By Martyn-Lloyd Jones
We now come to look at the apostle's final statement about man in sin; and that is, that he is under the wrath of God. In other words Paul deals with sin, as sin affects man's standing before God. He shows what God says and thinks and does about man in that condition which we have already considered: There can be no question at all but that this is the most important aspect of the subject. The others were vitally important, but there is nothing which is as important as this. It is because we so constantly forget this that the world is as it is today - and indeed that the Church is as she is. We are so self-centred and concerned about ourselves that we fail to remember that the most important thing above all else is the way in which God looks down upon it all. That is the subject with which we now have to deal.
The apostle puts it like this. He says that "we were all by nature the children of wrath, even as others". Here we have a twofold statement. And there is no doubt at all but that these two matters that we are compelled to look at together are two of the most difficult and perplexing subjects in the whole realm and range of biblical doctrine. That is why they have often led to great misunderstanding, and are subjects which people often in their ignorance not only fail to understand but bitterly resent. There is no subject, perhaps, which has more frequently led people to speak - albeit unconsciously - in a blasphemous manner, than this very matter which we are now going to consider. The apostle says two things: that we are all under the wrath of God; and secondly that we are all under the wrath of God by nature.
Why should we examine these things? Someone may well ask that question. Why spend our time on a subject like this, a difficult subject? There are so many other things that are interesting at the present time and attracting attention. Why not deal with them? And in any case, amid all the problems that confront the world, why turn to something like this?
Well, lest there be someone who is harbouring some such idea, and is provoked to put such a question, let me suggest certain reasons why it behoves us to consider this matter. The first is that it is part of Scripture. It is here in the Bible and, as we shall see, it is everywhere in the Bible. And if we regard the Bible as the Word of God, and our authority in all matters of faith and conduct, we cannot pick and choose; we must take it as it is and consider its every part and portion.
Secondly, we must do so because what we are told here is, after all, a question of fact. It is not theory, it is a statement of fact. If the biblical doctrine of the wrath of God is true, then it is the most important fact confronting every one of us at this moment; infinitely more important than any international conference that may be held, infinitely more important than whether there is to be a third world war or not. If this doctrine is true, then we are all involved in it, and our eternal destiny depends upon it. And the Bible states everywhere that it is a fact.
Another reason for considering it is this: that the apostle's whole argument is that we can never understand the love of God until we understand this doctrine. It is - the way in which we measure the love of God. There is a great deal of talk today about the love of God, and yet were we truly to love God, we would express it, we would show it. To love God is not merely to talk about it; to love God, as He Himself points out constantly in His Word, is to keep His commandments and to live for His glory. The argument here is that we really cannot understand the love of God unless we see it in the light of this other doctrine which we are now considering. So it is essential from that standpoint.
Let me put it in this way. I suggest that we can never truly understand why it is that the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, had to come into this world unless we understand this doctrine of the wrath of God and the judgment of God. As Christians we believe that the Son of God came into this world, that He laid aside the insignia of His eternal glory, was born as a babe in Bethlehem, and endured all that He endured, because that was essential for our salvation. But the question is, Why was it essential to our salvation? Why did all that have to take place before we could be saved? I defy anyone to answer that question adequately without bringing in this doctrine of the judgment of God and of the wrath of God. This is still more true when you look at the great doctrine of the cross and the death of our blessed Lord and Saviour. Why did Christ die? Why had He to die? If we say that we are saved by His blood, why are we saved by His blood? Why was it essential that He should die on that cross and be buried and rise again before we could be saved? There is only one adequate answer to these questions, and that is this doctrine of the wrath of God. The death of our Lord upon the cross is not absolutely necessary unless this doctrine is true. So, you see, it is a vital matter for us to consider.
Lastly, I would put it in a very practical form. This doctrine is essential from the standpoint of a true evangelism. Why is it that people do not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? Why is it that people are not Christians and not members of the Christian Church? Why does the Lord Jesus Christ not come into their calculations at all? In the last analysis there is only one answer to that question: they do not believe in Him because they have never seen any need of Him. And they have never seen any need of Him because they have never realised that they are sinners. And they have never realised that they are sinners because they have never realised the truth about the holiness of God and the justice and the righteousness of God; they have never known anything about God as the judge eternal and about the wrath of God against the sin of man. So you see this doctrine is essential in evangelism. If we really believe in salvation and in our absolute need of the Lord Jesus Christ, we must start with this doctrine. There, then, are the reasons for considering it. The apostle supplies them; I am simply repeating them.
