Romans 6:21 What fruit had you then in those things whereof you are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. I. WHAT FRUIT HAD YOU IN THE WORKS OF SIN? 1. They are not innocent. If we permit the noblest object God ever built to take the place of God in our esteem, and every unregenerate man does, God must feel Himself robbed and insulted. 2. They are not rational. (1) It surely is most reasonable that men put themselves under the guidance of their Maker, and obey Him in all things, and on Him place supremely their affections. But none of these is true of the ungodly. (2) They consist in the gratification of their appetites and passions, not in those pursuits that elevate the mind and mend the heart. 3. They are not satisfying. That which is neither innocent nor rational, we should not expect would be satisfying; we should promptly declare it impossible. God has made the brute creation, but not man, to be satisfied with the gratifications of appetite. Of them God has not required a higher aim, nor even this; He requires nothing. Of man He requires that we give Him our hearts, and man He has made capable of a higher enjoyment through the medium of the moral affections than through the gratifications of appetite. And He requires us to be happy through this higher medium. He will not be satisfied that our noblest powers lie dormant; and while He is not so, neither shall we be. 4. They are not calculated to elevate, but to depress their nature. They take pleasure in objects beneath the dignity of their being. I remember the disgust it gave me when I read of one of the emperors of antiquity that most of his time was spent in catching flies. Though a mere child when I met with this historical fact, I involuntarily inquired, why his crown, and throne, and sceptre? A beggar boy might succeed as well as he in his sordid occupation. But why did he appear meanly occupied, but as I compared his employment with some nobler business that might have occupied him? 5. They are not abiding. What JOY they have, and it is far beneath what they might have, is fleeting and transitory. Every object on which their joy depends is perishing — is a dying and a transitory object. They were not created to be the permanent food of an immortal mind. To expect permanent bliss, and base the hope of it on that which worms can devour, and thieves break through and steal, is to expect grapes of thorns and figs of thistles; is to sow to the wind and reap the whirlwind; is to pierce ourselves through with many sorrows. 6. They are dangerous, being guilty and forbidden. That a nature capable of loving his Maker should fix his supreme attachment elsewhere is offering God a perpetual insult, and exposing the offender to the indignation and wrath of the holy and jealous Jehovah. Having noticed how entirely without any fruit or enjoyment was the good man in his unconverted state in those things which he once tried to enjoy we shall — II. VIEW HIM UNDER THE OPERATION OF THAT SHAME AND REGRET TO WHICH HIS PAST CONDUCT HAS SUBJECTED HIM. He is brought to see that God is worthy of his whole heart, and that he has withheld it, and has worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is over all, God blessed forever. He becomes conscious of a quarrel with his Maker, but for no reason that he dare now assign. Every attribute of His nature is glorious, and every act of His government holy, and just, and good. And still the sinner has placed the supreme love on some idol, and refused to love and worship his Maker and his Redeemer. "Then shalt thou be ashamed," says the prophet in the name of the Lord, "and never open thy mouth any more, because of thy shame, when I am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done." And the Psalmist says, "Thou makest me to bear the iniquities of my youth." His shame is greatly enhanced by the consideration that he must now be indebted, as he always has been, for all his benefits to one whom he has always expelled from his affections. He sees, too, that the ground of his preference for idols was a depraved heart, that would prefer anything to God would love a stock or a stone more than the infinitely adorable and kind Creator; and in the meantime would not be convinced that the course he took ruined him, that his misplaced affections polluted and belittled his mind, and that he was ensnared, and impoverished, and destroyed by the works of his own hands. Now it is that the man becomes filled with shame and confusion of face. III. THE END OF THESE THINGS WOULD NATURALLY HAVE BEEN, TO THE NOW REGENERATE MAN, AND MUST BE TO ALL MEN WHO DO NOT REPENT, DEATH. 1. A course of sin leads to bad society. If men will be transgressors, they must of necessity associate with men of similar pursuit. Make the attempt to collect a company of sober, serious, thoughtful, ungodly men, and if you do not soon discover that no such society can be formed, then have we very much mistaken the true state of the world. 2. A course of sin absorbs precious time. Unregenerate men throw away very many years of their probation. All that time that the Christian must spend in his closet, in the study of the Bible, and in the duties of domestic worship, the ungodly have to spare. This shortens life, and begets the habit of not thinking — the habit of placing the mind in an attitude of listlessness and inattention, than which no habit can be more ruinous to one whose happiness in this life and in the life to come depends so much on prompt and vigorous action. If we are to reach heaven, and would be prepared for it, we must form soon the very opposite habit, and must learn to husband well every hour that lies between us and the grave. 3. A course of sin is death, as it leads to the adoption of bad sentiments, and engenders an erroneous creed. There is an whole system of infidelity taught and believed in the promiscuous associations of the ungodly. It may not be styled infidelity, and lectures may not be given in the formal didactic mode, but the result may be the same. 4. A course of sin benumbs the right affections. It tends to destroy filial confidence, and fraternal, and parental, and conjugal affection. Devotion to some idol easily becomes stronger than any of the natural relationships, and thus neutralises many a restraint, that the God of nature, as the infidel would name Jehovah, has imposed. But when we pass these and speak of the religious affections, it hardly need be said that all these are suppressed and quenched by a course of sin. 5. A course of sin ends in death as it nourishes the unhallowed passions. Men grow worse day by day while they remain in the gall of bitterness and under the bonds of iniquity. Their position is never stationary, but their course downward, downward, downward toward the blackness of darkness forever. 6. A course of sin tends to death as it offers constant provocation of the Spirit of God. On the operations of His Spirit we are dependent for life and salvation. There is no amount of means, or force of human eloquence, or impetus of natural resolution that can arrest the course of sin. Men will not try to stop themselves, nor allow themselves to be stayed in their course by any human power. Hence our only hope is that God will make them willing in the day of His power. But every act of sin is resistance made to the efforts of His mercy and the influence of His Spirit. (D. A. Clark.) Parallel Verses KJV: What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. |
    |