful deep red of its decoration. I naturally yielded to the temptation and fiddled with it. When I returned downstairs, my mother demanded to know if I have touched the accordion. "No!" I lied. And this is the first memory I have of sin. Doubtless there were many other examples but they have been lost in the mists of time. 

A few months ago, Sheila gave the accordion to me, unmusical though I am. Here is a wonderful reminder of original sin. No one told me how to lie: it came naturally. I did it because that's who I was. In Christ, however, original sin is being cleansed and I am being shaped into His truthful image. 
 

“Mercy and truth are met together.” Ps. 85. 10

Truth and mercy meet together,
Righteousness and peace embrace;
Each perfection of Jehovah
Meets and shines in Jesus’ face;
Here the Father
Can be just and save by grace.

What a field of consolation!
Here no jarring notes are found;
Zion has a full salvation,
And shall all her foes confound;
Each believer
Has for hope a solid ground.

Justice has no loss sustainèd;
Truth remains in perfect light;
Not an attribute is stainèd;
All in one grand cause unite;
Savèd sinners
Must and shall in God delight.

Here’s a cord which can’t be broken;
O my soul, with wonder tell;
God himself the word has spoken,
Zion in her Lord shall dwell;
And with Jesus
Live in spite of earth and hell.

[O ye much-esteemèd sinners,
Who in Jesus Christ are found,
Rest assured you shall be winners,
Soon with glory shall be crowned;
And for ever
Shall the praise to Christ redound.]

Gadsby's Hymns, No 600.