A Plain Command.
i. 16. Cease to do evil.
One of the pretexts by which wicked men endeavour to excuse their neglect of religion is, that many of the doctrines of the Bible are mysterious. They are so necessarily, and that they are so is one proof that the Bible is from God. But however mysterious the doctrines of Scripture may be, its precepts are plain enough. How plain is the command of our text! No man can even pretend that he does not understand it. If he does not obey it, he will not be able to plead that it is beyond his comprehension. We have—I. A universal requirement. Certain of the precepts of Scripture concern only certain classes of individuals (sovereigns, subjects, husbands, wives, &c.), but this command concerns us all. Your name is written above it, and it is a message for you. II. A most reasonable requirement. It is wrong that needs justification, not right. The worst man in the community will admit that he ought to “cease to do evil.” And he can, if he will, not in his own strength, but in that which God is ever ready to impart to every man who desires to turn from sin. And not only ought and can men “cease to do evil,” it will be to their advantage to do so. Sin has its “pleasures,” but they are but “for a season,” and they are succeeded by pains and penalties so intense that the pleasures will be altogether forgotten. To exhort men to “cease to do evil,” is to exhort them to cease laying the foundation for future misery.[1] On every ground, therefore, this is a most reasonable requirement. III. A comprehensive requirement. It is not from certain forms of evil, merely, but from evil in all its forms, that we are required to abstain. “Cease to do evil!”[2] Sin must be utterly forsaken! not great and flagrant sins only, but also what are called “little sins.”[3] These destroy more than great sins.[4] One sin is enough to keep us enslaved to Satan.[5] IV. An imperative requirement. This is not a counsel, which we are at liberty to accept or reject; it is a command, which we disobey at our peril; a command of One who has full power to make His authority respected. V. A very elementary requirement. Men who have laid aside certain evil habits, such as drunkenness, swearing, &c., are apt to plume themselves on what they have done, and to regard themselves as paragons of virtue. But this is a mistake. Ceasing to do evil is but the beginning of a better life; it is but the pulling up of the weeds in a garden, and much more than this is needed before “a garden” can be worthy of the name. Those who have ceased to do evil must “learn to do well.”[6]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] As where punishment is there was sin; so where sin is there will be, there must be, punishment. “If thou dost ill,” saith God to Cain, “sin lies at thy door” (Gen. iv. 7). Sin, that is punishment for sin; they are so inseparable, that one word implies both; for the doing ill is the sin, that is within doors; but the suffering ill is the punishment, and that lies like a fierce mastiff at the door, and is ready to fly in our throat when we look forth, and, if it do not then seize upon us, yet it dogs us at the heels; and will be sure to fasten upon us at our greatest disadvantage: Tum gravior cùm tarda venit, &c. Joseph’s brethren had done heinously ill: what becomes of their sin? It makes no noise, but follows them slily and silently in the wilderness: It follows them home to their father’s house; it follows them into Egypt. All this while there is no news of it; but when it found them cooped up three days in Pharaoh’s ward, now it bays at them, and flies in their faces. “We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul,” &c. (Gen. xlii. 21).
What should I instance in that, whereof not Scripture, not books, but the whole world, is full—the inevitable sequences of sin and punishment? Neither can it be otherwise “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” saith Abraham. Right, is to give every one his due: wages is due to work; now “the wages of sin is death:” So then, it stands upon no less ground than very necessary and essential justice to God, that where wickedness hath led the way, there punishment must follow.—Hall, 1574–1656.
[2] There may be a forsaking of a particular sin that has been delightful and predominant without sincerity towards God, for another lust may have got possession of the heart, and take the throne. There is an alternate succession of appetites in the corrupt nature, according to the change of men’s temper or interests in the world. As seeds sown in that order in a garden, that ’tis always full of a succession of fruits and herbs in season; so original sin that is sown in our nature is productive of divers lusts, some in the spring, others in the summer of our age, some in the autumn, others in the winter. Sensual lusts flourish in youth, but when mature age has cooled these desires, worldly lusts succeed; in old age there is no relish for sensuality, but covetousness reigns imperiously. Now he that expels one sin and entertains another continues in a state of sin; ’tis but exchanging one familiar for another; or, to borrow the prophet’s expression, “ ’Tis as one should fly from a lion, and meet with a bear that will as certainly devour him.”—Salter.
