1. To those who hear it. They become less susceptible of religious
impression. If the head of a family habitually refer to religious
persons and subjects in a mocking and disrespectful manner, his
children will probably grow up with a dislike of religion.
2. To those who indulge in it. They lose their own respect for
religion, if they had any, by associating it with the ideas of a low
and ludicrous nature. They lose the elevating mental influence of
having their minds in earnest contact with its grand truths. They
lose the spiritual improvement which might have been the result of
such contact.
3. And the warning of the text points to direct punishment. The
"consumption determined." It points to the bands of captivity which
would be more strong because of their unbelieving mockery. The mocker
is preparing strong bands of distress for his conscience, if the day
should ever come when he is awakened to a sense of sin and an earnest
desire for salvation. How bitterly will he repent the injury his
levities did to his own mind and the mind of others. Still more
saddening is the thought that the mocker is likely so to harden his
heart into insensibility to serious impression, that even on the bed
of death, and with the solemnities of eternity before him, it will be
impossible to awaken serious concern.
Follow the mocking soul to the bar of God where it must answer for
its mockeries, and for all the state of mind which rendered it
possible to mock. +There will be no mockery in hell!+
Do not brave these bands. Young men, do not sit in the seat of the
scorner. Do not be among the mockers. Let the mocker hear the solemn
warning of the text, and repent and seek mercy through the cross, and
relinquish his folly.--_J. Rawlinson._