You can not come to God unless you come giving up your sins entirely or crying to God for help to give them up.
You can, by God's grace, give up all your sins and all your sinful and slavish habits. A proof of this is my own deliverance from evil habits, as whisky, tobacco and evil passions, as lewdness, licentiousness.
1. You must give up sin. You can not expect to retain it and please God or serve God. Do not question this. You must give up sin. There is no escape. Turn away from it with all your heart and soul.
2. You must give up all sin, your besetting sin, the sin that has the most power over you.
3. Give up all sin now.
Do not wait. God will help you. You know not that you will be living to-morrow or next Sunday; and if you are, it will not be any easier then than it is to-day. Now is the day of salvation.
4. Give up all sin, give it up now, and give it up forever. You can not give it up for awhile and then turn to it again. That will do you no good. You might as well not give it up at all as to turn back to it again.
And look to God for help, for present help, for all-sufficient strength.
Tell Him by His help you mean to be His, no matter what it costs; and believe on Jesus Christ, His Son, as the bearer of your past sins and the giver of the Holy Spirit, and very soon you will be happier than the men who own these hotels and business houses and Broadway palaces and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yes; you will. I know from my experience and that of others.
My text says, God will have mercy on you and will abundantly pardon you.