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It is the task of the wise teacher to lay bare with an unsparing hand —

(1)  The fascinations of sin;

(2)  the deadly entanglements in which the sinner involves himself.

I. THE GLAMOURS OF SIN AND THE SAFEGUARD AGAINST THEM. There is no sin which affords so vivid an example of seductive attraction at the beginning, and of hopeless misery at the end, as that of unlawful love. The safeguard against the specific sin before us is presented in a true and whole-hearted marriage. And the safeguard against all sin is equally to be found in the complete and constant preoccupation of the soul with the Divine love. Forbidding to marry is a device of Satan; anything which tends to degrade or desecrate marriage bears on its face the mark of the tempter. Our sacred writings glorify marriage, finding in it more than any other wisdom or religion has found.

II. THE BINDING RESULTS OF SIN. Compare the Buddhistic doctrine of Karma. Buddha in effect taught. "You are in slavery to a tyrant set up by yourself. Your own deeds, words, and thoughts, in the former and present states of being, are your own avengers through a countless series of lives. Thou wilt not find a place where thou canst escape the force of thy own evil actions." The Bible says, "His own iniquities shall take the wicked, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sin." This is illustrated in the sin of sensuality. There are four miseries, comparable to four strong cords, which bind the unhappy transgressor.

1. There is the shame.

2. The loss of wealth.

3. The loss of health.

4. The bitter remorse, the groaning and the despair at the end of the shortened life.And there is an inevitableness about it all. By the clearest interworking of cause and effect, these fetters of sin grow upon the feet of the sinner. Our evil actions, forming evil habits, working ill results on us and on others, are themselves the means of our punishment. It is not that God punishes, sin punishes; it is not that God makes hell, sinners make it. This is established by the possible observation of life, by a concurrent witness of all teachers and all true religions. Sin may be defined as "the act of a human will which, being contrary to the Divine will, reacts with inevitable evil upon the agents."

1. Every sin prepares for us a band of shame to be wound about our brows and tightened to the torture-point.

2. Every sin is preparing for us a loss of wealth, the only wealth which is really durable, the treasure in the heavens.

3. Every sin is the gradual undermining of the health, not so much the body's as the soul's health.

4. The worst chain forged in the furnace of sin is remorse; for no one can guarantee to the sinner an eternal insensibility. Memory will be busy. Here, then, is the plain, stern truth, a law, not of nature only, but of the universe. How men need One who can take away the sin of the world, One who can break those cruel bonds which men have made for themselves!

(R. F. Horton, D. D.)

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KJV: He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.

WEB: He will die for lack of instruction. In the greatness of his folly, he will go astray.