Spiritual wickedness

“ I do (says he) praise God unfeignedly, for with-holding me from my own actual wickedness, and preventing my leading others into the cursed and detestable abomination. But I abhor and condemn myself for the concupiscence and wickedness of my heart, which (with grief and horror God knoweth I speak it!) discovered itself in other respects, such as it is a shame even to mention. ”

“ But my wickedness seems to take such hold of me, that I cannot escape; and my only refuge is to commit my soul, with all its corruption, into the hands of [Pg 99] Christ, to be sanctified and saved by His almighty grace. For what can I do with myself? my heart is so thoroughly corrupt, that I cannot keep myself one moment from sin. ”

“ Is it not the sense of our own exceeding wickedness that is drying up our young heart, filling it with sand, making all life a dust-bin for us?
Wicked? We know it! Too vile to live, too vile to die, too vile to creep over this, God’s earth, and move among His believing men. Hell is the one place for him who hates his master, and there we do not want to go. This is the comfort we get from the old. ”

“ If they were taught to cultivate will power to subdue these evil impulses what a blessing would be derived! How prone to wickedness is all human nature, and how much we need to pray for help to overcome it! ”

“ But is there any promise that repentance shall arrest the course of the avenger that follows sin on earth? Are broken health or blighted fame restored when the wicked man "turneth away from the wickedness that he hath committed;" ”

“ An overwhelming sense of my wickedness in being ashamed to have a human being see me on my knees before God took such powerful possession of me, that I cried at the top of my voice, and exclaimed that I would not leave that place if all the men on earth and all the devils in hell surrounded me. ‘What!’ I said, ‘such a degraded sinner as I am, on my knees confessing my sins to the great and holy God; and ashamed to have any human being, and a sinner like myself, find me on my knees endeavoring to make my peace with my offended God!’ The sin appeared awful, infinite. ”

“ Secondly, if we emanate from the divine Spirit, why were we sent forth into wickedness, and how can man, coming forth from so pure a source, enter into such degradation as we constantly see around us? ”

“ Note, Wickedness, as it is the shame of human nature, so it is the ruin of human society. Take away conscience and the fear of God, and men become beasts and devils to one another, like the fishes of the sea, where the greater devour the less. Sin fills the earth with violence, and so turns the world into a wilderness, into a cock-pit. ”

“ Wickedness shall burn as the fire; the displeasure of God, incurred by sin, shall consume the sinners, who have made themselves as briers and thorns before it, and as the thickets of the forest, combustible matter, which the wrath of the Lord of hosts, the mighty God, will go through and burn together. ”

“ Verse 3. Should the wicked by permitted to hold their substance all their days, Death, that terrible messenger, shall at last drag them from it; nor shall their glory descend after them to the grave, but that wickedness by which they acquired it shall lie down with them in the dust and torture their souls in hell.—Lawson. ”

“ Why do you falsely accuse me of this wickedness and impurity?" With a smile she replied to me, "The desire of wickedness arose within your heart. Is it not your opinion that a righteous man commits sin when an evil desire arises in his heart? There is sin in such a case, and the sin is great," said she; "for the thoughts of a righteous man should be righteous. For by thinking righteously his character is established in the heavens, and he has the Lord merciful to him in every business. ”

“ Let loose the wildest imagination into the realms of wildest wickedness, and yet they dared not, as they feared God, to credit for a moment the union of such appalling and such paltry guilt, in that man who now trembled not before them, but who seemed cut off from all the sensibilities of this life by the scythe of Misery that had shorn him down! ”

“ But in point of fact, that we might see that the deserts of souls are not to be estimated by the qualities of bodies, the wickedest devil possesses an ethereal body, while man, wicked, it is true, but with a wickedness small and venial in comparison with his, received even before his sin a body of clay. ”

