We have here, in a few strong sentences, a most forcible presentation of the evil and the guiltiness of wrong doing. We see -

I. ITS UGLIEST FEATURE - DECEPTION. "The man that deceiveth his neighbour" is not here simply the man who overreaches his customer or who introduces a low cunning into his business; he is rather the man who deliberately misleads his acquaintance, his "friend," and induces him to do that which is unwise and unworthy. He is the man who knows better himself, but who indoctrinates the inexperienced and the unwary with the principles, or rather the vain imaginations, of folly. He stoops so low that he does not hesitate:

1. To recommend forbidden pleasure as an object worthy of pursuit, though he knows well (or ought to know, if he can learn from experience) that guilty gratification is the very costliest thing that any man can buy.

2. To persuade men that an unprincipled life is a profitable life, as if "a man's life consisted in the abundance of the things which he possessed;" as if a life without integrity were not the most utter add miserable failure.

3. To recommend selfishness and indulgence as a condition of liberty, when in fact it is the beginning and is sure to end in the most humiliating bondage.

4. To represent the service of God and of man as a drudgery and a dreariness, when in truth it is the height of human nobility and the very essence of enjoyment.

5. To prevail upon the young to snatch at honour arid success instead of honestly labouring and patiently waiting for it. There is no more painful and repulsive thing under heaven than the sight of experience and maturity breathing its fallacies, its sophisms, its delusions, into the ear of inexperience and innocency.

II. ITS BITTER FRUIT. What do these delusions bring forth? The deceiver is a man who "scatters firebrands, arrows, and death." The ultimate consequences of the "deceitfulness of sin" are sad indeed; they are:

1. Impoverishment in circumstance.

2. The loss of the love and the honour of the wise and good.

3. Remorse of soul and, frequently, if not usually, the departure of self-respect.

4. Hopelessness and death.

5. The extension of the evil which has been imbibed to those around; becoming a source of poisonous error, a fountain of evil and wrong and misery.

III. ITS PRACTICAL INSANITY. The fool who does wantonly scatter the seeds of deadly delusions in the minds of men is "as a madman." There is no small measure of insanity in sin. Sin is a spiritual disease; it is our spiritual nature in a state of complete derangement, our mind filled with false ideas, our heart affected with delusive hopes and fears. There is no soundness, no wholeness or health about us, so far as we are under the dominion of sin. We do things which we could not possibly have done if only reason and rectitude held sway within us.

IV. ITS POOR AND PITIFUL APOLOGY. "He saith, Am not I in sport?" When a man deludes and betrays, when he wrongs and ruins a human soul, and then makes a joke of it, he only adds meanness to his transgression. Who, outside the bottomless pit, can see any fun in a blighted life, in a wounded and bleeding spirit, in a soiled and stained soul, in the ruin of reputation, in the blasting of a noble hope, in the shadow of spiritual death? Human life and character and destiny are infinitely serious things; they are not to be the butt of fools. - C.

I. THE MEDDLER (ver. 17).

1. His conduct defined.

2. His mischief indicated. Renders himself liable to the anger of one, if not both, of the contending parties.

II. THE LIAR (vers. 18, 19).

1. By his false representations he involves his neighbour in some embarrassment, contention, or pain, and then excuses himself by saying, "It is in sport." A lie is no less a lie because spoken in the spirit of frolic and jest.

2. Many a practical jester does the maniac's mischief without the maniac's excuse.

III. THE QUERULOUS (ver. 21). He is a social incendiary.

IV. THE TALEBEARER (ver. 22).

1. He maintains strife. As the microscopic sting of a little insect sometimes poisons the blood and influences the body of a strong man, the mere whisper of a talebearer will kindle the fire of discord in a whole community.

2. He infects with poison; his words destroy the mental peace of him to whom they are uttered, the reputation of him of whom they are uttered, and the social happiness of both.

(D. Thomas, D. D.)