Hebrews 11:25

Hebrews 11:25

I. Note, in the first place, that the pleasures of sin are shortlived. In the expressive symbolism of Scripture they are like water in a broken cistern, which speedily runs out, or like the blaze of thorns, which crackle and flame up for a little, and then die down into a heap of ashes; and the experience of all who have indulged in them will corroborate this statement. There is in them at best only a temporary thrill, which vibrates for a moment, and needs to be reproduced again and again. They are not joys for ever. They do not live within a man, sounding a ceaseless undertone of happiness in his secret soul, wherever he may be.

II. The pleasures of sin leave a sting behind, and will not bear after-reflection. There is guilt in them, and there never can be happiness in contemplating that. Yet when the brief hour of joy is fled the guilt is the residuum of the joy.

III. The pleasures of sin are such that the oftener they are enjoyed, there is the less enjoyment in them. There is a wonderful harmony between God's moral law and the physical, intellectual, and moral nature of man, for every violation of its precepts does, in the end, evoke the protest of all our powers. Each time such guilty pleasure is felt, a portion of the sensitiveness is destroyed, and it takes more to produce the same excitement again, until at last it is impossible to produce it by any means whatever. But with the joys of holiness it is quite different. The oftener we enjoy them they are the higher. The longer and the better a man knows Christ the more happiness does he derive from Him.

IV. The pleasures of sin are most expensive. "The wicked do not live out half their days." The sinner is old before his time. Far otherwise is the experience of the Christian. So far from wasting his energies, his faith economises them, and haloes them all with the joy of his own happiness.

W. M. Taylor, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xi., p. 145.