Moral Cowardice
The wicked flee when no man pursueth. — Prov. xxviii. 1.
This is declared as a fact, and as a fact that may be accounted for on moral grounds.
There is a vengeance wliicli is more than human. In the case of the wicked in the text there is ^Uio man ‘’ pursuing yet the flight of the wicked is eager and violent. Conscience is the tormentor of the bad man. It shakes his fancied security. Wickedness is weakness. The motion of a straw startles a burglar in the midst of his evil work. We are not speaking of physical cowardice,, for even the best of men may sufier from physical defect but of moral cowardice, — the cowardice that is wrought by conscience.
I. The wicked flee when no man pursueth — then
THE FINEST FACULTIES OP MEN MAY BECOME TEREIBLEscouRaES. Fancy, imagination, spiritual sympathy, instead of bringing strength and comfort to the heart, may continually be turning blessings into curses, may be filling the air with avenging presences, and throwing over the future the gloom of apprehension and dismay. When fancy is not the brilliant servant of love, it is the most inexorable ally of conscience. Fancy — the very poet of the soul — turned into a scourge of life! The bad man is the victim of fancy. He hears steps that are not human, and sees presences which fill him with terror. It is rightly so. The bad man cannot keep any of his faculties for their highest uses: those faculties take up arms against him, and plague him with hell before the time.
II. The wicked flee when no man pursueth, — then
NO DEPENDENCE IS TO BE PLACED UPON THE WICKED IN THE
TIME OP DANGER. Their words are loud and boastful, but they are always the first to see the ghost. The young man is charmed with bravado, and is glad to cast in his lot with men who curse with a will and do evil with both hands. He mistakes fury for strength. But the day of trial is coming! The mocker will leave his victim in the lurch, and his last curse will fall on the head of his dupe.
III. The wicked flee when no man pursueth, — then
THE WICKED ARE ALWAYS MAKING FOOLS OP THEMSELVES.
Fleeing when there is nothing to flee for! Look at yonder bad man running downhill in violent haste; when he has sat down, go to him and ask the reason of his speed, and if he be frank he will say — “I heard a noise; I am sure I was seen: in another moment a hand would have been upon me,”’ He is sure of all this! Did the fool but know it, the noise which he heard with terror was made by the wing of a bird in the tree near which he stood! In the summing up of things, it will be found that the sinner is a fool as well as a criminal. The bad man is his own cojistable, his own ghost, and his own devil.
lY. The wicked flee when no man pursueth, — then
IF THE WICKED CANNOT BEAE THE JUDGMENT OF MAN, HOW CAN THEY ENDURE THE VENGEANCE OP God? ‘”’■ It is a
fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” Men shall cry unto the rocks and the mountains to hide them from the face of Him that sitteth upon the throne, and from the face of the Lamb. Adam said, ‘^ I heard Thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked.’^ Truly for the wicked there is a fearful looking-for of judgment! Can a man hide himself from God? Is there anywhere a chamber the key of which is not on the girdle of the Almighty? Sinner, if thou canst not turn aside the hand of man.
how canst thou avert the sword of the living God? “Who may abide the day of His comings and who shall stand when he appeareth? For He is like a refiners fire, and like fullers rope.^^” The day Cometh that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea and alt that do wickedly, shall be stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch/^
The wicked man is his own accuser. The hope of escape through a mere technicality may embolden him to plead “Not guilty,^’ but when technicalities are overcome by facts that can be no longer evaded, there rises from his heart a cry of self- conviction. Escape by techiiicalify is but a postponement of suffering, — it lays up wrath against the day of wrath. Escape by atonement destroys at once the dominion and the pain of sin. Such escape has been provided in the mediation of God the Son.” Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thought; let him. return unto the Lord and He will have mercy upon him, and to our God for He will abundantly pardon.-’^ ‘^ There is no peace saith my God to the wicked.^^ The universe offers no hospitality to the bad man. A fire shoots out of the earth to plague him: the sea is angry at his presence: the cemetery is desecrated by his bones, — he is nowhere welcome, — he must go where lie can neither see nor be seen, even into OUTER DARKNESS, — the jail of night.
V. The wicked flee when no man pursueth, — then
MAN MAT COME TO BE REGARDED AS THE ENEMY OE MAN.
A man may dread the drawing nigh of his own brother! Ought not the human family to be united by the bonds of friendship and trust? Yet wickedness makes men afraid of each other’s footsteps; so much so that the coming of a man may be more terrible than the approach of a ravenous beast! Sin loosens the bonds of society and sets man against man in deadly array.