Ephesians 5:6

Ephesians 5:6

Light-hearted Wickedness.

I. Trifling with sin is open disobedience to God. No one can say that the directions of our heavenly Father are not very plain on this subject. There is no disguise in His word; there is nothing that can be misunderstood. All through the Bible, like a low, rolling thunder, as it were, afar off, is heard this utterance from heaven: "Because of these things cometh the wrath of God." Neither is there any disguise in the acts of His providence. Here, if anywhere, we see His visible hand. In the decrepitude of tainted lives, in the disappearance of polluted races, is written with large letters in His own hand that "because of these things cometh the wrath of God."

II. The certainty of God's wrath on sin. The deception of vain words with regard to it takes, I suppose, this form: Is God's wrath so certain? Are we sure we see it? Are there not so many instances of evil lives unpunished as greatly to qualify that certainty? I would ask you, first of all, to notice that St. Paul by no means says, "The wrath of God is come."He says, "It will come," or more exactly, "It is coming," and while we do say that God's displeasure is already very visible and not to be mistaken, we say also that there is no reason to think that even where it has been most visible it is spent or exhausted.

III. St. Paul speaks of disobedience, and he speaks of punishment, as for outsiders,not for those to whom he directly writes. To them he uses different arguments: sin and trifling with sin in word or jest for them are not convenient, i.e.,not appropriate. What is appropriate for them is that which becometh saints. They have no consciousness henceforth of guilty secrets, nor even of doubtful acts and words. This is the actual service of God; this is a happy service: killing with a good will evil inclinations which we have determined and vowed to kill, carefully preserving, carefully gaining, all old, all new, ideas and habits which we have proved tend to holiness, or which we have reason to believe will help us still onward.

Archbishop Benson, Boy Life,p. 126.

Reference: Ephesians 5:6. F. Exton, Church of England Pulpit,vol. xiv., p. 64.