Good understanding giveth favour.
A sound intellect
I. The nature of a sound intellect. A good understanding must include four things.
1. Enlightenment. The soul without knowledge is not good. A good understanding is that which is well informed, not merely in general knowledge, but in the science of duty and of God.
2. Impartiality. A good intellect should hold the balance of thought with a steady hand.
3. Religiousness. It must be inspired with a deep sense of its allegiance to heaven.
4. Practicalness. It should be strong and bold enough to carry all its decisions into actual life. “A good understanding have all they that do His commandments.” Thus it appears a good understanding is tantamount to practical godliness.
II. The usefulness of a sound intellect. The greatest benefactor is the man of a good understanding. The thoughts of such men as these are the seeds of the world’s best institutions, and most useful arts and inventions. The man of good understanding is the most useful in the family, in the neighbourhood, in the market, in the press, in the senate, in the pulpit, everywhere.
1. No favours so valuable as mental favours. He who really helps the mind to think with accuracy, freedom, and force, to love with purity, and to hope with reason, helps the man in the entirety of his being.
2. No one can confer mental favours who has not a good understanding. An ignorant man has no favour to bestow on souls. “Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge the wing with which we fly to heaven” (Shakespeare). Let us, therefore, cultivate a sound intellect. “I make not my head a grave,” says Sir T. Browne, in his quaint way, “but a treasury of knowledge; I intend no monopoly, but a community in learning; I study not for my own sake only, but for theirs that study not for themselves; I envy no man that knows more than myself, but pity them that know less. I instruct no man as an exercise of my knowledge, or with an intent rather to nourish and keep it alive in mine own head than beget and propagate it in his; and, in the midst of all my endeavours, there is but one thought that dejects me--that my acquired parts must perish with myself, nor can be legacied among my honoured friends.” (Homilist.)
But the way of transgressors is hard.--
The course, act, and punishment of sin
I. The course of sin.
1. A disposition to regard life as a matter of circumstances. Personal freedom is, however, never nullified, personal responsibility never suspended. The track and trend of a man’s life is largely within his own determination.
2. The text speaks of “a way,” i.e., a trodden path. It refers to a course that is chosen, and persisted in. It is the habit of the sinner’s life--a much-frequented track.
3. Sin indulged in soon becomes sin confirmed. How soon a track is made across the soft earth. The “dearest idol” was once a plaything, a diversion.
4. This is the sure and certain tendency of sin. “Wild oats” mean a harvest of thorns. It is a cruel thing that is done, when men speak lightly of what is wrong.
II. The act of sin.
1. Sin is one: a great, awful unit. But sin is viewed under various aspects. Here the idea is that of one who deals treacherously, one who deceives, or deceives himself.
2. This is the quality of sin committed in Christian lands. Sin “against light and love.” This is sin which makes pity impossible, save with God, and with such as the Godlike.
III. The punishment of sin. All sin is visited with punishment. The “pleasures of sin” are but “for a season.” The punishment comes. The present punishment of sin is here emphasised; if that is not enough to drive you from the way of the transgressor, what of the death-bed, of the judgment-seat, of the never-dying worm? Where, then, is salvation? Look at what is suggested by one and another.
1. Retirement; a life of seclusion and penitence.
2. A firm stand against the encroaching sin.
3. Altered associations. These are the proposals of policy, or human calculations. God’s proposal for salvation is an absolute and unconditional forsaking. (George Lester.)
The hardship of sin
But who believes this? None who set their opinion against the testimony of revelation.
I. What is to be understood by the way of transgressors? Transgressor is but another name for sinner. Transgression supposeth either something done that was forbidden or something omitted that was commanded.
II. The doctrine of the text respecting this way. It is not rendered harder than it ought to be, through undue severity in God.
1. The kindness of God renders it difficult either to shun or to resist the light.
2. It is sometimes necessary for the Divine Being to carry Himself with some severity against daring and obdurate sinners, for a warning to others.
3. Jehovah’s efforts to save render those who finally abuse His goodness singularly criminal. Improvements:
(1) How much sinners are deceived in this “way of the transgressors”!
(2) What madness will it be for any to continue in it!
(3) It will be impossible for any to be saved who will not quit it.
(4) What a mercy that we may yet do so!
(5) While we are in the way with the Lord, let us humble ourselves before Him, let us return to Him, and sue for His salvation. (Sketches of Four Hundred Sermons.)
