Even in this life adultery and uncleanness bring their awful results,
both physical and mental. The pleasure and excitement that lead so
many astray at the beginning soon pass away, and only the evil
remains. Vice carries a sting in its tail, like the scorpion. The body
is sinned against, and the body sooner or later suffers. "Every sin
that a man doeth is without the body: but he that committeth
fornication sinneth against his own body," said Paul. Nature herself
punishes with nameless diseases, and the man goes down to the grave
rotten, leaving the effects of his sin to blight his posterity. There
are nations whose manhood has been eaten out by this awful scourge.
It drags a man lower than the beasts. It stains the memory. I believe
that memory is "the worm that never dies," and the memory is never
cleansed of obscene stories and unclean acts. Even if a man repents
and reforms he often has to fight the past.
Lust gave Samson into the power of Delilah, who robbed him of his
strength. It led David to commit murder and called down upon him the
wrath of God, and if he had not repented he would have lost heaven. I
believe that if Joseph had responded to the enticement of Potiphar's
wife, his light would have gone out in darkness.
It ends in one or other of two ways: either in remorse and shame
because of the realization of the loss of purity, with a terrible
struggle against a hard taskmaster; or in hardness of heart,
brutalizing of the finer senses, which is a more dreadful condition.
We hear a good deal about intemperance nowadays. That sin advertises
itself; it shows its marks upon the face and in the conduct. But this
hides itself away under the shadow of the night. A man who tampers
with this evil goes on step by step until his character is blasted,
his reputation ruined, his health gone, and his life made as dark as
hell. May God wake up the nation to see how this awful sin is
spreading!
Will any one deny that the house of the strange woman is "the way to
hell, going down to the chambers of death," as the Bible says? Are
there not men whose characters have been utterly ruined for this life
through this accursed sin? Are there not wives who would rather sink
into their graves than live? Many a man went with a pure woman to the
altar a few years ago, and promised to love and cherish her. Now he
has given his affections to some vile harlot, and brought ruin on his
wife and children!