[3] Thou dost not hate sin if thou only hatest some one sin. All iniquity will be distasteful in thy sight if God the Holy Spirit has really made them to loathe iniquity. If it say to a person, “I will not receive you into my house when you come dressed in such a coat;” but if I open the door to him when he has on another suit which is more respectable, it is evident that my objection was not to the person, but to his clothes. If a man will not cheat when the transaction is open to the world, but will do so in a more secret way, or in a kind of adulteration which is winked at in the trade, the man does not hate cheating, he only hates that kind of it which is sure to be found out; he likes the thing itself very well. Some sinners, they say they hate sin. Not at all; sin in its essence is pleasing enough, it is only a glaring shape of it which they dislike.—Spurgeon.
If we would realise the full force of the term “hatred of evil,” as it ought to exist in all, as it would exist in a perfectly righteous man, we shall do well to consider how sensitive we are to natural evil in its every form to pain and suffering and misfortune. How delicately is the physical frame of man constructed, and how keenly is that slightest derangement in any part of it felt! A little mote in the eye, hardly discernible by the eye of another, the swelling of a small gland, the deposit of a small grain of sand, what agonies may these slight causes inflict! That fine filament of nerves of feeling spread like a wonderful network of gossamer over the whole surface of the body, how exquisitely susceptible is it! A trifling burn, or scald, or incision, how does it cause the member affected to be drawn back suddenly, and the patient to cry out! Now there can be no question that if man were in a perfectly moral state, moral evil would affect his mind as sensibly and in as lively a manner—would, in short, be as much of an affliction to him, as pain is to his physical frame. He would shrink and snatch himself away, as sin came near to his consciousness, the first entrance of it into his imagination would wound and arouse his moral sensibilities, and make him positively unhappy.—Goulburn.
[4] The worst sin is not some outburst of gross transgression, forming an exception to the ordinary tenor of life, bad and dismal as such a sin is; but the worst and most fatal are the small continuous vices which root underground and honeycomb the soul. Many a man who thinks himself a Christian is in more danger from the daily commission, for example, of small pieces of sharp practice in his business, than ever was David at his worst. White ants pick a carcase clean sooner than a lion will.—Maclaren.
[5] As an eagle, though she enjoy her wings and beak, is wholly prisoner if she be held but by one talon, so are we, though we could be delivered of all habit of sin, in bondage still, if vanity hold us but by a silken thread.—Donne, 1573–1631.
Ships, when the tide rises and sets strongly in any direction, sometimes turn and seem as if they would go out upon it. But they only head that way, and move from side to side, swaying and swinging without moving on at all. There seems to be nothing to hinder them from sailing and floating out to sea; but there is something. Down under the water a great anchor lies buried in the mud. The ship cannot escape. The anchor holds her. And thus are men holden by the cords of their own sins. They go about trying to discover some way to be forgiven, but yet keep good friends with the devil that is in them.—Beecher.
[6] Thou hast laid down the commission of an evil, but hast thou taken up thy known duty? He is a bad husbandman that drains his ground, and then neither sows nor plants it. It’s all one if it had been under water as drained and not improved. What if thou cease to do evil (if it were possible) and thou learn’st not to do well? ’Tis not thy fields being clear of weeds, but fruitful in corn, pays the rent, and brings thee in thy profit; nor thy not being drunk, unclean, or any other sin, but thy being holy, gracious, thy having faith unfeigned, pure love, and the other graces which will prove thee sound, and bring in evidence for thy interest in Christ, and through Him of heaven.—Gurnell, 1617–1679.