Sylvanus Stall

Suggestion:—A chain of any kind, even a watch chain, will answer. Children could use paste-board and cut out ten links to represent the Ten Commandments. These links could be numbered and the older children could be asked to repeat the Ten Commandments in their order.

Now the Bible tells us that "whosoever will keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." (James ii:10.)

When a boy, I often wondered how it was that when a person broke one of the Commandments he was guilty of breaking the whole law. I could not understand it. Now, I desire to illustrate this truth to you to-day. Suppose that I were suspended over the edge of a great rock by this chain. If the chain should break, I would be plunged headlong, hundreds of feet down a very great embankment, upon rocks at the bottom of the chasm, and lose my life. You will readily see that it would not be necessary to break every link in this chain before I would begin to fall. In order to break this chain, it is only necessary to break a single link. The moment one link breaks, the entire continuity of the chain is broken.

I think you will see that it is just the same way with the law of God. If you break one of these Commandments, you have broken the law. If you fail to "remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy," or if you disobey your parents, and thus break the Commandment which says, "honor thy father and thy mother," or any other of the Commandments—if you break a single one, you have broken the entire chain of the Ten Commandments.

Now, there are a great many laws in this land of ours. There are laws against murder, and there are laws against stealing, and there are laws against getting drunk, and thousands of other laws. If a man simply steals and should be caught in the act and brought before the judge, he would be convicted of the crime and be sent to prison. It is not necessary that a man should be a murderer and a thief and a robber, and should be guilty of breaking all the laws of this land, before he is cast in prison. It is simply enough that he should have violated one law. By breaking only one law he becomes a criminal, and therefore he is cast into prison. The man who has committed but one murder has his entire liberty taken from him. The man who has been caught in the act of stealing but a single time is adjudged a thief, and all his liberty is taken from him.

So I think you will see that, in order to become a criminal, it is not necessary that we should break all the laws of the land, but if we break a single law we become criminals. So it is with the law of God; if we break only one of the Ten Commandments we are criminals before God, we are guilty of all.

Now the laws which men make in this and every other country are human laws. They are not absolutely perfect. They are changed and improved from time to time. But the Psalmist tells us, and we all know it to be true, that "The law of the Lord is perfect," and God requires us to keep His law. He says, "My son forget not my law, but let thine heart keep my commandments; for length of days and long life and peace, shall they add to thee." (Prov. iii:1.) If you and I are faithful in the keeping of God's law, then we can say like David, "I shall not be ashamed when I have respect unto all of thy commandments." (Psalm cxix:6.)

Now, if I take this chain, and attempt to break it, I find that God has not given me sufficient strength. Samson could have snapped it in a moment, but I am not strong enough. God has given to some men much more strength than to others.

If I were to pull very hard on this chain so as to break it, where do you suppose it would break first? Why the weakest link in the entire chain would be the first to break. No chain is stronger than its weakest link. So it is with you and with me, our greatest goodness is no greater than our greatest weakness. When men want to think how good they are, they think of the best things they have ever done. But the fact is that no man is better than the worst things he has ever done. A man who has committed murder is a murderer. He might have done hundreds of good things, but the law does not estimate him by the best things he has done. The law estimates that man by the worst thing he has done, and by that worst thing he is judged and condemned. And so it is with you and me before God. The worst things which we have ever done will be the things which will condemn us in the sight of the Judge of all the world.

While I am not able to break this metal chain, yet God has made it possible for every person to break the chain of the moral law. God has given human freedom to all men; He has told us what we should do, but He has left us free to obey or to disobey.

Now, when we examine into the requirements of the Ten Commandments, we find that everybody has violated some one or more of them at some time. There is not a man or woman or child any where who is not guilty of having broken God's law. And when I turn to the Scriptures, I find in Galatians the third chapter, 10th verse, that God says, "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." I see then by God's Word that we are all sinners, that we are all guilty before God, because we have violated His law, and next Sunday I will tell you what is to be done in view of the fact that we are all guilty before God.