the ensnaring power and deadly
influence of worldly vanities by Charles Simeon vanity of vanities
vanity of vanities all is vanity Ecclesiastes 1.2 By the word
vanity, we understand all those things which are apt to engross
the desires and affections of men. The Apostle John classes
them all under the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and
the pride of life. They all justly deserve to be
called vanities, because they are sure to disappoint the desires
and expectations of all who look to them for any solid and permanent
satisfaction. Yet these worldly vanities altogether
captivate and enslave the minds of the generality of men. The
unsaved man seeks nothing but them. His mind is not occupied
with anything above them. He is in the flesh. He walks
according to the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and
of the mind. His affections are altogether
set upon things below, and not on things above. His thoughts,
his conversation, his labours from day to day, all arise from
and terminate in the things of time and sense, and from these
things alone spring all his hopes and fears, his joys and sorrows. In order to escape the ensnaring
power and deadly influence of worldly vanities, we should set
a guard upon all our senses. The senses are inlets to all
manner of evil. Alas, alas! How often has the
mind been contaminated by what it has either seen or heard.
Many of the vilest lusts have found an entrance into the heart
by the senses. Some have found to their cost,
that one sinful idea which they have either seen in a book or
picture or heard in conversation has abode with them through life
when they have greatly desired to forget it, while hundreds
of sermons, which they would have been glad to have remembered,
have passed from their minds like the morning cloud. Behold,
David, the man after God's own heart! What reason had he to
curse the day that he ever looked upon Bathsheba, What reason,
too, had Solomon's fool to lament that ever he listened to the
voice of the enchanting adulteress? Proverbs chapter 7 verses 6 to
23 It is not without reason that Solomon advises us not to look
upon the wine when sparkling in the glass. Proverbs chapter
23 verses 31 to 32 We must resist the very first
entrance of sin into the soul, for it will operate like fire
on a house of wood. Alas! How great a matter does
a little fire kindle! James 3.5 Sin's progress is very
rapid. Who shall stop the conflagration
when once it has begun? When lust has conceived it brings
forth sin, and sin, when it is finished, brings forth death. James 1.15 We exhort all then,
like Job, to make a covenant with their eyes, and with their
ears also, Yes, and with the very imaginations of their heart,
that neither their physical nor intellectual eyes become an entrance
to sin or traitors to their souls. Oh, bear in mind the true character
of worldly pleasures, they are altogether vanity. Turn away
my eyes from beholding vanity. Psalm 119.37