"A man's sin is sure to find him out. It may have been committed in secret, muffled thickly with caution, and finally buried deep under time and distance and circumstance; it may remain hidden for years; it may have been forgotten, except for an occasional dark moment, by the sinner himself; yet, some time, some day, what seems to be a chance, but is truly a providence, lifts the veil, and takes hold of the clue,—or death throws the lurid light of his inverted torch over the dark transaction,—and the liar, the thief, the adulterer, the murderer, or whatever may be the miserable man's miserable name, is brought to the bar either of human or divine justice. And there is no escape. The bands of his iniquity are around him; they bind him hand and foot; he is holden with the cords of his sins.
"This is perhaps the first and most obvious meaning of the text. It assures us that, 'though punishment be lame, it arrives.' It warns us not to make cords which are certain to be used, some day, for our own binding.
"But men are apt to think lightly of a remote evil. The present monopolizes their fears, as it does their labors. Moreover (they say), there are dozens of little, everyday sins, which entail no such fearful consequences. Let us see how our text bears upon these points.
"Sin is not a simple, but a complex, thing. It is a cord twisted of many threads, and some of them begin very far back. A man is seldom taken in the toils of a sudden, single temptation, or bound with the cords of an utterly unimagined and unpremeditated sin. He has made the way and work easy to each of them, by yielding to preliminary temptations, and carelessly allowing the binding of preparatory sins. He is holden with the cords of the evil thought to the unhallowed desire and the foul gratification. He is holden with the cords of that seemingly venial sin to this final burden of guilt and shame, by that unbridled passion to this startling, terrible crime. The slender cord draws the stout one after it: at sight of that, the man may start and shrink, but he is already half-bound, and his resistance is feeble. Having taken the first step, he is committed to the second; having admitted the premise, he is bound to the logical conclusion. Here, as before, he is holden with the cords of his sins.
"Moreover, there are few things stronger, for good or ill, than habit. And every sin, however small, may begin an evil habit, and is sure to confirm one. Round and round goes the slender cord, till it binds as strongly as a chain of iron. One part after another yields to the subtle, stealing influence; first, the will succumbs; then, the reason; finally, the conscience. Day by day, good ceases to attract, and evil to repel. Day by day, the right becomes more difficult, and the wrong easier. The habit soon becomes fixed; the man is firmly bound. To the side of evil, and the service of Satan, he is holden with the cords of his sins.
"Again: If thought be the spring of action, action is also the spring of thought. If it be true that, 'as a man thinks, he is,' so it is true that as he is, he thinks. Thought is by turns cause and effect. If a man's sins are the result of his evil thoughts, so his evil and erroneous thoughts are sometimes the result of his sins. He cannot long continue to think right if he act wrong. After breaking the Sabbath awhile, he ceases to think of it as a holy day. After committing murder, he ceases to regard life as sacred. Violating human law, it becomes a terror instead of a protection. Defying the Divine law, he soon denies its authority. Sin distorts his views, as well as his life. The truths of religion lose their clearness to his mind with their power to influence his action. Doubts, scepticism, infidelity, find an open door, and an easy road, to his heart. If a man would keep fast hold of his Christian faith, let him take care to order his actions, as far as possible, in conformity to its precepts. But, on the other hand, let him give free rein to his appetites and ambitions,—yea, even to the commission of absolute crime,—if he wishes to become a mocker and an infidel, without love of God or man, without correct views of time or clear ones of eternity. For, to all these things, he will be sure to be holden with the cords of his sins.
"Finally; All men love liberty. But sin, though it may seem, at first, to be the wildest liberty, soon proves to be the narrowest bondage. The sinner is the slave of appetites, of habits, of thoughts, that are hard task-masters; and the wages of which are every kind of death. For there are many kinds,—social, political, moral, before the final, everlasting death;—and one, or all, of these, he is sure to taste, as the reward of his faithful service of Satan. His health is undermined, or his reputation destroyed; his fortune is dissipated, or his gold corroded in the using; he is shaken with the terrors of conscience, or hardened into the semblance of stone; he is without adequate consolation in the day of trouble, and without strengthening hope in the day of death; but his slavery is abject and absolute. He neither will nor can escape. He is holden with the cords of his sins.
"Thus you will see, beloved, that our text has a word of solemn warning for the present, as well as for the future. The holding of sin is to be dreaded in life, not less than at death. One sin holds fast to another. Single sins twist together into the strong cord of habitual sin. The sinful act draws after it evil thoughts and loose opinions. Sin is a continual, daily bondage, as well as a final retribution.
"Beware then, oh, ye young! how you bind yourselves with cords of sinful thoughts, or habits, or opinions, or passions, to the exclusion of that blessed liberty which is in Christ Jesus. Beware, oh, ye adults! how you go on adding sin to sin, and cord to cord, till you are bound hand and foot, thought and will, body and soul; and are finally cast down to perdition, in bonds of your own industrious forging—holden with the cords of your sins!
"But,—do you say?—we are all sinners, we are all 'holden,' how are we to break from the cords of our sins? Go to Christ. At His feet, all bonds are broken, all slavery ends. He leads captivity captive, and His service is perfect freedom. He is our righteousness, and the man that trusteth in Him, shall no more be holden with the cords of His sins."