Now let us look at the two statements themselves. The first thing the apostle says is that all who are born into this world are under the wrath of God. He says we "were all the children of wrath, even as others"; we were all the children of wrath, as the rest of mankind - that is what "even as others" means. Here we come face to face with this tremendous doctrine which I know full well is not only unpopular at the present time but is even hated and detested. People can scarcely control themselves as they speak about it. The whole modern idea has been for a number of years, that God is a God of love and that we must think of God only in terms of love. To talk about the wrath of God, we are told, is utterly incompatible with any idea of God as a God of love. The way in which it is put is this. They say: Of course that idea of the wrath of God stems from the ancient idea of God as a sort of tribal God. The trouble is that there are still certain Christians who believe in that God of the Old Testament, who was nothing but a tribal God. The gods of mythology were all of that type and of that kind; they displayed their anger and their wrath; but, of course, we know now from the New Testament and from Jesus that this is quite wrong and quite false. We no longer believe in the God of the Old Testament, we believe in the God of the New Testament, in the God and Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. You are familiar with the argument. Indeed, some go even further, and say that it is only during the past century that we really have become sufficiently enlightened to understand these matters, and that, until the beginning of this present century, people still believed in the wrath of God, and, therefore, had a completely false conception of God. I remember reading a very learned book in which the author stated that this idea of the wrath of God was nothing but a kind of projection into the character of God of the notion of the typical Victorian father, the stern repressive father who kept his children down and disciplined them severely and punished them. His suggestion was that people just carried that idea over and projected it right into God Himself. But that, he held, was nothing but a false bit of psychology from which we have by now delivered ourselves, and we now know that the idea of wrath in a God of love is something that is self-contradictory.
Is there any answer to such contentions? Let me dispose of one preliminary misunderstanding. There are some people who completely misinterpret the very term wrath. They think of wrath instinctively as some uncontrolled manifestation of anger. They cannot think of it apart from the idea of somebody trembling in a rage and pale with passion, who has lost self-control and is speaking in a violent manner and doing violent things. Now that is quite a false and wrong idea of the meaning of wrath. Sinful man, it is true, does sometimes manifest his wrath in this way, but all that does not enter at all into the term as used of God in the Bible. Wrath is nothing but a manifestation of indignation based upon justice. Indeed, we can go further and assert that the wrath of God, according to the scriptural teaching, is nothing but the other side of the love of God. It is the inevitable corollary of the rejection of the love of God. God is a God of love, but God is also and equally a God of justice and of righteousness; and if God's love is spurned and rejected there remains nothing but the justice and the righteousness and the wrath of God.
Now let us demonstrate the contention that this is something which is taught everywhere in the Scripture. In the Old Testament it is to be found at the very beginning. When man fell in the garden of Eden, God visited and spoke to him and pronounced judgment upon him. He drove him out of the garden, and there at the eastern gate of the garden He placed the cherubim and the flaming sword. What is the meaning of the flaming sword? It means just this very thing; it is the sword of God's justice, it is God's sword of wrath and of punishment, punishing man for his sin and making it impossible for him to come back and eat of the tree of life and live for ever. There, at the very beginning, is a manifestation of God's righteous judgment and His wrath upon sin. It is to be found running right through the Old Testament: in the story of the flood, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, and in the various punishments of the children of Israel, whether as a nation or as individuals. The Old Testament is full of this. God has given His law and He has pronounced that if men break it He will punish them - that is His wrath. And when they have done so He has punished them. He has punished individuals, He has punished the nation, even His own chosen people. He punished them, He poured His wrath upon them by raising up the Chaldean army which came and sacked Jerusalem and carried away the people as captives into Babylon. That was a manifestation of the wrath and the righteous judgment of God. It is everywhere in the Old Testament; you really cannot believe the Old Testament unless you accept this doctrine of the wrath of God.
When you come to the New Testament, in spite of all that modern critics would have us believe, the doctrine is again present everywhere. The first preacher in the New Testament is John the Baptist. What did he say? He said, "Flee from the wrath to come"; "Repent and be baptised every one of you, flee from the wrath to come". The Pharisees came to be baptised of John, and he looked at them and said, "Who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" It was his great message. Indeed it was the message of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. But, and most surprising of all, we find it in the verse that is generally quoted as the supreme statement of God as a God of love - John 3: 16, "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son". Why did He do so? The answer is "that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life". The alternative to everlasting life is perishing. And it is John 3: 16 that teaches it. But the thirty - sixth verse of that third chapter of John is still more plain, "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". In other words, all men are under the wrath of God, and unless we believe on the Son of God the wrath of God abides upon us. What can be more plain or explicit? There it is in the Gospel of John the apostle of love.
