Adding sin to sin.
This prophetic warning seems to have been spoken when the embassy to seek offensive and defensive alliance with Egypt had actually started on its way. The sin of neglecting to seek direction from God in the time of national anxiety was now added to by the sin of openly seeking help from man. There was a constant disposition on the part of the Jews of the later monarchy to seek their safety in national alliances. When imperiled by the Israelites, they sought help from the Syrians. When threatened by the Syrians, they made treaties with the Assyrians. When the Assyrians became their enemies, they tried to strengthen themselves with the support of hesitating, inactive Egypt. First men lose their faith in God; then they neglect to seek or obey him; and then they turn to mere human helpers. So sin follows on sin. Illustrating this from life and experience, with precise applications to each audience, it may be shown that—
I. SIN IS ADDED TO SIN IN THE NATURAL ORDER OF EVENTS. It is but the simple fact of life that a sin never goes alone. It always has its companions and its followers. It must, if for this one reason only—every sin is a disturbance of order by man's self-will; that self-will is sure to go on sinning in the effort to get the order right. The child who finds order disturbed by some wrong act, goes on to tell lies in its vain effort to get the order straight again.
II. SIN IS ADDED TO SIN BY THE INFLUENCE OF HABIT. There is a strange tendency in us all to do a second time what we have done once. This has not been sufficiently noticed, though it is the basis on which criminals are often detected. A sin done once, we are actually disposed to do again; and there seems to be even a bodily bias towards tiffs formation of habits. Parents and teachers have to watch for it, that they may check and correct it.
III. SIN IS ADDED TO SIN BY THE ENTICEMENTS OF SATAN. For an act of sin is giving Satan the advantage over us, putting ourselves into his power. And the increase of that power depends on leading us to do evil again. He will not let us stop and think. We must go on, as the gambler does, until we are enslaved and ruined.
IV. SIN IS ADDED TO SIN AS A BEGINNING OF PUNISHMENT. A man is usually "heady and high-minded" at the successful result of his first wrong; so, in order that he may be smitten and humbled, God lets him go on from sin to sin, until shame whips him awake, so that he may see his iniquity. The way round to right has often to be by the mire of sin added to sin. There is a gracious sense in which God lets willful men alone awhile, as he left these Jewish leaders who advocated the Egyptian alliance, that they might convince themselves of their own wickedness and folly.—R.T.