! 'They promise them liberty,' and 'they themselves become the bond
slaves of corruption.'

But, then, that is only the grossest and the lowest form of the truth
that is here. Paul's indictment against us is not anything so
exaggerated and extreme as that the animal nature predominates in all
who are not Christ's. That is not true, and is not what my text says.
But what it says is just this: that, given the immense varieties of
tastes and likings and desires which men have, the point and
characteristic feature of every godless life is that, be these what they
may, they become the dominant power in that life. Paul does not, of
course, deny that the sway and tyranny of such lusts and desires are
sometimes broken by remonstrances of conscience; sometimes suppressed by
considerations of prudence; sometimes by habit, by business, by
circumstances that force people into channels into which they would not
naturally let their lives run. He does not deny that often and often in
such a life there will be a dim desire for something better--that high
above the black and tumbling ocean of that life of corruption and
disorder, there lies a calm heaven with great stars of duty shining in
it. He does not deny that men are a law to themselves, as well as a
bundle of desires which they obey; but what he charges upon us, and what
I venture to bring as an indictment against you, and myself too, is
this: that apart from Christ it is not conscience that rules our lives;
that apart from Christ it is not sense of duty that is strongest; that
apart from Christ the real directing impulse to which the inward
proclivities, if not the outward activities, do yield in the main and on
the whole, is, as this text says, the things that we like, the
passionate desires of nature, the sensuous and godless heart.

And you say, 'Well, if it is so, what harm is it? Did not God make me
with these desires, and am not I meant to gratify them?' Yes, certainly.
The harm of it is, first of all, this, that it is an inversion of the
true order. The passionate desires about which I am speaking, be they
for money, be they for fame, or be they for any other of the gilded
baits of worldly joys--these passionate dislikes and likings, as well as
the purely animal ones--the longing for food, for drink, for any other
physical gratification--these were never meant to be men's guides. They
are meant to be impulses. They have motive power, but no directing
power. Do you start