SINNERS BOUND WITH THE CORDS OF SIN – Charles Spurgeon

SINNERS BOUND WITH THE CORDS OF SIN

“His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be held with the cords of his sins.” — Proverbs 5:22.

Introduction

The first part of our text has reference to a net in which birds or beasts are taken. The ungodly man first of all finds sin to be a bait; charmed by its apparent pleasantness, he indulges in it; then he becomes entangled in its meshes so that he cannot escape. That which first attracted the sinner, afterwards detains him. Evil habits are soon formed, the soul readily becomes accustomed to evil, and then, even if the man should have lingering thoughts of better things, and form frail resolutions to amend, his iniquities hold him captive like a bird in the fowler’s snare. You have seen the foolish fly descend into the sweet which is spread to destroy him; he sips, and sips again, and by-and-by he plunges boldly in to feast himself greedily. When satisfied, he attempts to fly, but the sweet holds him by the feet and clogs his wings; he is a victim, and the more he struggles, the more surely is he held. Even so is it with the sins of ungodly men; they are at first a tempting bait, and afterwards a snare. Having sinned, they become so bewitched with sin that the Scriptural statement is no exaggeration—“Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may you also do good, who are accustomed to do evil.” The first part of the text also may have reference to an arrest by an officer of the law. The transgressor’s own sins shall take him, shall seize him; they bear a warrant for arresting him; they shall judge him; they shall even execute him! Sin, which at first brings to man a specious pleasure, before long turns into bitterness, remorse, and fear; sin is a dragon, with eyes like stars, but it carries a deadly sting in its tail. The cup of sin, with rainbow bubbles on its brim, is black with deep damnation in its dregs. O that men would consider this, and turn from their delusions! To bring torment to the guilty, there is little need that God should literally in the world to come, pile up Tophet with its wood and much smoke, nor even that the pit of Hell should be dug for the ungodly in order to make them miserable; sin shall of itself bring forth death. Leave a man in his own sins, and Hell itself surrounds him. Only allow a sinner to do what he wills, and to give his lusts unbridled headway, and you have secured him boundless misery; only allow the seething caldron of his corruptions to boil at its own pleasure, and the man must inevitably become a vessel filled with sorrow! Be assured, Brothers and Sisters, that sin is the root of bitterness; gild the pill as you may, iniquity is death. Sweet is an unholy morsel in the mouth, but it will be wormwood in the heart. Let but man heartily believe this, and surely he will not so readily be led astray. “Surely in vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird,” and shall man be more foolish than the fowls of the air? Will he willfully pursue his own destruction? Will he wrong his own soul? Sin, then, becomes first a net to hold the sinner by the force of custom and habit, and afterwards a sheriff’s officer to arrest him; and to scourge him with its inevitable results.

The second part of our text speaks of the sinner being held with cords, and a parable may be readily fashioned out of the expression. The lifelong occupation of the ungodly man is to twist ropes of sin; all his sins are as so much twine and cord out of which ropes may be made; his thoughts and his imaginations are so much raw material, and while he thinks of evil, while he contrives transgression, while he lusts after filthiness, while he follows after evil devices, while with head, and hands, and heart he pursues eagerly after mischief, he is still twisting evermore the cords of sin which are afterwards to bind him. The binding meant is that of a culprit pinioned for execution; iniquity pinions a man, disables him from delivering himself from its power; it chains his soul, and inflicts a bondage on the spirit far worse than chaining of the body. Sin cripples all desires after Holiness, dampens every aspiration after goodness, and thus fettering the man hand and foot, delivers him over to the executioner, which executioner shall be the Wrath of God, but also sin itself, in the natural consequences which in every case must flow from it. Samson could burst asunder green withes and new ropes, but when at last his darling sin had bound him to his Delilah, that bond he could not snap, though it cost him his eyes. Make a man’s will a prisoner, and he is a captive, indeed. Determined independence of spirit walks in freedom in a tyrant’s Bastille, and defies a despot’s hosts, but a mind enslaved by sin builds its own dungeon, forges its own fetters, and rivets on its chains! It is indeed slavery when the iron enters into the soul; who would not scorn to make himself a slave to his baser passions? And yet the mass of men are such—the cords of their sins bind them! Thus, having introduced to you the Truth of God which this verse teaches, namely, the captivating, enslaving power of sin, I shall advance to our first point of consideration. This is a solution to a great mystery; but then, secondly, it is itself a greater mystery; and when we have considered these two matters it will be time for us to note what is the practical conclusion from this line of thought.