The apostle Paul teaches the same truth equally clearly. Preaching in Athens he says that, "God hath appointed a day in which he will judge the whole world in righteousness by this man whom he hath appointed". judgment! The wrath of God! In Romans 1: 18, we read: "For the wrath of God is manifested [is already revealed] from heaven, against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men". Paul has no gospel apart from this; it is because of the wrath of God that he is preaching the gospel. In this Epistle to the Ephesians which we are considering, in the fifth chapter and the sixth verse, you get exactly the same thing, "Let no man deceive you with vain words", says Paul "for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience". Again, in summarising his gospel to the Thessalonians in the First Epistle and in the first chapter and the last verse, Paul says that the Thessalonians have turned to Christ and await Him from heaven - what for?--well, he says, because He "delivered us from the wrath to come". The same idea is to be found in the Epistle to the Hebrews in several places. And if you go right on to the Book of Revelation you will find it there in a most remarkable phrase. It is a phrase about the "wrath of the Lamb". It seems quite contradictory, quite paradoxical. You think of a lamb in terms of innocence, harmlessness. And yet there is this pregnant phrase, "the wrath of the Lamb". It is the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the whole world who is to judge the world in righteousness. So it is quite clear that the idea that love and wrath are incompatible is a complete denial of the plain teaching of the Scriptures. Indeed I would go so far as to say that unless we start with this idea of the wrath of God against sin we cannot possibly understand the compassion of God, we cannot understand the love of God. It is only as I realise God's wrath against sin that I realise the full significance of His providing a way of salvation from it. If I do not understand this I do not understand that, and my talk about the love of God is mere loose sentimentality which is indeed a denial of the great biblical doctrine of the love of God.
The apostle's teaching, then, is that until we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ we are under the wrath of God. And the wrath of God is an expression of God's hatred of sin, an expression of God's punishment of sin. It is a clear statement to this effect, that if we die in our sins we go on to eternal punishment. That is the teaching of Scripture. The wrath of God against sin manifests itself finally in hell, where men and women remain outside the life of God in misery and wretchedness, slaves to their own lusts and desires, selfish and self-centred. The apostle's teaching is that that is the position of all who are not Christians. They are under the wrath of God in this life, they will remain under the wrath of God in the next life. That is the position of the sinner, according to Scripture. If you object to the idea you are objecting to the Scriptures, you are setting up some philosophic idea of your own contrary to their plain teaching. You are not arguing with me, you are arguing with the Scriptures. You are arguing with these holy apostles, you are arguing with the Son of God Himself If you believe that the Bible is divinely inspired, then you must not say, "But I don't understand". You are not asked to understand. I do not understand it, I do not pretend to understand it. But I start from this basis, that my mind is not only finite but is, furthermore, sinful, and that I cannot possibly understand fully the nature of God and the justice and the holiness of God. If we are going to base everything on our understanding, then we might as well give up at this point. For the Bible tell us that "the natural man" and "the natural mind" cannot understand the things of the Spirit of God (see I Corinthians 2). It was the desire to understand that led to the Fall. Intellectual pride and arrogance is the first and the last sin. The business of preaching is not to ask people to understand; the commission of the preacher is to proclaim the message. And the message is that all are under the wrath of God until they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. But indeed we must go even one step further.
That brings us to the second matter. The apostle says that we are all in that condition by nature - "we were all by nature the children of wrath, even as others". What does this by nature mean? We have already shown in a previous study in this series that this has one meaning only, and that is, "by birth". We were all by our very birth the children of wrath even as others. You notice that the apostle does not say that we "become" the children of wrath because of our nature; he says we "were". In other words the apostle, in line with the whole of the Bible, does not teach that we are born into this world in a state of innocence or in a state of neutrality, and that then, because we sin, we become sinners and thereby come under the wrath of God. That is not what he says: he says the exact opposite. He says that we are born into this world under the wrath of God; from the moment of our birth we are already under the wrath of God. It is not only something that is going to happen to us, neither is it something that results only from our actions. There are people who teach that, but that is a blank denial not only of the teaching here but, as we shall see, of the teaching elsewhere in Scripture. He does not say that we are under the wrath of God only because of our nature or because of the manifestation of our nature. He says that we are in that position "by birth".
What, then, does this mean? The answer is to be found in the fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans where it is argued out in detail and thoroughly from verse twelve to the end of the chapter. What is the argument? Let me summarise it. In that chapter the one great truth the apostle is concerned to prove is that our relationship, as believers to the Lord Jesus Christ is exactly analogous to our relationship formerly to Adam. He keeps on repeating the comparison and goes back and forth. He talks about what was true of us in Adam and then shows what is true of us now in the Lord Jesus Christ. He starts in verse twelve saying, "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all sinned", and so continues. Any careful and unbiased reading of that argument, which is basic to Paul's doctrine of assurance, will compel us to see that all along he says that our relationship to Adam was identical with our present relationship to Christ. If, therefore, we believe that we are what we are in Christ because of what God has imputed to us in Christ, we must also, believe exactly the same on the other side about what was imputed to us in Adam. That is the argument. But the apostle is not content merely to state it generally, he states it in particular also. Let me pick out the important verses. Take verse twelve: "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all sinned . . .". The punishment of sin is death. Adam sinned and death came upon him, yes, but not only upon Adam - upon all men. As a result of Adam's one sin, death passed upon all men. Why? The last part of the verse explains - "all sinned" in Adam. That is the statement which we will expound later.
