The Sinfulness Of Sin - Preach The Word

The Sinfulness Of SinRalph Venningas he meets with customers, occasions and opportunities in the course of his lifeand conversation.Let us consider some examples, and only some, of man's folly:(1) Man is so heady, hasty and rash in his undertakings. Nothing more becomes aman than deliberation and consideration. This is his pre-eminence above thebeasts; they act but do not consider. And herein is a great part of man'sfoolishhess, that he does not consider the end of his actions. 'O that they werewise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!'(Deuteronomy 32.29). People often say, I never thought of this, and it is theproperty of a fool to say, I had not thought of this, in something which, maybe, itmost concerned him to think of. 'The simple believeth every word (which he wouldnot do but that he is simple and a fool) but the prudent man looketh well to hisgoing. A wise man feareth, and departeth from evil: but the fool rageth, and isconfident' (Proverbs 14.15,16). Did men consider what they are doing when theysin, they would abhor it; for who would rush to his own ruin? Who would drinkpoison? None but fools or madmen! Did men consider that the wages of sin isdeath, that wrath and hell attend sin, they would surely be more wary. Men go onand on, and never consider what the end of these things will be; will it not bebitterness in the latter end? His lack of consideration is a proof as great as it isclear that man is foolish.(2) Man laughs at, and sports himself in his sin and misery. It is a sport to a fool todo evil (Proverbs 10.23), and this sporting and jesting at sin shows him to be a foolin earnest. Fools will laugh at the shrewd turns and mischiefs which they do, andsinners are such fools that they make sin their trade (they are sin-makers) andtheir recreation too. It is their pastime to pass away, to spend and lose their timeand souls in sinning. 'Fools make a mock at sin' (Proverbs 14.9). When they havecheated others, they laugh at them as fools, though they themselves are thegreater fools for cheating others. They sport themselves in their own deceivings (2Peter 2.13). Though they know that they who do such things are liable to thejudgment of God, yet not only do they do the same, but have pleasure in them thatdo them (Romans 1.32). But they are fools for so doing, for professing themselvesto be wise they became fools (v. 22.), and they were without understanding (v.31). But when God shall laugh and mock at these mockers, then it will appear whatfools they were, who sported at that which should have been their greatest sorrowand grief.(3) Man says, It is vain to serve God. What greater folly can there be than to callreligion and the wisdom of God foolishness, vanity and unprofitableness, whenbeside them there is no profit under the sun? This is the whole of man; all the restis vanity and vexation of spirit. The author of the seventy-third Psalm concludeshimself a fool for having almost said this: foolish, ignorant, and as a beast (v. 22);so much a fool that he could not emphasize it enough. What fools, then, are theywho say it openly? Because Job merely hinted at such a thing, Elihu reckons himamong the foolish; 'Hearken to me, ye men of understanding (for fools will not);far be it from God that he should do wickedness' (Job 34.9,10). Oh no! the work ofman will he render to him. There is a day coming in which a difference will be putbetween them that fear God and them that fear him not (which is spoken in26