Hebrews 12:16-17 Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.… In the action of every natural law there is a point up to which transgression is punished with a lenient hand that has in it provision for reparation upon repentance and reformation; but beyond that point you come to a line of facts where it makes no difference how sorry you feel, nor what you do, there is no remedy. There is a point beyond which violations of natural law involve suffering that is absolutely permanent. Our children understand this in respect to some things. A child, before it has attained any considerable age, knows that though he may fall down three or four stairs without serious injury, it cannot fall down a precipice three or four hundred feet and survive. If we go up a step higher we come to those silent, unwritten, unthought-of laws, that connect us one with another, in families, in societies, and in states, that are observed with benefit, and violated with regrets and penalties. A man may do many mean, wicked, and cruel things, and get over it. But there are some things which, if a man does once, and is found out, where social laws prevail, he will never recover from as long as he lives. Men may break down under trust and confidence in social connections, and never be able to build up again a state of things that will lead men to trust them. The same is true in economic laws, upon which business and property depend. Not a man lives that does not make mistakes in business. But some mistakes a man may make to-day, and correct to-morrow, and not seem to be a loser in consequence of them. If a man drives a heavily laden wain along the road, and a side-board cracks, he goes on, and the accident does not make much difference; but if an axletree breaks, it makes a great deal of difference. As when a ship is at sea without a forge with which to make a new crank — if the crank breaks, it is broken for the voyage; so in business there are some things that a man cannot do twice, for the reason that the first time kills him. The same is true of moral laws, or those that regulate influence, position, trust, among men. There are some violations of moral law that only limit and hinder men's comfort and usefulness. There are some violations of moral law that put a man out of joint with society, but not so but that the disaster in time may be remedied. And there are some violations of moral law that destroy a man hopelessly, so that there can be no place found for repentance, though it be sought carefully with tears. In each of these departments we come to a line on one side of which repentance will work change and benefit, and on the other side of which it will have no influence whatsoever. Consider, then, some of the things which repentance can but very little change, or change not at all. 1. First, there are bitter injuries that we inflict upon others, which no man can follow after, nor in any wise change. And yet, we are responsible for them. With your tongue you may hew down a man's reputation, and the things you have said will torment him to the very end of his days. You may afterwards see your error, you may go to the man and confess the wrong, and you may go to those to whom you have spoken ill of him, and say, "I have learned contrary things; I was false: and now I speak the truth to his credit"; but you cannot hunt slanderers. You might as well try to hunt all the flies that are abroad, or all the mosquitoes that covet your blood, in summer. The man that once lets loose these flying, stinging insects, may be as sorry as he pleases, but his repentance will not remedy the evil. 2. Parallel with these, although differing from them, are those things by which men wound the hearts of those whom they should shield. Your anger may sting venomously. Your cruel pride may do a whole age's work in a day. You cannot take back the injuries that you have done to those whose hearts lie throbbing next to yours. Ah! when winter has frozen my heliotropes, it makes no difference that the next morning thaws them out. There lie the heliotropes — a black, noisome heap; and it is possible for you to chill a tender nature so that no thawing can restore it. You may relent, but frost has been there, and you cannot bring back freshness and fragrance to the blossom. It Is a terrible thing for a man to have the power of poisoning the hearts of others, and yet carry that power carelessly. He cannot find place for repentance, though he seeks it carefully with tears. 4. You may have injured, defrauded, and even betrayed men in their worldly estate, and in some cases it will be in your power to make reparation; but in many cases it will not be in your power to make reparation. And here is one of those things that you do not know anything about. It is as if a man should amuse himself by sitting in a window of his house, and shooting arrows into the street, without troubling himself to see whom they smote. He could not tell whom he hit, or what mischief he wrought. Now thousands of men are dealing in life in such ways that they shoot arrows of misfortune at their fellow-men. Men practise what is called fraud; but they do not watch the results of their fraudulent deeds, and they do not know anything about them. I do not doubt that many of every man's troubles and misfortunes may be traced to his own conduct; but I am convinced that a large proportion of the misfortunes and troubles that afflict society may be traced to the heedless, dishonest, and wicked ways of worldly men. Now, when a man is brought to a condition in which he sees that he has done wrong, and says, "I have organised and carred on a business whose effects are pernicious, I am sorry I went into it, and I will quit it at once," he may quit it, but he cannot wipe out its effects. They are irreparable. It is a fearful thing for a man to stand on debatable ground, where the question of right and wrong is held in perpetual suspense. Under such circumstances a man may be spending his whole life in the production of mischiefs to be revealed to him hereafter, when he will have no power to recall them. 5. And this leads me still more particularly and solemnly to say that men stand connected with each other in methods that lead to the most awful destruction. As an apple, touched with rot, will, simply by lying its cheek alongside of the glowing, blushing cheek of a sound apple, cause that sound apple to decay; so it is in the power of a man, if his morals are tainted, to damage the morals of another man merely by being with him. He is your disciple till he is drawn into evil; but the moment he is fascinated by it he ceases to be your disciple. Suppose I should preach the gospel in some gambling saloon of New York, and suppose a man should come out convicted of his wickedness, and confess it before God, and pray that he might be forgiven. Forgiveness might be granted to him, so far as he was individually concerned. But suppose he should say, "O God, not only restore to me the joys of salvation, but give me back the mischief that I have done, that I may rule it out." Why, there was one man that shot himself: what are you going to do for him? A young man came to Indianapolis, when I was pastor there, on his way to settle in the West. He was young, and very self-confident. While there, he was robbed, in a gambling saloon, of fifteen hundred dollars — all that he had. He begged to be allowed to keep enough to take him home to his father's house, and he was kicked out into the street. It led to his suicide. I know the man that committed the foul deed. He used to walk up and down the street. Oh, how my soul felt thunder when I met him! If anything lifts me up to the top of Mount Sinai, it is to see one man wrong another. Now suppose this man should repent? Can he ever call back that suicide? Can he ever carry balm to the hearts of the father and mother and brothers and sisters of his unfortunate victim? Can he ever wipe off the taint and disgrace that he has brought on the escutcheon of that family? No repentance can spread over that. And yet how many men there are that are heaping up such transgressions! (H. W. Beecher.) Parallel Verses KJV: Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. |
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