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The boy who had died!
(J. C. Ryle, "The Gospel
of Luke" 1858)
"A funeral procession was coming out as Jesus
approached the village gate. The boy who had
died was the only son of a widow." Luke 7:12
See what sorrow sin has brought into the world!
All funerals are mournful things, but it is difficult
to imagine a funeral more mournful than the one
here described. It was the funeral of a young man,
and that young man the only son of his mother,
and that mother a widow. There is not an item in
the whole story, which is not full of misery. And
all this misery, be it remembered, was brought
into the world by sin.
Sin is the cause of it all.
"When Adam sinned, sin entered the entire human
race. Adam's sin brought death, so death spread
to everyone, for everyone sinned." Romans 5:12
Let us never forget this solemn truth.
The world around us is full of sorrow.
Sickness,
and pain,
and infirmity,
and poverty,
and labor,
and trouble,
abound on every side.
From one end of the world to the other,
the history of families is full of . . .
lamentation,
and weeping,
and mourning,
and woe.
And where does it all come from?
Sin is the fountain and root to which all must
be traced. There would neither have been . . .
tears,
nor troubles,
nor illness,
nor deaths,
nor funerals in the earth,
if there had been no sin.
We must bear this state of things patiently.
We cannot alter it.
We may thank God that there is a remedy in
the Gospel, and that this present life is not all.
But in the meantime, let us lay the blame at
the right door. Let us lay the blame on sin.
How much we ought to hate sin! Instead of . . .
loving it,
cleaving to it,
dallying with it,
excusing it,
playing with it,
we ought to hate it with a deadly hatred!
Sin is the great . . .
murderer,
and thief,
and pestilence,
and nuisance of this world.
Let us make no peace with it!
Let us wage a ceaseless warfare against it.
It is "the abominable thing which God hates."
Happy is he who is of one mind with God, and
can say, I "abhor that which is evil." Rom. 12:9
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