The way of transgressors hard
In regard to a large class of sins, retribution follows in the present life. Sin never pays. It means sorrow, distress, pain, whether that pain follows immediately or after a while. The point of the text is, that retribution follows now, in this present world. The earliest steps of vice seem pleasant; if it were not so, it would offer no temptation. To yield to lower appetites and passions is so easy, so natural, so inviting. But the wilful do not go far without being brought to a very different conclusion. “The way of transgressors” turns out to be rough and hard. I might endeavour to deter you from evil courses by telling you of the judgment to come; but what I wish to impress is that there is a day of reckoning even here. Look at the misery which intemperance brings; which licentiousness brings; which gambling brings; which fraudulent dealing brings. Then let this be the hour of your final, and ever-to-be-remembered decision for God and righteousness. (J. T. Davidson, D.D.)
Warning against transgressors’ ways
Four losses, caused by transgression, which help to make the way hard.
1. The loss of a good conscience.
2. The loss of character.
3. The loss of usefulness.
4. The loss of the soul.
When we go into the way of transgressors, we do not know that we shall ever have an opportunity of repenting and believing in Jesus. And no matter what part of the transgressors’ ways we may have walked in, we shall find it a hard way, because it will be sure to bring the loss of heaven to us. (R. Newton, D. D.)
The hard way of sin
I. The way of the sinner is a hard way, because it is unprofitable--hard work and poor pay--the devil is a hard lord and a mean paymaster.
II. It is a hard way, because in the end it is usually a failure. Most men see only the present, and when summer is here one feels it must never end; but winter comes on at last.
III. It is a hard way, because opposed to all the stronger principles that prevail in life and destiny. The transgressor braves the mighty current of that eternal river which has swept on its bosom every being borne down to the shoreless sea of the judgment of God. Examples: Absalom, Judas, Pharaoh. No use fighting against God.
IV. It is a hard way, because it is an unhappy way. Conscience and all the better self rebel--opposed to all one’s highest associates and surroundings.
V. A hard way, because it ends in eternal ruin--no opportunity to repair the damage. A hard life here, and hereafter eternal ruin!
VI. The only easy way is the way of obedience--the life that now is and the life that is to come. Turn from your hard master and serve the Lord Jesus Christ, whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light. (C. G. Wright.)
The rough road
I. What do we mean by a transgressor? One who breaks a law or violates a command.
II. The painful path. The R.V. says, “But the way of the treacherous is rugged.” The way of wickedness is difficult and dangerous to travel as a rugged road. How true; young people may not think so; but old men will tell you the prophet knew what he was saying when he uttered the words, “They weary themselves to commit iniquity.” Chrysostom says, “Virtue is easier than vice.” Mr. H. W. Beecher used to tell of a man in America “who had the habit of stealing all his firewood. He would get up on cold nights and go and take it from his neighbours’ woodpiles. It was ascertained that he spent more time and worked harder to get his fuel than he would have been obliged to if he had earned it in an honest way, and at ordinary wages.” And this is a type of thousands of men who work a great deal harder to please the devil than they would have to work to please God. It is easier to be sober than intemperate, honest than dishonest, etc.
III. The way is hard; for it is frequently a path of sorrow and suffering. “As certain serpents before they strike their prey fix their eyes upon it and fascinate it, and then at last devour it, so does sin fascinate the foolish sons of Adam--they are charmed with it, and perish for it.” “Woe unto their souls, for they have rewarded evil to themselves.”
IV. The way is hard; for it is the way of bitter recollections. (J. E. Whydale.)
Personal responsibility
I. Man is constituted to avoid transgression. This is taught by--
1. Physical science.
2. Moral consciousness.
3. Common experience.
II. Man is punished for each transgression.
1. Each sinful act increases sinful desire.
2. Each sinful act weakens spiritual strength. As the sinful desire weakens, the power of resistance diminishes. A reed that has been overcome by the rushing torrent finds it more difficult to stand erect before the next.
3. Each single act is living in the memory.
III. Man is punished by an eternal law which condemns transgression.
1. This is a law additional to, but in harmony with, his constitution.
2. This is a law to be satisfied only by atonement. (The Congregational Pulpit.)
The way of transgressors is hard
A murderer’s last words are seldom very edifying, as it often happens that they are merely the expression of conviction that the speaker, in spite of his crimes, is going straight from the scaffold to heaven. The dying words of James Tracy, executed in Chicago, are, however, an exception to the rule. They deserve the careful attention of young people who think that it is a fine thing “to see life,” by which they generally mean vicious life. Tracy said, “I do not believe any man who has known a life of virtue can ever be contented with a life of vice. The farmer who has spent his life on his farm, never seeing more of the world than the road to market, or more of society than the village congregation, is happier than the ‘sporting man’ who gets his money easily but questionably, and sees society in its wildest dissipation. I hope that my fate may prove a warning to young men who are cheating themselves with the idea that there can be any peace, happiness, or prosperity in a crooked life.” Perhaps the readers of immoral novels and young people attracted by the pleasures of vice will heed the solemn statement of a man who was qualified to speak with authority, even though they despise the same warning given in the Bible.