Good morning, everybody. There is an outline at the back if you want to use it for the class. It was compliments of chat BC, a chat I had with Ben Carlson. And so I'll pray and we'll begin. Holy Father, we really need enlightenment, and only Your Holy Spirit can give conviction, and only Your Holy Spirit can enable us to live up to the light that we receive on this commandment. So we commit our mourning to You. In the name of Jesus, amen. I just want to lay a foundation because I'm teaching on the Seventh Commandment. I do not want anybody in the audience to feel like They need to draw up into a knot because I want to be very, very careful how I teach this. Most of this lesson is actually going to be from a Bible exposition and examination of two paragraphs in John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. You'll understand as we get to that point, but let's define the Seventh Commandment from the teaching of the larger catechism. And as I said before in the past, in history, in church history, there hasn't been a lot of commentaries on the larger catechism. Most of them were on the shorter catechism. Thomas Vincent, Thomas Boston, Thomas Watson, and they were all on the shorter catechism, and ironically, Thomas Ridgely was the original commentary on the larger catechism, and it was written in 1749, and I never saw another catechism on the larger catechism until I saw the notes of Johannes G. Voss, which was a series of 191 articles in the Blue Banner magazine in 1946, ending in 1949. So the Seventh Commandment, question 137 is, which is the Seventh Commandment? The Seventh Commandment is, you shall not commit adultery. Question 138. What are the duties required in the Seventh Commandment? The duties required, which is what we'll talk about this week, the prohibitions next week, the duties required are chastity in body, mind, affections, words, and behavior, and the preservation of it in ourselves and others, watchfulness over the eyes and all the senses, temperance, keeping of chaste company, modesty in apparel." Next slide, Michael. And if I can just recommend two books, there's so many I have and they're all on my Kindle, but these are free and they are available through the Chapel Library. And since I was sitting very close to Pastor Martin all the time he was writing his books, I was always given a copy, an autographed copy of almost any book that he wrote, but he didn't do that for me. pastoral theology, but he wrote this Christian Wedding in a Changing World, and his emphasis was, as he explained to me, that he wanted to address a concern that they had seen at Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey, that the Apparel that the bride is wearing in weddings was becoming more and more a modest. So that's the purpose of that. That's free. And it's also a download. And then the book, The Christian Modesty work is by Jeff Pollard. And I have read that one as well, but that covers modesty and apparel, marriage by those that have not the gift of continency. In other words, they do not have the gift of singleness, conjugal love, cohabitation, diligent labor in our callings, which also assists us to not violate the sixth commandment. The devil likes to tempt people who have idle hands and feet, shunning all occasions of uncleanness, resistant temptations thereunto. So section two, that was one, the violation of the creation ordinance of marriage is what issues in adultery And I would like you, Blake, to read Genesis 2, verse 24. He's bringing you another microphone. All right, thank you. All right, Genesis 2, 24. Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife and they shall become one flesh. And then hand it back to Patrick and then I'll call on him in a minute. I try to keep in a circle so somebody's not running all over the congregation with a microphone. And my notes are from John Gill and shall cleave unto his wife with a cordial affection, taking care of her, nourishing and cherishing her, providing all things comfortable for her, continuing to live with her and not depart from her as long as they live. The phrase is expressive of the near union, which is between a man and his wife. They are, as it were, glued together and make but one. which is more fully and strongly expressed in the next clause, they shall be one flesh, that is, they two, the man and his wife, as it is supplied and interpreted by Christ. And Patrick, could you read Matthew 19, verses four, five, six, and seven? Sorry, what were the verses again? 