I. A Solution of a Great Mystery

First, then, the principle of the text, that iniquity entraps the wicked as in a net, and binds them as with cords is a solution of a great mystery. When you and I first began to do good by telling out the Gospel, we labored under the delusion that as soon as our neighbors heard of the blessed way of Salvation they would joyfully receive it, and be saved in crowds. We have long ago seen that pleasant delusion dispelled; we find that our position is that of the serpent-charmer with the deaf adder; charm we ever so wisely, men will not hear so as to receive the Truth. Like the ardent reformer, we have found out that old Adam is too strong for young Melanchthon! We now perceive that for a sinner to receive the Gospel involves a work of Divine Grace that shall change his heart, and renew his nature; none the less is it a great mystery that it should be so. It is one of the prodigies of the god of this world that he makes men love sin, and abide in indifference as if they were fully content to be lost. It is a marvel of marvels that man should be so base as to reject Christ, and abide in willful and wicked unbelief. I will try and set forth this mystery in the way in which, I dare say, it has struck many an honest-hearted worker for Jesus Christ. Is it not a mysterious thing that men should be content to abide in a state of imminent peril? Every unconverted man is already condemned! Our Lord has said it—“He who believes not is condemned already, because he has not believed on the Son of God.” Every unregenerate man is not only liable to the Wrath of God in the future, but the Wrath of God abides on him; it is on him now, it will always remain upon him; as long as he is what he is, it abides on him; and yet in this state men are not frightened, they are not amazed or alarmed, they are not even anxious! Sunday after Sunday they are reminded of their unhappy position; it makes us unhappy to think they should be in such a state, but they are strangely at ease. The sword of vengeance hangs over them by a single hair, yet they sit at their banquets, and they laugh and sport as though there were no God, no Wrath to come, no certainty of appearing before the Judgment Seat of Christ! See a number of persons in a train that has broken down; the porter has only to intimate that another train is approaching, and that it may perhaps dash into the carriages, and mangle the passengers; he has only to give half a hint, and see how the carriage doors fly open, how the travelers rush up the embankment, each one so eager for his own preservation as to forget his fellow’s! Yet here are men and women by the hundreds and thousands, with the fast-rushing train of Divine Vengeance close behind them! They may almost hear the sound of its thundering wheels, and lo, they sit in all quietness, exposed to present peril, and in danger of a speedy and overwhelming destruction! “It is strange; it is passing strange, it is amazing.” Here is a mystery, indeed, that can only be understood in the light of the fact that these foolish beings are taken by their sins, and bound by the cords of their iniquities. Be it ever remembered that before very long these unconverted men and women, many of whom are present this morning, will be in a state whose wretchedness it is not possible for language fully to express! Within 24 hours their spirits may be summoned before the bar of God; and according to this Book, which partially uplifts the veil of the future, the very least punishment that can fall upon an unconverted soul will cause it “weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth.” All they had endured, of whom it is written that they wept, and gnashed their teeth, was to be shut out into outer darkness; nothing more! No stripes had then fallen; they had not yet been shut up in the prison of Hell; only the gate of Heaven was shut; only the light of Glory was hid; and straightway there was weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth! What, then, will be the woe of the lost when positive punishment is inflicted? As for what they will endure who have heard the Gospel, but have willfully rejected it, we have some faint notion from the Master’s Words—“It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the Day of Judgment than for them.” We know that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, for “our God is a consuming fire.” From this platform there rings full often that question, “How shall you escape if you neglect so great Salvation?” And yet for all this, men are willing to pass on through time into eternity regardless of the escape which God provides, turning aside from the only Salvation which can rescue them from enduring “the blackness of darkness forever”! O Reason, have you utterly fled? Is every sinner altogether brutish? If we should meet with a man condemned to die, and tell him that pardon was to be had, would he hear us with indifference? Would he abide in the condemned cell, and use no means for obtaining the benefit of life and liberty? Yes, there awaits the sinner a more awful doom, and a more terrible sentence; and we are sent to publish a sure pardon from the God of Heaven! And yet thousands upon thousands give us no deep heartfelt attention, but turn aside, and perish in their sins! O that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep for the folly of the race to which I belong, and mourn over the destruction of my fellow men! It often strikes us with wonder that men do not receive the Gospel of Jesus Christ, when we remember that the Gospel is so plain; if it were a great mystery, one might excuse the illiterate from attending to it; if the plan of Salvation could only be discovered by the attentive perusal of a long series of volumes, and if it required a classical training, and a thorough education, why then the multitude of the poor and needy, whose time is taken up with earning their bread, might have some excuse! But there is under Heaven no Truth of God more plain than this, “He who believes on the Lord Jesus has everlasting life.” “He who believes and is baptized, shall be saved.” To believe—that is, simply to trust Christ. How plain! There is no road, though it ran straight as an arrow, that can be more plain than this! Legible only by the light they give, but all so legible that he who runs may read, stand these soul-quickening words, “BELIEVE AND LIVE.” Trust Christ, and your sins are forgiven; you are saved!

