Hebrews 3 - The Biblical Illustrator

Exhort one another

Restraining of spiritual intercourse in families

I. THE EVIL OF THE RESTRAINING AMONG NEAR RELATIVES OF FREE INTERCOURSE ABOUT THEIR SOULS, IS EVIDENT from this, first of all

1. That it is a breach of God’s express command in the text, “Exhort one another daily.” If this duty lies on professing Christians simply as such, much more must it be obligatory on husband and wife, brother and sister, parent and child.

2. The evil of it appears in that it involves, I suspect to a very large extent, the sin of being ashamed of Christ and of His words. Whence that strange silence, that awe-struck air in the presence of a brother? If it were before a stranger, one might try to account for it in different ways. But this will not do among persons accustomed to open their minds freely on every other subject.

3. This restraint cuts off all the precious innumerable benefits which God intended to arise from the exhortation enjoined in the text, and which in families were all the greater, in virtue of the constant opportunities and peculiar facilities there afforded for it. What daily consolation, what instruction, what warning, what encouragement, what direction, are thus lost for ever!

4. There is a specially mischievous effect produced by it on the children of a family. The absence of it throws a fearful stumbling-block in their way. Is heaven a reality? Is Christ indeed beloved? Is the soul imperishable? The faith of the child, such as it is, is gradually sapped and undermined.

5. Near relatives are, by this restraint, deprived of one of the mightiest incentives to a holy life.

II. THE CAUSES OF THIS.

1. The unregenerate condition of too many parents, and other near relatives, professing religion. They cannot speak of Christ, because they are ignorant of Him. They cannot commend Him to others, because they have never themselves embraced Him. The world is their theme, because it is their treasure, their god.

2. Careless, inconsistent walking before God and each other, among near relatives, is one painful and powerful cause. Persons professing godliness, united in very endearing ties, are not careful to order their lives in each other’s sight, entirely as becomes the gospel. Honesty forbids it. It is felt that it were hypocrisy to talk of Christ’s love and of His law, unless, at least, it were with the avowed design of committing the parties to an immediate change. But still farther

3. And in close connection with inconsistent walking, yet distinct from it, I believe that the chief cause of the restraint in question among the people of God is to be found in the want of soul-prosperity, and of a close and habitual intercourse in secret with God and His blessed Word. The want, in short, of religion, or the low’ state of it, are the real causes of this evil.

III. There can be little difficulty in discovering and noticing THE REMEDIES, under God, for the evil. These must take their character from the causes.

1. I besought you to ask yourselves, as in God’s sight, whether ye were Christ’s indeed.

2. If the cause lie with you in careless and inconsistent walking, whatever other remedies you may employ, let that command be heard, “Put away the strange gods which are among you, and prepare your hearts unto the Lord, and serve Him only.” And especially

3. In the third place, seek the remedy for this evil in a closer walk with God, in a more habitual, living fellowship with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. (C. J. Brown.)

Model exhortation

I would have every minister of the gospel address his audience with the zeal of a friend, with the generous energy of a father, and with the exuberant affection of a mother. (Fenelon.)

Lest any of you be hardened

Soul-fossilisation

I. THE EVIL ITSELF.

1. It is from an obstinate refusal to attend to Divine things, which are irksome and painful, and the soul is better pleased with those things which are congenial, and afford pleasure and satisfaction.

2. It is from the natural character of the heart, which, unless renewed, refuses to bend to the teachings of grace and the leadings of the Holy Spirit.

II. THE PREVALENCE OF THE EVIL. It exists everywhere that human nature exists. It is both natural and acquired. The heart, though naturally hard, is made harder by the circumstances by which it is surrounded.

III. THE END AND CONSEQUENCE OF THE EVIL. It is like the fossilisation of an object which we sometimes see. A piece of wood or cotton is placed under the drip of a waterfall; in a short time it is encrusted, and becomes, to all intents and purposes, a stone. It is hard, unimpressionable, will neither melt nor burn. So the heart of man may become a fossil, incapable of good actions, tender thoughts, holy feelings. (Homilist.)

The danger of heart-hardening through sin

I. THE SOURCE OF GREAT AND ALARMING DANGER.

1. Sin is deceitful.

(1) In its appearances.

(2) In its promises.

(3) In its influences.

2. Sin prevails through its deceitfulness. In the time of temptation its deformity is hid; its real character is veiled. Many a man on a dying bed has been compelled to feel the difference of the views he has entertained in health and in a state of sickness. But when sin presents itself to the objects of its temptation, it suggests itself as easy to be avoided: “Oh, you are not the slaves of sin; you may avoid it, or you may limit your progress in it; yield to the temptation, and stop when you please.” So the devil deceives the human mind. It often changes its tone, and it is equally deceitful in both cases. It is sometimes represented as irresistible; the man says, “I have no power to resist it.” This is the way the mind is operated upon by the tempter. Oh, how great is the deceitfulness of sin 1

3. Sin hardens through its deceitfulness.

(1) Hardness of heart implies a state of moral insensibility, the moral susceptibility of the heart being removed, the soul becoming callous, so that spiritual things do not impress.

(2) In hardness of heart there is a principle of inflexibility and rebellion in the heart. It is not merely hard like stone; there is something like a reaction: the hardness is manifested in its resistance to the claims of truth--an inward principle of rebellion against God.

(3) Sin hardens the heart by strengthening the principles and habits of iniquity in us. The restraints of conscience in this way are overcome.

II. THE CONDUCT THAT IS TO BE PURSUED UNDER THESE CIRCUMSTANCES, We must “exhort one another.”

1. Now exhortation implies instruction. We are to endeavour to diffuse “the savour of the knowledge of Christ Jesus the Lord.”

2. This exhortation implies warning and reproof; where it is necessary to warn our fellow-creatures that are in danger of “being hardened through the deceitfulness of sin”; to set the danger before them, and affectionately to point out to them the dreadful consequences which must ensue.

3. But this implies also encouragement. We ought to encourage one another to look to God, to seek much grace to enable us to counteract the influence of sin.

4. But this exhortation to which we are admonished is private exhortation. Now let me remind you that the discharge of this duty does necessarily imply a disposition to receive exhortation as well as to give it.

5. But this is a serious and a very difficult duty to discharge successfully.

(1) If you exhort one another let it be seriously, then; do not affect to give religious instruction in a spirit of levity. Let us remember that the soul is the object concerned.

(2) And let it be with a right spirit; do not assume superiority; do not pretend to dictate like masters.

(3) In love.

(4) Seasonably. Watch for opportunities.

(5) Prayerfully. All our effort will be unavailing without God’s blessing.

(6) Frequently. “Daily,” i.e, as often as you can seasonably..

(7) Urgently. Whatever we do we must do now, or perhaps we shall not do it at all: we know not what another hour may bring forth. (Josiah Hill.)

Private exhortation

1. Private Christians not only may, but should, keep Christian communion amongst themselves, and mutually exhort and stir up one another.

2. This is a necessary means of preserving people from defection.

3. And a duty daily to be discharged while it is to-day; that is, as oft, and as long, as God giveth present occasion and opportunity for it, lest a scattering come. (D. Dickson, M. A.)

A warning against hardness of heart

I. THE HARDENING CHARACTER OF SIN.

1. There is no doubt whatever that living among sinners has a hardening tendency upon men. You cannot walk about in this great lazar-house without receiving some contagion.

2. Let me here remark that the sins of God’s people are peculiarly operative in this manner. If I see a drunkard intoxicated, I am simply shocked at him, but I am not likely to imitate his example; but if I see the same vice in a man whom I respect, and whose example has hitherto been to me the guide of my life, I may be greatly grieved at first, but the tendency of my mind will be to make an excuse for him; and when one has succeeded in framing a plausible excuse for the sin of another, it is very natural to use it on one’s own behalf. Association with inconsistent Christians has been the downfall of many young believers. The devil delights to use God’s own birds as a decoy for his nets.

3. It is often a long and laborious process by which conscience is completely seared. It usually begins thus: the man’s first carefulness and tenderness departs. It may not seem a great evil to have less abhorrence of evil, but this truly is the egg from which the worst mischief may come. The next distressing sign of growing hardness is increasing neglect or laxity of private devotions without any corresponding shock of the spiritual sensibilities on account of it. Another symptom of increasing callousness of heart is the fact that hidings of the Saviour’s face do not cause that acute and poignant sorrow which they produced in former times. Still further, when the soul is hardened to this extent, it is probable that sin will no longer cause such grief as it once did. It is a sad sign of coming declension when we can talk of sin lightly, make excuses for it, or make jokes about it. The next step in this ladder, down, down, down to destruction, is that sin thus causing less grief is indulged in more freely. After this there is still a greater hardening of heart--the man comes to dislike rebukes.

II. THE PECULIAR POWER WHICH LIES IN SIN TO HARDEN THE HEART. It is the deceitfulness of sin. The heart is deceitful, and sin is deceitful; and when these two deceitful ones lay their heads together to make up a case, there is no wonder if man, like a silly dove, is taken in their net. One of the first ways in which sin deceives the professor is by saying, “You see no hurt has come of it.” Forgetting that the immediate results of sin are not always apparent in this world, and that if hardness of heart be not apparent it is all the more real. Then sin will whisper next, “This would be sin in other people, but it is not in you. You see you were placed in a peculiar position; there is indulgence for you which could not be accorded to other men: you are young,” says sin, “nobody could accuse you if you did go a little rashly to work--if you were an older professor it would be very wrong.” Then if it is an old man who is to be deceived, sin will cry, “You must take care of yourself; you need more indulgence than others.” If a man be in private life, sin will then suggest, “It does not matter in you: it would be wrong in a church-officer, but nobody knows it in your case.” If it be some person in high repute, then sin whispers, “Your character is so well established it will bear it.” Again, sin will sometimes have the impudence to say, “It is very easy to repent of it.” This vile traitor is even dastardly enough to take the doctrines of grace and turn them into a reason for sin.

III. THE REMEDY WHICH IS PROVIDED IN THE TEXT FOR US TO USE WITH OTHERS. “Exhort one another.” Doubtless many professors would be saved from gross sins if mutual exhortation were more commonly practised in the churches of God in the power of the Holy Spirit. All of you, without exception, whether you be rich or poor, see to each other’s souls; say not, “Am I my brother’s keeper? “ It is so pleasant to restore a brother from the error of his ways, that I can offer you no greater reward than these two, to screen the name of Christ from shame, and to have the pleasure of saving a soul from death and covering a multitude of sins

IV. SUPPOSE THIS TO BE THE CASE WITH ANY ONE OF US, WHAT THEN? Some of us arc in such a position that we are not very likely to be exhorted, we are keepers of the vineyard, and have none who would take upon themselves to admonish us. Our enemies, however, very ably supply the lack, for they often tell us very profitable, but very unpleasant truths. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Hardness of heart

