The Peril of Unlawful Venture.
I. Self-control is a thing which we can perfectly well understand in its effects, in its sources, perhaps, not so well. In frail, unassisted man, self-control is a weak and poor safeguard against temptation. Passion and self-interest are too strong for it when it has nothing further to rely on than a man's own resolution and innate sense of right. But here God has been pleased to interfere, and to offer us the help of His grace to strengthen us in the conflict of life. His character as the Father of our spirits is pledged and committed to giving this grace and furnishing this strength to all that ask for it.
II. God's help is only to be looked for in God's ways, within those limits of serving Him and trusting Him which He has prescribed to all of us. Venture is lawful when we may fairly look, if God's mysterious providence does not interpose to prevent it, for a favourable issue of our labours. This is lawful venture, venture according to the ordinary course of God's providence, defeated and brought to loss only by His mysterious interposition. On the other hand, venture appears to me to be unlawful where no such reasonable prospect of success exists, where there is not, in God's ordinary course of providence, any connection existing between the means used for gain and the event upon which the gain depends. Take the case of one who wagers money on the issue of a matter over which he has not, even humanly speaking, any control. Such a one has no reason whatever to look for a prosperous issue to his venture in the common course of things. The awful name of a murderer clings by implication not only to him who hateth his brother, but to every man who surrenders himself to a pursuit in which he has not the secret of self-control, the fear of God, and the help of His grace.
H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons,vol. iii., p. 339.
Reference: 1 John 3:16-18. Homilist,2nd series, vol. iv., p. 590.