How natural it seems to make excuses. If we are found fault with, we have an excuse ready to our tongue. If we have to confess that we have been in the wrong, we do so with an excuse. Ever since the day when Adam and Eve fled from their Maker’s Presence in the Garden of Eden, ever since Adam spoke those first words of excuse, "The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat," ever since then man has made one excuse after another, until excuses come so readily that it is difficult to speak without making one. We are all of us very fond of trying to shift the blame from our own shoulders on to those of others. If a railway accident takes place, it is most difficult to find out who is to blame for it. If an army is cut to pieces in battle, the blame is generally laid upon the dead. But if a praiseworthy action is done, and men talk about it, and it gets reported in the newspapers, there are always plenty of people quite ready to come forward and lay claim to having done the brave deed. And what is true of our earthly life, the life of the body, is true also of the life of the soul. When we fall into sin, when we come on our knees to confess the sin to Almighty God, how very often the confession is spoilt by excuses. Just as Adam laid the blame on Eve, and Eve in her turn blamed the Serpent, so we lay the blame on somebody else, and expect God will accept our excuses. Now there are so many excuses that the devil teaches men, that it would be quite impossible for me to deal with nearly all of them; but there are one or two of the commonest, against which I can put you on your guard. One of the excuses most frequently made for not coming to Christ is, "I am not good enough." Reader, which of us would be good enough for Christ, if He required us to be perfect? But He wants us to come just as we are, to come with our sins, and lay them upon Him, Who bore them long ago "in His own body on the tree."