19, 4 through 7. He answered, have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female and said, therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. They said to him, why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away? Now go ahead and read 9, 8 and 9. And he said to them, because of your hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives. But from the beginning, it was not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery. outline of this I got from a sermon. In fact, I was using these sermons as well on the Sixth Commandment, which I highly recommend. I can give you the link afterwards. But all the way back in 1990, Greg Nichols, who became my—he was my pastor there for a while, but my pastor again in 1992 when he went to Grand Rapids. He's always very, very helpful on these subjects. And so I got a lot of the outline from him, and it's more detailed in the application. So if anybody wants to listen to that, I can highly recommend it. But there is in marriage a leaving and a cleaving on the one hand, and there is in marriage the becoming of one flesh on the other. Wait, could you read Hebrews 13? I better read. I don't have the verse written down. Let marriage be held in honor and among all and let the bed be undefiled. So adultery is the defiling in this verse of the marriage bed and in Matthew 19 of the wedding vow. So adultery is a sin. that is committed against a marriage bed, which is a euphemism, and we hear it in our day, somebody went to bed with somebody else, but the Bible is guarding that to protect sexual relations within the marriage bond. So adultery is in first, a violation of the marriage bed, but it can and not always does violate the wedding vows, but in physical adultery, they are both violated. But if you study the Westminster larger catechism, it is very helpful to divide them, not that they need to be divided in our mind, but for categorizing the sins against the Seventh Commandment, that's a helpful category. This distinction is helpful for organization of the duties and prohibitions of the Seventh Commandment, though adultery often includes a violation of both. The marriage bed, by God's design, is to be chaste, holy, and good. Every degree of unchaste behavior is forbidden in Hebrews 13, verse 4, adultery and fornication. And many of you know the distinction. Fornication is a violation of the seventh commandment by two people who have no commitment, no marital covenant. And adultery is a violation of the vows in bed within the marriage. So on the larger catechism, Thomas Ridgely, it's only one paragraph and I will read it to you. This commandment respects More especially, the government of the affections and the keeping of our minds and bodies in such a holy frame that nothing impure, immodest, or contrary to the strictest chastity may defile us, or be a reproach to us, or insinuate itself into our conversation with one another. We are not even to speak of the things that are done of them in secret, Ephesians 5. We have to guard our speech, and you know, any of you that work in the secular workplace, that this is being violated all the time, and to keep yourselves pure from it, you, in my case, I'm a driver for O'Reilly Auto Parts, and I like to get the part, be told where I go, and I like to get out of that atmosphere. I don't want to pollute myself. with those things. Hence, we ought to associate ourselves with none but those whose conversation is chaste, and such as become Christians, and to abhor all words and actions which are not so much as to be named among persons professing godliness, As for those who cannot, without inconvenience, govern their affections, but are sometimes tempted to anything which is inconsistent with that purity of heart and life which all ought religiously to maintain, it is their duty to enter into a married state, which is an ordinance that God has appointed to prevent the breach of this commandment. And I have a practical example that weighs on me in the sins forbidden. Undue delay of marriage is listed as a sin. And I remember this is going all the way back before Betty and I were married, and I was counseling my brother, who is now down in Dallas, Texas, and he had already been engaged and they had set the wedding date way off into the future. And he was saying, this is inconvenient for me. And I said, Pat, did you know that undue delay of marriage, if it is causing you to burn and you are not being chased and careful is forbidden and therefore bring the wedding date up. And he did, he ended up getting married on Christmas Day down in California. He was at Livermore, California at that time. Now, this is the most of the illustration today, and I want to call this topic what the Proverbs has to say about the simple man and a wanton or strange woman, as she is addressed in the King James Bible. In Pilgrim's Progress, there is this discussion between Christian and faithful, and it goes like this. Well, neighbor faithful, Christian said, let's talk about something else, about things that concern us more immediately. Tell me now. What have you met with and experienced thus far along the way? Because I know you have undergone some things that would be worth recording. By the way, I have put these two paragraphs, I believe they're on page two of your notes. I'm reading from a more simplified version of Pilgrim's Progress, which I use when I'm teaching on Pilgrim's Progress. But Faithful did not hesitate to answer. I escaped the Slav despond, which I understand you