This is so plain a precept, that I may call it a very A B C for infants, yet men receive it not; are they not indeed held by the cords of their sins when they refuse to obey? Moreover, Brothers and Sisters, there is a wonderful attractiveness in the Gospel. If the Gospel could possibly be a revelation of horrors piled on horrors; if there were something in it utterly inconsistent with reason, or something that shocked all the sensitive affections of our better part; we might excuse mankind. But the Gospel is just this: man is lost, but God becomes Man to save him; “The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Out of Infinite Love to His enemies, the Son of God took upon Himself human flesh, that He might suffer in the place of men what they ought to have suffered. The Doctrine of Substitution, while it wondrously magnifies the Grace of God, and satisfies the Justice of God, I think ought to strike you all with Love because of the unselfish affection which it reveals on Jesus Christ’s part. O King of Glory, do You bleed for me? O Prince of Life, can You lie shrouded in the grave for me? Does God stoop from His Glory to be spat upon by sinful lips; does He stoop from the splendor of Heaven to be “despised and rejected of men,” that men may be saved? Why, it ought to win every human ear; it ought to enter every human heart! Was ever Love like this? Go to your poets, and see if they have ever imagined anything nobler than the Love of Christ, the Son of God, for the dying sons of men! Go to your philosophers, and see if in all their maxims they have ever taught a more Divine Philosophy than that of Christ’s Life, or ever imagined in their pictures of what men ought to be, a heroic Love like that which Christ in very deed displayed! We lift before you no bloody banner that might sicken your hearts; we bring before you no rattling chains of a tyrant’s domination, but we lift up Jesus Crucified, and “Love” is written on the banner that is waved in the forefront of our hosts! We bid you yield to the gentle sway of Love, and not to the tyranny of terror! Alas, men must surely be bound, and fettered fast by an accursed love to sin, or else the Divine Attractions of a Crucified Redeemer would win their hearts!

