Quiet Talks about Jesus by S. D. (Samuel Dickey) Gordon
page 30 of 234 (12%)
page 30 of 234 (12%)
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arraignment here. He gives it chief place by position and by particularity
of description. First was the using of a pure, natural function to gratify unnatural desires. Then with strange cunning and lustful ingenuity changing the natural functions to uses not in the plan of nature. Let it all be said in lowest, softest voice, so sadly awful is the recital. Yet let that soft voice be very distinct, that the truth may be known. Then lower down yet the commercializing of such things. Unconcerned barter and trade in man's holy, most potent function. Putting highest price on most ingenious impurity. Then follows the longest of these paragraphs running up and down the grimy gamut of sin. Beginning with _all_ unrighteousness, he goes on to specify depravity, greedy covetousness, maliciousness. Oozing out of every pore there are envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity. Men are whisperers, backbiters, God-haters, and self-lovers, in that they are insolent, haughty, boastful. They are inventors of evil things, without understanding, breakers of faith, without natural affection, ruthlessly merciless. The climax is reached in this, that though they _know_ God, and what He has set as the right rule of life, they not only _do_ these things named, but they delight in the fellowship of those who habitually practise them. The stage of impulsiveness is wholly gone. They have settled down to this as the deliberate choice and habit of life. Man is still a _king_, but all bemired. He is the image and glory of God, but how shrivelled and withered; obscured, all overgrown with ugly poison vines. Let it be remembered at once that this is a _composite_ picture of the race. Many different sorts of men must be put together to get such a view. Sin works out differently in different persons. A man's activities take on |
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