15 Sermon Illustrations on Law Of Sin

You never saw a woman sewing without a needle. She would come but poor speed if she only sewed with the thread. So, I think, when we're dealing with sinners, we maun ayo put in the needle of the law first; for the fact is, they are skepin' sound, and they need to be awakened up with something sharp. But, when we've got the needle of the law fairly in, we may draw as long a thread as you like o' gospel consolation after it. Flockhart.

One of the persecutors in Queen Mary's days, pursuing a poor Protestant, and searching the house for him, charged an old woman to show him the heretic. She points to a great chest of linen, on the top whereof lay a fair looking-glass. He opens the chest, and asks where the heretic was. She suddenly replies, "Do you not see one?" meaning that he was the heretic, and that he might easily see himself in the glass. And thus God's law is the glass that shows us all our spots. Let us hold it right to our intellectual eye; not behind us, as the wicked do (they cast God's word behind them); not beside us, like the rich worldling that called to Christ; not to turn the back of the glass towards us, which is the very trick of all hypocrites; nor, lastly, to look upon ourselves in this glass when we are muffled, masked, or cased, for under those veils we cannot discern our own complexions. But let us see the clear glass before our face, and our open face to the glass, and then we shall soon perceive that the sight of our filthiness is the first step towards cleanliness.

There are stronger things in the world than force. There are powers more difficult to overcome than strong or brazen gates. Suppose we found a prisoner condemned to die, and locked up in his cell, and we were to ask ourselves how he could be saved from execution. There would appear great difficulty in getting him out of prison. That iron door, with its great bolt; that high window, with its guard of strong bars; those thick, strong walls; those heavy gates outside; that watchful jailer, — how impossible it seems to overcome them all! Yet these are not the only difficulties, nor the greatest. There is another thing, stronger than all these, holding the poor prisoner to death: there is the sentence of the law. For, unless he would himself become a criminal, no man dares to help the condemned one out. Get the sentence repealed, and the other difficulties are removed. I will take you in thought to two houses: one is your own; but the doors and windows are all fast, and you have no key: it will be hard to get in. Beside it is another, belonging to your neighbor, — a house you know you have no right to enter, and have been forbidden to approach. The door is open, and nothing withstands your entrance, that you can see. Yet it will be harder to go in there than into your own house; for it would make you a trespasser on rights. An armed fortress belonging to an enemy might be destroyed by force if a general were sent to capture it; but, without a warrant, would that general go into the palace of the king? When Eve stood beside the tree of knowledge of good and evil, there was no fence around it, keeping her steps aloof; no shield to prevent her hand touching the fruit: yet there was a guard more powerful than walls to keep her from plucking it, till she resolved to sin. The words, "Thou shalt not eat of it," so long as her heart was right with God, were like a rampart of fire around that forbidden tree. If a father has said to a dutiful child, "There is an object you must not handle," it is more truly out of the child's reach than if he had merely placed it high up where the little hand could not get hold of it. Dr. Edmond.

Law proposes life and righteousness as end to be obtained by practicing, but proves at outset that men are in a state of death (Ps. 5:20; 7:7, 13; 3:20). Law demands strength from those who have none and curses them if they cannot keep it. Gospel gives strength to those who have none and blesses in the exhibition of it

One of the notable figures in the history of the American Navy is that of Admiral Porter. Wise in counsel and daring in execution, he has left his impression very deep upon its development and traditions. At one time he was in command of the Naval Academy at Annapolis when the following incident occurred:

General Grant was on a visit to the Academy. As he stood watching the evolutions of the midshipmen, the general had his ever-present cigar in his mouth. The marine on duty walked up to the general and said, “General, I beg pardon, but it is against the rules to smoke in the academy.” “All right,” replied the general, and, with soldierly promptness, he proceeded to take the cigar from his mouth. At that instant Admiral Porter stept forward and said, “I abrogate that rule.” (Text.)

* * * * *

Love is, in the spiritual world, what the powers of attraction, resulting in beautiful harmonies of combination and interrelation are seen to be in the physical. But the subject of the law which claims love from moral beings must freely accept its beneficent rule; while the crystal can not choose another finish for its angles, or the star select for itself a rule which will square it instead of rounding it.

— RICHARD S. STORRS

In certain places we see regulations like these placarded: “No smoking allowed,” “No betting allowed,” “No swearing allowed”; and we perceive at once the kind of place we are in, and the kind of people who usually frequent them--that is sufficiently clear from the prohibitory legislation. We never think of putting up such regulations in a temple. So the commandments of Moses assume this to be a sinful world; they are addrest to sinners; there is in them the idiom of impeachment and condemnation.--W. L. WATKINSON, “The Transfigured Sackcloth.”

A contented citizen of Milan, who had never passed beyond its walls during the course of sixty years, being ordered by the governor not to stir beyond its gates, became immediately miserable, and felt so powerful an inclination to do that which he had so long contentedly neglected, that on his application for a release from this restraint being refused, he became quite melancholy, and at last died of grief. How well this illustrates the apostle's confession that he had not known lust, unless the law had said unto him, "Thou shalt not covet!" "Sin," saith he, "taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence." Evil often sleeps in the soul, until the holy command of God is discovered, and then the enmity of the carnal mind rouses itself to oppose in every way the will of God. "Without the law," says Paul, "sin was dead." How vain to hope for salvation from the law, when through the perversity of sin, it provokes our evil hearts to rebellion, and works in us neither repentance nor love.