“ We are, in very deed, as the saints said of old, strangers and pilgrims on the earth," [30] who "have here no continuing city. [31] And besides this, all around is sin and wickedness. We can see the meaning of the passionate words of ancient Saints speaking of the wickedness of the world; as, for instance, where one says, "All the earth is full of darkness and cruel habitations." [32] We may often see wickedness rampant; violent men oppressing the righteous; the world, which God made beautiful, all overgrown with weeds; many sorrows on all sides of us ”

“ Marvellous wickedness! may it not truly be said of such detestable monsters, in human shape, that God has given them over to vile affections and to all uncleanness, through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves. Burning in their own lust one towards another, men with men, working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which is meet. ”

“ Now when the wickedness of man became great, and “ every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil the whole day,” i.e., continually and altogether evil, it repented God that He had made man, and He determined to destroy them. ”

“ Can any crime, tremendous as is the history of human wickedness, compare in turpitude with this?—No, the immutable difference, the heaven-wide distinction which God has established between that being whom he has made a little lower than the angels, and all the other works of this wonderful creation, cannot be annihilated without incurring a weight of guilt beyond expression terrible. ”

“ Not by the meat we eat, though it be eaten with unwashen hands; that is but from without, and goes through a man. But, (2.) It is by the breaking out of the corruption that is in our hearts; the mind and conscience are defiled, guilt is contracted, and we become odious in the sight of God by that which comes out of us; our wicked thoughts and affections, words and actions, these defile us, and these only. Our care must therefore be, to wash our heart from wickedness.
3. He gives his disciples, in private, an explication of the instructions he gave the people. ”

“ But it was useless to call for mercy to men whose superstitious feelings urged them on; for when the demon of superstition is active, no matter what form it may take, it always results in cruelty and wickedness to all. ”

“ For they sleep not, except they have done evil: and their sleep is taken away unless they have made some to fall.
4:17. They eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of iniquity.
4:18. But the path of the just, as a shining light, goeth forwards, and increaseth even to perfect day.
4:19. The way of the wicked is darksome: they know not where they fall.
4:20. My son, hearken to my words, and incline thy ear to my sayings.
4:21. Let them not depart from thy eyes, keep them in the midst of thy heart:
4:22. For they are life to those that find them, and health to all flesh. ”

“ To sinners and vile men, there is vileness outside, but not to good men. So the wicked see this universe as a hell, and the partially good see it as heaven, while the perfect beings realise it as God Himself. ”

“ And as all the faculties and feelings, when passing into the spiritual sphere of existence, become indefinitely strengthened, whether in good or in evil, therefore the wicked cannot but be even worse there than here: as good men become angels, so bad men become demons. All observation and experience, even in this world, go to establish and confirm the truth of this view: continued indulgence strengthens and deepens evil, as constant effort enlarges and perfects goodness. What a fearful picture, then, does eternity hold up to the evil! ”

“ He is called the man of sin, to denote his egregious wickedness; not only is he addicted to, and practises, wickedness himself, but he also promotes, countenances, and commands sin and wickedness in others; and he is the son of perdition, because he himself is devoted to certain destruction, and is the instrument of destroying many others both in soul and body. ”

“ Thus clothed, it turns away the eye from seeing evil sights, turns away the ear from listening to slander, the tongue from speaking vanities, the hands and feet from bad pursuits. The soul has a will, by which to turn away and hinder the members of the body from base spectacles, and evil and shameful sounds, and indecent words, and worldly and evil pursuits. ”

“ If God withhold abused grace, and give men over to indulged lusts,—if he permit the evil spirit to do his work on those that resisted the good Spirit,—and if in his providence he lay stumbling-blocks in the way of sinners, which confirm their prejudices, then he blinds their eyes, and hardens their hearts, and these are spiritual judgments, like the giving up of idolatrous Gentiles to vile affections, and degenerate Christians to strong delusions. ”

“ The evil spirit that comes back to a home from which he has been once expelled, and finds it empty, swept, and garnished, takes to himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, “and the last state of that man is worse than the first.” ”