Then take verses thirteen and fourteen of that chapter. Paul introduces a statement in a parenthesis, beginning at verse thirteen, "For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed where there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression". Are you tempted to say, What does all this mean ? I cannot follow it, I want some simple gospel of comfort. That is how we tend to speak, we who think that because we live in the twentieth century we are greatly superior to all generations that have ever lived before us. We pride ourselves on our being so learned and intellectual and able to understand great things, whereas previous generations were primitive. But we do not realise that the apostle Paul wrote these words to people who lived nearly two thousand years ago, and that he meant them to understand them. He was not writing to great philosophers; he was writing to simple Christian believers, many of whom were but slaves, and others soldiers in Caesar's household; and he meant those people to understand these things. Shame on us modern Christians who must be spoon-fed, and who just want something nice and easy and simple. If you do not accept this doctrine, then it is God's Word you are rejecting.
I again ask, What does it mean? Paul says that until the law sin was in the world. The law was given through Moses, you remember; but there was that long interval between Adam and Moses, at the least it was. probably a period of some two thousand five hundred years. Now during that whole long period sin was in the world, but sin, he says, is not imputed when there is no law. In other words, if there is not a law to define sin, the sin is not brought home to a man. The business of law is to bring the sin home to man's mind and heart and conscience. If there were no laws, for instance, about parking and about motoring, you and I might still do wrong things, but if there were not a law about these matters we could not be punished. That is what he is saying, "sin is not imputed when there is no law". "Nevertheless", he says, "death reigned from Adam to Moses". Here is the problem: though the law was not given until Moses, nevertheless, from Adam to Moses people died. All the people born into the world died. Why did they die? What is it that produced death in those people though there was no law imputing sin at that period? The apostle's answer is that there is only one explanation; they all died because they were involved in the sin of Adam. There is no other explanation. The only reason why death reigned from Adam to Moses is that that one sin of Adam brought death upon the whole of his posterity. In other words, we are born "by nature the children of wrath".
Notice then the next thing, which is still more extraordinary. He says that death reigned from Adam to Moses, "even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression". What can that mean? It means that death reigned even over those persons who had not actually committed an act of sin as Adam did when he fell. Who are they? And there is only one possible answer; they were infants who died in infancy. All other men sinned. Everybody who has lived since Adam has committed deliberate acts of sin. The only people who have not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who have not deliberately sinned, are infants who are too young to exercise their will because they are not conscious. Death reigned, says Paul, from Adam to Moses, even over infants also. Why do infants die? There is only one answer. Infants die because Adam's transgression involves them. "Death passed upon an men, even upon them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression".
But going on to verse fifteen we read, "But not as the offence, so also is the free gift; for if through the offence of one many be dead". There it is again. Then he turns to the other side about Jesus Christ. In verse sixteen, we have, "And not as it was by one that sinned so is the gift" - and then, "for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification". The judgment, the condemnation, was by one to condemnation: the one sin of Adam brought this upon the whole of mankind. But conversely, he says, many sins are forgiven in the righteousness of One, even Jesus Christ. Then once more in verse eighteen: "Therefore, as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation". Is not that as explicit as anything could be? "As by the offence of one judgment came upon all men" - no exception - "to condemnation". We are "born the children of wrath". And finally, in verse nineteen, "For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners". You and I and all mankind were made or, as a more accurate translation puts it, "constituted" sinners by that one sin of Adam. That is the teaching. We are "all by nature the children of wrath even as others".
Ah, you say, I do not understand that, I cannot grasp that, it seems to me almost moral. Of course you do not understand it, Who can understand such things? It is not a question of understanding, it is a question of whether you believe the Scriptures not. For the apostle says exactly the same thing in I Corinthians 15, that great and - wonderful chapter which is read at funeral services, "As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive", and so on. It is precisely the same argument. It is the basis of the Christian faith. Whether we understand it or not, it is the truth. You have to explain the universality of sin; you have to explain the universality of death, and especially the death of infants. And this is the biblical answer. Adam was the whole of humanity and he represented the whole of humanity. He was our federal head. As the Lord Jesus Christ is the Representative of all who are saved, as His righteousness is imputed to us, so Adam was our representative and his sin is imputed to us. We fell in him, we are damned in him and because of his action. In exactly the same way those who believe in Christ are redeemed by Him and saved in Him and righteous in Him because of His action on our behalf That is the argument. If you believe the one side about Christ, you must believe the other about Adam. If you deny this, you are virtually denying that.
