Gold Nugget 148 - A Very Fair Promise?

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      How many human lives are nothing better than failures!  How many souls are there that “make shipwreck of faith and a good conscience”!  Over how many of the children of men do the wise and the holy mourn, as those who might have done well and wrought good, but who have turned aside to folly, guilt, and ruin!

      As a rule, these have gone astray in their younger days.  Temptation assailed them when they were comparatively unarmed, attacked them when least prepared to resist, and they were overcome. …

      Companionship is dear to the young, and is very powerful over it.  Its heart is open, trustful, responsive.  It rejoices with a keen delight in the confidences of friendship.  And when one whose advances have been received, and who has been welcomed as a congenial companion, says, “Come,” it is hard for friendship to refuse; this more especially when the solicitation comes form him who has a strong will or an amiable and fascinating disposition.  The heart of youth is very powerfully drawn, sometimes to good, but too often to evil, by the chard of early friendship.

      Sin makes a very fair promise, but its word is false, its coin is counterfeit.  It professes disinterestedness but it is utterly selfish at heart.  It affects to be able to hide all traces and elude all evil consequences of its acts, but it cannot:  the blood which its sheds will cry to Heaven for retribution.  It offers gain and satisfaction, but it constantly fails to secure its immediate object, and it never brings real and lasting joy to the soul. … Sin keeps its snares well out of view; it proceeds with cruel cunning; it shows the present pleasure, and hides the coming shame, and so it secures its victims. …

      Sin is suicidal; the young who are yielding themselves to a life of ungodliness and guilt may well be the object of the most fervent anxiety, of the most tender, tearful pity of the wise.

 

The Pulpit Commentary, Proverbs p.30-31, Proverbs 1:10-19, (W. Clarkson)

 

Gold Nugget 148

A Very Fair Promise?

 

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