Hardness scarcely needs an explanation. It is that which, taking it from the armoury or from the smithery, gives the power to any metal to resist a weapon thrown against it; to turn the edge of the sword, to blunt the point of the spear, to quench the fiery dart, as it were: and in that sense of course it would be auspicious to have something that was hardened. But to render insensitive that which is carried within, and which ought to be sensitive; to have a disposition which has the power of turning away an appeal, of dismissing an argument, and of making vital truth a matter of indifference--that kind of hardening is much to be deplored. And it is just that which we are cautioned against. Every physician knows that a medicine is worn out by continuous use. As it were, the system adapts itself to it, and it ceases to be remedial. So there is a power in repetitious truth to become unremedial to men. This hardening is not brought about on purpose in those to whom I refer. I am not speaking to that class of persons who deliberately set themselves against the truth; I am speaking to that very much larger class of persons who first become indifferent to truth, and then are deceived in regard to it, and at last are snared by its enemies. One of the circumstances which tend to deceive men, and to wear out the power of truth upon their conscience and upon their understanding, is the attempt to make truth merely the cause of susceptibility, or of mere emotions. Men want to be stirred up; they want to feel; but feeling constantly stirred up and never employed loses tone. It is had for any man to have feeling that abides as feeling. Now it is the peculiar nature of religious truth that it plays upon excitability. Of truth there is much that touches hope, much that touches fear, and much that touches conscience, on every side; but it is a very dangerous thing for a man to hear more truth preached than he cares to practise. You may say that so much of that which he hears as he does not practise goes over to the account of instruction; and that may be so in regard to truth set forth in a didactic form; but to accustom oneself to hearing truth merely for the sake of having it play upon the susceptibilities is very dangerous, because it is a very deceitful experience; and yet there are multitudes of persons that do it. Then, next, there are a great many who hear the teaching of the Word of God, who receive it into good ground--that is, into their reason--who approve it, who feel as though they ought to give heed to it, andwho wish to profit by it, but in whom the impulse dies with that wish, and does not convert itself into a choice. They say, “I think that view was just: it commends itself to my mind as truth, and I really have been taking it home to myself; I am thinking about it; the time has come when I should be a better man, and take some steps in advance; if I am ever going to be a Christian man I ought to become one now”--and that is about the extent to which they go. Now, when a man has done that through the first year, when he has done it through the second year, and when he has done it through the third year, he begins to be tattooed, as it were. Constant iteration and trituration harden the skin, and the sensibility of his mind becomes like the sensibility of the palm of his hand, and grows leather-like. By reason of the continual handling of a man’s judgment his power of choosing becomes inert and inoperative. The perpetual raining of truth upon a man may be kept up without developing in him either character, as I said in the first instance, or choice, as I say in the second instance. Then, when the truth is being preached to men of their own sinfulness, and of their great need of a transformed nature, so that they shall rise from the flesh life to the spirit life, a great many persons feel as though this were a thing that ought to be pondered. They feel as though time should be taken to think of it. They are afraid they shall commit themselves without having reckoned whether, beginning a Christian life, they can complete it. So they take it into account. And there are two points to be made on that subject. In the first place, there is one class who take it into account, not by meditation and thought, but by reverie. It is one thing for a man to say, “God be merciful to me, a sinner; without the interposition of Divine grace I am lost; and I will cry immediately to God for help; I will begin a Christian life to-day.” That is effectual. But, on the other hand, a man, coming home from listening to a strong sermon, says, “That was well put. What if I should go to church next Sunday night, and the minister should preach on Lazarus? And what if I should be awakened? And what if I should have one of those terrible experiences which I have heard of? And what if all the sins of my life should be brought before me? And what if I should roll all night in distress? Then the minister would come and see me, and friends would gather around me, and I would pray and wrestle, and by-and-by there would suddenly come a bur,-t of light, and I should be converted, and everything would be new to me; and I would join the Church, and what a happy day it would be for father and mother when they saw me do that! And I would be a real Christian--not a lean, skinny Christian, like some that I have seen.” Thus a man weaves the fabric of an imaginary life, and it is all reverie. He supposes he is thinking about religion. He says, “I am taking it into consideration.” Oh, fool! you are taking it into consideration very much as a spider weaves silk when he makes cobwebs to catch flies on. It is all in the air. It is vacuous. There are other persons who have a very salutary horror of insincerity. They say to themselves, “This matter of religion is of transcendent importance, and if a man is going to be a Christian he ought to consider it well.” And there is a certain sort of comeliness in this. No man ought to go tumbling headlong into a profession of religion. But it is not necessary that a man should have a theological education before he can become a Christian. And, besides, no man can wait. No man does wait. There is not a man of you who, when the way of manhood is pointed out to him, does not choose. You go one way or the other. You know what truth is, and you either take the way of truth or the way of falsehood. Ten thousand influences upon every side have been pressing home the truth upon you. And what is the result? You say, “Yes, religion is a profoundly important thing; and yet it is one that ought to be much thought of.” But this ought not so to be. It is not for you, like a ship in a harbour, to cast anchor now, and swing with every tide that carries you first north and then south, for ever changing and never travelling. It is not for you to stand still and talk about thinking. A long time ago you ought to have been doing. You ought before now to have chosen, and to have converted sensibility into conduct and character. And if all the excuse you have for not entering upon a Christian life is that you do not want to do it until you have laid the foundations of thought; if you excuse yourself by saying, “I do not want to go into a Christian life until I have made sure that I will not come out of it,” then let me warn you lest you harden your heart through the deceitfulness of sin in this most guileful and specious form. At last, when men have got past these stages, there comes the stage of easy acquiescence and of mild criticism from the standpoint of mere taste. They make such a voyage as boys make who take their whittled-out miniature boats over to the park and sail them across the lake and back again. There is as much in one of these voyages as in the other. There are others who criticise the truth from a logical and instructive standpoint. They have intellectual acumen, they have critical sensibility, they are good critics: a great deal better critics than they are Christians. The truth may be as weighty as eternity; it may be a truth that reaches to the very heart of Christ; it may be the whole theme of salvation by faith in the Saviour: and all that it does to them is to excite in them a momentary pleasure of the taste, a transient gratification of the intellect, and a generous criticism as to its ability or inability, as the case may be. And what is the condition of a man upon whom the presentation of the weightiest truths no longer awakens sensibility, nor stimulates a disposition to choose, nor creates an impulse in the right direction? These are not bad men--that is, in the sense of being vicious, or in the sense of being guilty of outrageousness in any way. Often their conduct is conformable to all the best rules of social life. But they have sealed themselves against the higher forms of spiritual growth which translate one from the life of the body to the life of the Spirit. And their chances for development in true manhood as it is in Christ Jesus grow less and less every day through the deceitfulness of sin which is hardening their hearts. And so as men grow old, as age creeps on them, upon natural decay is superinduced this waste which arises from the constant hearing of the truth and from non-action, and which results in men’s coming into that dry and arid state in which the harvest is past, and the summer is ended, and they are not saved. And now, what is to be done? Consider the guilt of every man who thus practises upon himself. It was only as early as 1400, I think, in the war between the Turks and the Greeks, that that magnificent structure, the Acropolis, and the temple of Minerva, and the statue of Minerva, and that wonderful frieze, the work of Phidias, whose very fragment has been the despair of the art of modern days, were destroyed. Into the magnificent temple of Minerva, which was the glory of Athens, the Turks threw bombs, which exploded and shattered the temple into a mass of shapeless ruins; and that which adorned the ripest age of the world in beauty and art perished, as it were, in an hour. To have demolished an old granite fort, to have battered down an old earthwork, would have caused sorrow to no one; but to have blotted out the grandest and most exquisite achievements of human taste, human thought, and human hand-skill, must have filled with regret every heart that loved what was beautiful. But what is any statue, even from the chisel of Phidias, or what is any temple, compared with man, who is the temple of God? and what was ever wrought in ivory or marble that was to be compared with the humanity that is in every man? and for you to destroy that humanity in yourself, to turn it into courses of evil, in spite of the influences that are tending to draw it the other way; and so to trample under foot and extinguish your higher nature--that is wanton. It is wicked beyond the power of language to express its degree of wickedness. Woe be to the man who corrupts his spiritual nature, or overlays it with animalism, or beats it down in spite of its crying, and destroys it. Consider, too, what is the nature of the truth that men resist. If the gospel of Christ had simply disclosed to men the infamy of their condition, if it had merely poured out upon them warnings and threatenings, if it had withheld from them all promises of mercy, then there would have been little to attract them to it, and there would have been some reason for their revulsion from it; but the whole presentation of the truth as it is in Christ is charming to the reason, to every noble sensibility, to every feeling of honour, and to every elevated taste, however exacting. The whole tone and the whole sphere of the New Testament is as sweet as music, and ought to vibrate upon every uperverted heart, and ought to make every soul desire to have that commerce with God and with the Lord Jesus Christ by which it shall rise and take hold upon its immortal destiny. And now, suffer me not to preach to you; suffer me to beseech you. If there are any here who have serious thoughts, let me say to them, Serious thoughts are very well if you make something out of them. In summer, when drought has long prevailed, clouds come trooping through the sky, and the farmer says, “Ah! at last the weary, parched earth will be refreshed”; but no, the clouds have no rain in them, they pass on, and the ground is as dry as it was before. To-morrow other clouds sail in caravans through the heavens, and give promise of refreshing showers; but the showers do not come. Thoughts that produce no results are of little account. To be worth anything they must be condensed into forms of active life. And while I urge you to heed and ponder the Word of God, I bid you to beware of taking it so that it shall not lead to the production of fruit in your Christian life. (H. W. Beecher.)

Hardened by being melted

When the cloud is dried up off the mountain’s brow, and the dew off the rock, the mountain is as great as before, and the rock as hard; but when convictions fade away from the heart of a natural man, they leave the mountain of his sins much greater, and his rocky heart much harder. It is less likely that that man will ever be saved. Just as iron is hardened by being melted and cooled again; just as a person recovering from fever relapses, and is worse than before. (R. M.McCheyne.)

Character tends to fixity

The Bible says nothing about how an old man can cleanse his way. When a man reaches the age of forty or fifty he cannot change the shape of his collar, how much less that of his character! (Prof. H. Drummond.)

Past feeling

It is not necessary for a man to die out of the world in order that his spiritual salvation may be closed. There are many who are doomed before they die. They reject the offers of salvation until they become hardened and encased as it were in steel, beaten hard like steel, and at last they become so hardened that they resist all impression, they will not listen, and their insensibility grows upon them. It is a fact which cannot be denied, that the more we resist the offers of mercy the more insensible we become to them; all spiritual sensibility in the case of some people seems to have died out before they quit this world, and it is against this that I warn you. (J. Stoughton, D. D.)

Spiritual insensibility

A minister of the gospel on one occasion made a solemn appeal to the young to seek God without delay, urging as a motive that, should they live to be old, difficulties would multiply, and their reluctance to attend to the subject would increase with their years. As the preacher descended from the pulpit at the close of the service, an aged man came forward, and extending his hand to him, with much emotion remarked, “Sir, what you said just now is unquestionably true. I know it from my own experience. When I was young I said to myself, I cannot give up the world now, but I will by-and-by when I have passed the meridian of life and begin to sink into the vale of years; then I will become a Christian; then I shall be ready to attend to the concerns of my soul. But here I am, an old man, and not yet a Christian. I feel no readiness nor disposition to enter upon the work of my salvation. In looking back, I often feel as though I would give worlds if I could be placed where I was when I was twenty years old, for there were not half as many difficulties in my path then as there are now.” Though tears coursed down his cheeks as he gave utterance to these truths, the emotions that were stirred up within him, like the early dew, soon passed away: he did not turn to God.

Heart-hardening

On a winter evening, when the frost is setting in with growing intensity, and when the sun is now far past the meridian, and gradually sinking in the western sky, there is a double reason why the ground grows every moment harder and more impenetrable to the plough. On the one hand, the frost of evening, with ever-increasing intensity, is indurating the stiffening clods. On the other hand, the genial rays, which alone can soften them, are every moment withdrawing and losing their enlivening power. Take heed that it be not so with you. As long as you are unconverted, you are under a double process of hardening. The frosts of an eternal night are settling down upon your souls; and the Sun of Righteousness with westering wheel, is hastening to set upon you for evermore. If, then, the plough of grace cannot force its way into your ice-bound heart to-day, what likelihood is there that it will enter to-morrow? (R. M.McCheyne.)

A hardened heart

An old man, one day taking a child on his knee, entreated him to seek God now--to pray to Him--and to love Him; when the child, looking up at him, asked, “But why do you not seek God?” The old man, deeply affected, answered, “I would, child: but my heart is hard--my heart is hard.”

The deceitfulness of sin

The deceitfulness of sin

Our vital energy finds issue in three great regions: those of thought, of word, of deed. In each one of these there is duty, and there is fault. In each of them there is the voice of God speaking in our consciences, there is the written law of God guiding, confirming, furthering, that inward voice; in each of them there is in us the constant disposition to set conscience and to set God aside, and to become our own guides, our own masters. Let us then take each one of there in turn, and show in each how manifold sin is, how deceitful.

I. Sons of THOUGHT. Nothing is so deceitful as the taking account of our own thoughts and feelings. Memory cannot copy faithfully the picture which has faded away, but overlays and tricks it out with fresh and unreal colours. Still, there is no question that our real thoughts can be got at, and their liability to sin justly measured, if we will spend time and trouble over it. We may venture to say that the great burden of our sins of thought will be found to consist in a want of honest, conscientious adoption and following of what we know to be real and true. When selfish views spread before us in all their attractiveness, the fertile plains of Sodom tempting us to dwell in them, does the course of self-denial to which we are pledged instantly assert its claim? When the temper is roused by insult, when the pride is stung by contumely, when the self-opinion is buffeted by designed slight, and the tyrant fiend of revenge springs to his feet in a moment,--do our eyes see, or do they refuse to see, the Spirit of the Lord lifting His standard against him?

II. Sins of WORD. And here I shall not speak of bad and unholy and impure words, of evil speaking, lying, and slandering: these are manifest: if we fall into these, we know it, we repent of it; but I shall speak of sins of word more beneath the surface, into which when we fall, we do not know it, of which, when we have fallen into them, we are little accustomed to repent. And I believe such sins will mainly be found, as regards our dealings with men, in stating or not stating the very truth of our sentiments and feelings and beliefs. I am not now speaking of hypocrisy, nor of any wilful and conscious disingenuousness, hut of a general want of clear and fearless truthfulness. When will men come to feel that the blessed gospel of Christ never was and never can be the gainer by any false statement, any equivocation, any shrinking from dangerous truth or unwelcome fact? If again the effect of this timid untruthful religion be bad on a man’s self, much more is it hurtful and fatal on others.

III. Sins of ACT AND DEED: doing what we ought not to do, leaving undone what we ought to do. Oh that there were in any of us the habit of referring our questioning thoughts at once to His verdict whom we profess to serve; of guiding our actions simply, humbly, fearlessly, by His precept anmd His example! If we were earnest like Him, humble like Him, wise like Him, we should recommend and adornour unflinching course of Christian duty by quietness,by unobtrusiveness, by consideration for others, by knowledge what to say, and when, and to whom. It is not the busy protester against what other men do, it is not the man who is ever found up in arms against the usages of society, who does the good; but he who is gifted with sound judgment enough to overlook things indifferent, to join in practices which he himself would perchance not have chosen, it by so doing he may cheer, and bless, and hallow, and leaven, the society in which God has cast his lot. An unsocial, uncomplying, individualising life may be very flattering to pride; may serve as a salve to the conscience, and make a man fancy himself very good and pure; but there can be no doubt that such a course is a life-long sin, bringing dishonour on the blessed gospel of Christ, and hardening men’s hearts against its influence. (Dean Alford.)

The deceitfulness of sin

Sin, we must remember, has, properly speaking, no separate independent being of its own. It is the spiritual and moral quality either of dome act, or of the habitual inward tone of mind and spirit, of a moral agent; and it is a diseased and unnatural quality and state in such an agent which is described. But to this horrible work of sin men are, as the apostle’s word imply, lured on by the deceitfulness of sin. What then is this? Sin being that disordered acting of the spiritual nature in which the will chooses that which is against the will of God, the deceitfulness of sin must mean that there is a tendency in this disease to conceal its own presence, and so to shut out from the sight of him in whom it is acting the evil which is being accomplished within him. That there is this attribute about it the very smallest acquaintance with our nature and its actings may easily convince us. For what else are all those fair names for evil, those easy judgments concerning it, which are everywhere conventionally current, but the working of this its deceitful power? Why is it that the fondness of lust is termed gallantry or pleasure? Why is it that the cold and heedless selfishness of debauchery is talked about as spirit and gaiety, but because sin’s common working is thus utterly deceitful and untrue? But above all, this deceitfulness of sin may be seen in the false estimate which it leads men to form of their own moral and spiritual condition. And this in all ways. For, first, how does it blind men’s eyes to their own actual condition. Most men would be marvellously startled if they suddenly learned what was the clear view which their daily intimates possessed of their weaknesses and faults. And why? Surely for no other reason than because they habitually judge themselves so partially, and shut their eyes so weakly to their own besetting sins. And as this first deceit as to the actual presence of evil in their characters is thus practised upon most men, so too plainly are they deceived also as to its growth within themselves! How little do men who give themselves up to it perceive the increase of sin within themselves. And this must be so. For every allowance of evil weakens in its own degree that special power of conscience by which it passes sentence on our actions. But once more, it is not only the actual presence of the evil, or the increase of the work of evil within them, which is hidden from those on whom it is passing, but they perceive nothing whatever of its deep spiritual significance. It is altogether altering their relation to the unseen world around them, and they know not of it. The adopting love of Christ had gathered them into His family: His heart yearned over them; for His sake the Eternal Spirit wrought in them. He was ever beside them. But the deceitfulness of sin veils to them all these blessings. The heavenly world seems to withdraw itself. Nor is it only peace and joy that this man thus loses. This, again, increases in another way his own inability to see the evil of the sin which possesses him. For only under Christ’s Cross, only in the full sight of His love and holiness, and bitter agony for us, can we see anything of the true evil and hatefulness of sin; and so its deceitfulness, which prevents his seeing those, deludes him wholly till it robs him of his soul. If these things are happening around, and it may be among us, what practical lessons should they enforce on us?