II. A Greater Mystery

Consider, my Friends, you who love the souls of your fellow men, how amazing it is that men refuse to receive the Gospel when the Commandment of the Gospel is not burdensome! I think if it had been written that no man should enter Heaven except by the way of martyrdom, it had been wisdom for every one of us to give our bodies to be burned, or to be stretched upon the rack; yes, if there had been no path to escape from the Wrath of God but to be flayed alive with Bartholomew, enduring present but exquisite torture, it would have been but a cheap price for an escape from God’s Wrath, and an entrance into Heaven! But I find in God’s Word, prescribed as the way of Salvation, no such physical agonies; no austerities are commanded; not even the milder Law which governed the Pharisee when he “fasted thrice in the week”; only this is written: “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.” And the Precept of the Christian’s life is, “Love your God with all your heart, and your neighbor as yourself.” Most pleasant duties, these of love! What more sweet? What more delightful than to permit the soul to flow out in streams of affection? The ways of true religion are not irksome; her ways are pleasantness, and all her paths are peace! What? Heaven given for believing? What? Heaven’s gate opened only for knocking, and gifts all priceless bestowed for nothing but the asking? Yet they will not ask; they will not knock; alas, my God, what creatures are men! Alas, O sin, what monsters have you made mankind, that they will forget their own interests, and wrong their own souls! Further, it is clear that men must be fast held by the bondage of their sins when we remember that according to the confession of most of them, the pleasures of sin are by no means great. I have heard them say that they have not been satisfied after a short season of indulgence; we know how true the Word is, “Who has woe? Who has redness of eyes? They who tarry long at the wine, those who go in search of mixed wine.” No form of sin has ever been discovered yet that has yielded satisfaction. You shall look at those who have had all that heart could wish, and have without restraint indulged their passions; and you shall find them to be in their latter end among the most wretched, rather than the most satisfied of mankind! Yet for these pleasures; I think I degrade the word when I call them “pleasures,” for these pleasures they are willing to pawn their souls, and risk everlasting woe! And all this while, be it remembered; to add to the wonder—there are pleasures to be found in godliness; and they do not deny this, they cannot without belying their own observation. We who are at least as honest as they are, bear our testimony that we never knew what true happiness was till we gave our hearts to Christ! And since then our peace has been like a river; we have had our afflictions; we have suffered grievous bodily pain; we have endured mental depression; we have been heavily burdened; we have borne many trials, but we can say— “We would not change our blessed estate For all the world calls good or great.” “Happy are the people whose God is the Lord!” We can set our seal to this experimentally! See then, my Brothers and Sisters, these poor souls will prefer the pleasures that mock them, to the pleasures that alone can satisfy. If we had to die like dogs, it would be worth while to be a Christian; if there were no hereafter, and our only consideration were who should enjoy this life the best, it would be the wisest thing to be a servant of God, and a soldier of the Cross! I say not it would ensure our being rich; I say not it would ensure our being respected; I say not it would ensure our walking smoothly, and free from outward trouble, but I do say that because of “the secret something which sweetens all”; because of the profound serenity which true religion brings, the Christian life out-masters every other, and there is nothing to be compared with it! But think for a while what the ungodly man’s life is! I can only compare it to that famous diabolical invention of the Inquisition of ancient times. They had as a fatal punishment for heretics, what they called the “Virgin’s Kiss.” There stood in a long corridor the image of the Virgin. She outstretched her arms to receive her heretic child. She looked fair, and her dress was adorned with gold and tinsel, but as soon as the poor victim came into her arms, the machinery within began to work, and the arms closed, and pressed the wretch closer and closer to her bosom, which was set with knives, daggers, lancets, and razors, and everything that could cut and tear him, till he was ground to pieces in the horrible embrace! And such is the ungodly man’s life; it stands like a fair virgin, and with bewitching smiles it seems to say, “Come to my bosom, no place as warm and blissful as this.” And then as soon as it begins to fold its arms of habit about the sinner, and he sins again and again, it brings misery into his body. Perhaps if he falls into some form of sin, it stings his soul, makes his thoughts a case of knives to torture him, and grinds him to powder beneath the force of his own iniquities. Men perceive this, and dare not deny it; and yet into this virgin’s bosom they still thrust themselves, and reap the deep damnation that iniquity must everywhere involve. Alas, alas, my God!

Conclusion

And now once more. This terrible mystery, which is only solved by men’s being held by their sins, has this added to it—that all the while in the case of most of you now present, all that I have said is believed, and a great deal of it is felt! I mean this; if I were talking with persons who did not believe they had a soul, or believe in the Judgment to come, or believe in the penalty of sin, or believe in the reward of Righteousness, I could see some reason why they rejected the great Salvation; but the most of you who attend this House of Prayer—I think I might say all have scarcely ever had a doubt about these things. You would be very much horrified if any one would insinuate that you did not believe the Bible to be the Word of God. You have a little Phariseeism in your soul, that you think you are not as scoffers are, nor infidels. I acknowledge you are not, but I grieve to say I think you are more inconsistent than they! If these things are a fiction, well, Sirs, your course is rational; but if these things are realities, what shall I say for you when I plead with God on your behalf? What excuse can I make for you? If you profess to believe these things to be true, act as though you believe them, yet do not, practically act so—why do you profess to acknowledge them as the Truth? The case is worse, for you not only believe these things to be true, but some of you have felt their power! You have gone home from this place, and you could not help it, you have sought your chamber, and bowed your knees in prayer—such prayer as it was, for, alas, your goodness has been like the morning cloud, and the early dew. I know some of you who have had to break off some of your sins, for your conscience would not let you rest in them. Yet you are unbelievers still! You are still undecided, still unsaved, and at this moment, if your soul were required of you, nothing would be in prospect but a fearful looking for Judgment and of fiery indignation! O my Hearer, you whose conscience has been at times awakened, in whom the arrows of the Great King have found a lodging place, in whom they are rankling still—yield, I pray you, yield to the Divine Thrusts, and give up your contrite spirit to your Redeemer’s hands! But if you do not, what shall I say to you? The Kingdom of God has been thrust from you by yourselves. Be sure of this—it has come near you, and in coming near it has involved solemn responsibilities which I pray you may not have to feel the weight of in the world to come. Here, then, stands the riddle, that man is so set against God and His Christ, that he never will accept Eternal Salvation until the Holy Spirit, by a supernatural work, overcomes his will, and turns the current of his affections! And why is this? The answer lies in the text— because his own iniquities have taken him, and he is held with the cords of his sin. For this reason he will not come to Christ that he may have life. For this reason he cannot come, unless the Father which has sent Christ draws him.

Charles Spurgeon