“ Your pride, malice, hatred, anger, revenge, lust. Think of your sinful nature, totally alienated from the life of God. How is your whole soul prone to evil, void of good, corrupt, full of all abominations! Feel, that your carnal mind is enmity against God. ”

“ The seventh bough of avarice is wickedness. I call wickedness, when the man is so wicked and such a devil, that he dreads not to do a great sin, deadly and horrible, or great harm to others, for a little gain or for advantage to himself. ”

“ Alas! in the physical as in the moral world, we murmur at the evils which surround us, and we do not remove them. We multiply those evils, and make life wretched, and then curse nature because it is wretched, and neglect or fling away the precious gifts and easy remedies which would make it blest. And is it not so in the spiritual world? Nine-tenths of our miseries are due to our sins. ”

“ You have only to cast your life-long guilt, your ungodliness, your evil thoughts and wicked words, your sinful soul itself, into this crime-canceling, sin-annihilating, soul-cleansing Fountain, in order to obliterate from God's creation your foul transgressions, and yet leave the Divine perfection fair as ever. The sin which a Saviour's blood dissolves is the only sin which, after being once committed, is totally extinguished. ”

“ God holds him guilty if he thinks thoughts of sin.
II. The thoughts of the wicked are abhorred by God. 1. Because of the harm they do to his own soul. If the body is held bound under the sway of a deadly malady it becomes weak and unable to fulfil the end of its creation, and if it continues long under its influence it dies. So soul-disease and moral death are the result of the rule of evil thoughts to the man who thinks them. He becomes incapable of fulfilling the high spiritual destiny for which God called him into being. ”

“ I was driven by the devil, allured by sin and corruption, and deceived by my own evil heart.”
About this time likewise, it pleased our Lord to visit him with a fit of illness, by which his fears and misery were considerably increased. He often bewailed himself in the uttermost anguish of spirit, with weeping and lamentation, breathing out his soul in moans. “O the guilt of sin; when charged home upon the conscience by the Spirit of God, what an intolerable load! A wounded spirit who can bear!” ”

“ The millstones of envy and malice are weighing down that mortal mind to the depths of its evil nature, where the cankering chains of sin will hold it until suffering balances the account, loosens their cold clasp, subdues the perverse will, and quenches in agony the fires of remorse. Aggravation of error foretells its doom, repeating the pagan opinion, “Whom the gods destroy they first make mad.” ”

“ It disquiets the conscience, it stops the fountain of God's mercy, it strangles the spirit of devotion and the consolations of the Holy Ghost, who dwells and reposes in the humble and meek-hearted, and flies from the wrathful, whom the evil spirit inhabits. For furious wrath is a frenzy of the soul, a short madness, [116] and a voluntary devil, which possesses the spirit with such agitations as the devil makes when he possesses the body. ”

“ This is the way of life, either labouring by means of the word and proceeding to exhort, and practising to save the soul by the word, or thou shalt work by thy hands for the redemption of thy sins.
CHAPTER 20 20:1 But the path of darkness is crooked and full of cursing, for it is the path of eternal death and punishment, in which way are the things that destroy the soul. Idolatry, boldness, the pride of power, hypocrisy, double-heartedness, adultery, murder, rape, haughtiness, transgression, deceit, malice, self-will, witchcraft, sorcery, covetousness, want of the fear of God. ”

“ Our original corruptions are the sickness and disease of the soul, an habitual indisposition; our actual transgressions are the wounds of the soul, which put conscience to pain, if it be not seared and senseless. ”

“ Thus will God pour their wickedness upon them, that is, the punishment of their wickedness; the full vials of God's wrath shall be poured upon them, to which they have made themselves obnoxious. Note, When sinners are overwhelmed with trouble they must in it see their own wickedness poured upon them. This refers to the wickedness both of the false prophets and of the people; the blind lead the blind, and both fall together into the ditch, where they will be miserable comforters one to another.
verses 17-22 The Prophet's Intercession. ”