1. Surely, the need of a resolute watchfulness against these seductions. They who would walk safely amidst the deceitful whispers of an enchanted land, or hold on their course in spite of sounds so falsely sweet that they have lured every listener to destruction, find no escape save in stopping their ears to the voice of the enchanter. And so must it be now with those who would escape from the deceitfulness of sin within them. They must “watch and be sober.”

2. But farther, this should be a time not only for self-searching, but for beginning resolutely in some par titular actions a course of more earnest service of God. And this course of more earnest service should not be any new way devised for ourselves, but the doing more completely and conscientiously, and as to God and our Lord Jesus Christ, our own appointed duty. (Bp. S. Wilberforce.)

The deceitfulness of sin

Though sin admits of no definition in itself, any more than sound or colour or odour, being, all four alike, primary ideas; it may be defined, i.e., indicated, by pointing out its relation to other things with which it is essentially connected.

1. St. Paul defines sin by comparing it with law: “Sin,” he says, “is the transgression of the law.” He means the law of God, the supreme Being, the sovereign power of the universe. God has prescribed us laws, which we may or may not observe. Sin is in man what deviation from their orbits would be in the heavenly bodies, if they were endowed with a will and a power of disobedience, and should shoot off from the paths in which they now move with so much order, beauty, and beneficence.

2. So again we may define sin by its effects, its “fruits,” its “wages,” as the apostle calls them; and how easy and how melancholy the definition. It is enough to fix the thoughts on one particular, and that is, death. How wide the sweep of its scythe! how universal the havoc which it makes!

3. Once more let us look at sin in relation to the process by which it accomplishes these deadly effects. How comes it, we ask, that while sin is acknowledged to be the prolific source of all misery, still men make light of and rush into it? Sin has undoubtedly made passion strong, the imagination wild, the conscience weak; and these are parts of the explanation; but not the whole. In addition to this, sin deceives them all through, and in connection with, the understanding, to which deception properly belongs. Men cheat themselves, or allow themselves to be cheated out of eternal life. With the strength of passion, and the stupor of conscience, and the weakness of will, has been united, in marvellous sympathy, a sad hallucination of the judgment; and so we have done, and practised, it may be, what we should have thought perfectly impossible, as long as our reason remained with us and what has ever since been a matter of painful and self-condemning recollection. And now, what is the conclusion of the whole matter? We have seen what sin is in relation to God and His law; what it is in its effects, and what it is in the process of its working. What now are the natural inferences from these points? Two at least present themselves, viz., that it is the greatest of all evils, and, at the same time, that it is the most insidious. The law, of which it is the transgression, is the prime law, the parent law, the law which makes all others possible, the law which develops moral agency, and binds the moral universe together. It is to the ethical, what gravitation is to the physical world. If sin were perfectly and completely triumphant, it would overthrow society as by an earthquake, shaking the deepest foundation of all things; and not all things in our world merely, but every other world also, where the distinction between right and wrong is known. If the Divine law is so comprehensive, fundamental, and absolutely necessary, then sin is a tremendous, and, in relation to all others, an incommensurable evil. The same conclusion is inevitable, when we look at it in its bearing, not on our moral but our sentient nature, our susceptibility to pleasure and pain, happiness and misery. All the suffering this moment in the world, whether of mind or body, whether open or secret, whether social or individual, whether from the recollection of the past, or the anticipation of the future, or the pressure of the present, springs from the root of sin. Oh, what folly to be fleeing from other evils--poverty, sickness, obscurity, shame, bereavement--and yet take no measures, while opportunity is afforded, to escape from the consequences of sin and its intrinsic evil! Oh, my friends, sin is a great evil; and it is as deceitful as it is great. It beguiles the soul it ruin. It is like those diseases which put the patient asleep, so that he slumbers into the very grave; or those which cause him to indulge fond hopes of life, up to the moment Death throws his unerring dart. It deceives in regard to a man’s particular acts, and in regard to his whole moral state. (W. Sparrow, LL. D.)

Deceitfulness of sin

1. It assumes false names.

2. It prefers false claims.

3. It offers false excuses.

4. It makes false resolutions. (J. Burns.)

Religion the great security against the delusions of sin

It is an old and just observation, “that no man ever became completely wicked at once.” But, notwithstanding all the kind restraints of conscience, of shame, and the terrors of futurity, which Providence has mercifully opposed to the progress of sin, it does, however, make wonderful advances in the world.

I. A MAN CANNOT ENTIRELY ABANDON HIMSELF TO THE COMMISSION OF EVIL, TILL HE HAS ABSOLUTELY EXCLUDED THE APPREHENSION OF GOD FROM HIS THOUGHTS. It is not usual ever for bad minds to put their dark workings in execution till every eye be closed; they shun the light they hate, because their deeds are evil. And is it possible that they should fly from the presence of a man fallible as themselves, and yet dare to stand the inspection of that Eye, to which the very darkness is no darkness at all; before which all hearts are open, and to which no secrets are hid? Again, it is observable that when a man has once begun to indulge the dispositions and habits of vice, he gradually withdraws himself from every object which may infer a reproach upon his conduct, or suggest to him the necessity of reforming it. He deserts the places of public adoration; he declines the society of pious and good men; and suppresses the exertion of every thought that bears upon it any visible stamp of virtue and religion. He guards himself against the apprehension of God, as against a dangerous companion. He finds himself incapable of advancing one step, while this stands in his way; it opposes his progress, as the armed angel did that of the ambitious prophet, and obstructs the accomplishment of his wicked views.

II. When the apprehension of the Deity is once suppressed, A MAN MAY BE LED, IMPERCEPTIBLY, BY THE DELUSIVE ATTRACTION OF ERROR, through each successive degree of impiety, till he arrive at last at a state of absolute insensibility and final impenitence. The bad affections, which were before chained down, are now let loose; and sin, deceitful enough in itself, gains an easy ascendant upon a mind which is willing to be deceived, and which dreads nothing so much as the necessity of subscribing to conviction. By what shallow reasonings, by what poor pretences, men suffer themselves to be cheated out of their virtue!

1. One pretence that is generally made is, “That religion contracts our faculties into narrow bounds; that, in order to enlarge them, it is necessary to burst her bands asunder, and cast away her cords from us; that every passion has its natural object, and that it is an infringement on natural liberty to restrain the indulgence of them; that, since life is at best so short, the best method of making it longer is to enjoy it; that the severities and rigours which are imposed by religious ordinance are only the inflictions of politic priests, who (being disabled by age and infirmity) would willingly make atonement for their own transgressions, by laying the severest restrictions on the liberties of others; that religion, in short, is the merest slavery; and that a man denies himself a pleasure which nature has allowed him, who does not give a full scope to the indulgence of every passion.” This method of arguing is attended by two very great and very evident defects.

(1) It is by no means evident (though it has been sometimes insinuated) that religion forbids the enjoyment of any delight which nature and reason allow; and whoever presumes to exceed the bounds prescribed by reason and nature, will be sure to meet the disappointment his presumption deserves. And it is notorious to a degree, that those who pretend to a greater latitude of enjoyment than the rest of mankind, have in fact the least real enjoyment of all.

(2) The austerities which are charged upon religion are trifling, in comparison of the repeated penances, mortifications, to which the libertine is reduced, by disappointed passions, a distempered constitution, and an unquiet mind.

2. Another deceit that men are apt to put upon themselves is, “That the sins they commit are so inconsiderable, that they will certainly be overlooked by the eye of infinite mercy; that they make such short incursions into the ways of wickedness, as to leave their retreat secure whenever they please; and that they are in no danger of falling into any flagrant or presumptuous act of evil.” This is so fatal a deceit, that one would almost be induced to think that it had been better for some men to have fallen immediately into a flagrant breach of duty (upon their first revolt from virtue) than to have crept on in the commission of what are usually called inconsiderable sins. And for this reason there is something so shocking to a mind that retains any sense of God and goodness in the reflections which succeed the commission of any greater crime, that a man recoils from it with the utmost horror and detestation, and is often carried backward to greater degrees of virtue by the very violence with which he fell from it. But, on the other hand, while a man continues to flatter himself that the sins he commits are trirling, he is gradually amused into an increase of wickedness and guilt. He goes on step by step, without perceiving the progression, and is deluded into his destruction by an opinion of his security.

3. And this brings on the last illusion in which sin is apt to involve the human mind; which is this--when the persons who have thought themselves so secure begin to look calmly back, and discover the unthought of advances they have made in vice, they stand amazed; and conclude it as impossible for them now to return, as they did before to have proceeded so far. (T. Ashton, D. D.)

The deceitfulness of sin

I. SIN HAS A SINGULAR POWER TO DECEIVE.

1. Its deceit may be seen in the manner of its approaches to us. It comes in a very subtle way, offering us advantage. Intellectually, it comes with a question, or an inquiry. Ought we not to question and to inquire? Are we to receive everything implicitly? The question is, however, full often the thin end of the wedge, which Satan drives home in the form of carnal wisdom, doubt, infidelity, and practical atheism. How tiny a drop of sinful distrust of God’s Word will poison all the thoughts of the soul! Sin frequently comes as a bare suggestion, or an imagination; an airy thing, spun of such stuff as dreams are made of. The thought fascinates, and then the spell of evil begins its deadly work; thought condenses into desire, and desire grows to purpose, and purpose ripens into act. I have known a sin insinuate itself by the way of the repulsion of another sin. A man will fly from pride to meanness, from moroseness to jollity, from obstinacy to laxity. Thus the shutting of one gate may open another, and one sin may crawl in as another creeps out.

2. Sin is deceitful in its object, for the object which it puts before us is not that which is its actual result. We are not tempted to provoke our Maker, or wilfully cast off the authority of righteousness. No, no; we are moved to do evil under the idea that some present good will come of it. Thus are we lured and bird-limed like the silly fowls of the air. The object set before us is delusive: the reward of sin may glitter, but it is not gold, and yet as gold it thrusts itself upon our erring judgment.

3. Sin is deceitful, next, in the name it wears. It is very apt to change its title: it seldom cares for its own true description. Almost every sin, nowadays, has a pretty name to be called by on Sundays, and silver slippers to wear in fine society.

4. Sin also shows its special deceitfulness in the arguments which it uses with men. Have you never heard its voice whispering to you, “Do not make much ado about nothing. Is it not a little one?” The point of the rapier is small, and for that reason the more deadly. Then will sin raise the question, and say, “Is this really wrong? May we not be too precise? Are not the times changed? Do not circumstances alter the command?” Sin is great at raising difficult points of casuistry. He that wills to do wrong is eager to find a loophole for himself.

5. This deceivableness is further seen in the excuses which it frames afterwards.

6. The deceitfulness of sin is seen again in its promises; for we shall not go far into sin without finding out how greatly it lies unto us.

7. Sin is deceitful in the influence which it carries with it. When yielded to, it tries to shut off the door of repentance.

II. THIS DECEITFULNESS HAS A HARDENING POWER OVER THE HEART.

1. Partly through our familiarity with sin. We may look at hateful sin till we love it.

2. Then there follows on the back of this insensibility to sin an insensibility to the gospel.

III. THIS DECEITFULNESS OF SIN, AND THIS TENDENCY TO BECOME HARDENED, NEED TO BE FOUGHT AGAINST.

1. The way to keep from hardness of heart, and from the deceitfulness of sin, is to believe. You shall find that, just in proportion as faith grows strong, the deceit of sin will be baffled.

2. If you would be saved from the deceitfulness of sin confess it honestly before God. Pray that sin may appear sin: it cannot appear in a worse light. Thus thou shalt not so readily be caught in its traps and lures.

3. Cultivate great tenderness of heart. Do not believe that to grieve over sin is lowering to manhood; indulge thyself largely in sweet repentance. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The lies of the temptress

There is a possible reference here, in this personification of sin, as leading men away by lies, to the story of the First Temptation. There, the weapons of the Tempter were falsehoods.

I. FIRST, THEN, MY TEXT SUGGESTS TO ME SIN’S LIES ABOUT THE BAIT. The old story is typical, and may stand as a welldeveloped specimen of the whole set of evil deeds. Either for the sake of winning a desirable object, or for the sake of avoiding some undesirable issue; we never do the wrong thing, and go away from God, except under a delusion that we shall be better and happier when we have got the desired thing than we should be without it. Now I do not mean to say that there is not a very solid reality in the pleasurable results of a great many wrong things. If a man chooses to sin to gratify sense, he does get the sensuous enjoyment out of it. But there is another question to be asked. You have got the thing you wanted; have you,--what then? Are you much the better for it? Are you satisfied with it? Was it as good as it looked when it was not yours? Is not the giant painted on the canvas outside the caravan a great deal bigger than the reality inside, when you go in to look at him? Is there anything that we have got by doing wrong for it, howsoever it may have satisfied the immediate impulse in obedience to whose tyrannous requirements we were stirred up to grasp it, which is worth, in solid enjoyment, what we gave for it? Having attained the desire, do we not find that it satisfies not us, but only some small part of us? If I might so say, we are like those men that old stories used to tell about that had swallowed some loathly worm. We feed the foul creeping thing within us, but ourselves continue hungry. Besides, sin’s pleasures are false, because along with them all comes an after tang that takes the sweetness out of them. There is only one thing that promises less than it performs, and which can satisfy a man’s soul; and that is cleaving to God.

