428 THE DEATH TO DIE
forsake the man ? What is that conversion which a man pro- fesses, when the nerves are unstrung, the frame prostrated, the mind enfeebled, the functions in disorder, the power to think, meditate, and pray reduced to a minimum by restlessness, fever, and pain ? Whatever may come of this in another world, one thing is certain: The Gospel, rightly understood, holds out no hope to delay. God promises pardon to the penitent, but not a morrow to the procrastinator ; and as for those theories which make void the simple teachings of Christ, and promise to show us full ripe clusters of grapes on the bitter bramble and luscious figs on the thistle, they are but inventions of men. Eeason and revelation have but one voice : both warn against rash boasting, in cases where the life has not been that which a Christian man ought to live. The solitary instance in Scripture of a dying sinner's repentance shakes not the weight of the- general argument. Our Lord, on His cross, pardoned one of the two that hung beside Him; nay. He said, "To-day ehalt thou be with me in Paradise." But the case stands alone. One such man was pardoned, that we might hope : one such only, lest we should presume. God showed His power; but He also at once withdrew and hid His hand, lest men should make a rule of an exception and boldly continue in sin.
Sin the Detective.
Literature.
Atkinson (J. H.), The Sin of Doing Nothing.
Boston (T.), Sermons, 232, 239, 246.
Brandt (J. L.), Soul SoA^ing, 187.
Brown (A. G.), In the Valley of Decition, 61.
Dods (M.), Christ and Man, 188.
Kemble (C), Memoi-ials of a Closed Ministry, i. 103.
Kingsley (C), Village, Tovnu, and Country Sermons, 52.
Lambert (J. C), in Cheat Texts of the Old Testament, 237,
Lewis (E. W.), Some Views of Modem Theology, 217.
Macleod (A.), The Child Jesus, 196.
Matheson (Q.), Moments on the Mount, 43.
Newman (J. H.), Pa/rochial and Plain Sermons, iv. 37.
Newton (R.), Bible Warnings, 138.
Potts (A. W.), School Sermons, 56.
Smellie (A.), In the Secret Place, 296.
Trench (R. C), Brief Thoughts and Meditations, 1.
Wells (J.), Bible Echoes, 79.
Christian World Pulpit, lii. 333 (Hammond).
Preaclier's Magazine, xvi. (1905) 429 (Cowl).
Sin the Detective.
Be sure your sin will find you out. — Num. zzzii. 23.
1. When the children of Israel arrived at the kingdom of Moab, on the eastern bank of the Jordan, they found large tracts of pasture-land especially suited to the tribes who were rich in flocks, like the tribes of Gad, Eeuben, and Manasseh. These tribes begged Eleazar the priest to obtain from Moses permission for them to settle there permanently. But Moses answered with indignation, " Shall your brethren go to war, and shall ye sit here ? " He reminded them how the cowardice of the spies had before brought down on the nation the anger of the Lord. The men of Eeuben, Gad, and Manasseh told him that they had no intention of deserting their brethren. They only wanted to settle their wives and daughters in the land, and then the men of war would go and fight the battles of the other tribes. Moses was content with the answer, and assigned them the land they wanted; but he gave them a warning to keep their promise : to abandon their brethren was to sin against God. And he added the words of the text — words which go to the heart of every reader as direct as any in the Bible — " Be sure your sin will find you out."
^ This is one of those passages in the inspired writings which, though introduced on a particular occasion and with a limited meaning, express a general truth, such as we seem at once to feel as being far greater than the context requires, and which we use apart from it. Moses warned the Keubenites and the Gadites, that if they, who had already been allotted their inheritance, did not assist their brethren in gaining theirs, their sin would find them out, or be visited on them. And, while he so spoke. He who spoke through him, God, the Holy Spirit, conveyed, as we beheve, a deeper meaning under his words, for the edification of His Church to the end ; viz. he intimated that great law of God's governance, to which all who study that governance will bear witnesB, that sin is ever followed by punishment. Day and night
432 SIN THE DETECTIVE
follow each other not more surely than punishment comes upon gin. Whether the sin be great or little, momentary or habitual, wilful or through infirmity, its own peculiar punishment seems, according to the law of nature, to follow, as far as our experience of that law carries us, — sooner or later, lighter or heavier, as the case may be.^
2. The truth of the text is that our sin will not be done with us when we are done with it ; that, however short a time we give to sin, however hastily we flee from it, however skilfully cover our retreat by plunging into a thicket of engagements and good deeds, our sin will track and dog us through every turn of life until it finds us out and pulls us down and compels us to under- stand that every evil done is evil to him who did it.