(A) He Knew Something Of The Divine Character.
(B) He Knew What Righteousness Was (Micah 5:8).
(C) He Knew Of A Future State, And Longed For The Last End Of The Righteous.'
He would not break the law of God, and curse by word of mouth:
But yet for all that he wanted to curse. He wanted to do the wrong thing, and that made him bad. And when he durst not do it in one way, he did it in another.
So he is a picture of the universal blending and mixture that there is even in bad men.
It is not knowledge that makes a man good.
It is not aspirations after righteousness. These dwell more or less in all souls.
It is not desire to go to heaven , everybody has that desire.
Perfectly vicious men are devils. There is always the blending.
Many of us are trusting to these vagrant wishes, but my friends, it is not what a man would sometimes like, but what the whole set and tenor of his life tends towards, that makes him. There may be plenty of backwater eddies and cross-currents in the sea, but the tide goes on all the same.
All these fancies and their whole arrayOne cunning bosom sin blows quite away.'
Do not trust your convictions; they are powerless in the fight.