II. AGAIN, NOTE THE LIES ABOUT THE HOOK. “Ye shall not surely die.” I suppose that if any man had clear before him at the moment of any temptation, howsoever fiery and strong, the whole sweep of the consequences that are certainly involved in his yielding to it, he would pause on the edge, and durst not do it. But sin suppresses facts; and here are a few of the barbed points that she hides. She does not tell you anything about outward consequences. Every year there come into Manchester young men who fancy they can play the game and not pay the stakes. She suppresses the action of conscience. There is nothing more awful than the occasional swiftness and completeness of the revulsion of feeling between the moment before and the moment after. She suppresses the action of sin upon character. You cannot do a wrong thing, “departing from the living God,” without thereby leaving an indelible mark upon your whole spiritual and moral nature. Loftier aspirations die out of you, the incapacity for better actions is confirmed, and that awful mysterious thing that we call “habit” comes in to ensure that once done, twice will be probable, and twice done, thrice and innumerable times will be almost certain. There is nothing more mystical and solemn about our lives than the way in which unthought of and trifling deeds harden themselves into habits, and dominate us, whether we will or no. And so the sin which once stood in front of us with a smile and tempted us, because it was desirable, afterwards comes behind us with a frown, and is a taskmaster with a whip. The flowery fetters become iron, and the thing once done gets to be our master, and we are held and bound in the chain of our sins. And more than that, there is the necessity for perpetual increase, heavier doses, more pungent forms of evil, in order to titillate the increasing insensitiveness of the nature. You take a tiger cub into your house when it is little; it is prettily striped, graceful in its motions, playful and affectionate; and it grows up, and when it is big, it is the master of you, if it is not the murderer of you! Do not you take the little sin into your hearts. It will grow, and its claws will grow, and its ferocity will grow. And now all these consequences suggest the last of sin’s suppressions that I would specify. They all make a future retribution a probable thing. And that future retribution is a plain and necessary inference from any belief at all in a God, and in a future life. But the tempting sin has nothing to say about that future judgment, or if it has, has only this to say: “Ye shall not die.” You are like sailors that get into the spirit room in a ship when she is driving on the rocks, and, as long as you can get the momentary indulgence, never mind about what is coming.

III. THEN NOTICE AGAIN, THE LIES AS TO THE CRIMINALITY OF THE DEED, “Hath God said, Ye shall not eat?” is the insinuated suggestion that creeps into most men’s minds. Just as housebreakers carry some drugged meat for the house-dogs, when they intend to break into some lonely farmhouse, so we are all adepts in applying gentle phrases to our own evil, while, if the same thing is done by anybody else, we shall flame up in indignation, as David did when Nathan told him about the man and his one ewe lamb. Therefore, it comes to this--do not you trust to instinctive utterances of inclination calling itself conscience. Remember that you can bribe conscience to say anything but that it is right to do wrong. You will get it to say anything that you teach it about what is wrong and what is not. And therefore you must find a better guide than conscience. You bare to enlighten it and educate it and check it, and keep it wakeful and suspicious, as the price of purity. The same set of lies about the criminality of our actions operates with still greater effect after the commission. I was speaking a moment or two ago about the sudden waking of conscience when the deed is done. Bat there is a worse thing than that, and that is when conscience does not wake.

IV. THE LAST WORD THAT! WISH TO SAY IS IN REFERENCE TO THE FALSEHOODS OF SIN IN REGARD TO THE DELIVERANCE THEREFROM. These other lies, like bubbles, sometimes burst. The first of them, about the pleasures, generally bursts as soon as the thing is done. The others about the pains and the criminality often disappear, when pricked by some thought of God and contact with Him. But the repertory of the deceiver is not empty yet. And she can turn her haled and bring out another set of lies, in order to retain her dominion. For the sin that said to you before you did it: “ There is no harm in it; you do not need to do it again; it is only just once and it will be done with,” says to you, after you have done it, when you begin to feel that it was wrong, and try to shake off its guilt and power: “You have done it howl. You never can get away any more. The thing is past, and neither in regard of its consequences nor in regard of its power will you ever escape from it. What you have written you have written. You are mine!” And so she lays her iron claw upon the man and holds him. So sin lies to us just as she lied before. And I have to crone with the message that, of all her falsehoods none is more false and fatal than the falsehood that a sinful man cannot turn from his evil; conquer all his transgression; begin a new happy, clean life; and be sure of forgiveness from his Father in heaven. “Jesus Christ, the faithful and true witness,” has died that it may be possible to bring to us pure and true promises of lasting and satisfying blessedness, and to avert from each of us, if we will trust in the power of His blood, the worst and penal consequences of our transgression, and, if we will trust in the power of His imparted Spirit, to make our future altogether unlike our past, and deliver us from the habit and entail of our sins. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

The devices by which sin beguiles

1. One of the most obvious ways in which it works this mischief is, by diverting the attention from that to which it ought to be directed. Man’s power of attention is limited; it cannot be directed to all things at the same time; it must take them in succession. Neither should it bestow itself equally upon all things, but graduate its time and earnestness according to circumstance. Of this feature of our constitution sin, taking advantage, so fills the mind with other things, that no room is left for the things of religion. A man is thus made to forget God, by the simple obtrusion of other things upon his attention.

2. Sin deceives also by the false and captivating colours in which it decks out things forbidden. Their beauty was not their own. They wore a mask. It is no very uncommon thing for certain visions and appearances to pass before the mind, under the influence of disease, which wear all the lineaments of persons and things with which we are familiar, and yet possess no reality whatever. But not to take so violent a case for illustration; let us simply reflect how depression or hilarity of animal spirits affects all our views of things. The one will hang the brightest heaven with mourning; the other will shed an air of cheerfulness over the deepest gloom. Now it is somewhat in this way that sin deludes. It causes things to appear in unreal colours.

3. A third way, in which sin deceives, is by making us miscalculate time. What is our life? It is compared to a “watch in the night,” to a “tale that is told,” to a “vapour which appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away,” to a “race that is run,” to a “ battle that is fought,” to the “labour of the day,” to the dimensions of a “span.” Yet, notwithstanding, may I not with all confidence ask whether his own feelings have not often virtually given the lie to these statements? Thus does sin deceive the young. To say nothing of the uncertainty of life, they are in error in regard to the length of it.

4. This property, which is specially named in the text, arises from our being creatures of habit. By the law of habit, the doing of a thing once, makes it easier to do it again, and creates an inclination towards the repetition of the act. Notice the manner in which the spider endeavours to secure the unwary insect, which has fallen into its web, and you have a pretty accurate representation of the process. One attenuated thread after another is woven round it, each easily broken, each in itself too trifling to be regarded or felt, but all, in their united strength, beyond its ability to break. There the victim lies, making mighty efforts to escape, but more and more hopelessly each successive moment. Thus it is, that sinful habit insensibly weaves around us its meshes. (W. Sparrow, LL. D.)

The dangerous deceitfulness of sin

I. HOW SIN IS TO BE TAKEN AS SAID TO BE DECEITFUL, AND WHEREIN ITS DECEITFULNESS LIES.

1. With reference to the external object and act about it, sin’s deceitfulness lies in false appearances and delusive promises.

2. As to indwelling corruption, who can tell the many ways it has to deceive and destroy? Sin here is the man sinful, proving a tempter to himself.

(1) In enticing to it: What pains does the shiner take to justify or extenuate the evil he is bent upon? desirous by a deceitful varnish to take off from its horrid appearance, that it may give as little disturbance to conscience as possible. All endeavours are used, not only to colour the object, but to corrupt the eye by a disguising tincture, that the sight of things may not be according to truth, but according to his desire.

(2) In confirming in it; drawing on its servants even to final obduracy and destruction. To this end false principles are admitted, or perverse inference drawn from true ones: the Scriptures are wrested, precious promises, instances of grace abounding to the chief of sinners, &c., and arguments fetched from all, whereby sinners encourage themselves to add sin to sin.

II. THE POWER AND PREVALENCY OF THE DECEITFULNESS THAT BELONGS TO SIN.

1. How strangely powerful is the deceitfulness of sin, with reference to the many who love and live therein, though they are told of its present deceit and destructive issue?

2. How powerful is the deceitfulness of sin, that can persuade men that are made for another world, to look no farther than this; and so seek for happiness where it is never to be found, or call that so, that is bounded by sense and time, as if they had nothing higher to mind.

3. How powerful is the deceitfulness of sin, as to the numbers over whom it still reigns, though all its servants sooner or later confess the delusion?

III. WHAT HARDNESS THIS TENDS TO AS MATTER OF FEAR AND FLIGHT.

1. Habitual. This is the result of repeated acts of sin, strengthening the natural depravity, and confirming in it. Hereby the sinner is emboldened in his way, and becomes a stranger to much of that shame and sorrow, reluctancy and remorse, which he was sometimes-wont to feel.

2. Judicial, or inflicted from heaven.

Lessons:

1. Hence learn the reason of that mighty storm that is ordinarily felt in the breasts of true penitents upon their first becoming such.

2. How adorable is the grace of God, as to all that get safe to heaven; what joy will there be upon their arrival!

3. It need not seem strange that holy men are afraid of nothing so much as sin, and cannot allow themselves to follow a multitude to do evil Exodus 23:2), it being too dear a compliment to be paid to any, to run the hazard of being hardened first, and so of perishing for company.

4. How dangerous is their mistake, who whilst under the power of sin, think their case good, because their consciences are quiet? And with how many is it thus?

5. How great is our advantage in having the Bible and living under the gospel? By which we are warned of sin’s deceitfulness and armed against it.

6. How desirable is the state of such as are in covenant with God, having chosen Him in Christ for theirs, and given up themselves unto Him. They are hereby become His special charge, as well as His peculiar delight.

7. Is the case so sad of being hardened in sin? Let the dread of this awaken a present and perpetual opposition to it in every one that would be safe.

(1) Begin at the root: see that corruption, as to its power and reign, be mortified within. Get by faith into union with Christ.

(2) Let conscience be instructed from the Word of God, and charge it to be faithful, and hearken to its voice.

(3) Beware of running upon temptation in a vain presumption you may come off safe. Your strength lies not in yourselves, but must come from heaven; and you have no promise of protection out of God’s way.

(4) Keep the cross of Christ as much as possible in view, and remember it was sin that nailed Him to it.

(5) Solemnly renew your covenant with God, and often reflect upon it with approbation; that whenever tempted to sin, you may be able readily to answer, I have opened my mouth unto the Lord and I cannot go back Judges 11:35). Thy vows are upon me, O God (Psalms 56:12).

(6) Live under an awful sense of God’s presence with you, and plead it with yourselves, that you may act accordingly.

(7) Frequently call yourselves to account. The beginnings of sin may be most hopefully resisted; but like a slight disease, may prove dangerous in the neglect, and threaten death.

(8) Use yourselves to a life of self-denial as to the flesh and the world.

(9) Keep up lively apprehensions of death and judgment approaching.

(10) Make your constant, serious application to heaven, for wisdom to discern, and grace to withstand the deceitfulness of sin. (D. Wilcox.)

The deceitfulness of sin

I. WHAT IS SIN. TO love God and to love our fellow-creatures with a pure heart fervently is the gospel law, and our own conscience witnesses that it is holy, just, and good. Whatever is the contrary to, whatever comes short of this law is sin. Now, if we trace up sin to its fountain, then we call it birth sin--derived from our first father Adam. But, if we trace sin to the streams that flow from this unclean fountain, then we call it actual sin, done by our own will. Then sin is everything we do which we ought not to do, and everything we leave undone which we ought to do. If we trace it to its different kinds we find some sins done against God only, others against God and man too. There are sins of the thought, sins of the heart, sins of the tongue, sins of the hand, sins of the whole body.

II. THE DECEITFULNESS OF SIN.

1. Sin draws us away from the thought of God and of His grace; of what He has done for us, and of what we owe to Him.

2. Then unbelief slips in; unbelief of God’s Word. So Satan tempted Eve.

3. If only we disbelieve God’s Word, then we are ready to be caught with the bait which sin offers, fair and tempting to the sight, hiding under it danger and death.

4. Be not misled by the deceitfulness of sin, to go on without repentance, without conversion of heart to God. Is not delay the devil’s favourite word?

5. Nor let sin beguile you to misuse the doctrine of the grace of God.

III. THE EFFECT OF SIN. It hardens the heart. (E. Blencowe, M. A.)

The deceitfulness of sin

I. MY BUSINESS SHALL BE TO SHOW YOU THE DECEITFULNESS OF SIN AND HOW MUCH THEREBY WE ARE IN DANGER.

1. Evil takes another name though it doth always retain its nature. Coveteousness passeth for a thrifty temper and good husbandry. Prodigality for being generous. Vanity is reputed necessary remission of mind, and foolish talking to be affable conversation. Lavish expense of time goes for exercise and recreation due to the body. Finding fault with others is reckoned to be reproof of sin. Sharpness and severity to be strictness of conscience. Backbiting is accounted an endeavour for reformation. Jealousy and suspicion to be care for right and truth. Busy meddling with other men’s affairs, lives, and judgments, is said to be activity for the advancement of religion. And to control others’ liberty, a care for their souls. Presumption is thought to be faith in God. Curious determinations beyond Scripture, to be the improvement of faith, and inconsiderate dulness to be the denial of our reason. Malcontent to be sorrow for sin. Excessive use of the creatures, to be Christian liberty. Sometimes evil suggesteth to us pleasure and delight, and sometimes gain and profit.

2. Evil holds us in hand that it is a matter of our right, and that which we may do in the use of our liberty. Whereas it is not power to be able to do that which is not fit to be done, this is not liberty, but licentiousness.

3. Evil covers itself with some probable notion or circumstance. Nothing in this vain world is more usual than colours, pretences, representations, excuses, appearances contrary to reality and truth.

4. Evil warrants itself sometimes by the difference of time and place, sometimes by measure and degree, sometimes by mode and manner.

