Chains that Bind

You know what chains are binding your soul today. The awful chains of lust, untruthfulness, pride, infidelity, dishonesty, greed, and unbelief. These are the things that are going to bind men’s souls for eternity, and sink them down into outer darkness. It is said of the fallen angels that they are bound in everlasting chains under darkness; and that will be true also of men and women who reject Christ.
The chains of sin! You remember how you tried to break them! On New Year’s Day, you said, “Now I am going to swear off; I am not going to commit this sin or that sin any more. I am losing my willpower; these things have robbed me of my self-respect; I am ashamed to think of the habits of which no one knows, but myself and God; I will surely break loose.” And you tried and tried, and then fell back into the same old ways.
Or, you may have said, “It is of no use to try; I cannot free myself; I am bound with chains that I cannot break.” And so far as your own strength is concerned, that is perfectly true. But that is not the whole story. What have we seen of Peter? We have seen that he was a captive; he was guarded by Satan’s soldiers; he was wrapped in darkness; he was sound asleep; he was bound with chains; and there is one other word to complete the vivid description, he was under sentence of death, condemned already. There he lies in that prison, a picture of any poor sinner.
Why was the sentence against Peter not carried out? Herod was waiting until a more propitious time, when he was going to bring him before the people and put him to death. That suggests what God says about you, if you are still rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ. “He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:18). Notice, that you are not merely in danger of being condemned in the day of judgment; not only in danger of condemnation, if you die rejecting Christ; but you are condemned already. And why? Because you are even now a Christ-rejector. “He that believeth not is condemned already.” Again in John 3:36, we read, “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” Just as the wrath of Herod was abiding on Peter, and he was waiting the time for the sentence to be carried out, so the wrath of a righteous God abides upon the Christ-rejector, and soon the sentence will be carried out.