Alas! I slander the beasts when I compare them to such men!
(You will find it helpful to LISTEN to the Audio, as you READ the text below.)
Romans 6:16, "Don't you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey?"
There are many whose great object in life is to get money. But is not the greed for wealth one of the most detestable passions that can possess a human bosom? The ant, which labors for its companions, is to my mind up among the angels--when compared with a man who sweats and toils merely for the sake of heaping up for himself a mass of yellow metal!
Can I more highly condemn the lover of pleasure? What is pleasure? It is a hollow sham, a thin veneer of mirth which only covers deep dissatisfaction. I often think when I hear worldlings laughing at their nonsensical amusements, that they pull each other's sleeves and say, "Laugh--you ought to laugh!"
I cannot see the gratification which their amusements seem to bring to them. They struggle to appear happy, and what emptiness it is to have lived to be amused? To have spent all one's time in killing time--is anything more contemptible?
How horrible it is when man lives for lust, and puts forth all his strength to indulge his sinful passions! They live like brutes and beasts! Alas! I slander the beasts when I compare them to such despicable men!
"But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness."
Romans 6:17-18
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You may want to listen to John Ryland's insightful hymn, "God's Decrees".