Expositions of Holy Scripture | Page 5

invisible.' It is often reinforced by theoretical uncertainty, sometimes
real, often largely unreal. But after all, the true basis of it is, what Paul
gives as its cause, 'they did not like to retain God in their knowledge.'
The criminality of this indifference! It is heartlessly ungrateful. Dogs
lick the hand that feeds them; ox and ass in their dull way recognise
something almost like obligation arising from benefits and care. No
ingratitude is meaner and baser than that of which we are guilty, if we
do not requite Him 'in whose hands our breath is, and whose are all our
ways,' by even one thankful heart-throb or one word shaped out of the
breath that He gives.
IV. This attitude is fatal.
It separates us from God, and separation from Him is the very
definition of Death. A God of whom we never think is all the same to
us as a God who does not exist. Strike God out of a life, and you strike
the sun out of the system, and wrap all in darkness and weltering chaos.
'This is life eternal, to know Thee'; but if 'Israel doth not know,' Israel
has slain itself.

WHAT SIN DOES TO MEN
'Ye shall be as an oak whose leaf fadeth, and as a garden that hath no
water. 31. And the strong shall be as tow, and His work as a spark; and
they shall both burn together, and none shall quench them.'--ISAIAH i.
30-31.
The original reference of these words is to the threatened retribution for
national idolatry, of which 'oaks' and 'gardens' were both seats. The
nation was, as it were, dried up and made inflammable; the idol was as
the 'spark' or the occasion for destruction. But a wider application,
which comes home to us all, is to the fatal results of sin. These need to

be very plainly stated, because of the deceitfulness of sin, which goes
on slaying men by thousands in silence.
'That grim wolf with privy paw Daily devours apace.'
I. Sin withers.
We see the picture of a blasted tree in the woods, while all around are
in full leaf, with tiny leaves half developed and all brown at the edges.
The prophet draws another picture, that of a garden not irrigated, and
therefore, in the burning East, given over to barrenness.
Sin makes men fruitless and withered.
It involves separation from God, the source of all fruitfulness (Ps. i.).
Think of how many pure desires and innocent susceptibilities die out of
a sinful soul. Think of how many capacities for good disappear. Think
of how dry and seared the heart becomes. Think of how conscience is
stifled.
All sin--any sin--does this.
Not only gross, open transgressions, but any piece of godless living
will do it.
Whatever a man does against his conscience--neglect of duty, habitual
unveracity, idleness--in a word, his besetting sin withers him up.
And all the while the evil thing that is drawing his life-blood is growing
like a poisonous, blotched fungus in a wine-cask.
II. Sin makes men inflammable.
'As tow' or tinder.
A subsidiary reference may be intended to the sinful man as easily
catching fire at temptation. But the main thought is that sin makes a
man ready for destruction, 'whose end is to be burned.'

The materials for retribution are laid up in a man's nature by wrong-
doing. The conspirators store the dynamite in a dark cellar. Conscience
and memory are charged with explosives.
If tendencies, habits, and desires become tyrannous by long indulgence
and cannot be indulged, what a fierce fire would rage then!
We have only to suppose a man made to know what is the real moral
character of his actions, and to be unable to give them up, to have hell.
All this is confirmed by occasional glimpses which men get of
themselves. Our own characters are the true Medusa-head which turns a
man into stone when he sees it.
What, then, are we really doing by our sins? Piling together fuel for
burning.
III. Sin burns up.
'Work as a spark.' The evil deeds brought into contact with the doer
work destruction. That is, if, in a future life or at any time, a man is
brought face to face with his acts, then retribution begins. We shake off
the burden of our actions by want of remembrance. But that power of
ignoring the past may be broken down at any time. Suppose it happens
that in another world it can no longer be exercised, what then?
Evil deeds are the occasion of the divine retribution. They are 'a spark.'
It is they who light the pyre, not God. The prophet here protests in
God's name against the notion that He is to be blamed for punishing.
Men