Let us be careful therefore. There is nothing more tragic than the way in which Christian people bring the relics of their philosophies and their own understanding into the Christian faith. Many who claim to believe the Bible, and who regard it as authoritative, reject it at this point because they do not like the doctrine, or because they cannot reconcile certain matters. But the reconciliation is here before us. Though we were dead in trespasses and sins, hateful and hating one another, polluted by sin, sinful in practice, living in trespasses and sins and under the wrath of God, and absolutely helpless and hopeless, the very God against whom we have sinned, the very God whom we have offended, has Himself provided the way of deliverance for us. He does so in the Person of His own dearly beloved Son, whom He did not spare even from the suffering and the agony and the shame of Calvary and that cruel death. He has offered us, and provides for us, the way of complete deliverance and reconciliation to Himself in spite of the fact that our sin in Adam and our own sins, and our own sinful state deserve nothing but His eternal wrath. That is the love of God! That is the "love so amazing, so divine"! God has done that for us, who deserve nothing but eternal wrath, which we could never have done for ourselves.
May God in His grace enable us to receive these things so that we may go on to consider the next verse with its glorious "but". Though all we have been considering was true of us, "God who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ". Blessed be the name of God!
http://articles.ochristian.com/article540.shtml
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Humanism-The Fifth Woe
By Martyn-Lloyd Jones
This is the fifth woe pronounced by Isaiah on his contemporaries and it deals with something for which we have a new word today - humanism, the creed of our so-called intellectuals.
The relevance of this verse in general, and in some particular respects, too, to our present condition, is something that should cause us to pause for a moment because it brings out certain truths so very clearly. The first is that it again reminds us that the Bible is a strangely contemporary book. People think it is out of date, and that is why they do not read it. They feel that the Bible has nothing to tell us about life today. But the simple answer is that if you but read the Bible, you will find that it tells you all about the modern world. If you want the best description of life as it is being lived at the present time, go to the Bible, and you will find it. That shows us that this is no ordinary book.
But the Bible also gives us the explanation of why things are as they are. It tells us that the essential human trouble is always the same. In other words, as the Bible puts it in the book of Ecclesiastes, "There is no new thing under the sun" (Eccles 1:9) - nothing at all. There is nothing so futile as the curious boast of modernity that it is "with it"; of all the boasts that is the emptiest. From the intellectual standpoint there is nothing quite so ridiculous as the way in which people think that modern life is something entirely new. They look back upon people who lived before them, and feel that those people knew nothing about life. They say, "But we have advanced, we have discovered a new way of thinking and of living!" But all that has happened so many times before and it is all in the Bible.
Modern men and women, with all their cleverness, are incapable of inventing a new sin. The worst forms of vice and evil being committed today are to be found somewhere in the Bible. Nothing new under the sun! This boast and claim of modernity, and the idea that the majority of people are not Christians because they are "up to date" and "twentieth-century people", is a most futile and foolish claim. I can understand people who say that they are not Christians and do not accept the message, but they must not say that this is because they live in the twentieth century. There is nothing new about such a rejection of Christianity. People have been rejecting it throughout the centuries, and for exactly the same reasons, as we shall show.
This astounding chapter in Isaiah's prophecy shows us these things very clearly, both the contemporary character of the word of God, and the fact that there is nothing new under the sun. History is most important, and if you study it you will find that it goes round in cycles. We think that we are advancing, but that is an illusion; we are always going round in a cycle. This is seen very clearly in the matter of fashions in clothing, as everybody knows. I was reading in a newspaper the other day of a man who kept a suit a number of years. For a long time he had been ashamed to wear it, but now it had again become the fashionable thing to wear!
This is not only true of clothing - it is equally true in the realm of thought, indeed in every realm. Human beings are never very original; they merely go on repeating themselves and the Bible brings that out in a most extraordinary manner.
What does humanism mean? I cannot give a better definition of it than these words of Isaiah, "Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!" Humanism is belief in humanity. It is interested solely in men and women without God. It banishes God because it believes that human beings are sufficient in and of themselves. That is the very essence of humanism. Man is the centre of the universe, and there is nothing bigger, and nothing greater.
There are two main types of humanism. There is what is called "classical humanism", which means that for your guidance in life and your understanding of life, you do not go to the Bible but instead you go back to Greek literature and philosophy, Greek drama and Greek poetry. Classical humanists are people who study these great Greek authors and conduct their lives according to their teaching.
It is no part of Christian teaching to disparage those Greeks; they were truly great men. But classical humanism teaches that there is nothing beyond them and that if you desire wisdom you must go back to the thinking and the meditation of these giant brains of the past. You study them and grapple with them, and try to understand what they thought and what they laid down. Then you try to put that into practice, and that is the way to live a good and harmonious life in this present world.