fell into, and I reached the gate without suffering that danger. However, I met with a woman whose name was Wanton, the strange woman, Wanton, who intended to do me harm. Christian said, It is a good thing you escaped her snare. Joseph was tested by her in Egypt and he escaped her as you did. Otherwise it would not have cost him his life. But what did she do to you? And he replied, unless you experienced talking with her yourself, you can't begin to imagine how flattering her words were, Faithful said. So she didn't promise you the things of a moral excellence, asked Christian. Faithful shook his head. No, not at all. She promised things of a carnal and fleshly nature, promising all sorts of sensual pleasure. Phew, Christian let out a low whistle. Thank God you escaped her because those despised by the Lord shall fall into her pit. True enough, faithful agreed, but to tell you the truth, I'm not sure I entirely escaped her or not. Let me read that again. I am not sure whether I entirely escaped her or not. Now there's the wiles of the devil. He did not commit any physical act, he got away, but the devil brings it back and he presses it upon the mind. And if you want a good illustration of this, it's so powerful, it's the Treatise of Indwelling Sin by John Owen. And he talks about our indwelling sin And it's pressing its way upon us, and it never lets up, and it's under a section called the importunity of indwelling sin. No, I did not defile myself with her, for I remembered an old writing that I had read which said, her steps descend down to hell, Her feet go down to death, her steps take hold of Sheol, Proverbs 5.5. So I shut my eyes to prevent myself from being bewitched by her seductive looks. I made a covenant with my eyes, Job says, in 31.1. How then could I gaze at a virgin? And she became angry. She railed at me. Of course, picture of Potiphar's wife against Joseph, and I quickly went on my way." Now, I'm going to start at Proverbs 2. I'll give you the verse if you want to follow along. Next slide, Michael. I want to use for my comments, and if you are an aspirant to the ministry, please put this in your library next to Charles Bridges. It is a commentary on the Book of Proverbs by George Lawson, a Scottish pastor, and it came out in 1821. And I do not apologize because his words are so helpful on these verses. And on the other side of the picture, you see an old edition of Temptation and its Nature and Power by John Owen, which I believe I have at least three. narrations of that entire work on sermon audio, not that I think there needs to be three, the reason I narrate these things over and over again, because I need the assistance and it is so edifying for my good. But most of these comments are going to be by George, Lawson in his commentary on the Proverbs, starting with Proverbs 2, verse 9. A study of the strange woman or the wanton woman in Proverbs 2, 5, 7, and 9. Verse 10, for wisdom will enter into your heart. Knowledge will be pleasant to your soul, verse 11. Discretion will watch over you. Understanding will keep you, verse 12. To deliver you from the way of evil, to deliver you from the strange woman, even from the foreigner who flatters with her words, who forsakes a friend of her youth and forgets a covenant of her God, for her house leads down to death, her path to the departed spirits, none who go to her return again." And remember, sometimes in Proverbs there is a statement that is not absolute, but it is very commonly filled. And so the emphasis here is if you go down that road and you start to allow yourselves into that sin, that a lot of times it can be that God may give you over to judicial hardness and you will not come out of it again. That is why the Proverbs says that those that are abhorred of the Lord fall into this pit. But I'm looking back on 40 years and I thank God that I know that some who in former churches have been disciplined because of falling into this sin have completely repented and coming back and I praise God for that. But it's very important to listen to what Lawson says on this. He says, it is a great happiness for young people to escape the snares of the seductive woman in which so many have been entangled and lost. A true love to the Word of God is imminently fitted to secure such a happiness. There is no viler object in nature than an adulteress. Her beauty is but a jewel of gold in a swine's snout. Though born and baptized in a Christian land, she is to be looked upon as a heathen woman and a stranger. Her words may be sweet and soft to the inexperienced ear of a thoughtless youth, But she is only flattering with her lips. Honey and milk seem to be under her tongue, but it is a cruel venom of dragons. She is a monster of ingratitude to that husband who was a guide and protector of her youth. All the fervor of her first love is forgotten." So the hint here is that she has made a Christian profession. She may be a member of the church now, and some of these churches that are parishes, that the pastor