Romans 6:21 What fruit had you then in those things whereof you are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. The season of the year reminds us of that great and universal law of seed sowing and harvest. The name Autumn in its original signifies to increase. The law that fruitage follows seed sowing is as evident in the moral universe as in the physical. Conduct has its reward. I. THE SOWING OF VICE HAS ITS LEGITIMATE AND NECESSARY HARVEST. 1. The habit of vice follows vice. The wisteria throws out its little tendrils. How very feeble are they at first. As they feel their way for support they seem to plead for help. You build for them a trellis, and, by and by, those tendrils have become so strong that they pull the posts aside, and on the walls they even move the solid brick. As I have watched and admired this vine with its cataract of bloom, I have thought of the growth and force of the habit of wrong-doing. 2. Conscience grows weaker. 3. The loneliness of vice is part of the harvest. Men say, "I do not believe that there are lost souls in God's universe." You can see many of them in this world. As they sink in vice they become isolated. 4. The evil propensities, passions, appetites, grow stronger by exercise. 5. Spirituality is crowded out by worldliness. The mental and spiritual vision is blinded. It is a silent progress of decadence — a silent, steady ripening of the sown seed. We stand upon one of the Alps and see the avalanche as it plunges thunderingly, irresistibly downward. At first it was but a bit of soft snow, little harder than the common snow, that began to move. So a lost soul begins its downward course in a seeming harmless thought or whim, but at last the final destruction is sudden, awful. II. THIS LAW IS TRUE IN THE MENTAL WORLD. III. IT IS ALSO TRUE OF THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 1. Right-doing also ends in habit, and habit in character. A man said of his father, and it was true, "He could not be dishonest if he tried." Life-long honesty makes character, and that determines action. 2. Christian experience is enjoyed. 3. Christian motives crystallise in deeds, and these latter bring their reward. 4. A sweet communion with Christ. 5. A communion of spiritually developed, kindred souls. 6. A steadfast hope that adverse influence can no more move than can a child shake with its tiny finger the great pyramid. 7. A likeness to Christ. 8. Heaven is the final fruit, "the end everlasting life."Conclusion: in nature God does not arrest and change growth to something else. There is a different law applied in the moral universe. A man is growing wrong, the harvest is nearly ripened, when all is changed, and there is a new seed sowing and a new harvest. Here is then the test by which to measure ourselves. Is the fruitage within us one of humility, of desire for usefulness, for the spirit of Christ? (R. S. Storrs, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. |
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