The other form that humanism takes is what is called "scientific humanism". This is the more popular of the two at the present time. The classical represents the poetic, the philosophic and so on, and on the other side there is the scientific outlook, the approach which says that the answer to the problems of the world is not going to come from Greek philosophy or poetry so much as from a scientific understanding of the whole universe, human beings included.
This is the more modem of the two humanisms. It claims that it is new, because the discoveries are at least comparatively recent, going back very little more than some four hundred years at the maximum. By delving into the mysteries of the universe and its constitution you discover the scientific truth about life, and from that you proceed to work out your whole scheme of living.
We must examine this because we are told, here in Isaiah, that this confidence in human wisdom leads to woe. But let us be clear about this. It is no part of the case for the Christian gospel to say anything derogatory of the intellect. Indeed, that is the very opposite of gospel teaching. The gospel places great value upon the intellect. Let nobody think that what Isaiah means is that there is no value in having a brain, or in the ability to use it, or in understanding, or the power of reason and so on. It is not that. There is nothing wrong with the intellect or with wisdom in themselves. Indeed, the Bible tells us that the highest gift that God has given to men and women in the realm of gifts-I am not talking about the soul and spirit but actual gifts- the highest of all the gifts is mind, reason, understanding.
The wonderful thing about human beings is that they can contemplate their own selves; they can analyse themselves, evaluate and criticise themselves. This is a tremendous gift, given, according to the Bible, by God - So we must say nothing derogatory about the intellect, reason, or the mind. The Christian preacher is not just a sentimentalist or an obscurantist. He is not just a man who tells stories and tries to entertain people. He is here to reason with them, because God has given them minds which they are meant to use. But, as I am going to show, the real explanation of the world's trouble is the fact that people's minds have gone wrong, that they do not know how to use them properly.
What, then, is the attitude of the Bible to humanism? It is that while there is everything that is right about the mind, the reason and the understanding, what is wrong is that people put their final confidence in the mind. They are so proud of it that they begin to worship it, they think that it is sufficient in and of itself and nothing is needed beyond that. The trouble arises when they begin to boast of reason and to claim that with their mind they can encompass the entire cosmos. This statement of Isaiah's puts it so perfectly - "Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes." They have put themselves up on a pedestal. "Look at me," they say, "am I not wonderful?" "Wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight." There is nothing wrong with being wise, but if you are wise in your own eyes, you are in a very dangerous condition. It is excellent to be prudent, but if you are prudent in your own sight, then you come under the condemnation that is delivered by the prophet.
I trust that that is clear. Far from saying that there is no value in intellect, I am going to use what little I have and I am going to ask you to do the same!
Why does God pronounce a woe upon those who are wise in their own eyes, and worship their brains and understanding - upon humanists? The first answer is that this is the very essence of their trouble and problem, this is the main cause of all the ills of the human race. Read the Bible and you will find that it says that this was their original trouble, and that it has been their trouble ever since. The temptation that first came to the man and the woman, as we have seen, was: "Hath God said?" (Gen 3:1). In other words, "Is God trying to keep you down? Is God trying to stand between you and a knowledge of good and evil? Is God trying to withhold something from you?"
"He is," said the devil, "because he knows that if you eat of that fruit you will become as gods yourselves, you will have understanding, you will know everything, you will be equal with God."
That was man's first sin, and it has been the cause of all his subsequent troubles.
But now let me show it in the New Testament. Take, for instance, what the apostle Paul says in the second half of Romans 1. He puts this very plainly. He is describing why the human race has become what it is, and he says,
"Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools." There it is exactly - "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up . . ." (Rom 1:21-24). This is a summary of the history of the human race.
In chapter 12 of Romans Paul puts the problem in the form of a piece of advice. We probably all need this advice: "Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits" (Rom 12:16). It is the same thing - the danger of trusting to your own wisdom, your own intellect, the feeling that you are wonderful and need no help at all.
It is found still more clearly in a great passage in 1 Corinthians from chapter 1:17 to the end of the third chapter. Here Paul draws a contrast between the gospel and the wisdom of the wise. Because they were trusting to their own intellects and their own understanding the Greek philosophers were dismissing the gospel as "foolish". That has always been the great trouble.
The Bible is full of this teaching. No kind of person was more condemned by our Lord than the Pharisee. The trouble was his conceit. He thought that he was all right, that he was very wise and that he was doing everything perfectly. Pharisees "trusted in themselves that they were righteous" (Lk 18:9). It is the same thing. They did not need any help and they resented the teaching of this upstart, as they regarded our Lord. Who was he to teach them? Pride of intellect: it was their central trouble, a manifestation of a curious kind of humanism. Christ also taught exactly the same point in his parable of the rich fool in the twelfth chapter of Luke's Gospel.
