These words contain an important principle of general application to every sin the impossibility for a man to play with the enticement to sin without falling a prey thereto. The truth of the statement will appear if we take into consideration the following things:
I. That every temptation presented to man addresses itself to a nature that is already corrupt, and is therefore liable to take to it.
II. That man in playing with the temptation puts himself directly in the way that leads naturally to the sin.
III. That playing with the temptation to any evil shows some degree of bias in the nature to that particular evil.
IV. That playing with temptation brings man into contact with sin only on its pleasurable side, and thus gives it an advantage to make an impression favourable to itself on his mind.
V. That man, through playing with temptation, weakens his moral power to resist the sin, and gradually gets so debilitated as to be too weak to oppose it.
VI. That man, by playing with temptation, at last tempts the Spirit of God to withdraw His protection from him, and to leave him to himself, and a prey to his lust.
O. Thomas, The Welsh Pulpit of Today,p. 68.
References: Proverbs 6:28. E. R. Conder, Drops and Rocks,p. 149. 6 Parker, Pulpit Analyst,vol. i., p. 541.