is accountable and not just a local church. It's possible that she had a Christian profession, but she has forsaken it, so she returns the cruelest treatment for all that fond affection by which she was bound to him and the most endearing obligations. But her profaneness is still more shocking, for she violates that sacred bond which was instituted by him whom she presumes to call her God. and regards not the marriage oath which she swore by his great and awful name. In his work of temptation, John Owen says, this is so powerful, that's why I keep reading these things. You talk about getting to the heart of the matter or as, once was said by Rabbi Duncan, John Duncan, when he gave a copy of a treatise on indwelling students to say to them, be prepared for the knife. And nothing, Owen says, does the folly of the hearts of men show itself more openly in the days in which we live than in this cursed boldness. After so many warnings from God and so many sad experiences every day under their eyes, of running into and putting themselves upon temptations, any society, any company, any condition of outward advantages without once weighing what their strength or what their concern of their poor souls is, they are ready for, Though they go over the dead and the slain, that in those ways in past but even now fell down before them, yet they will go on without regard or trembling. At this door gone out hundreds of professors within a few years. If a castle or fort is never so strong and well fortified, yet if there be a treacherous party within you that is ready to betray it on every opportunity, there is no preserving it from the enemy. There are traitors in our hearts ready to take part, to close and side with every temptation and to give up all to them. I surrender, come in. and do your dirty work, yea, to solicit and bribe temptations to do their work as traitors inside an enemy. Do not flatter yourselves that you should hold out. As soon as any temptation befalls you, it will arise, tumultuate, cry, disquiet, seduce, and never give over until The temptation and the lust is either killed or satisfied. He that promises himself that the frame of his heart will be the same under a temptation as it is before the temptation will be woefully mistaken." End quote. And Lawson says, miserable are they who trust to who are alluring professions, for it's scarcely a hope that they will recover themselves from the snare of the devil. Scarcely a hope. There is some hope, but it's scarce. The mind is darkened and the conscience dead and the affections to or by uncleanness sunken to sensuality. How then can they again take hold of the paths of life? No doubt there is a virtue in the blood and spirit of Christ for the remission of the greatest sins and the purification of the most defiled souls. It is even admitted that whoremongers have been made illustrious monuments of the power of divine grace. First Corinthians 6 verse 11. But let it be remembered that these are miracles of grace who would cast himself into a deep pit in the hopes of coming out alive when almost all that fell into it were dashed in pieces or buried alive. Whoever pleases God shall escape from the devouring deep." So what is the progress of sin if you give in to it? This is a frightening statement and I first read it when I was studying, as I taught before you before, on the sin of final obduracy by Augustine Hopkins Strong, and he's quoting Jeremy Taylor, who lived from 1613 to 1667. He describes the progress of sin in the sinner, and it fits so well here. First, the sin startles him. then it becomes pleasing, then delightful, then frequent, then habitual, then confirmed, and the man is impenitent, then obstinate, then he is resolved never to repent, then damned. Proverbs 5, verse 3, for the lips of a strange woman drop as in honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil. Verse 4, but her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. The venom and sting of a serpent is concealed under the honey of her lips. Those who repent of their uncleanness will experience far more bitterness than ever they tasted pleasure. and their lawful gratifications, but few get off so well. And if persons continue hardened, the end is more bitter than death. It is like a two-edged sword which wounds and destroys both soul and body at once. Proverbs 5, verse 5. Her feet go down to death, her steps take hold on hell. She is on the highway to eternal ruin, and there she is carrying those that listen to her bewitching voice. Her house is the suburbs of the place of destruction, and her steps take hold on hell. Verse six, and this is where a loss and so had my attention. Alas, you should ponder the path of your love life, excuse me, her ways are movable that you cannot know them. Listen to this warning. And this really affected me the first time that I had read this, a well-known TV radio preacher had just fallen. When men enter into a course of sin, they have no intention to be damned. They intend only to indulge