The case put forward in the Bible is that pride of intellect is, in a sense, the ultimate sin. This is the primary trouble that leads to all the others - men and women glorying in themselves, glorying especially in their intellect and their mind. In 1 Corinthians the apostle Paul explains how this becomes the ultimate sin. It is because men and women misappropriate God's greatest gift. God complimented human beings by making them in his own image, and he gave them this astounding gift. But this is the very thing that they use against God and for themselves, and so bring themselves down.
The second reason why a "woe" is pronounced on this is that people believe a lie. They think that they are wise and prudent; but they are not. Now this, surely, is a most astonishing fact. Modern men and women are proud of themselves, of their intellect and wisdom; they feel they are superior to all who have ever lived before them. But how can they possibly feel like that about themselves with the world as it is now and as it has been during this twentieth century, with horrible wars, mounting crime waves and utter confusion?
And the Bible explains this by saying that people glory in their wisdom and in their prudence because they are fools! The wiser the man or woman, the more humble they are. It is those who have a smattering of knowledge who are always difficult. Those who really have great knowledge know enough to know what they do not know. "A little learning is a dangerous thing!" And so the Bible says that the ultimate truth about those who do not believe in God, and who are not Christians, is that they are fools.
The Bible uses many terms in its descriptions of the sinner, but "fool" is the one it uses most frequently. Our Lord uses it in the parable about "the rich fool". Here is a man boasting - "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry" (Lk 12:19-20). The man who thought he was so clever, so wise, was nothing but a fool.
"I'm all right, Jack!" That is the modern way of putting it - "I'm all right; I've got money put by for the future. I've used my mind. What a clever fellow I am!"
"Thou fool," says God, "this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?" The Bible pronounces "woe" upon all this because it is a lie.
"But how do you prove that it's a lie?" asks someone.
Unfortunately, I can do so far too easily. I say that those who are wise and prudent in their own sight are to be condemned because they condemn themselves; they are a living lie. They claim to be wise; but how do they live? How do you test wisdom? How do you test intellect and understanding? It is not a matter of reading books and being able to give answers. That is the big mistake people make. No, the way to test people is not by how much they know, but by whether they have the power to apply what they know. Do they understand it sufficiently to put it into practice?
I have known many people who were excellent examinees, but who were useless afterwards. I have known people who, as medical students, could do well in examinations, they could learn facts off by heart and recite textbooks like parrots, but, clinically, when face to face with a patient, they were useless; they were quite incapable of applying their knowledge. But that is the test of wisdom.
The wise man or woman does not merely have knowledge - you can put that into computers - they have the power of appropriating and assimilating that knowledge until it becomes judgment. It becomes part of them, controlling their point of view, and determining their actions and practice. So our wisdom is judged not merely by the number of books we have read, or can quote and recite, but by the way we live, the way we use that knowledge. Christ put that in a famous question -"What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world [of knowledge and of wealth], and lose his own soul?" (Mk 8:36).
What about human beings individually at the present time? How are the so-called "wise" men and women living? Look at these people who can tell us all about life. How many times have some of them passed through the divorce courts? Take many of the most famous philosophers. Read their records. Never take people's books alone -find out something about them. To write a book is so easy, very much easier than it is to live! Yes, it is easier to preach than it is to live. But living is the test of wisdom. I am not interested in a man or woman's claim to great knowledge and perspicuity if they are failing in their own lives, if they are drunkards, or adulterers, if you cannot trust them. What then is the value of their knowledge and learning? They say they are wise, but they are not; they are fools, deceiving and deluding themselves.
But what of men and women collectively? How proud the world is of its learning, but look at it! While they are so proud of themselves and their intellect and so on, they must be reminded of these facts. With all their wisdom and knowledge, they have already had two world wars and they have blasted more people to destruction in this one century than ever before. That is what modern men and women with their wisdom and prudence do in practice. And here they are, still arguing about missiles and the means of destruction, still troubled by tensions and insecurity and discord and moral muddle.
Yet people go on boasting about their wisdom. They are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight - with their world a mess, with a kind of carnage before their very eyes! It is a lie! That is why it is condemned in the Bible. It is just boasting, nothing but talk. It has the bigness of an inflated balloon. It is loud in its profession, but there is no practice.
But I can demonstrate this in another way and that is the failure of people even to understand. They like to think that though they are not perfect saints, as they put it, they do have great understanding. But have they? "Wise in his own eyes." So what is your view of yourself? What is man? Do you understand him? Do you understand yourself? Do modern man and woman really understand themselves? Do they understand the meaning of life? They are so proud of their wisdom and knowledge, but what do they really tell us about life? Is it big, or is it little? Is it something grand or something ignoble? What is it?
