Sin has a terrific gait.  Give it a loose rein and man will get winded and ready to drop.  Only then is he ready to drop it.  Sin can’t be patched up or mended.  Nursing only helps it to its feet for a fresh start.  The whole trouble is in the nature of the thing.  The heart pumps the hot blood of rebellion.  Its lungs can breathe only self-willed air.  The worst punishment of sin is that left alone it breeds more sin, and worse sin.  The worst of sin is in its brood.  It is very prolific.  Every sin is a seed-sin.  The breeding process gets the sort more refined in its coarseness.

    “This is the very curse of evil deed,
    That of new sin it becomes the seed."[2]

And the plain statements of the Book, and the inevitable working of man’s nature, reveal all the bad results of sin intensifying indefinitely in the after-life.  Jesus is God letting sin do its worst, upon Himself, that man might see its utter, stubborn damnableness, and eagerly turn from it, and back to Him.

A Bright Gleam of Light.

Yet be it keenly marked, there is a very bright gleam of light across this dark picture.  In going over the story of sin with its terrific results now and afterward, one needs to be very tender, for he is talking about men—­his brothers.  And to be very careful not to say things that are not so.  Some good, earnest people have been thinking that the whole race except a small minority were given over to eternal misery.  The vast majority of men has never heard the name of Jesus.  And some very godly people have seemed to think that these are lost forever.

Yet the old Book of God speaks very plainly here.  Its meaning can be gotten without any twisting of words.  Neither the Jewish nation nor the Christian Church can be regarded as favorites of God.  God has no favorites for salvation.  The Jewish nation was chosen for service’ sake.  Through it there came a special after-revelation of God.  Through it came the world’s new Man.  The Church is the repository of God’s truth to-day, with its window panes not always quite clear.  Its great mission is to tell the whole race of Jesus.  Both were chosen for service.

Every nation knew God directly at the first.  And be it said thoughtfully, every man has enough of revelation and of inner light to lead him back to God.  A man’s choice in this life is his choice always.  Any student of the ordinary working of man’s mind can certify that.  Whatever sort of being a man deliberately, persistently chooses to be here and now, he will be always.  The only change possible in the after-life will be in the degree.  Never in the sort.

The Gospels speak of believing on Jesus, and of the bad results for those who decline or refuse to have anything to do with Him.  Of course it is speaking of those who have heard of Him.  There can be no believing on Jesus without hearing, and of course in simple fairness no condemning on any such grounds.  The gospel message is wholly concerned with those who hear.