O how different is this from the life of a true Christian, who has forsaken himself and his lusts! How great the step that is between their walk and that of the holy martyrs, who delivered up, not only their carnal desires, but also their bodies and lives, unto death for the Lord’s sake! But how great a difference will also be between the two classes afterwards! when the former, having had their good things in this life, shall be shut out from the true, heavenly riches, but the latter, because they from love to God, renounced and abandoned their possessions, which might have led them into sin, be admitted to the true enjoyment of the heavenly riches and pleasures, and that for ever and ever! Mal. 3:18.
Here shall obtain what is recorded concerning the end of the luxurious rich man and that of poor Lazarus: that the rich man, when he saw Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom, while he himself was in hell, received this answer to his doleful lamentation: “Son, remember, that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.” Luke 16:25. Appropriate is here also Wis. 5:1,2.
Nevertheless, these and similar evil examples are constantly presented to our eyes, and they are the more pernicious and dangerous for the reason that some worldly-minded people pronounce them to be non-essential, unimportant for either good or evil, and therefore, allowable; while it is the same with them as with the fruit from the tree of knowledge, which stood in the midst of Paradise, and was pleasant to the eyes, but deadly in the use, for whoever ate of it, had to die, Gen. 2:17; or with the apples which grow in the land of Sodom, on the border of the dead sea; which possess a beautiful red appearance, but contain, as some have written, only dust and ashes, and are inedible, nay, even deleterious to health. _Bijb. Naemb. edition 1632, fol. 881, col. 2, concerning the name Sodom, ex Philippo Melanchthone. Also Bernh. Bredenb. in Tract, super Siddim. Also H. Buntung, Itinerarium sacræ scripturæ, edition 1642, lib. 1, pag. 62, col. 2, etc._
O that Satan would show himself, as he really is, and that the world, too, might come forth without disguise or mask; then certainly no one possessing reason would allow himself to be deceived by them. For in Satan nothing would be seen but deadly snares, traps and murdering daggers for the soul, poisoned arrows wherewith to destroy everything good in man, through unbelief, apostasy from God, impenitent obduracy, and despair; which are followed by a train made up of the fears of hell and horrors of damnation. In the world men would perceive nothing but vanity, mingled with much vexation, sorrow, grief and misery, and this in such abundance, that if as many tears could be wept over it, as there is water in all the sea and all the rivers, yet the weight of the true sorrow that springs from them it could not be adequately expressed, for they draw after them not only temporal but also everlasting miseries.
But, O how lamentable! all this is hid under a beautiful appearance. Satan appears to be a prince or king, and the world a noble princess or queen. The servants and servant-maids who follow them as pages and maids of honor, appear as cavaliers and ladies, reveling in joy and delight; though, as regards the soul, they are poor and deformed, yea, meaner than beggars, and without the true joy which delights the upright soul in God.[8]
[8] It is a very lamentable fact that the things fraught with danger are not as they appear, and appear not as they really are. Is not the fish caught with a bait, in which is concealed the hook? Are not the birds ensnared in the net, in which berries or grains of corn are scattered for them to eat? Certainly. Is it to be wondered then, that blind, carnal and worldly-minded men are deceived and led into perdition by the wiles of Satan and the alluring lusts of a deceitful world?