This is the knife that cut the throat of your child!

(J.C. Pittman, "Bible Truths Illustrated" 1917)

Through one sin, angels left their proper habitation. Jude 6

Through one sin, man was banished from paradise - and the eternal curse and its punishment rested upon him and his descendants.

Sin is a clenched fist - and a blow in the face of God! Sin is the only thing which God abhors! All sins, great or small, are objects of intense aversion to God.

Nothing speaks louder concerning God's hatred of sin - than Calvary! Surely, he who asserts that sin is a trivial thing, a mere "ripple on the ocean of God's love" - has never looked upon the cross! In view of what it cost Jesus to atone for it - sin is heinous, hellish, and damnable! It required nothing less than the suffering and death of of the Son of God on the cross!

Suppose a man should come to the dinner table and it should be told to him: "This is the knife that cut the throat of your child!" If he could now use that knife as any other knife, would not we say, "Surely there was but little love to the child!"

Oh, with what detestation would a man fling away such a knife!

In the same way, when there is a temptation to any sin - this is the knife . . .
  which was the cause of Christ's sufferings,
  which cut the throat of Christ,
  which pierced His side,  
  which made Christ to be a curse!

Now, will you not look on that as a cursed thing - which made Christ to be a curse? With what detestation should a Christian renounce sin - for that, and that alone, was the cause of the death of Christ!