Sensuality is ruin.
Whilst the language of this prophet regarding debauchery is sometimes to be taken figuratively, we have no option but to read this statement in its obvious and literal sense. Evidently the worship of foreign deities in northern Palestine was accompanied by licentious rites and debasing moral habits. In this verse is set forth the general law that the indulgence of the animal nature involves mental and moral deterioration and destruction.
I. SENSUALITY AFFECTS THE MIND THROUGH THE BODY. Whoredom and intoxication have ever been, and are to-day, the two great "sins of the flesh." Man's bodily nature is so constituted that these practices derange the nervous system, and render the sinner mentally incapable of many of the serious duties of life. The lunatic asylums are peopled with those who have lost their mental powers through addictedness to wine and to women. And where the evil has not gone to lengths so great, it is nevertheless sufficient to affect the powers of application, the memory, and the judgment.
II. SENSUALITY INJURES THE MIND BY CONSTANTLY DIRECTING IT TO MEANS OF CARNAL GRATIFICATION. The man who is besotted with the hove of pleasure, and is constantly planning new means of animal gratification and excitement, has little energy to spare for loftier flights. Even his intellectual efforts are tainted with the poison. if he be a man of genius, the trail of the serpent is over his works.
III. SENSUALITY CURSES THE MIND WITH SELFISHNESS. Whatever makes a man selfish takes away his heart. The sensual become machines bent upon the vain task of satisfying the bodily appetites. Those addicted to vice have no room in their souls for generous impulses, and have no disposition to engage in works of philanthropy and public good.
IV. SENSUALITY INDISPOSES THE MIND TO RECEIVE THE ENLIGHTENING AND QUICKENING INFLUENCES OF RELIGION. Christianity is a rebuke to the lover of pleasure; for it summons man to a spiritual life, imposes spiritual service, and proffers spiritual joys. He that liveth in pleasure is dead while he liveth. Christ calls us to mortify the deeds of the body. His religion is, indeed, not ascetic; at the marriage-feast at Cana he sanctioned wedded love and the proper use of wine. But he cannot tolerate a sensual life, and has declared plainly that the debauched and the drunken can have no place in his kingdom. For such have permitted Satan to take away their heart, and they have none left to give to Christ.
APPLICATION. Let the young be warned against the insidious and seductive snares which the world lays for their downfall, and into which their weak and sinful nature is too apt to lead them; there is safety only by the cross, and by the Spirit of the Holy Savior.—T.