charming fruit...

charming fruit

“If you have been truly born again
you have a new and holy nature,
and you are no longer moved
towards sinful objects as you were before.
The things that you once loved you now hate,
and therefore you will not run after them.
You can hardly understand it but so it is,
that your thoughts and tastes are radically changed.
You long for that very holiness
which once it was irksome to hear of;
and you loathe those vain pursuits
which were once your delights.
The man who puts his trust in the Lord
sees the pleasures of sin in a new light.
For he sees the evil which follows them
by noting the agonies which they brought
upon our Lord when He bore our sins
in His own body on the tree.
Without faith a man says to himself,
'This sin is a very pleasant thing,
why should I not enjoy it?
Surely I may eat this fruit,
which looks so charming
and is so much to be desired.'
The flesh sees honey in the drink,
but faith at once perceives
that there is poison in the cup.
Faith spies the snake in the grass
and gives warning of it.
Faith remembers death, judgment,
the great reward, the just punishment
and that dread word, eternity.”
- C. H. Spurgeon