The Murderer # 3

The Murderer # 3

There was given God's Holy law, with its solemn sanctions, the thunders and the lightenings, and the voice of the trumpet - and yet, before the servant of God has come down from the Mount, the nation to whom it was given was worshiping a golden calf!

Prophets and righteous men came, from age to age, with earnest calls to repentance - yet how few hearkened to their message and forsook their sins.

Nor is evil less powerful now. Faithful sermons, the warnings of a godly parent, sickness, bereavement, convictions of sin's danger, resolutions to amend - are too often all in vain! They turn not the sinner from his downward course. The besetting sin still reigns in the heart. Evil habits yet cleave fast to the man. Truly is it written, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard its spots? Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil!" (Jeremiah 13:23. "Whoever commits sin is the slave of sin!" (John 8:34).

It matters not what the prevailing sin may be ... some unhallowed lust, a hateful spirit, a temper that brooks no control, an unruly tongue, a determined worship of Mammon, a resolution to get rich at all hazards - yet how hard is it ever found to cast off the chain! It is just like one of those arms of the plant, which take so firm a hold, and at last strangle the tree.

Oh, do not make light of sin! Do not trifle with it! Don't deceive yourself with respect to it.

Don't imagine that whenever you will, you may easily escape from its grasp. Far otherwise will you find it, whenever honestly and thoroughly you set yourself to overcome it. Then will you discover that nothing less than the Almighty power of divine grace will avail to set you free.

3. The power of sin increases ever more and more. The rings of the Matador grow thicker and thicker. They grasp the tree more and more tightly. The plant itself climbs higher and higher. It never ceases to grow until its deadly work is accomplished.

A thousand proofs on every side remind us that it is exactly similar with the course of sin. It is written, "Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse" (2 Timothy 3:13). Only read the descending scale of evil, in the first chapter of the Romans. Only mark how one sin leads to another - how one act of disobedience prepares the way for a just God to leave men to fall into still greater depths of evil.

Never let it be forgotten, whether a man known it or not, that the longer he lives in willful disobedience to the law of God - the great tyrant is binding him faster and faster to his coils! Old sins become more and more confirmed - more completely enslaving the whole man, choking all the better feelings, rising higher and higher in the soul. Once, perhaps, sin ruled chiefly through the lower passions, while often there were desires after God; but at length the course of sin ends in a settled, determined enmity to the great Creator.

Very much was there hopeful in the early course of king Saul. Chosen of God to be captain over His own people, paying due honor to the prophet Samuel, in some measure performing an outward obedience to the Lord's commands - he seems to bid fair for the heavenly kingdom; but a few years pass, and sin has gained a far stronger hold. At last we find him utterly forsaking God - and forsaken by Him. His last recorded act, before the battle in which he was slain, was that of open rebellion against God. No longer did he seek after God, but sought counsel of one who was a sorcerer!

The progress of sin is the same now as it was then.

Look at the little child of three of four summers. How much is there of a beautiful simplicity and innocence. With all the inherent evil of the heart, which from time to time breaks out - yet how much is there still reminding us of the child's relative innocence.

Look at the same little child when grown to the age of manhood. Too often how fearful is the change! All the innocence of childhood is gone; and in the place of it there is the profane jest, the course laugh at religion, the unrestrained indulgence in youthful lusts.

Look at the hopeful young person who kneels for the first time at the Table of the Lord. There is conviction, but not conversion. There is an acknowledgment of the deep importance of religion, but no reliance on the atoning blood, no hearty dependence on the Spirit's aid, no true yielding up the heart to God. Years roll on. The world regains its hold. Religious feeling gradually disappears. It passes away like a morning cloud. And now, in a worldly middle life, and in the hardened insensibility of old age - is the grave of all the fair promise of youthful piety.

~George Everard~

(continued with # 4)