Brethren, sin is committed quickly. You have a temptation come, and you fall upon the sin and act upon it. The sin, the act of it, is transient and quickly gone. The guilt is that which sticks with you.
When a man or woman has satisfied their lust in a sinful way, the guilt sticks behind. Perhaps the time is gone, as far as the pleasure of it. Perhaps it was yesterday or such a night or time when you had the pleasure of it, but now the sin is gone (the pleasure of it) but the guilt sticks and that abides upon your spirit for all eternity, if you do not tend to it.
No, certainly, it must stick upon the spirit. It is not in the power of any creature in heaven or in earth to deliver you from it. The guilt so remains that, though you do not feel it now for the present, it may stick terribly for many years afterwards. But affliction is terrible only for the present, not for afterwards. Guilt and sin lay a foundation for misery for many years after. No, many times it is grievously painful to them long after it is committed, as it was in the case of Joseph's brothers.
We read of them that they committed that great sin against their brother, and it did not trouble them for long. But twenty two years after, when they were in affliction, the guilt of their sin came to them afresh when they were in prison. Now it was twenty two years after from the time they committed that sin to the time they were in trouble there!
So you who have committed sin and think some slight sorrow may wash it away, know that guilt may abide upon your spirits perhaps twenty, perhaps forty years after. And you who are young, take heed and know that sin is more evil than any affliction, for the sin that you commit when you are young may abide upon you, and youthful sins may prove to be the ages of terror.
It may be with you as with a man who gets a bruise. When he is young, he does not feel it, but when he is old, it aches in his bones and puts him in terrible pain many times. So many young people do not feel sin when their blood is hot, but afterwards, the guilt of sin abides upon them, and it is the torment of their souls when their blood is cold.[Jeremiah Burroughs]
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