5. Evil pleads sometimes the necessity of the ease, and that it is unavoidable.

6. When evil hath once entangled us there is another evil (and it may be a greater) though necessary to hide or extenuate it. For evil, if it be looked into, will be ashamed of itself. Upon this account it is that men are ashamed to own it, and sometimes with a lie deny it. Cain, Gehazi, Ananias, and Sapphira.

7. Evil justifies itself by prescription and general practice. So it was formerly, and so it is still. And this is taken for a justification.

8. I shall observe in the last place that which is most dangerous of all others, and that is this: when the first motion towards repentance and conversion is looked upon as if it were the sovereign remedy of repentance itself. As if sorrow for sin were the whole product of repentance, whereas, indeed, that which is true repentance must be accompanied with the forsaking of sin and bringing forth the fruits of righteousness.

II. HOW GREAT REASON WE HAVE, ACCORDING TO THE ADVICE OF THE APOSTLE, TO TAKE HEED THAT WE ARE NOT DECEIVED.

1. Because in this state we run all manner of hazards and dangers.

2. Our several faculties have different inclinations, and some of them are not at all capable of reason, therefore not to be governed by any moral considerations, which make it a very hard province that we are to act in.

3. Things without us, and round about us, presented with their several advantages, do many times provoke and allure us, and are hardly to be denied.

4. That which should be for our security, viz., company and converse, often becomes a snare to us.

5. He that is officious to bring us into his condemnation, he is forward to fit us with suitable objects that shall raise our apprehensions and draw us into evil.

6. There are many things impure and contrary to religion to which we are tempted that the world do not reckon among the greatest crimes.

7. Man is such a compound that heaven and earth, as it were, meet in him, terms that are extremely distant. Man in respect of his mind is qualified to converse with angels and to attend upon God. And in respect of these noble faculties he is liable to be tempted to insolency, arrogancy, and great presumption, and self-exaltation.

8. If we do not use self-government, and moderate our powers by subduing the inferior to the superior, we fail in that which is our proper work and province.

9. If God be not understood and acknowledged in our worldly enjoyments and recommended to us by them; if He be not intended in all our actions, then do we not comply with the relation we stand in to God, nor act according to our highest principles, nor answer our capacity, nor are true to our own interest. For our highest faculties are God’s peculiar, God’s reserve, made for God, and fit to attend upon Him, and to receive from Him. Since, therefore, there is this danger

(1) Let us act with caution and with good advice, by conversation with the best and wisest men. For it is an easy matter to be deceived without great care and diligence.

(2) But chiefly let us make application to God, by meditation and prayer, who will not be wanting to us. Let us carefully avoid all presumption, pride, arrogancy, and self-assuming. Do not on the sudden, but see before you do; and understand well before you act. (B. Whichcote, D. D.)

On the danger and deceitfulness of sin

I. First, I shall endeavour to represent to you THE GROWING DANGER OF SIN, and by what steps and degrees bad habits do insensibly gain upon men and harden them in an evil course. All the actions of men which are not natural, but proceed from deliberation and choice, have something of difficulty in them when we first practise them, because, at first, we are exercised in that way; but after we have practised them awhile they become more easy, and when they are easy, we begin to take pleasure in them; and when they please us we do them frequently, and think we cannot repeat them too often; and, by frequency of acts a thing grows into a habit, and a confirmed habit is a second kind of nature: and so far as anything is natural, so far it is necessary, and we can hardly do otherwise; nay, we do it many times when we do not think of it.

1. Men begin with lesser sins. No man is perfectly wicked on the sudden.

2. After men have been sometime initiated in these lesser sins they are prepared for greater; such as lay waste the conscience and offer more violence to the light and reason of their minds.

3. When a man hath proceeded thus far he begins to put off shame, one of the greatest restraints from sin which God hath laid upon human nature. And when this curb once fails off, there is then but little left to restrain and hold us in.

4. After this it is possible men may come to approve their vices. For if men’s judgments do not command their wills and restrain their lusts, it is great odds, in process of time, the vicious inclinations of their wills will put a false bias upon their judgments; and then it is no wonder, if men come to boast of their sins and to glory in their vices, when they arc half persuaded that they are generous and commendable qualities.

5. From this pitch of wickedness, men commonly proceed to draw in others, and to make proselytes to their vices. But that which renders the condition of such persons much more deplorable is, that all this while God is withdrawing His grace from them. For every degree of sin causeth the Holy Spirit of God with all His blessed assistances to retire farther from them. And thus, by passing from one degree of sin to another, the sinner becomes hardened in his wickedness. For the mind of man, after it hath long been accustomed to evil, and is once grown old in vice, is almost as hard to be rectified as it is to recover a body bowed down with age to its first straightness.

II. I shall, from this consideration, take occasion to show WHAT GREAT REASON AND NEED THERE IS TO WARN MEN OF THIS DANGER, and to endeavour to rescue them out of it. If we believe the threatening of God which we declare to others, if we have any sense of our own duty and safety, we cannot but be earnest with sinners to break off their sins, and to give glory to God by repentance before darkness come.

III. I apply myself to this work of EXHORTATION--the duty commanded here in the text.

1. To persuade those who are yet in some measure innocent, to resist the beginnings of sin, lest it gain upon them by degrees. Vice may easily be discouraged at first. It is like a slight disease, which is easy to be cured, but dangerous to be neglected. As there is a connection of one virtue with another, so vices are linked together, and one sin draws many after it. When the devil tempts a man to commit any wickedness, he does as it were lay a long train of sins, and if the first temptation take, they give fire to one another.

2. To persuade those who are already engaged in a wicked course, to make haste out of this dangerous state. And there is no other way to get out of it but by repentance; that is, by a real change and reformation of our lives. (Archbishop Tillotson.)

The deceitfulness of sin

Who is it that is deceived? It is the sinner himself. Does he need to be deceived? Is there not in us all a strong enough direct inclination to that which is evil? There is also a deceit which over-reaches and ensnares us into the commission of what, but for that mistake, we would have avoided or abhorred. Again, if the sinner is deceived, who is it, or what is it that deceives him? Here we must observe that when we speak of sin’s being deceitful, it is not so much anything without us, taking the advantage of our weakness, but it is the corruption within, which makes us see things in a wrong light, and draw unjust and pernicious consequences from them.

I. I shall endeavour to open a little the CHIEF BRANCHES OF THE DECEITFULNESS OF SIN.

1. Its disguising itself and wholly concealing its nature.

2. Its forming excuses for itself, and thereby extenuating its guilt.

3. Its insinuating itself by degrees, and leading men on from the voluntary commission of some sins to the necessity of committing more.

II. I proceed now to consider THE DUTY WHICH IS FOUNDED BY THE APOSTLE ON THE DECEITFULNESS OF SIN, viz., mutual exhortation.

1. As to the persons who are obliged to exhort others. It seems in this passage to be laid upon Christians in general, without any exception. This is perfectly consonant to the spirit of true religion, and to our relation one to another. There is also a particular obligation upon superiors of all sorts, whether in office, as magistrates; in station, as persons of wealth and opulence; in years, as those whom time and experience should have enriched with solid wisdom; in relation, as parents and masters of families. But it is also plainly a part of Christian friendship, even for equals to exhort one another, and kindly to communicate their mutual experience in the spiritual life. We all stand in need of it; we may all be the better for it. I do not remember anything recorded more truly glorious for a monarch than what we are told of Philip of Macedon, that he heard reproofs not only with patience, but with pleasure; and I am sure there is nothing more like a Christian than to profit, not only by the admonitions of friends, but by the reproaches of enemies. If they are just, reform what is amiss; if they are probable, abstain from the appearance of evil; if they are neither the one nor the other, submit to them with patience, as a part of the will of God.

2. The season in which the duty of mutual exhortation is to be performed. Exhort one another daily, while it is called to-day; by which we are to understand that it is to be done frequently; and without delay.

3. The manner in which this exhortation must be given, if we hope to do it with success.

(1) You ought not to reprove at an uncertainty, upon bare rumour and suspicion.

(2) It ought not to be done when the offending person is in an ill temper to receive it.

(3) We are not to reprove those whom we have reason to believe to be such desperate wretches, that they would be but the more exasperated, and sin in the more daring manner, on account of the reproof (Proverbs 9:7; Matthew 7:6).

On the other hand, positively, when reproof or exhortation are administered

(1) It should be made appear, as much as possible, to flow from love and affection as its principle.

(2) As it ought to flow from love as the principle, so it ought to be conducted with meekness in the manner; no railing or reviling expressions, which will look like the wounds of an enemy to destroy, and not the balm of a physician to cure.

(3) Reproof should be given with some degree of zeal as well as meekness; we should avoid the extreme of remissness as well as severity. A slight careless reproof is often worse than none; for it is ready to make the offender think lightly of his own offence. I shall give an instance of this. Swearing, and taking the name of God in vain, is sometimes ridiculed, instead of being reproved. This seldom has a good effect. It ought, indeed, to be despised for its folly; but, at the same time, it ought to be deeply abhorred for its guilt.

(4) In admonishing one another for particular sins, we should still keep in view the source of all sin, a polluted nature, and the great danger of the sinner, as in a sinful state.

(5) Let those who would acquit themselves of this duty in a proper manner be particularly watchful and circumspect in their own conduct. Lessons:

1. From what has been said, you may see the great corruption and depravity of our nature.

2. From what has been said, let us be led to strictness and frequency in self-examination. If sin is so deceitful, it may easily lurk unobserved. Self-knowledge is a study of as great difficulty as importance.

3. From what hath been said, let me beseech all, but especially young persons, to beware of the beginnings of sin.

4. I shall close the subject, by addressing an exhortation to those who have been long and hardened sinners; who have many habits of vice cleaving to them; who have hitherto despised the gospel, and even sat in the seat of the scornful. Why will you longer continue at enmity with Him, while He is offering you mercy? (J. Witherspoon.)

The deceitfulness of sin

I. THE CAUTION. In the text sin is, by a bold figure of speech, personified, as it is in several other parts of Scripture. But we are not to suppose that there is a being called sin; but an evil principle that is at work in the world and in all our hearts. We will now notice some of the means adopted by sin to deceive the ungodly.

1. It assumes to itself soft and specious names. Sin, notwithstanding the exalted place it holds in the affections of men, is an abominable thing. Professors of religion, be you aware that you endeavour not to lessen the enormity of sin.

2. Sin deceives by promising pleasure, while it conceals the evils connected with it. It promises pleasures it can never give. Absalom listened to sin, and was stimulated in his rebellion by the hope of raising himself to his father’s throne. The event showed he was deceived, and lost his life beside. David listened to sin, when he thought of the pleasure of Bathsheba’s company, and thought, “No eye will see, no one would know.” He, too, was deceived, for his sin became patent to all Israel, and peace fled from his house for ever. There is one case recorded in Scripture which shows how sin deceives, and hardens, and finally damns the soul--Judas.

3. Sin deceives by misrepresenting the revelations of God’s Word. Instructed by that Word, we are taught to think of God as a being of infinite perfection, and that all His attributes being perfect, they cannot clash one with another--that all are holy, wise and good. But sin suggests to man’s mind a God all mercy: it puts out of sight the fact that God is a God of holiness. Again, sin leads men to reason thus: God is too lofty to behold the things done upon earth; it is inconceivable that He will take knowledge of men’s actions; He has worlds to guide and direct.

4. Sin deceives, by persuading the man that there is time yet to seek pardon, and persuades him to defer the season of repentance till a later period of life. Now, there is no want of good intention on the part of many. Sinners are deceived by sin, and flatter themselves that because they know what is right, there must be some good in them, though they practise it not. They comfort themselves, that though at this particular moment they do not put their good resolutions into effect, they intend to do it, and they think there is some virtue in that.

II. THE MEANS PRESCRIBED.

“Exhort one another.” Those who undertake to give advice should themselves be endued with wisdom and understanding. An ignorant or presumptuous person will be likely to do more harm than good. That wisdom which is gained by experience is most likely to prove useful to others. Intimate friends may exhort and counsel one another, and admonish one another of their faults. But even here a caution is needful. Some do this in such a censorious sort of way, such a “ Stand by, I am holier than thou” sort of air, that the advice they give, however good, is certain to be rejected. Men are never to be scolded into doing that which is right. In reference to this part of our subject I would say, never engage in this duty except with much prayer for the guidance of the Holy Spirit; and then between your exhortation and example there must be a consistency. If not, it will render any effort altogether vain.

III. THE TIME when this duty is to be performed--“Daily, while it is called to-day.” The present may be the only opportunity. Christians are daily going astray; every day they need exhorting. By way of application, I would entreat you all to watch well your heart, and resist the beginnings of sin, lest it should end in ruin. A spark is easily put out, but how difficult to extinguish a conflagration! Resist the unholy thought before it becomes the unholy deed, and pray that ye enter not into temptation. I will illustrate by an anecdote what sin does. There was a little boat floating near the hank in the river a few miles above the falls of Niagara; a mother was working in a field near by. She had cautioned her little daughter not to go to the water; but thither the child strolled. She saw the boat, jumped into it, which moved with her weight. She was pleased with the feeling. The boat slipped from its moorings, and began softly to float down the stream. More and more pleased was the child. The sun glittered on the tiny waves; everything was pleasant and delightful to the child. Quicker, and more quick, but yet softly and silently, that vessel shot down the river with its unconscious and joyous freight. The mother looked, and saw her child carried quickly to the current towards the fall. She screamed and ran--she plunged into the water; she ventured far, and failed. The boat is caught in the foaming rapids; it is carried over the precipice; the child is lost. Something like this may be seen daily. We warn you. (W. Jarbo, D. D.)

