Hebrews 12:16-17 Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.… Every gospel rejecter, as such, is both sensual and profane. He is sensual, for he is "a lover of pleasure more than a lover of God." He is profane, for he trifles year after year, though death's darts are flying around him, with the tremendous realities of duty and destiny. So sensual is he that "the pleasures of sin for a season" bulk larger in his eyes than "the pleasures" that are "for evermore." So profane is he that "he worships and serves the creature more than the Creator," whom he dethrones from his conscience and banishes from his heart. Do not cavil at the terms; for if you are still a gospel rejecter, the terms fit you; they mean you. One unbeliever may indignantly say, I am not sensual; another may say, I am not profane; no matter, your place lies somewhere between them; and to flee from one is just to fall into the other, cross and recross each other as you will. You do not need to be an abandoned profligate in order to be sensual: you do not need to be a blasphemer in order to be profane. If there is anything you prefer to God, to Christ, to a present salvation, you are both. And oh remember, that as any object, though only an inch square, if kept over the eye, is large enough to keep the whole world of vision, and all its enjoyments, out of the mind, so a very trifling indulgence, clung to in spite of conscience, is large enough to keep the boundless tide of salvation out of your soul. Lovers of pleasures, beware! Oh, remember that "the pleasures of sin " will, ere long, be a phrase of greatly altered meaning. It has some meaning now; but ere long the tie, such as it is, that binds pleasure and sin will be in a large degree finally ruptured. There will be pleasure and there will be sin, but the great gulf will roll between. In the preponderating point of view, all the pleasure will be in heaven, but there will be no sin there; all the sin will be in woe, but there will be no pleasure there. (Ibid.) 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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