The way of darkness
The way of sin is in all respects one of darkness. It is dark in its origin, dark in its course, and dark in its end.
I. THE WAY OF SIN STARTS FROM A DARK ORIGIN.
1. Ignorance. Most criminals are deplorably ignorant. Vicious men are generally men whose mental cultivation has been neglected by others or by themselves. Ignorance of Divine truth leads the way to wickedness. The first preventative of evil is the religious teaching of children.
2. Inherited tendencies to evil. These awful consequences of a parent's sin are a dark heritage which heavily handicaps the child from the first.
3. Satanic influences. Temptations are all dark in their origin. Evil suggestions come up from the pit of darkness.
4. The lower nature. When a man gives way to sin he sacrifices his higher to his lower self. He sinks from the sunlit mountain heights of purity to gloomy depths of baser living.
II. THE WAY OF SIN PURSUES A DARK COURSE. It is a road that runs through sombre passes, like some of those Welsh paths far in the heart of the mountains, on which the sun never shines. This is worse than the Valley of the Shadow of Death, for in the fearful path of sin there is no guiding hand and no protecting staff. The darkness of this course is exhaled from the evil committed upon it.
1. Perverted conscience. Sin distorts a man's thoughts, blinds his eyes to the highest truth, raises a mist about the old landmarks of right and wrong, and plunges the soul into a stupor of moral indifference. From neglecting to follow the light of God, the sinner comes at last to be incapable of beholding it.
2. Spiritual desertion. God's Spirit will not always strive with the sons of men (Genesis 6:3). There comes a time when God leaves the self-abandoned soul to its own devices. Then, indeed, a darkness as of winter midnight sinks upon the lost being.
3. Corrupt conduct. Following the way of evil, the sinner continues to blacken it with the guilt of his own misdeeds. He plunges into the spiritual darkness of wicked living—the degradation, the loss of the joy and purity of heavenly light that sin always induces.
III. THE WAY OF SIN ISSUES IN A DARK END. The sinner cannot see his way upon it, and therefore he is sure to stumble. Bruised and confused, he may still persist in his sombre career. But he has no prospect of light beyond. There are no Beulah heights for him at the further end of the gloomy valley. His night of sin will be followed by no dawn of blessed light. He presses on only to deeper and yet deeper darkness. If he will not return there is nothing before him but the darkness of death. The one way of escape is backwards—to retrace his steps in humble penitence. Then, indeed, he may see the welcome light of his Father's home, and even earlier the Light of the world, the Saviour who has come out into the darkness to lead him back to God. For the sinner who persists in his evil course there can be no better prospect than that described by Byron in his poem on "Darkness"—
"The world was void,
The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless—
A lump of death—a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still,
And nothing stirred within their silent depths;
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,
And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropped
They slept on the abyss without a surge—
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The moon, their mistress, had expired before;
The winds were withered in the stagnant air.
And the clouds perished; Darkness had no need
Of aid from them—she was the Universe."