themselves in the pleasure of sin for a time, and then to return to the path of life. Millions of souls have been seduced to everlasting destruction by this one temptation of the old serpent. You shall not die, though you eat. Grace is free, and there is an abundance of time to repent. The wise man gives what may repel this temptation by letting us know how foolish it is for men to flatter themselves with the hope that they shall be fully, truly disposed and enabled to repent of their sin. Remember, brethren, repentance is a gift from God. Do not provoke the Holy Spirit to abandon you and leave you in any sin. But he says, her ways, this strange woman, a wanton woman, are immovable, that you cannot know them. She can form her mode of behavior in a hundred different shapes to entangle the heart of the lover. She spreads a thousand snares, and if you escape one of them, you will find that you were held fast by another. She knows well how to suit her words and behavior to your present humor, to lull your conscience asleep, and to spread before your eyes such a mist that shall prevent you from being able to describe the paths of life. If you ever think of the danger of your course and feel the necessity of changing it, she will urge you to spend a little time longer in the pleasures of sin. If her solicitations prevail, if you linger within the precincts of guilt, your resolutions are weakened and your passions gain new strength. What is the awful result? The devil obtains more influence. Conscience forcibly is repressed and ceases to reclaim with so loud a voice the bark has a cloth stuffed into it. The dog no longer barks, the dog no longer bites. The devil obtains more influence, conscience forcibly repressed, ceases to reclaim with so loud a voice, and God gives you up to the lust of your own heart and leaves you to choose your own delusions. Attend then to the wisest of men who instructs you to keep free of these dangerous temptations Verse 8, remove your way far from her and come not nigh the door of her house. But what need is there for so much preciseness? May not a man be permitted to talk with her merely by way of amusement? Is it unlawful to drink a glass in her house and to satisfy our curiosity by observing what passes in it? And by what art she contrives to seduce those who are less established in virtue than ourselves? Yes, it is unlawful to have the least correspondence with her. By the requirements of the ceremonial law, no man was to be in the same house with a leper. The moral law forbids us to enter into the house full of the leprosy of sin. Her house is full of snares. Dare you then promise yourself that the fire of licentious passion shall not be kindled and blown up into a flame that you cannot quench? The devil will tempt you enough without your own help. To tempt is his business, and as you love your life and your own soul, give him no assistance in the work of destruction. So I'll just read a couple of verses in Proverbs 6, and I'll close it with an illustration for an application. Proverbs 6, reproofs of instruction are the way of life. Verse 24, to keep you from the immoral woman, from the flattery of the wayward wife's tongue. Do not lust after her beauty in your heart, neither let her captivate you with her eyelids. For a prostitute reduces you to a piece of bread. The adulteress hunts for your precious life. Can a man scoop fire into his lap and his clothes not be burned? Or can one walk on hot coals and his feet not be scorched? So is he who goes in to his neighbor's wife, whoever touches her will not be unpunished. So I wanna tell you a story that is true. And it comes from a book called Death, Bad Saints by Davis W. Clark, 1851. The chapter title is called The Apostate, and there's numerous. Illustrations in it, it's the largest book of its kind that I had ever seen. The plague was going on in New York City where the man pastored. So with his time, since it was dangerous to visit the flock, he gathered all of these together. And I know a number of them come from J.G. Pike, who was a Baptist pastor who wrote a lot earlier, and very, very good books that your children would do well to get hold of J.G. Pike. So the story is told by a friend of a pastor who witnessed this awful scene. This is what happens when a professing Christian marries a wanton woman. Ron Arnold, and that isn't his name, late of Maryland in those days, they didn't give the full name, they gave the two initials. At the age of about 20, he became anxious for his soul and convinced that the course he had previously pursued if persisted in would lead to endless misery. With this conviction, he resolved to seek the Lord while he might be found, and it was not long before he thought he had obtained an interest in him and joined the church. For some time, his life was apparently consistent with his profession. At length, he formed an acquaintance with an unprincipled young lady of great personal attractions, but an entire stranger to Christianity, be not unequally