I. Self-destruction is possible to us men even the destruction of the highest, noblest, and divinest part of our nature.
II. The only power by which we can destroy ourselves is the power of sinning.
III. Every finally destroyed man is self-destroyed.
IV. The self-destroyer who is in this perilous position may be saved from self-destruction. (1) A man cannot save himself. (2) No fellow-man can save the sinner. God can save the self-destroyer, but God alone. (3) Think of the encouragement to return. "As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of a sinner, but rather that he should return unto Me and live."
S. Martin, Westminster Chapel Pulpit,4th series, No. 11.
References: Hosea 13:9. W. Jay, Thursday Penny Pulpit,vol. iii., p. 61.Hosea 13:10. Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes: Ecclesiastes to Malachi,p. 321.