Gold Nugget 232 - A Most Perilous Hour

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     When a human soul has continued for forty years in an evil habit or in a state of sin, it has become hardened in its way.  Conscious wrong-doing acts harmfully on every faculty of our nature.  It blinds “the eyes of the understanding.”  It hardens the heart.  It weakens and blunts the conscience so that its stroke is decreasingly effective.  It stiffens and fixes the will in its chosen course.  Thus it makes the man himself unapproachable, unimpressionable, incurable. …

      As soon as the parental hand is relaxed, as soon as the teacher’s eye is off them, as soon as the restraints of home and the guardianship of elders are removed, the young take their own course, follow their own bent, choose their own company.  We never know what men really are until we take away the bonds by which we hold them in check, and they go “whithersoever they will” – wither their own principles allow, and their own tastes direct them.

      It is of little use to hold the reins so tight that, as long as they are held by a firm hand, there can be no wandering.  What is to be the event when the reigns must be thrown up?  What will be the course chosen when they whom we guard are “let go”?  If we do nothing more and better than carefully imprison within walls of correct behaviour, we shall be bitterly disappointed with the result. 

      It is our wisdom and our duty to provide for the hour when those for whom we are responsible will be “let go,” and when they will assuredly go to their own company – will seek out those persons and those things with which they sympathize.  We can only do this by implanting right principles, and cultivating pure tastes.  These, and these only will lead the young, in the days when they act for themselves, to shun that which is wrong and to pursue that which is holy, wise, useful.

      Young people!  You will soon stand at the point where you will decide on your own course.  If, then, you are right at heart, you will walk in the path of life; choosing the company of the good, the ways of wisdom.  If, then, your heart is not right with God, you will be tempted to follow an evil bent.  It will be a most perilous hour with you.  To give way to the lower inclinations is to enter the road of ruin.  If you love life and hate death, go not wither you would, but where conviction tells you you should.  Hearken to the heavenly voice which says, “This is the way; walk ye in it.”

The Pulpit Commentary, Acts p. 131-132, Acts 4:22-23, (W. Clarkson)

Gold Nugget 232

A Most Perilous Hour

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