yoked. And although she was not pleased with his Christian profession, yet his family and personal appearance were such that she consented to marriage, thinking that in due time she would be able to cure him of his religious frenzy. She soon began the attempt. At first she urged that if they wished to be thought well of by their friends, they ought not to refuse to join them at places of diversion and amusement. We can't avoid these places of diversion. What will they think of us? That he must know how persons of his convictions were despised by people of respectability. and that he had so much reading and praying in his house and neighbors laughed at him. In short, she said, I married you to be happy, but I utterly despair of happiness unless you give up your religion and be like other people. He told her that happiness was what he wanted, but he never found it the way she proposed. That the happiness which sprung from with the customs and pleasures of this world was not substantial. It couldn't be maintained. Though for the present it might be sweet, in the end it would be bitter as death. Having found these efforts unavailing to obtain her purpose, she refused to attend family devotion. He wept, grieved, and in secret often prayed for her. She continued to employ every strategy in which her wicked imagination could invent. At length, wearied by your constant opposition and persecution, he resolved he would try to get to heaven alone. And if she would not go with him and determined to attend to his private devotions and admit those of the family, his wife, however, pursued him to his prayer closet and succeeded in driving him to the relinquishment of every religious duty. And now that he forsook God, God forsook him. The native corruptions of a wicked heart began to stir within him and raged until they broke out in a greater excess than he had ever been guilty of before. Some time after this, he heard a sermon in which his sins were brought fully to his remembrance. He then renewed his promise to serve the Lord, let him meet with ever so much opposition, but the obstacles were greater than he supposed. He found himself in the hands of the enemy with a less ability to resist the temptation that he had before. He was like a man who bound while asleep struggles but cannot free himself, groans under his bondage and strives for liberty but strives in vain. At this time, his wife redoubled her efforts and gained her point a second time. He continued sinning with little remorse until having lost all desire for the means of grace, and entirely forsaking the company of the people of God, he gave himself up to the customs and allurements of the world. having not the least regard to external morality. When at length he was laid on a bed of affliction and his life was despaired of, they said, you are going to die. Now his fears were alarmed, his sins appeared in dreadful colors before him. And such was the sense of his guilt that he dared not look to God for mercy. And I would say at that time, if I found such a person, And he was afraid that he dare not look for God's mercy. I said, let's talk. Let me try to help you. I think that you are not perceiving correctly your condition. But it went on. How can I ask, do you expect that God will pardon me when I have run contrary to his will? I have grieved his spirit, send away all the peace I once enjoyed and have gone further since my apostasy than I ever did before I named his name. Oh, that I had my life time to live over again. Oh, that I'd never been born. His disorder increased and his fears were increased to terror. If, said he, God would give me another trial, I would amend my ways. If God would not hear me, perhaps he will hear the prayers of his people on my behalf. O sin for them that they may pray for me, for how can I stand before the avenger of sin in this my lamentable condition?" His Christian friends visited him. God appeared to answer their prayers, and contrary to all expectation, he recovered. But as his bodily strength increased, he lost his convictions again, and by the time he was fully restored to health, he forgot his danger and actually returned to all his former vices. Some years after his recovery, I fell in company with him, the person who has given this narrative, And we entered into close conversation on the state of his soul. I asked him what he thought would be his destiny if he died in his present state. Why, he said, as sure as God is in heaven, I shall be damned. Well, I asked, do you mean to die in this state? Do you never think of changing your course of life? My friend, he said, I have no desire to serve God. I have no desire for anything that is good. To tell you the truth, I as much believe that my damnation is sealed as that I am now conversing with you. I remember the very time when the Spirit of God departed from me. And what may surprise you more than all, I am no more troubled about it than if it were no God to punish sin and no hell to punish sinners in. I was struck