Religion has one undeniable advantage to recommend it--whatever it calls us to sacrifice or to suffer, it always ends well. On the other hand, sin has one undeniable evil to excite our aversion and horror--whatever sensual pleasures and imaginary profit attend its course, it always ends awfully.
I. The subject of these regrets. It is a man who has disregarded through life the means employed to preserve or reclaim him. Man’s instructors and reprovers may be ranked in six classes.
1. Your connections in life. Father, mother, friend, etc.
2. The Scriptures.
3. Ministers.
4. Conscience.
5. Irrational creatures.
6. The dispensations of Providence.
II. The period of these regrets. It is a dying hour.
1. Such a period is unavoidable.
2. It cannot be far off.
3. It may be very near.
4. It is sometimes prematurely brought on by sin. Such a period, if it be not prematurely produced by irreligion, is always embittered by it.
III. The nature of these regrets. This mourning has two attributes to distinguish it.
1. It is dreadful. A dying hour has been called an honest hour.
2. It is useless. To the individuals themselves, whatever it may be to others.
Lessons:
1. How good is God!
2. How fallen is man!
3. How important is serious thought! (William Jay.)
At the last.--
Last things
The wise man saw the young and simple straying into the house of the strange woman. It was not what it seemed to be. Could he shed a revealing light upon it? He saw only one lamp suitable to his purpose; it was named “At the last.” He held this up, and the young man’s delusion was dispelled. He saw in its light the awful consequences of self-indulgence and sin. If this lamp is useful in this one case, it may be useful in others. I can only compare my text inits matchless power to Ithuriel’s spear, with which, according to Milton, he touched the toad, and straightway Satan appeared in his true colours. This lamp has four sides to it.
I. Death is at the last. In some sense it is the last of this mortal life; it is the last of this period of trial here below; it is the last of the day of grace; it is the last of the day of mortal sin. In the light of death look upon mortal sins. The greatest of human actions will appear to be insignificant when we come to die. Look at our selfish actions in this light. How will sin then appear?
II. Judgment is at the last. When we die, we die not. When a man dieth shall he live again? Ay, that he shall--for his spirit dieth never. After death comes the judgment. Look at the past, the present, the future, in the light of that judgment.
III. Heaven is at the last. Look on all our actions in the light of heaven.
IV. Hell is at the last. See things in that dread and dismal light, the glare of the fiery abyss. How will self-indulgence, unbelief, procrastination look in that light? (C. H. Spurgeon.)
When thy flesh and thy body are consumed.--
Sin’s recompense
Ifall men believed at the beginning of their courses of life what they find at the end, there would be far less power in temptation, and many would turn aside from those paths which bring them to ruin; but it is oneof the peculiarities of youth that, while it has unbounded faith in certain directions, it seldom has faith in regard to mischiefs which befall disobedience. There are many reasons which conspire to make men either over-confident in the beginnings of life, or even audacious.
1. The inexperience and thoughtlessness which belong to the young. Thousands there are who have taken no pains in the formation of their consciences.
2. There is a most defiant spirit in the young.
3. There is a hopefulness which frequently goes beyond all bounds.
4. There are reactions from an infelicitous way of teaching which tend to produce presumption in the young. Especially the exaggeration and indiscriminate way in which sin is often held forth. Conventional sins are held up before men as representing sinning, until there comes up a scepticism of the whole doctrine and the whole sad and melancholy experience of sinning.
5. Men are made presumptuous in sinning because they see wicked men prospering. They regard that as the refutation of half the preaching, and of almost all the advice they hear. There is a law of everlasting rectitude. There are conditions on which men’s bodies will serve them happily, and there are conditions on which men’s souls will serve them happily. But if a man violate these conditions, no matter how secretly, no matter how little, just as sure as there is a God in heaven, he must suffer the penalty. Every one of the wrongs which a man commits against his own soul will find him out, and administer its own penalty. There comes a time when men who are not actually worn out by excess of transgression do regain, to some extent, their moral sense. After the period of infatuation there comes, very frequently, a period of retrospection. It is alluded to in the passage now before us. The resurrection of moral sensibility comes through a variety of agencies--failure, shame, affliction, etc. Sometimes it comes too late. I beseech you, young men, believe in virtue; believe in truth; believe in honesty and fidelity; believe in honour; believe in God; believe in God’s law and in God’s providence. Put your trust in God, and in the faith of God, and not inthe seeming of deceitful and apparently prosperous men. Whatever else you get, have peace, day by day, with your own conscience. Whoever else you offend, do not offend your God. Do what is right, and then fear no man. (H. W. Beecher.)
The doom of the libertine
I.Waste of wealth. It is spent to garnish the house of sin; it is so much taken from home-scenes, and legitimate pleasures and benevolence.
II. Waste of health. Note the corruption of licentious nations, as the Turks, etc.
III. Waste of tears. Mourning at the last is too late for proving the repentance to be genuine. (Anon.)
A dissolute young man
I. A dissolute young man with a decaying body. The wise man foresaw the wretched physical condition to which the dissolute life of the young man whom he calls his son would lead.
1. It is a sad sight to see a young man decay at all.
2. It is more sad when the physical decay has been produced by a dissolute life.
II. A dissolute young man with an active memory.
1. He remembers the many privileges he has abused.
2. He remembers the sinful scenes of his life.
III. A dissolute young man with a torturing conscience.
1. An agonising sense of self-blamefulness. Conscience casts all excuses to the winds; it fastens the crime home on the individual himself.
2. An agonising sense of self-ruin. The moral wail here breathes the feeling of destruction. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
The woes of wantonness
I. Lamentation follows wantonness.
1. When men find their goods gone and their bodies corrupted.
2. When they see all their opportunities of doing good to soul and body gone.
3. They feel God’s hand heavy on them, as being on the rack of an evil conscience.
II. The end of wanton courses is sorrowful.
1. Because of pleasures past.
2. Because of present sorrows.
3. Because of pursuing pain that is gotten by disease.
4. Because of public shame.
III. The body itself is consumed by wantonness. Because it consumes the radical humour of the body. (Francis Taylor, B. D.)
