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Steps to Christ
esteemed, can be indulged in only at the peril of infinite loss. What
we do not overcome, will overcome us and work out our destruction.
Adam and Eve persuaded themselves that in so small a matter
as eating of the forbidden fruit there could not result such terrible
consequences as God had declared. But this small matter was the
transgression of God’s immutable and holy law, and it separated man
from God and opened the floodgates of death and untold woe upon our
world. Age after age there has gone up from our earth a continual cry
of mourning, and the whole creation groaneth and travaileth together
in pain as a consequence of man’s disobedience. Heaven itself has felt
the effects of his rebellion against God. Calvary stands as a memorial
of the amazing sacrifice required to atone for the transgression of the
divine law. Let us not regard sin as a trivial thing.
Every act of transgression, every neglect or rejection of the grace
of Christ, is reacting upon yourself; it is hardening the heart, depraving
the will, benumbing the understanding, and not only making you less
inclined to yield, but less capable of yielding, to the tender pleading of
God’s Holy Spirit.
Many are quieting a troubled conscience with the thought that they
can change a course of evil when they choose; that they can trifle with
the invitations of mercy, and yet be again and again impressed. They
think that after doing despite to the Spirit of grace, after casting their
influence on the side of Satan, in a moment of terrible extremity they
can change their course. But this is not so easily done. The experience,
[34]
the education, of a lifetime, has so thoroughly molded the character
that few then desire to receive the image of Jesus.
Even one wrong trait of character, one sinful desire, persistently
cherished, will eventually neutralize all the power of the gospel. Every
sinful indulgence strengthens the soul’s aversion to God. The man
who manifests an infidel hardihood, or a stolid indifference to divine
truth, is but reaping the harvest of that which he has himself sown. In
all the Bible there is not a more fearful warning against trifling with
evil than the words of the wise man that the sinner “shall be holden
with the cords of his sins.”
Proverbs 5:22
.
Christ is ready to set us free from sin, but He does not force the
will; and if by persistent transgression the will itself is wholly bent
on evil, and we do not desire to be set free, if we will not accept His
grace, what more can He do? We have destroyed ourselves by our