There is one sin which leads men to the commission of all others- the desire to please themselves. If this has once been acted on, it constitutes that man a sinner, just as the breach of one law of the land stamps a man a criminal. We do not require him to run through the transgression of every law in the statute book in order to bring him in guilty. His having broken one is the evidence of his guilt; we need no further proof.
While acting then on this as a principle, we are spiritually dead in trespasses and sins. There is no life, no love, in us; as our Savior said to those by whom He was surrounded, "I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you." Now this is the real fact, that there is no assimilation to God in man's natural state, but the contrary principle—hatred, enmity.
But this is the position of every individual of the human race until called out of the general mass by divine grace. He is sprung from Adam, associated with him in his sin, as to its guilt not only of leaving God, but of positively re jetting Him. That is the world he loves, belongs to, and forms a part of; and whether his transgressions are few or great, he is doomed to destruction if he continues so to the end.
Just as in the case of the flood: doubtless there was a wide difference in the amount of actual delinquencies among the sinful inhabitants of the world at that time, but none were saved but Noah. Many might even have bid fair to be saved, so as to be near the ark; but none were saved except such as were in the ark. So in Sodom: many had not so openly exhibited their enmity to God as others; and yet, in the general conflagration, Lot alone escaped; and why? Just because all the others, without distinction, were opposed to God—were quite opposite to Him in every principle, and consequently had come to that state of exclusion from God's presence.
If so, we are at present without God in the world; and to be forever without Him is perfect misery. And is not this really the present position of the world, though men are unconscious of it? There is a veil cast on futurity as it regards them. They are occupied in the pleasure, amusements, profits, and pursuits of a Christ-rejecting world. But when the veil is raised, then will their position be disclosed. And whosoever is of Christ will have Christ's portion; they will enter on the enjoyment of that portion which by faith they now see is prepared for them.
By faith alone have we any of these exceeding great promises now. Now is the time for us to ascertain by faith our personal identification with Christ. Now are we to know our interest in Him.