SIN

Many years ago Thomas Guthrie wrote of sin some provocative words.

"Who is the painted temptress that steals our virtue?
Who is the murderess that destroys our life?
Who is this sorceress that first deceives and then damns our souls?
Sin.

Who with icy breath blights the fair blossoms of youth?
Who breaks the hearts of parents?
Who brings old men gray hairs with sorrow to the grave?
Sin.

Who by a more hideous metamorphosis than Ovid even fancied changes gentle children into snakes, tender mothers into monsters and their fathers into worse than Herods, the murderers of their own innocence? Sin.

Who cast the apple of discord on household hearts?
Who lights the torch of war and bears it blazing over trembling lands?
Who by division in the church rends Christ's seamless robe?
Sin.

Who is this Delilah that sings the Nazarite asleep and delivers up the strength of God into the hands of the uncircumcised?
Who winning smiles on her face, honeyed flattery on her tongue, stands in the door to offer the sacred rites of hospitality and when suspicion sleeps, treacherously pierces our temples with a nail?
What fair siren is this who seated on a rock by a deadly pool smiles to deceive, sings to lure, kisses to betray and flings her arm round our neck to leap with us into perdition?
Sin.

Who turns the soft and gentlest heart to stone?
Who hurls reason from her lofty throne and impels sinners mad as a Gadarene swine down the precipice into a lake of fire?
Sin."