Deceptive nature of sin

I heard a minister not long since, while preaching on the nature and deceptive influence of sin, make use of the following illustration:--“Suppose,” said the preacher, “an individual should go to a blacksmith and say to him, ‘Sir, I wish you to make me a very long and heavy chain; here are the dimensions. Have it done at such a time, and I will pay you the cash for it.’ The blacksmith is pressed with other and more important work, but for the sake of the money he commences the chain, and after toiling hard many days, finishes it. The individual calls. ‘Have you made that chain?’ ‘Yes, sir; here it is.’ ‘That is very well done. A good chain; but it is not long enough.’ ‘Not long enough! Why, it is just the length you told me to make it.’ ‘Oh yes, yes; but I have concluded to have it much longer than at first; work on it another week. I will then call and pay you for it.’ And thus, flattered with praise and encouraged with the promise of full reward for his labour, he toils on, adding link to link, till the appointed time when his employer calls again, and, as before, praises his work; but still he insists that ‘ the chain is too short.’ ‘But,’ says the blacksmith, ‘I can do no more. My iron is expended, and so is my strength. I need the pay for what I have done, and can do no more till I have it!’ ‘Oh, never mind; I think you have the means of adding a few links more; the chain will then answer the purpose for which it is intended, and you shall be fully rewarded for all your labour.’ With his remaining strength and a few scraps of iron, he adds the last link of which he is capable; then says the man to him,’ The chain is a good one; you have toiled long and hard to make it. I see that you can do no more, and now you shall have your reward.’ But, instead of paying the money, he takes the chain, binds the labourer hand and foot, and casts him into a furnace of fire. ‘ Such,’ “ said the preacher “ is a course of sin. It promises much, but its reward is death.” (C. Field.)

Sin

It appears fair, but is filthy; it appears pleasant, but is pernicious; it promises much, but performs nothing. (M. Henry.)

The deceitfulness of sin

There was an abbot who desired a piece of ground that lay conveniently for him. The owner refused to sell it, yet, with much persuasion, was contented to let it. The abbot hired it for his rent, and covenanted only to farm it for one crop. He had his bargain, and sowed it with acorns, a crop that lasted three hundred years. Thus, Satan begs but for the first crop: let him sow thy youth with acorns, they will grow up with thy years to sturdy oaks, so big-bulked and deep rooted, that they shall last all thy life. Sin hath a shrewd title when it can plead prescription, and Satan thinks his evidence as good as eleven points at law when he hath once got possession. Let him be sure of thy youth, he will be confident of thy age.

The change sin works in the conscience

Soft sponges become flints oftentimes by a peculiar process. There are in sponges particles of flint or silex; these are ever attracting particles to themselves, until in process of time the whole mass is an aggregate of silicious matter, and the softness of the sponge has disappeared. It is exactly thus with your conscience: its sensibilities are gradually giving way to the hardening particles that are introduced by every sin you commit.

The fatal chain

Professor Drummond tells of an over-laden coal barge which stood in the river: “A sailor reported to the captain that the water was gaining upon the vessel. The captain drove him away with scoffs. Twice, thrice, the warning was repeated. Each time the warning voice was unheeded. At last the barge began to give evidence of sinking. The captain ordered the men to the boats. They took their places. He then said: ‘I told you there was plenty of time.’ Then he took out his knife to cut the cable which bound the boat to the barge. He fell back with a cry of horror. The cable was an iron chain!” The eleventh hour is an hour of haste and danger and disappointment. The thread becomes a cord, the cord a cable, the cable a chain. The time to get clear of a sinking craft is now.

The accelerating progress of an ungodly course

A denier of the original taint of sin once stood before two pictures which hung side by side upon a wall. The first was the portrait of a boy with open brow, and curls that looked golden in the sunshine, and cheeks whose damask beauty shamed the ripened fruit, wearing that happy smile which can be worn but once in life--a smile whose rippling waves are poisoned by no weeds of suspicion, and break upon no strand of doubt, looking gaily up from the flowered earth into the azure heaven without the slightest misgiving. From the canvas of the second picture there glared out a wolfish eye--the home of all subtlety and malice; and in the gloom of the dim lighted cell you might perceive the matted hair, and garments stained with blood; chains clank, or seemed to clank, upon his fettered limbs. All tell of the desperate character of the man. On these two pictures hanging side by side, the denier of the original sin fixed his gaze, until the exclamation burst out at length in a tone of half concealed triumph, “What I do you mean to say that these two beings were originally and radically the same? Do you mean to tell me that any amount of evil teaching could ever develop that guileless child into that debased and godless man? “ The artist volunteered the information that the portraits were taken from the life of the self-same individual at different stages of his history. You know the moral of the tale. There is an accelerating progress in an ungodly course, increasing with the momentum of an avalanche when the first stages of its course have run. The descent into perdition is easy, when the strivings of the passions are seconded by the dictates of the will. Sinner, I charge thee, beware lest thy sin become habit. (W. M. Punshon, D. D.)

Habits

Like flakes of snow that fall unperceived upon the earth, the seemingly unimportant events of life succeed one another. As the snow gathers together, so are our habits formed. No single flake added to the pile produces a sensible change--no single action creates, however it may exhibit, a man’s character; but as the tempest hurls the avalanche down the mountain, and overwhelms the inhabitant and his habitation, so passion, acting upon the elements of mischief which pernicious habits have brought together by imperceptible accumulation, may overthrow the edifice of truth and virtue.

We are made partakers of Christ

Partners of Christ

There is nothing that Christ hath, but we have part of it.

His wisdom, holiness, His righteousness is ours; yea, His kingdom is ours. We are heirs, yea, co-heirs with Him of His kingdom. As the man at the day of marriage says to his wife, “With all ray worldly goods I thee endow,” so the Lord Jesus endoweth us with all His goods; by reason whereof, being poor and worth nothing, we become exceeding rich. Christ is ours, death, life, the world is ours. Oh, unspeakable prerogative vouchsafed to dust and ashes! Let us walk worthy of this honour whereunto we are advanced: being Christ’s partners, let us not be the devil’s partners. Let us be holy as He is holy, humble as He is humble; let us contemn this world with all the vain pleasures that be in it as He did. What fellowship is there between Christ and Belial? (W. Jones, D. D.)

Fellows of Christ

What does this mean? The first idea that suggests itself is that “ Christ” stands as a synonym and compendium of salvation, just as “Moses” in the above-quoted words of Paul is a synonym for the redemption he was God’s instrument in achieving. An alternative course is open to the interpreter: to render, “partakers with Christ,” and to find in the words the thought that only such as persevere in faith share in the glory and the joy conferred on Him at the close of His earthly career as God’s faithful apostle. This view, however, though true in itself, attains to its full heights only when we adopt a bolder course, and take μέτοχι as meaning here, as in Hebrews 1:9, “companions “ or “fellows.” We then get the striking thought that by persistent loyalty to the Christian vocation we become fellows of Jesus. It is intrinsically likely that the passage about the Messiah quoted from the forty-fifth Psalm in the first chapter was present to the writer’s mind at this point. It speaks of the Messiah as anointed with the oil of gladness above His fellows, implying that they too, in their measure, have a cup full of joy. In the present connection of thought mention is made of a “boasting of hope,” a hope rising into exultation, implying a still higher measure of triumphant joy when hope reaches its consummation. The idea, “the faithful the fellows of Christ,” is also in full sympathy with the thought expressed in Hebrews 1:6, “whose house are we.” The faithful are God’s house, at the head of which is Christ, God’s Son. They are God’s house not as Moses was, as servants, but as sons, therefore the brethren of Christ. But brotherhood is a thing of degrees. There is an initial brotherhood, in which, as Paul says, a son differs nothing from a servant; and there is a brotherhood, the result of a normal moral development, in which a younger son, at length arrived at maturity, becomes the companion of the elder brother. We are brethren to begin with, but if we are faithful we shall end in becoming fellows. And so our author, having already said of those who persevere that they are the house of God, now takes a step in advance, and in renewing his exhortation to steadfastness says, “The faithful are not only the house of God and the brethren of Christ, they are His fellows, sharing His joy and having perfect communion with Him in spirit.” (A. B. Bruce, D. D.)

A persuasive to steadfastness

I. First, then, here is A VERY HIGH PRIVILEGE. “We are made partakers of Christ.” Observe that the text does not say we are made partakers of rich spiritual benefits. There is more than that here. To be partakers of pardoning mercy, of renewing grace, of the adoption, of sanctification, preservation, and of all the other covenant blessings, is to possess an endowment of unspeakable value: but to be made “partakers of Christ,” is to have all in one. You have all the flowers in one posy, all the gems in one necklace, all the sweet spices in one delicious compound. “We are made partakers of Christ”--of Himself. “It pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell,” and we are made partakers with Him of all that He is ordained to be of God unto us “wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.” We are made partakers of Christ, when first of all by faith in Him we procure a share in His merits. Moreover, we are partakers of Christ, inasmuch as His righteousness also becomes ours by imputation. We further become partakers of Christ by living and feeding on Him. The sacramental table represents our fellowship. Partakers of Christ! Yes, and therefore with Him partakers in destiny. The language of the text reminds us that none of us have any title to this privilege by nature. “We are made partakers of Christ.” From our first parentage we derived a very different entail. “We are made partakers of Christ.” This is the Holy Ghost’s work in us, to rend us away from the old wild olive, and to graft us into the good olive; to dissolve the union between us and sin, and to cement a union between our souls and Christ. This is work as grand and godlike as to create a world.

II. The privilege of which we have spoken suggests A SOLEMN, SEARCHING QUESTION. Are we made partakers of Christ? There is nothing more to be dreaded than a counterfeit justification, a spurious hope.

III. Now we come to THE UNERRING TEST. Patience comes to the aid of faith here. Evidences accumulate till the issue is conclusive. “We are made partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end.” This passage may be read in two ways, neither of which violates the literal meaning of the original as we have it in our version, “the beginning of our confidence,” or, as I would rather translate it, “the foundation of our confidence,” the basis on which our confidence rests. Take your choice. We will expound both. That man is a partaker of Christ who holds fast the faith he had at first, having received it, not as an education, but as an intuition of his spiritual life; not as an argument, but as an axiom he could not challenge, or rather as an oracle he received joyfully and bowed to submissively. The confidence which is based upon the true foundation, even Christ Jesus, is simple and clear as one’s own consciousness. It asks no proof because it admits no doubt. Now what was the beginning of our confidence? Well, the beginning of my confidence was, “I am a sinner, Christ is a Saviour; and I rest on Him to save me.” We were nothing at all, and Jesus Christ was all in all. We are not made partakers of Christ unless we hold this fast to the end. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

To-day if ye will hear His voice

To-day

I. TO-DAY: HOW RELATED TO YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW. We are putting yesterday to its noblest use when we are using its experience to make the life of to-day better. We are preparing for the morrow in the truest way when we are striving with all our might to be faithful to the opportunity of to-day.

II. TO-DAY: ITS IMPORTANCE. To-day is the critical moment of life. Our vital concern is with to-day. Life in to-day is an impressive feature of Biblical teaching. The emphasis of both Testaments is on to-day. “We must work while it is day.” To look back is, in the judgment of the Master of our life, to unfit ourselves for the work of the kingdom of God. To be loyal to the Christian idea and order of life, we must be ready to break with the old for the sake of the new. There is little need, then, to dwell on the past. It is not behind us. In a very real sense it goes with us. The new continues, it does not efface the old. There is no “dead past”; the past is living in the present. Our present character is the Divine judgment upon our past conduct. But to-day is not only a history of the past, it is also a prophecy of the future. It is by watching to-day we can tell what will be on the morrow. Foresight is truly insight. There is no violent break between yesterday and to-day. Whatever is to come out of to-day exists in to-day. The future is not a revolution but an evolution. To-day is the child and heir of yesterday; to-morrow will be the child and heir of to-day.

III. THE BLESSING AND OPPORTUNITY OF A DAY. It comes to us laden with blessing and promise, full of history and full of prophecy. It has taken many thousands of years to prepare it for us. In the very fuel that feeds its fires is the vegetation of primeval years. Every day that dawns has countless relations with things far and wide. Ancient Egypt and Israel, Greece and Rome, Scandinavia and primitive Germany, priests and philosophers, prophets and poets, discoverers and inventors, innumerable thinkers and workers, known and unknown, have helped to prepare the materials out of which to-day’s opportunity has been made. We inherit the good, material and moral, wrought out through the experiences of many men and many races of men through many centuries. In the life of to-day are the results of the labour and struggle of all the yesterdays. No day is poor and commonplace. To the prepared soul every day is full of marvel and joy. Every day has its comedies and tragedies. Genius does not invent, it discovers and interprets. To find examples of heroism we need not turn to classic pages, nor search the annals of martyrdom. Heroism is as unfailing a reality as the daily dawn. Around and in each day are all the great marvels of creation, all the moral forces and splendours of life, and all the sacred realities to which the deeply moved soul has witnessed in every age. It is a familiar saying that life is but a day. It is said to express the awful and pathetic brevity of our existence upon this earth. But when we say each day is a life, we are giving expression to a truth of deeper importance and of greater practical value and use. There is nothing small. In the smallest things are the elements of the greatest. One day of life has in it the quality of the whole. In its acts and relations we see God making history, and man making his own future--making the character which creates condition and decides destiny. Are we making the most and the best of the opportunities of to-day? One of our older poets has represented the days as coming to us with their faces veiled; but when they have passed beyond our reach and call, the draped figures become radiant, and the gifts we slighted are seen to be right royal treasures. Let us make the most and the best of each day’s opportunity for pure and noble enjoyment. The lesson of joy is as Divine a lesson to learn as that of obedience and sacrifice. Let us make the most and the best of each day’s opportunity for thought and meditation. The inner life constantly needs deepening. The mind closed against new truth is already dying. Let us make the most and the best of the opportunity for moral and spiritual growth and beneficent service which is afforded by the daily task. It is in the sphere of every-day duties most men must win the discipline which our earthly life is meant to yield, most form the character which is the crown of life, and prepare themselves for wider usefulness. It is only by living up to the ideal and duty of making each day perfect in itself we can make life a spiritual triumph. There are only “twelve hours in a day,” yet how much can be done in and with a day. If we throw away a day no miracle will bring it back to us. There is no to-morrow for the work that ought to be done to-day. The cry, “Too late,” is not false. The mercy of God is infinite every way, but an opportunity lost is lost for ever. Other doors may open, but that door is for ever shut. The exhortation, “Prepare to meet thy God,” is, indeed, an exhortation to prepare for life, not death. Every day we meet God; every day we need to be prepared to meet Him. We prepare for what we suppose to be great days. But every day may be a great day, a Divine day. To-day all good and great things are possible. Let us by our faith and faithfulness, by our obedience to all best visions and impulses, turn it into a day of salvation, a day of God, one of the days of the Son of Man, one of the days of heaven upon earth. (John Hunter.)

