The affections are of as great force in the service of God as the words and actions, and the heart hath no less place than the members of the body. It must be one and the principal agent in love, where they have calling; and it must deal alone with detestation of those abominations which they are discharged to intermeddle with. . . . Here we have instruction to inform our hearts against all manner of wickedness, that they may be the more incensed against it. The less we like sin the more righteous we are, and the better the Lord will love us. And the more agreement there is between sin and our souls, the less peace there is between our souls and God. All the hurts and miseries that have ever come upon us, or on Christ for our sakes, do give just occasion to fall out with sinfulness, that hath been the cause thereof.—Dod.
Where grace reigns, sin is loathsome, where sin reigns the man is loathsome.—Henry.
main homiletics of verse 6.
Overthrow by Sin.
For Homiletics on the first clause of this verse see on chap. [xi. 3], [5, 6].
I. The person overthrown—the sinner. 1. To be a sinner implies the existence of a law. Where there is no law there is no transgression. The sinner here spoken of is a transgressor against moral, Divine law. 2. There may be sin against a law which is in existence but which is not known. A man may not know of the existence of a law, and thus may sin ignorantly. 3. But the sinner of the Bible is one who, if he does not possess a written revelation, does possess a “law written in his heart”—his conscience. (See Rom. ii. 14, 15.) Though the guilt is incomparably greater when a man sins against both conscience and revelation, yet he who transgresses the law of the first only is a sinner, and there must be overthrow in both cases, because moral transgression contains within itself the elements of destruction.
II. His overthrow. 1. For a man to be overthrown by breaking a law, that law must be good. There have been laws that common integrity has compelled men to transgress, and men have been rewarded by the Great Lawgiver for the transgression. There are still laws in force in the world, the violation of which is a proof of moral courage. But the sinner here doomed to overthrow is a sinner against a law to which his own conscience bears witness that it is holy and just, and good (Rom. vii. 12). 2. The breaking of this law must overthrow a man, even if no power were ever put forth against him. Sin debases a man by the law of cause and effect. Nothing can prevent a man who throws himself over a precipice from finding the bottom of the chasm—nothing can keep a sinner from sinking lower and lower in the moral scale. The first man finds a bottom—comes to the end of his fall—he who sins keeps sinking lower and lower while he continues in sin. 3. The law against which the sinner transgresses is backed by the highest authority, and by the greatest power of the universe. It represents the greatest Being. Sin is not directed against an abstraction, but against a person. He who has promulgated it is a living personality, and has all power to enforce its penalties. The Almighty God is against the sinner. Must he not then be overthrown? 4. The sinner can be placed in such a position as will justify him from the guilt of his past transgressions, and will enable him to keep the law in the future. The Lawgiver has Himself provided the way of escape. He Himself gives the power to obey. Hence he who sins against this law sins against mercy too, and doubles his condemnation, “is overthrown,” not by God’s law, but by his rejection of God’s method of deliverance from the guilt and power of sin.
outlines and suggestive comments.
Wickedness is ruin. 1. It exhausts a man’s property, whether much or little. Sin is a very expensive thing; a person cannot commit it to any extent, but at a considerable loss, not of time only, but of substance. The passions are clamorous, exorbitant, and restless, till gratified, and this must be repeated. The case of the prodigal is in point, he wasted all his patrimony in riotous living. 2. It blasts his reputation. Sin can never be deemed honourable on correct principles; yet while sinners possess means of supporting themselves in their vices, they still keep up their name and rank in the world; not in the Church of God, or in the estimation of heaven. But when the means of supplying fuel to feed the fires of foul desire and towering ambition fail, then their outward splendours go out into darkness. (See Prov. x. 7; xxiv. 30.) 3. It destroys health. Intemperance undermines the best constitution; it is a violence done to the physical order of things; it renders a man old in constitution, while he is young in years. 4. It hastens the approach of death. Wicked men frequently do “not live out half their days” (Psa. lv. 23), “for when they shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh as a thief in the night” (1 Thess. v. 3). Sometimes their passions hurry them forward to the commission of crimes which terminate in the most disgraceful exit. 5. It effects the damnation of the soul. A sinner “wrongeth his own soul” (Prov. viii. 36). He quenches the Spirit of grace, neglects the salvation of the gospel, till he goes to his own place. “The wicked shall be turned into hell” (Psa. ix. 17).—Theta, from Sketches of Sermons.
Righteousness keepeth the upright, so that, though belied or abused, he will not let go his integrity (Job xxvii. 5). David’s “feet stood in an even place” (Psa. xxvi. 12). The spouse, though despoiled of her veil and wounded by the watch, yet keeps close to Christ (Cant. v). Not but that the best are sometimes disquieted in such cases; for not the evenest weights, but at their first putting into the balance, somewhat swap both parts thereof, not without some show of inequality, which yet, after some little motion, settle themselves in a meet poise and posture.—Trapp.