God's Warnings against Sin
SIN in its very nature is destructive. Concisely it is thus expressed by Inspiration: "Sin, when it is full-grown, bringeth forth death." James 1: 15, A.R.V. Sin is the seed, the fruitage is death. The root meaning of sin is "missing the mark;" but the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, includes character and life everlasting. He who sins misses that mark of character, and dies. The glory of God's presence can not endure sin. Sin can not live under His burning glory. For that reason God has veiled His glory so that mortal, sinful man might not perish, might not be frightened if he claimed submission, but that he might choose God's truth for its intrinsic excellence, yield himself to God because God's character is worthy of all confidence. Everything contrary to that character is sin, every standard below it misses the mark, and the resultant of failure is death. God warns us against sin, therefore, because He desires us to live forever; and this He affirms with an oath: "As I live, saith the Lord Jehovah, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live." Eze. 33: 11. Sometime the Master of the universe will come into His own, even as He is, in all His transcendent glory. He has a right to reveal Himself to the world; it is His by creation; it is His by redemption. Long time has He waited. Many have been the manifestations of His love and patience. He gave His only-begotten Son to die. That Son gave Himself that man might know that God is love, and love is life; that seeing, knowing this, man might yield his rebellion and embrace God's all-sufficiency in his salvation. For that He waits now. Against this awful alternative, death—finished sin—He warns. He is "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." He waits for you, sinner. Why will you not yield all to Him now before the hardening heart rejects Him forever? Sometime He will come. Before that dazzling splendor all sin and all who have identified themselves with sin shall perish. What will it mean to you when He comes? Will your life be saturated with sin? Have you chosen it in preference to the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus? Then with the sin you shall perish forever. But if Jesus the Lord has been admitted into your heart, then shall the glory of character within welcome the transcendent glory of character in the presence of Christ, mortal shall put on immortality, and corruptible shall put on incorruption forever. "The wages of sin is death;" "the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof there is no death."