To-day

1. Let me ask those who believe the truths of the gospel, but who put off the renunciation of the sins they condemn, and the consideration of the truths themselves to a future period, have you a reliable guarantee that you will have a future in which to consider, pray over, and meditate on these things? There is no such thing. The space between life and death is quickly traversed.

2. But, in the next place, addressing those who are thus procrastinating, let me suppose that you reach the remotest horizon of human age; is it not true that every day you neglect Divine truths the probability of your ever accepting then diminishes? In this world you require time to grow in knowledge; why should you argue that what God recognises in His providence He should not recognise in grace; but that He should leave you to a lifetime of ignorance, indifference, apathy, and then should give you light enough to guide you to heaven in your last moments?

3. But there is a third argument against all such delay. It is that whilst you are delaying the salvation of the soul, your heart is not all the while remaining empty. Your heart is being coloured by all it comes into contact with in the world. Now, if your soul has for forty, fifty or sixty years been absorbed about what you shall eat, what you shall drink, wherewithal you shall be clothed; or about the world’s wealth, or the world’s ambition, or the world’s cares, will it be very easy to disengage it from its old routine upon a dying bed? Will it be very easy to alter the currents, change the channels, and empty the springs of such a heart when its beating becomes feebler, and life’s sandglass is almost run out?

4. There is another fact, let me mention, one suggested to me by conversation with a physician, and I think it is a very just one, namely, the very structure of the brain, which is the hand of the mind, adapts itself to the action of the thoughts that have constantly passed through it. Now, if your thoughts have been ceaselessly absorbed with the things of this world, your brain is just adapting itself to the things of this world, and becoming unfit for others. A blacksmith’s arm would never do for the most exquisite handwriting; his arm has been accustomed to other work; and that is only a coarser illustration of what is true of the brain, that it becomes adapted and physically fitted to the trains of thought that have ceaselessly rushed through it; till, when you come to speak to a dying man who has never had Divine thoughts in his heart and head, you have to deal with the most intractable of all materials; till, almost despairing, you must cease to teach, and begin only to pray. But I take another view of the danger of such a course.

5. As people grow older, on the supposition that they live to a protracted age, the impressibility of the mind becomes less, the blood chills with age, it runs more sluggishly through the arteries and veins; the memory in old age, you know quite well, becomes less retentive. Then is not that another evidence that it must be very difficult to impress Divine truths, everlasting motives, upon memories that scarcely recollect next day what was said on this; upon hearts that Mammon has trodden into the hardness of iron, and in which passions have scorched every fair and fragrant blossom?

6. Let me notice another reason and explanation of the danger of this procrastination: you are creating and strengthening every day a refuge to which you have recourse. It is a singular law in human nature, that what becomes your habit becomes almost your very nature; and as you are making to-day a refuge from conviction, a refuge from what you feel to be duty, that procrastination becomes a habit; and every time that you do so, the next time you will be abler to do so.

7. But now the final result of not hearing God’s voice, and of thus procrastinating to a future, is what is here called the hardening of the heart. Love degenerates to zero; the enthusiasm of your spring is all frozen hard in the winter of old age; what once awakened you to joy, to hope, to fear, to alarm, fails to awaken you any more; and it is possible that God may say, as he said of one of old, “Let him alone; My Spirit will not strive with man any more”; like Pharaoh, He gives him up to the hardness he himself has originated, an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. Some of you will say, “But is not the Holy Spirit of God able to change any heart, however hard? Is He not able to convert a man in his last gasp?” The Holy Spirit’s work is always exercised on a system that promotes holiness, that glorifies Himself, that honours His holy Word; and your acting on the pleas that I now quote for you is simply sinning because grace abounds, and making the Holy Spirit’s omnipotence an excuse for your worldliness. And, in the next place, let me remind you, that while the Holy Spirit is able to do all this, He will not, and it is unreasonable to expect that He will, dishonour the means that He has instituted. But perhaps you will argue, “But we know that men have been converted on their deathbeds; very frequently we read of instances the most remarkable of deathbed conversions; and this ought to cheer us in the prospect of a deathbed conversion.” First of all, are you perfectly sure that your case is parallel in all points with the cases that you read? And then, in the next place, are you quite sure that such cases are not exceptional? I admit at once grace has its trophies in every age. But if this be exceptional, not the general rule, would you act in this way in common life? Would you plunge into the roaring cataract because one man, half a century ago, did so, and escaped? And then, let me add, those remarkable cakes that you quote had not the opportunities that you have had. Now that is a very modifying element. The dying thief never heard of a Saviour till he saw Him nailed to the Cross. In none of these cases--here is the striking fact--was there a previous hardening process under the knowledge and the preaching of the truth. But some encourage themselves with this: “But you know the scenes of a deathbed are very solemn.” They are very solemn indeed. “And may it not be true,” you will say, “that when eternity envelops us like an ocean, that then we shall think, and pray, and believe, and be saved? “ When the house is tumbling to ruins about the tenant, when life is ebbing from all the shores of the senses, when you are distracted by hopes to-day, by depression to-morrow; when cares in this world that you have left unsettled, pains and agonies within, separations, tears, sympathies, and sorrows are about you--oh! let me ask, is that an hour for thinking about the soul, of God, of the judgment-seat, a Saviour, an eternity? You may disguise it as you like, but you may depend upon it it is not. It is so easy in health to speculate what you will do; it is so difficult in a dying hour to settle what was unsettled before. The following illustration is is by an American traveller: “ In my to and fro rambles in foreign lands I once met with a party of young Englishmen, one of whom had lost his passport. By one dodge and another he continued to get on without it at the stations of secondary importance, but at length he came to the frontiers: the demand to see and examine the document was stern and imperative; his lack of it, as well as the artifices by which he had heretofore concealed it, was detected, and his further progress disgracefully arrested.” How many will come to the frontiers of that eternal world towards which we are all journeying without a passport? We may evade all scrutinies at the way-star, ions. We may be admitted into reputable and virtuous society. We may enter the Church. We may eat and drink in the presence of Christ. But all this does not constitute a passport into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour. “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” “Without holiness no man shall see the Lord.” Only learn wisdom from the children of this world, and do not delay to get your passport till you reach the very station where it will be demanded. It will then be too late. Now is the accepted time. (J. Cumming, D. D.)

The voice of God and the hard-heartedness of man

I. THE VOICE OF GOD! Ah! it is a wonderful thing that the High and Holy One should condescend to speak to a rebellious and apostate race for their good.

1. And if you ask how He utters His voice to man, I answer, in the first place, it is uttered through the medium of external nature. By those who will listen to it, the voice is heard above, below, and around them. And yet there are men in this age of science and education, who can tread upon the green carpet of the earth, bespread with fruit and flower, without any responding emotions to the Giver of them all; who appear deaf to the countless notes by which His voice is uttered, and His wisdom, power and love proclaimed, and to whom it is requisite now as of old to say, “If ye will hear His voice, harden not your heart.”

2. I next observe, that the voice of God is uttered through the medium of passing events. Whatever occurrence takes place, the really wise man hears in it a message from the throne of the Eternal. When affluence and power are bestowed, he hears the voice of God declaring,” Here are means and opportunities for promoting My glory and advancing the welfare of My creatures. Make a right use of them. De a wise steward over them.” When, on the other hand, poverty comes, he hears the voice of God admonishing, “Learn the perishable nature of earthly wealth, and lay up for thyself treasures in heaven.” When sickness and bereavement come with their desponding and painful associations, he hears the voice of God declaring, “It is good for thee to be afflicted; before thou wast afflicted thou wentest wrong; but now thou shalt learn my statutes.”

3. I next observe, that the voice of God is uttered through the medium of human instruction and example. Here a believing husband seeks to impress his wife with the truths of the gospel; there a wife, whose affections are set “ on things above,” deplores the excessive worldliness of her husband’s mind.

4. I observe, further, that the voice of God is uttered through the medium of His inspired Word.

II. THE NATURE, OR THE MANNER AND CHARACTER OF THE RESISTANCE MADE BY MAN TO THE VOICE of God. The resistance commonly offered to the Divine appeals is not that of “the fool, who saith in his heart, there is no God,” nor that of the recklessly worldly or the profoundly infidel, who cry out, “What is the Almighty, that we should serve Him? and what profit should we have, if we pray unto Him?” The resistance offered by the bulk of the impenitent, is that described by the expression, “hardening the heart as in the provocation”; a delay and a disinclination to act up to the convictions of conscience from a deep rooted love of sin, like that of the people in the wilderness, than which nothing can be more provoking to the Holy One of Israel. When men disobey what they believe to be the voice of God, they must try to find some plausible excuse for their disobedience, or they must be most uncomfortable and uneasy in their minds. The individual who is frequently employed in gathering pleas for the neglect of religion soon becomes an adept in the work of self-justification. Having engaged in a warfare with his reason, his judgment and the best affections of his nature, he has nearly gained the victory, and the consequence is that he feels less religious responsibility than before, and is become almost inaccessible to any means of conviction. Now this is precisely what the Scripture means by “ hardening the heart”; and this is the very thing that is done by those in a Christian land, who refuse to become Christians indeed and in truth. (H. Hughes, B. D.)

Neglecting the day of grace

An artist solicited permission to paint a portrait of the queen. The favour was granted; and the favour was great, for it would make the fortune of the man. A place was fixed, and the time. At the fixed place and time the queen appeared: but the artist was not there; he was not ready yet. When he did arrive, a message was communicated to him, that her majesty had and would not return. Such is the tale. The King eternal consented to meet man. He fixed in His covenant and promised in His Word, the object, place, and time of the meeting: it is for salvation it is in Christ; it is now. He has been true to His own appointment; but how often is it otherwise with man! (W. Arnot.)

Now is the time

When I think of opportunities, I think I may liken us here to-night to a number of men in the Arctic regions. They have been frozen up for a long time, and the ship is high and dry on great masses of ice. The thaw comes on; but the thaw, however, will last but for a very short time. They set their saws to work; they see a split in the ice; there is a long and very narrow lane of water. If they can get the ship along there before the water freezes it up again they may yet reach the shores of dear old England, and be safe; but if not they are frozen in for another winter, and very likely will be frozen in for ever. Well, n-w, to-night it seems just so with us. It seems as if the Spirit of God had purposely brought some of you here; and I do trust He is opening, as it were, the lane of mercy for you--causing your sins for a little time to loose their frosty hold, and openingyour heart a little to the genial influences of the gospel. But, oh! if it should be frozen up again. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Borne, when they had heard, did provoke

Some but not all bad

I. MANY HEAR THE WORD OR VOICE OF GOD TO NO ADVANTAGE, BUT ONLY TO AGGRAVATE THEIR SIN. Their hearing renders their sin provoking unto God, and destructive to their own souls. It is, I confess, a great privilege for men to have the Word preached unto them, and to hear it (Psalms 147:19-20). But privileges are as men use them. In themselves, they are of worth, and to be prized. But unto us, they are as they are used. Hence the gospel comes unto some “a savour of death unto death” (2 Corinthians 2:16). Yea, Christ Himself, in His whole ministry was a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, a gin and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem (Isaiah 8:14; Luke 2:34). And the enjoyment of any part of the means of grace is but a trial.

II. IN THE MOST GENERAL AND VISIBLE APOSTASIES OF THE CHURCH, GOD STILL RESERVES A REMNANT UNTO HIMSELF TO BEAR WITNESS UNTO:HIM AND FOR HIM, BY THEIR FAITH AND OBEDIENCE. This He hath done, and this He will do.

1. To maintain His own kingdom in the world.

2. Should all faith utterly fail in the earth, should all professors provoke God and apostatise from Him, all gracious intercourse between the Holy Spirit and mankind in the world would be at an end.

3. Goal will do this for the work that He hath for some of His in all ages and seasons to do in the world. And this is great and various. He will have some always to conflict with His adversaries and overcome them, and therein give testimony to the power of His grace and truth.

4. God will always have a testimony given to His goodness, grace, and mercy.

5. God will always have a revenue of especial glory out of the world, in and by His worship.

III. GOD LAYS A FEW, OFT-TIMES A VERY FEW, OF HIS SECRET ONES IN THE BALANCE AGAINST THE GREATEST MULTITUDE OF REBELS AND TRANSGRESSORS. They are His portion, His inheritance, His jewels, dear to Him as the apple of His eye, and deservedly preferred unto the greatest heap of chaff and rubbish. (John Owen, D. D.)

With whom was He grieved

God’s long-suffering

Now where he saith, “With whom He was angry forty years,” we have here to learn what is the long-suffering of the Lord, who doth not straight punish the sinner, but as He endured the manners of the people of Israel forty years, so He beareth with us in all our transgressions.

If thus we consider this example and such like, we are no idle hearers, but profitably exercise ourselves in His judgments; and as we ought to give Him this praise, that He is long-suffering, so let us know what duty we ought again to render unto God for all His goodness; for a great many of us cry with loud voices, the Lord is merciful, but we be dumb and deaf, and have no hearts, when we should learn what His mercy requireth of us. For, tell me, what wouldst thou think of such a child, who, because his father is loving and kind, would therefore be rebellious and riotous? What wouldst thou think of a servant, that because his master is gentle and courteous, would therefore be careless in his work, and not regard him? What subject, think we, were he, that because his prince is good and favourable, would therefore be traitorous and conspire against him? Would we not give speedy sentence against such monstrous and unnatural men? And what hearts then have we that be here this day, if we will confess this great goodness of God, our King and Father, and yet walk in our sins before Him? Thus let us answer the long-suffering of our God: and howsoever He be angry with many, as with the Israelites in the wilderness, He will be pleased with us, as with Caleb, or Moses, and we shall enter into His rest. How can we have a better rule than to see in the Word how God is said to be angry with His people. He is angry here because they refused wisdom and embraced folly, because they forsook the word of truth and followed vain devices, because they would not enter into the rest promised them, but had more desire to return to the heavy labour and bondage of Egypt. This madness of the people the Lord is angry with, as a loving Father that had care over them. So, if we will have holy anger, let it be free from all hatred and revenge, and arise only for the profit and well-doing of our brethren (Mar 3:5; 2 Timothy 4:4; Jude 1:23). (E. Deering, B. D.)

