Matthew 27:1-10 When the morning was come, all the chief priests and elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death:… What an awful difference there is in the look of a sin before you do it and afterwards! Before I do it, the thing to be gained seems so attractive, and the transgression that gains it seems so comparatively insignificant. Yes! and when I have done, the two alter places; the thing that I win by it seems so contemptible! Thirty pieces of silver! pitch them over the Temple enclosure and get rid of them I The thing that I win by it seems so insignificant; and the thing that I did to win them dilates into such awful magnitude! For instance, suppose you or I do anything that we know to be wrong, tempted to it by a momentary indulgence of some mere animal impulse. By the very nature of the case that dies in its satisfaction, and the desire dies along with it. We do not want it any more, when once we have got it. It lasts but a moment and is past; then we are left alone with the thought of the thing that we have done. When we get the prize of our wrong-doing we find out that it is not as all-satisfying as we expected it would be. Most of our earthly aims are like that. The chase is a great deal more than the hare. Or, as George Herbert has it, "Nothing between two dishes." A- splendid service of silver plate, and when you take the cover off there is nothing in it. It is that old story over again, of the veiled prophet who wooed and won the hearts of foolish maidens, and when he had them in his power in the inner chamber removed the silver veil that they had looked upon with love, and showed hideous features that struck despair into their hearts. Every wrong thing that you do, big or little, will be like some of those hollow images of the gods that one hears of in barbarous temples: looked at in front, fair; but when you get behind them you find a hollow, full of dust and spiders' webs and unclean things. (A. Maclaren, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: When the morning was come, all the chief priests and elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death: |
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