Proverbs 8:36 But he that sins against me wrongs his own soul: all they that hate me love death. It would be repugnant to our moral sense to overlook the consequences of sin, and put on the same plane one whose life had been one of spotless purity and a grey-haired sinner who had at the eleventh hour found pardon. "Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap" is an inflexible law. Notice certain particulars in which the principle is seen. 1. Opportunities are lost. A man wrongs his own soul by the sinful neglect of God's commands in his early years. Those grand years freighted with golden chances of service for God and humanity, can never be recalled. 2. Moral growth is arrested. You may secure the resumption of arrested processes in a crystal or a plant, but as you ascend the scale of being difficulties increase. In one's moral nature the law we illustrate holds inexorable sway. He that sinneth against God dwarfs, deadens, and stultifies his better faculties. Take a single faculty, like the memory. There is retention as well as reception. The passing thought, the momentary impulse, the fugitive desire we entertain—all these are ours; yea, they are us. We are ever enriching or defacing our moral life through the faculty of memory. 3. Look at the true end of our life here, service for God and our fellow-men. If that service is unrendered, it remains undone for ever. 4. Look at the effects of our sin on others. True religion in a man is that which earnestly and habitually makes for righteousness and holy obedience. If it does not keep from sin, it is not a religion sufficient to save. (H. A. Stimson, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death.WEB: But he who sins against me wrongs his own soul. All those who hate me love death." |
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