Sin and its punishment

I. GOD IS NOT DISPLEASED WITH ANYTHING IS HIS PEOPLE BUT SIN; OR, SIN IS THE ONLY PROPER OBJECT OF GOD’S DISPLEASURE, AND THE SINNER FOR SIN’S SAKE.

II. PUBLIC SINS, SINS IN SOCIETIES, ARE GREAT PROVOCATIONS OF GOD.

III. GOD SOMETIMES WILL MAKE MEN WHO HAVE BEEN WICKEDLY EXEMPLARY IN SIN, RIGHTEOUSLY EXEMPLARY IN THEIR PUNISHMENT. “They sinned,” saith the apostle, “and provoked God, and their carcases fell in the wilderness.” To what end is this reported? It is that we might take heed, that we fall not after the same example of unbelief (Hebrews 4:11).

1. The first use hereof is that which Hannah proposeth (1 Samuel 2:3). Let men take heed how they arrogantly boast themselves in their sin and wickedness, which is too common with provoking sinners; for God is a (hod of knowledge and judgment.

2. Let us learn to glorify God because of His righteous judgments. The saints in heaven go before us in this work and duty (Revelation 11:15-18; Revelation 15:3-4; Revelation 19:1-2). Not that we should rejoice in the misery of men, but we should do so in the vindication of the glory of God, which is infinitely to be preferred before the impunity of profligate sinners.

IV. GREAT DESTRUCTIONS IN A WAY OF JUDGMENT AND VENGEANCE, ARE INSTITUTED REPRESENTATIONS OF THE JUDGMENT AND VENGEANCE TO COME (see Isaiah 34:1-5; Daniel 7:9-11; Matthew 24:29; Hebrews 10:26-27; 2 Peter 3:5-7; Revelation 6:13-17). (John Owen, D. D.)

Sin viewed in connection with its temporal results

It cannot, indeed, be contended that the wicked are openly, in this world, rendered invariable victims of Divine wrath; nor does subjection to misfortune prove previous subjection to vice. Providential visitations do not necessarily presuppose extraordinary impiety; and must not, therefore, be continually identified with judicial strokes. On the other hand, worldly prosperity is not an unfailing accompaniment to holiness--frequently very far otherwise. It is true, that in times of persecution, those will suffer who avow that they are “not ashamed of the gospel of Christ”; but still, at other periods, and even then, it will not be needful that they should be visited with such woes as are sent to correct the rebelliousness of the ungodly. If, therefore, we were called upon to point out a mode whereby man might ofttimes mitigate the rigours of his earthly pilgrimage, we would not hesitate to recommend to him the practice of holiness. Never forgetting that his first object in endeavouring to conform to the Divine will must, of course, be God’s glory, in conjunction with his own salvation, we find, at the same time, ample reason to conclude, that his” peace on earth,” no less than his bliss in heaven, will be advanced by his steadfast adherence to the ways of righteousness. You may have been accustomed to consider, that it is solely in reference to your spiritual concerns that your faith can be made available; but, surely, if the want of faith is liable, as in the instance referred to in the text, to become an occasion of temporal disappointment and failure, it may fairly be expected that its presence, which we know to be well-pleasing in the sight of God, will lead, in unnumbered cases, to results of a precisely opposite character. Our Almighty Father displays far more readiness to recognise the faith and love, than to punish the distrust and alienation, of His children. Though the murmuring Israelites were doomed for weary years to wander through the wilderness, and were even destined never to behold the fair and fertile land which lay beyond its bleak and barren regions, yet would it, think you, have been God’s determination to exclude them from the country which they so desired to reach, had they firmly relied on His power and constantly respected His precepts? Already had He furnished them with evidences in abundance of His anxiety to promote their well-being. But no: they counted as nothing all previous demonstrations of His affection and His power; their sensibilities were unawakened, and their minds unconvinced, by any reasonable appreciation of the evidence which foregoing occurrences had supplied; and their tongues were as ready to murmur, and their hearts to faint, at every obstacle met with in their path, at every inconvenience experienced throughout their journey, as though no practical assurances had been given of God’s readiness still to act as their Protector and Guide; as though no stupendous wonders had been wrought, and no providential kindness had been displayed. We marvel greatly at their obstinacy and blindness; but I question much whether, after all, we recognise, generally speaking, that principle in the Divine procedure with our race which was exemplified in the retributive treatment with which they met. They were losers, in a temporal point of view, through their unbelief. Had they trusted in God in seasons of apparent danger or real distress, they would speedily, doubtless, have been enabled to surmount all the difficulties of their pilgrimage, and have been happily and safely located in the land of promise. The world at large may ridicule the idea that a man’s spiritual standing can have the remotest connection with the success or failure which may attend his pursuit of any temporal objects: and we are far enough from alleging that the maintenance of religious principle will necessarily ensure the prosperous issue of every enterprise; but its absence may, at any time, throw obstacles in the way which might not, under other circumstances, require to be encountered; and when we find that unbelief, and nothing else, was the cause of the exclusion of so many of the Israelitish wanderers from the choice and productive land of Canaan, we seem to read, in characters so plain that only wilful error can mistake their meaning, the great truth, that the earthly prospects of all may be materially and even vitally affected by the possession or the want of faith. We do not say that brilliancy of renown, that stores of earthly treasures, that high and commanding influence will belong to those who consistently repose faith in the wisdom and continual workings of the providence of God: these appertain but to few, nor can they fairly be ranked amongst such acquisitions as are intrinsically adapted to produce felicity. But we say that when a man conducts each of his undertakings, from its commencement to its conclusion, with express reference to the will and watchfulness of the Almighty Governor; looking to Him as the Source of aid in all his difficulties, and regarding Him as the Author of all his success; we say that the man lives in the habitual exercise of such faith as will remove the most formidable obstacles out of his path; and that thus, while he is journeying towards a happier land, brighter sunshine, and unclouded skies, he is also engaged in the promotion of his own welfare meanwhile here below--in procuring, to a large extent, an increase to his happiness, even ere he is released from the infirmities of the earthly tabernacle. (H. B. Moffat, M. A.)

Because of unbelief

The sin of unbelief

Why did they not enter into rest? Because they believed not. He does not single out the sin of making and worshipping the golden calf; he does not bring before us the flagrant transgressions into which they fell at Baal-peor. Many much more striking and to our mind more fearful sins could have been pointed out; but God thinks the one sin greater than all is unbelief. We are saved by faith; we are lost through unbelief. The heart is purified by faith; the heart is hardened by unbelief. Faith brings us nigh to God, unbelief is departure from God. Does it seem strange? By faith we draw near and worship God; by faith we receive God’s love; through faith the Holy Ghost is given unto us; by faith we obey and follow Christ. Yet it is so natural and so like the goodness of God that all should be by faith. For the Lord is our God; He is all. He is willing to be, to give, to do all; to be God for us, to us, in us. By grace are we saved through faith, and even this trust is the gift of His blessed Spirit (Ephesians it.). Unbelief prevented Israel’s entering into the promised land. Then it follows that faith enters into rest. If we trust in God, then the wilderness will be converted into the garden of the Lord. See the true Israel, Jesus our Lord, who was tested in the wilderness. He entered into rest, He enjoyed peace with God; and there was given Him power to tread upon the lion and adder, and to trample the dragon under His feet. Worshipping the Father He conquered; and the angels of God refreshed and gladdened His heart with their heavenly converse. Such is to be your life. Only believe, only worship, only harden not your heart, when in the Scripture and in the Spirit’s teaching and in God’s daily dealings you hear God’s voice, and though wild beasts, hunger and privation, weakness and temptation beset you, you are safe, you are blessed. God is with you, who can be against you? (A. Saphir.)

The bar to progress

The words of our text are now perpetually being fulfilled in people who have missed their aim, who have not reached success. They belong to a crisis, a turning-point in the ancient history of God’s people, and they suit the present modern condition of the world.
They refer to those who were marching onward to a distinct end, but could not enter in because of unbelief. Thus they may fit us and our ways. This generation is enterprising and ambitious. It looks down every road, and tries every gate. Multitudes are seeking to go forward in divers ways. And the success of their advance depends upon their belief. I mean trust in the living power of righteousness, truth, and love, which is God’s. No one can really enter into and enjoy any new work, state, or position; no one can really advance without reliance upon this. Look at education. What an impulse it has lately received! But what might be, what often is, the bar to its wholesome effect--to its success? Not merely the omission of the Scriptural or religious lesson from the time-table, but a misbelief in the great aims of education itself. Without an inculcation of righteousness, without trust in the great principles of law and order, and without an appeal to the spiritual capacities of the scholar, education may result in the scraping together of the worst ancient and modern moral mud into the cesspool of his mind, and in his alliance or union with that which is most actively mischievous in the world. We might see, moreover, how the law of our text governs many other movements. It specially rules such as are akin to that which originally called it forth. It was first spoken of those who migrated from Egypt to Canaan, but could not enter into the Promised Land because of unbelief. This makes us think of another great movement of these days--emigration. The overflow of crowded Europe is filling North America, and other great half-empty regions of the world. It is true that some of the conditions attending this transfer did not exist in any previous settlement of a new land. But one condition holds--for ever. The emigrant is sure to fail if he goes frivolously, if he fails to realise the severe conditions of migration, if he does not go with a steadfast heart, trusting--though he may not always define this process to himself--in the great eternal and Divine laws of life and growth, which always govern victory. The genuine spirit of enterprise and energy begets success. It is a possession which increases to the holder, while the half-hearted loses the little that he holds. It slips from his feeble hand. Unquestionably, a successful act of migration demands much energy and perseverance on the part of those who move. We may be sure that the great laws of God overrule all adventure; and that the keeping of a good courage, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel, and the like Divine gifts, really lead to victory. These ever have entrance and dominion. I have said that the note of our text is in good tune ,with many of the greatest movements of our day. No true progress is made in anything except in accordance with the great laws of God. Moreover, it holds, not only in the advances which are being made into the freshly opened regions of the earth, but in the revision of ancient home institutions, and the promotion of any social or political progress. Take, for instance, the giving of larger power in the State to the peasantry in our land. This is exercising both the legislature and society. And we are specially reminded of it by that period in the history of the Hebrews to which our text belongs. We are there told of a race which for hundreds of years had been in bondage along with their flocks and herds. We hear of the partial probation these people had gone through, of the education which they had received since they left the place of subjection. When they crossed the border into their new land they faced new conditions of life, they incurred greater responsibilities. They had to exercise more of that political power which belongs to a civilised country. In the pastoral desert, where these people had been sojourning, their chief concern had been to supplement God’s gifts of food with such produce of nature as they could raise or gather from the soil or the flock. While thus living they were under such Divine or religious instruction as they had not received before. It is especially notable that they had to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the Ten Commandments; learning thus their duty toward God and towards their neighbour. In the keeping of the great moral laws of God may be seen the assurance of national success. None can enter into or enjoy the real blessings of civilised society without a belief in these. This truth touches each, and as we are all members one of another, we do not merely watch spectacles of enfranchisement and the like, but by our loyal keeping of the great principle of righteousness shown in commonplace uprightness of life rising out of behest Christian faith, we welcome and assist any new-comers into the fuller rights of the national family, however little we may be brought into personal contact with them. Every Christian life is an active centre of goodness and influence reaching far beyond our sight. These words, “beyond our sight,” might lead us to the thought of that unseen rest into which we cannot enter without belief. The true rest of the Land of Promise is not that craved by the sole of the foot, the sinew, and the brain; it is rather a sense of spiritual repose along with, or after, any work done as before God; though human results may not be seen to follow it. It marks a shelter from the strain of life which may be felt even in the whirl and pressure of its business. We all sometimes feel or yearn for this. It remains for the people of God--for such as put their trust in Him. It is occasionally, but most certainly, touched by them, even in this life. It survives disappointment, and arrives even in confusion. But we do not enter into it without belief. Let those who stand outside be invited and helped by the thought that the belief which leads to salvation is not begun by an assent to a current or formulated creed, but in the receiving of the influence of the living God who is revealed to us, and to whom we are joined by our Lord Jesus Christ. This living faith gives life and meaning to the creed. (H. Jones, M. A.)

Unbelief

A man in prison, with a signed and sealed permission to leave it and walk at liberty lying on the table beside him, untouched, unopened, yet bemoaning himself and unhappy in his cell, is just the image of us believers who have even a fragment of unhappiness about us. I think I can trace every scrap of sorrow in my own life to this simple unbelief. How could I be anything but quite happy if I believed always that all the past is forgiven and all the present furnished with power, and all the future bright with hope, because of the same abiding facts, which don’t change with my mood, do not crumble, because I totter and stagger at the promise through unbelief, but stand firm and clear with their peaks of pearl cleaving the air of eternity, and the bases of their hills rooted unfathomably in the rock of God. (James Smetham.)

Unbelief

“Unbelief among sins,” says an old writer, “is as the plague among diseases, the most dangerous; but when it riseth to despair, then it is as the plague with the tokens appearing that bring the certain message of death with them. Unbelief is despair in the bud; despair is unbelief at its full growth.”

Warnings from the fate of others

When, a few years ago, a steamer was burned on Long Island Sound, and the hulk of the vessel was afterwards beached, it was said that the bell of that steamer kept tolling through the day and through the night for weeks, solemnly and impressively, to those who passed by on the waters. And I have to tell you that God has so arranged it that right over the place where the soul goes down, or there is a moral shipwreck or awful spiritual catastrophe--that right over it there is a warning that rings through the day, and through the night, and through the years, saying, “Beware! beware!” (T. DeWitt Talmage.)

Profiting by the disasters of others

Oh, that we could make that use of their disaster that Walden, the French merchant (father and founder of the Waldenses), did of that sad sight that befell him. For walking in the streets,
180 and seeing one fall suddenly dead, he went home and repented of his Popish errors and profane courses. (J. Trapp.)