James Nisbet Commentary - James 1:15 - 1:15

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James Nisbet Commentary - James 1:15 - 1:15


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CONSEQUENCES OF SIN

‘Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.’

Jam_1:15

It would be easy to draw a glaring and harrowing picture. I might take you to our abodes of infamy and wretchedness—to our prisons and our hospitals; and to many a sick and dying bed. I might take you to our own streets, of a night, and to the crowded dens of drunkenness and debauchery! And I might tell you to read there what is sin! and its consequences! But it will be more practical to trace only some of the results of such ‘sins’ as we know belong, the more closely, to ourselves.

I. Every allowed sin kills the power of the perception of truth.—Sin weakens, and tends to destroy, every power we possess. Physical sin weakens physical strength. And both physical and mental sin weaken both mental and spiritual powers. And if the weakening process is allowed to go on, it will weaken till it kills! It will go on till it ‘brings forth death!’

II. One habitually allowed sin will deaden the grace both of the mind and the heart, till, by more and more withering processes, the grace of both will die! Why are so many young men and young women prone to infidelity? Why have they grown sceptical of old and familiar truths—which were dear to their parents and were once dear to themselves? Look at their lives, their worldliness, their frivolity, their private habits, their secret or their open sins! There is the reason. Infidelity is a deadening thing. And ‘sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth that death.’

III. Sin is destructive of all pure love.—A pure and chaste and holy love will not live long with any indulged evil passion! True love is too sacred a thing to stay in a breast with wrong deeds or wicked actions! The wrong love kills the good love. It ‘brings forth death’; and the good love dies.

IV. Sin will paralyse, if not the will, certainly the power, to live to any good purpose.—The consciousness of sin will always come across his mind, when he is speaking, checking him, incapacitating him. ‘Who am I to speak? I, who am living myself so sinfully!’ And that conviction will stop his mouth; it will make his words hollow. And men are keen judges of each other. They very soon discover what is unreal in all your fine talking. And can God bless any effort that such a man makes? He may speak as an angel; but God has not sent him. This sin will turn his most living words to death!

Illustration

‘ “Sin” is not “finished” yet. All sin has in it a necessity to increase. Sin makes sin. One barrier broken down, the stream of evil rushes on with a greater force; and another barrier giving way, the current swells, till it scarcely knows a check. But what will “sin finished” be? What will it be when, stripped of its soft and beautiful colours, it stands out, without a mask, in its true and native form? What a monster will every, the least, sin look beside Perfect Holiness! It will need nothing more to make that sin eternal punishment! eternal death!’