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Sow or swallow?
From Spurgeon's, 'Christ's First and Last Subject'
"As well may the sheep lick blood with the wolf,
as well may the dove be comrade at the vulture's feast of
carrion, as a penitent sinner revel in sin.
Through infirmity he may slide into it, but through grace he
will rise out of it, and abhor even his clothes in which he has
fallen into the ditch (Job 9:31).
The 'unrepentant sinner', like the SOW,
wallows in the mire.
But the 'penitent sinner', like the SWALLOW,
may sometimes dip his wings in the limpid pool of iniquity,
but he is aloft again, twittering forth with the chattering of the
swallow most pitiful words of penitence, for he grieves that
he should have so debased himself and sinned against his
God.
My hearer, if you do not so hate your sins as to be ready to
give them all up-
if you are not willing now to hang them on Haman's gallows
a hundred and twenty cubits high- if you cannot shake them
off from you as Paul did the viper from his hand,
and shake it into the fire with detestation, then, I say,
you know not the grace of God in truth.
For if you love sin you love neither God nor yourself,
but you choose your own damnation.
You are in friendship with death and in league with hell.
God deliver you from this wretched state of heart, and bring
you to detest your sin."
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