These ten commandments are not ten different laws; they are one law.
If I am being held up in the air by a chain with ten links and I break
one of them, down I come, just as surely as if I break the whole ten.
If I am forbidden to go out of an enclosure, it makes no difference at
what point I break through the fence. "Whosoever shall keep the whole
law and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." "The golden
chain of obedience is broken if one link is missing."
We sometimes hear people pray to be preserved from certain sins, as if
they were in no danger of committing others. I firmly believe that if
a man begins by wilfully breaking one of these commandments it is much
easier for him to break the others. I know of a gentleman who had a
confidential clerk, and insisted on his going down Sunday morning to
work on his books. The young man had a good deal of principle, and at
first refused, but he was anxious to keep in the good graces of his
employer and finally yielded. He had not done that a great while
before he speculated in stocks, and became a defaulter for $120,000.
The employer had him arrested and put in the penitentiary for ten
years, but I believe he was just as guilty in the sight of God as that
young man, for he led him to take the first step on the downward road.
You remember the story of a soldier who was smuggled into a fortress
in a load of hay, and opened the gates to his comrades. Every sin we
commit opens the door for other sins.