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188 illustrations
In the first, one offense brought condemnation upon all mankind by a just and inevitable law.
Yet when a boulder interrupts this relentless current, something miraculous occurs: within seasons, a garden flourishes on its leeward side.
All men walk in paths as different as the characters they sustain—saints or sinners—yet sinners remain insensible to the objects leading them toward ruin.
We recoil from the depths of human depravity described here, yet the lesson cuts deeper than scandal.
Sin operates as a *phoros* (burden)—an insupportable load that detains sinners from Elohim, the only source of relief.
This principle, drawn from Proverbs 26:27, establishes a sobering truth: every child of Adam, until renewed by Divine grace, presents to Omnipotence and Omniscience the same moral aspect.
Exell identifies four formidable obstacles by which mortals attempt resistance to the Almighty's purposes.
Herod's sorrow when Salome demanded John the Baptist's head reveals a critical spiritual truth: not all tears flow from godly conviction.
Yet it remains what it always was: a beast, combining antagonism to both God and humanity.
First, the believer who imagines himself mature in Christ—perhaps believing he has attained "the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ" (Ephesians 4:13)—when in reality he remains a babe, deceives himself catastrophically.
Exell's Victorian commentary illuminates three critical dimensions of this truth.
First, the objective reality: Christ's sacrifice demonstrates that Yahweh is a God against whom no sinner can rebel without incurring death.
First, the *sources* of our vulnerability: the human heart harbors dormant moral propensities until outward circumstance awakens them.
Clean hands may indicate abstinence from visible transgressions, yet a clean heart—*katharos*—concerns the inward disposition, the bias of the will, and the affections themselves.
That ordinary crowing became extraordinary, ordained by Elohim for specific ends: to remind Peter of his broken promise, to witness to Christ's words Peter refused to believe, to reprove his sin, and to accuse his own conscience.
Once deflected from righteousness, nothing becomes easier than sinking into deepening abysses of iniquity.
His evasion reveals six patterns that persist in modern hearts: First, he assumed the matter held no claims upon him: "Take ye Him." Second, he substituted favorable opinion for decision: "I find in Him no fault." Third, he claimed powerlessness:...
"If he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry" (Proverbs 6:30). Joseph S. Exell's 1887 treatment exposes sin's cunning architecture. Before transgression ripens into external action, sin deploys imagination, invention, and reason itself to justify the forbidden object—representing...
There exists a happiness which the spirits of just men enter immediately upon separation from the body; yet after the resurrection and general judgment, the righteous shall proceed into life eternal.
The conduct of Yahweh toward those who have rejected Him is terrible, yet just and adorable.
God announces Himself the witness and judge of all mankind.
The upright—those bent on fulfilling God's will and keeping His commandments—walk a highway characterized not merely by abstinence from evil, but by active *apochōreō* (departure, turning away).
The children of Israel polluted Yahweh's inheritance by filling it with the carcases of their abominable things—idolatries, wicked inventions, and corrupt ways.
Joseph Spurgeon Exell observes that this man may pray correctly with his lips while harboring two catastrophic beliefs: first, "I shall not be moved"—immunity from consequence; second, "God hath forgotten.