My text says:  “As ye therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him.”  They had received him in faith, and hope, and love.  So were they instructed to walk in him.  “Ye have been buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead.”  “Inasmuch then, as ye were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated on the right hand of God.”  “Set your affections on the things above, not on the things that are upon the earth.  For ye died; and the new life which ye now live, ye live by faith in the Son of God who loved you and gave himself for you.”  “Avoid fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness which is idolatry; for the wrath of God is revealed against all these things.  And ye know that a little while ago YE LIVED AND WALKED IN ALL THESE THINGS.”  This last quotation tells what these brethren had been, and the foregoing quotations show what they were when Paul wrote to them.

After a careful study of these good instructions, these faithful brethren could not mistake the way in which they were to walk.  Paul not only showed them how to get into the good way in the first place, but he also told them how to keep in the way.  It is one thing to get into the right road to any place, but it is quite another thing to keep it.  In writing to his Galatian brethren, Paul says:  “Ye did run well for awhile; who turned you out of the way?” Ah, brethren, there are many by-roads leading off from “the king’s highway.”  I have known brethren and sisters to start well, to all appearance, and run well for a time; but by and by the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches, and other things, like the thorns in the parable, choked the Word in their hearts, so that they brought forth no fruit unto perfection.

AN ILLUSTRATION.

In my travels among the mountains of our Virginia I have often seen the laurel holding out its evergreen but poisonous leaves in sprays of most enticing beauty.  Miles and miles of road, in one unbroken stretch, may there be seen densely hedged on either hand by this beautiful emblem of sin and death.  Herds of cattle and flocks of sheep are every year driven over these roads.  Every herdsman and shepherd knows the danger to be apprehended from the inclination of some of either kind to “sidle” off from the plain and beaten track and pluck the green leaves of the laurel to their own destruction.

Many a time have I overtaken flocks of sheep, some of which were lying along the road “down with the staggers.”  This last is the name of the disease which is brought on by taking laurel.  The old sheep avoid it.  They will not taste it.  The young sheep and lambs are the only ones that incline first to taste and then eat it.  It is hardly necessary for me to point out to you the lesson of instruction to be gathered from what I have just said.  The staggers, by veterinary surgeons, is said to be a kind of drunkenness often fatal in its effects.