So, my brother, though you may think you would be safe to trifle with sin, and try to practice moderation, it is such an awful, awful risk you had better not make the experiment. Remember, it is only the bait of Satan to lure you to certain ruin.
For your sake, for your father's sake, for your mother's sake, for your wife's sake, for your children's sake, for Christ's sake, don't do it.
COMPARISON OF THE RIGHTEOUS AND WICKED.
PSALM I: 1-2.
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and hence it is profitable for instruction and assistance to those who will attentively consider it. This Psalm is a part of the Scripture, and we may expect to find it instructive and helpful. It contains a description of the righteous man.
1. It tells what he does not do. He does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly. This is the beginning of an evil life—to go among those who are ungodly and to listen to their opinions and views and counsels. There is no sin, our evil hearts suggest to us, in merely going with worldly people, if we do not pattern after their ways and do as they do. We can go with them and yet not do as they do. But the history, the sad history, of many a struggling soul, shows that this is a great mistake. We can't go with bad associates and not be harmed by them. The very fact that we want to go with wicked people shows that there is in us an inclination toward sin which is dangerous, and which ought to be severely watched and kept down rather than encouraged. More men have been ruined by their associations than by any other one cause. And let me say by way of warning that if any of you, my friends, are purposing and trying to lead a new life, you will have to give up the associations of your old life and choose new ones, as I had to do, and did do.
But did you observe the word walk here in this verse? That word is intended to show that in the first part of a sinful life there is restlessness and uneasiness. The man who is just beginning to sin against light and conscience and God is uneasy about it. He can not be still. It is something new and strange, and his conscience rises up against his conduct; and till he goes on to the deadening of his conscience, it gives him distress and anxiety.
But it says, the good man does not "stand in the way of sinners." This is the second stage. When a man passes through the first stage and gets to this second one, then he not only listens to the conversation and counsel of those who are ungodly—that is, who make no professions of religion—but he goes now with open sinners, in the way with evil doers, violators of law, criminals against God and man. And now observe he takes a "stand." It is no longer "walk," for the restlessness and uneasiness have about passed away, and he takes a deliberate stand among wicked men, who do not fear to commit any sort of crime. And, my young friend, this is always the way with sin. It grows upon a man; and before he is aware of it, he has grown fond of it, sees no evil or danger in it, and deliberately chooses it as his course of life. Beware, then, of beginning in the way of evil.
But it says, in the third place, that he does not "sit in the seat of the scornful." Ah, here we have the third stage of the downward course of sin. First, there was a restlessness in even associating with ungodly people; second, a deliberate stand among sinners, evil doers, as one of their number; and now it is sitting down in the seat of the scornful. When men have silenced the voice of conscience, and spent years in the practice of evil, they come at last to lose faith in everything—in God, in man, in virtue, in goodness; and they become cold and sneering scorners of everything that is called good. Have you not known men who have gone through this downward road? Nay, do you not know now some who are traveling this ruinous pathway? I have known young men to go among gamblers just to look on. They would have feared to touch the implements of sin, but they became familiarized with the sight, and then took part; and from bad to worse, have gone on and on, till it makes me shudder to know what they are to-day. I tell you, my friends, the course of sin is down, down, down. You may as soon expect to get in a boat on the current of Niagara above the falls and stand still, as to expect that you can launch yourself on the current of sin and not go down toward swift and certain ruin. Beware then! Hear the voice of warning before you have gone too far ever to return.