speechless at his remarks. It is not in my power to describe my feelings. The bold indifference which marked his features and the hardness of heart displayed by him were truly shocking. After I parted with him, my meditations were engaged upon the awful subject. Lord, I thought, with whom have I been conversing? Who is this man? An immortal spirit, clothed with flesh and blood, who appears to be sealed over to eternal damnation. A man who once had a day of grace and offer of mercy, but now appears to be lost, forever lost. To him, the door of heaven appeared to be shut, never more to be opened. He once had it in his power to accept salvation. Now, I think that needs to be qualified. And because he did not improve his time and talents, God has judicially taken them all away. I believe that that can happen. And given him over to blindness of mind, he is neither moved by mercy nor terrified by judgment. About two years after this, he was laid upon the bed of death. His conscience roared like thunder against him, and every sense appeared to be awakened, and it tormented him. His sickness was short, and his end was awful. His Christian friends visited him and desired to administer comfort, but he was comfortless. They told him that perhaps he was mistaken. It was not so bad as with him as he imagined. Oh, he said, would to God I was mistaken. Happy would it be for me, but can I be mistaken about my sickness? Is it my imagination which confines me here? Are my pains imaginary? No, no, they are a reality. And I am as certain of my damnation as my pains. Now, I don't have to give you a commentary on that so that we could figure out everything going on. You have a picture of it in a man in the iron cage. But let me finish. Some persons have offered to pray with him, but he forbade it and charged him not to attempt it. For he said that moment that you attempt to lift up your hearts to God on my behalf, I feel the flames of hell kindle in my soul. You might as well pray for Satan as for me. You would have as much success. Do you think to force God? Do you think to force the gates of heaven which are barred by justice against me? Never. Your prayer shall return upon your own head. I want none of them. The distress of his mind seemed to make him forget the pains of his body, and he continued in nearly the same situation until the day of his death. All the Christians or Christian ministers could say to him made no impression. He never asked one to pity or pray for him. Just before his departure, after he'd been rolling from side to side for some time, and if you read the accounts of these things, when a person is on his deathbed and is in this kind of despair, words cannot properly communicate what must be going on. Despair was depicted in his conscience. In one hour, I shall be where I shall never get another drop. She brought him the water. He drank it with greediness and reached back the cup with a trembling hand, then staring her, this wanton woman, into her face. His eyes flashing with tear, he cried out, Rebecca. Rebecca, you are the cause of my eternal damnation. He turned over and with an awful groan left the world to enter upon the untried realities of a dread eternity. And this is the closing comments. Beloved reader, meditate on this narrative. Do not be conformed to this world. Yield not to the temptations of the adversary of your souls. Fear much, lest the promise being left you of entering into the rest of the people of God, you come short, and a hardened and penitent sinner, a self-ruined backslider, finally inherit the portion of the hypocrite and unbeliever, where their worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched, and where the backslider shall be filled with his own ways." Amazing, I finished at exactly 10.05, and I don't want to stretch any limits here. I'll go ahead and pray. But I will make this plea to the men in the congregation. If you want to have a book study on this, and we've had some very good fellowship about this. We were on our way to the cabin of the Red River Meeting House, on a tour, and we had very, very good fellowship. I'm all for it, for the men, I'm just saying. Because, brother, I want to keep you from this. I have seen the wrecks of what happens if these things are allowed to go on. And I'll pray. Holy Father, all I could think of when standing up here and my topic was the Seventh Commandment, and I did not know I was the one that is going to be teaching on the Seventh Commandment until three or four weeks ago. Who is sufficient for these things? But Lord, all things that pertain to life and godliness has been given to us, and we have that strength within us. But we must be impetuous in prayer, and we cry to you, O God, lead us not into temptation, and deliver us from sins. And especially, O Lord, when our conscience is not convicting us, as it should, against sins of this nature. Waken them up, even if you have to. Hurt us deeply, which sometimes is the case. We commit our way to you in the name of Jesus. Amen.