What
devils never did
(William
S. Plumer, "Sinners Saved by Unmerited Kindness")
"You are the children of your father the Devil, and you love
to do the evil things he does." John 8:44
Such is the sad
state of man by nature, that he bears a fearful
resemblance to devils. This truth is very abasing to human pride.
Unconverted men are like devils in the sense in which a child
is like a man, or a cub like a lion. All admit that devils have
no holiness. In this unconverted men are precisely like them.
They do not love God's law, or nature, or government. They
are alienated from Him, and opposed to all His attributes and
authority. They do not glorify Him, do not delight in Him, do
not find pleasure in thinking on His name. They choose sin
and death--rather than holiness and life.
Laws, public opinion, and God's providence now restrain
many; but the heart of unrenewed man is as wicked as it
ever was. It hates holiness.
In some things, the ungodly do what devils
never did.
They reject mercy and grace, kindly offered to them by
the Lord. Devils never did that! You say--They never had
the opportunity. True, but they never did it. Neither did
they ever laugh at eternity, judgment and damnation.
They have too fearful a sense of the wrath of God to be
able to mock and jest at these most solemn things.
How dreadful is sin! It converts angels into devils, and men
into fiends! There is no unfitness in the arrangement which
God has made for having one great prison-house for all
His incorrigible foes. The very place prepared for the devil
and his angels--will be the final abode of impenitent men!
"Then He will also say to those on the left--Depart from
Me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for
the Devil and his angels!" Matthew 25:41
How dreadful will hell be!