Where, then, is their understanding? Where do they show their prudence and their wisdom? What is the whole meaning of the world? What is history? Is there any design in it at all or any purpose? Or is it all just a bag of nonsense, pointless, purposeless, just blundering along in any direction without anyone knowing where or what or how? Where is the wisdom in all this? What do men and women know about the most important things? They know a great deal about electricity and the atom and power, and all these abstruse scientific matters. I do not criticise that, but when you are talking about wisdom, what I want to know is: How do I live? What is it all about? How can I find happiness and peace? How can I live in such a way that I shall not be ashamed of myself at the end of my journey? That is wisdom, that is prudence.
But, further, people do not seem to know anything about the cause of their problems. These people who have been "wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight" for the last hundred years have been prophesying wonderful things for us in this century. We were going to solve all our problems. The Victorian thinkers - the philosophers, the poets, the politicians, the agnostics - all said this. The trouble with men and women, they said, was that they were too poor, and crime was inevitable while you had poverty. But once people were educated, once you gave them good houses and better salaries, everything would be put right. Well, we have dealt with most of those defects yet the problem is greater than ever - indeed, we are now told that the rising crime wave is due to affluence! Where is the wisdom? Where is the prudence? People obviously do not understand their problem, still less are they able to discover a cure.
I am told that I must not criticise modern dramatists and novelists. I am told that they are moralists who are trying to improve conditions. But what is their method? Their method of trying to improve is to describe. But surely you do not solve a problem by simply describing it; you do not improve a situation simply by painting it? The business of the moralist is to solve the problem, to get us out of the predicament. We do not need any more descriptions. We know all about it. There is no need for anybody to write a book to tell us how people sin: it is all to be found in the Bible. And not only is it all there, but anybody who has lived in this world knows something about It. We do not need novels and films and dramas to tell us how people behave. What we want to know is how to get out of moral failure and confusion, how to stop doing wrong, how to be delivered.
But I am told that the work of modern writers and dramatists is very realistic! All right, but that makes no difference. What would you think of a doctor who, the next time you are taken desperately ill, comes to you and gives you an account of your temperature and your pulse rate and your respiration rate and the colour of your skin and the state of your pupils and so on, who describes your condition to you in a vivid manner and says, "That is your condition, very serious, very bad" - and then goes home?
That is not a caricature of modern pundits, that is exactly what our humanists are telling us today. I will grant them this, they are experts at description. They can tell us all about ourselves, and analyse the condition for US. "There you are," they say, "that is your condition."
But they have nothing to give us. Why? Because nothing is higher in creation than human beings, and it is they who have failed.
Take yet another reason why the Bible pronounces a woe upon the humanist. This is much more serious. It does so not only because humanism is a lie, but because of what it produces, because of what it leads to. This is the really serious aspect of the matter. So what is it? First and foremost, it is pride itself. Pride is the greatest of all sins. It is more prolific in causing trouble than anything else in the world. It is also the ugliest of the sins, and what havoc it has caused in the long history of the human race.
And what we are examining is nothing but pride of intellect. It shows itself in the despising of all who have gone before, and modern scientific humanists are very fond of doing that. Nobody knew anything until they arrived on the scene. They despise their forefathers. This is seen in every realm. They dismiss all previous books, all previous knowledge. Everything is out of date; nothing is of any value. Indeed, there are foolish people who occupy Christian pulpits who are really saying that, in effect, nobody could truly understand the Bible until this generation with its modern knowledge. They dismiss nineteen centuries of Christian exposition and Christian learning. That in itself is enough to put them out of court - their colossal conceit and pride. It is ugly. And God hates it. He sees man standing up and inflating himself, and he pronounces his woe upon it.
Then that in turn leads to self-confidence and self-satisfaction. Our Lord has painted the perfect picture of this in his parable of the Pharisee and the publican who went up into the Temple to pray. Look at that Pharisee walking up right to the front. Here is a man who is pleased with himself, a man who has a mind and a brain; and he thanks God that he is what he is. He does not need any help; he does not ask for anything. He has everything; he can do everything himself! That is the kind of man whom Christ denounced most bitterly. "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!" There is nothing more terrible in the sight of God than self-confidence.
But what makes this self-confidence such a terrible thing is that it always leads to rebellion against God. I reminded you earlier on that that was the cause of the original sin. The devil came and said, "God is trying to hold you down." And Adam and Eve believed him and began to feel a hatred of God. They felt that if only they could get that knowledge, then all would be well, and they would be able to lead an independent life. So they elevated themselves in their own esteem, and human beings have been on that pedestal ever since.
Rebellion against God - that is the essence of humanism. The humanist says, "I do not believe in God and I will tell you why. I do not need him. I can carry on perfectly well without him. There is no God."
God's comment on that is found in Psalm 14: "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God" (v. 1). But there are many people today who think that nobody ever said that until this century. But David said that in Psalm 14 nearly three thousand years ago! It was true at that time, a thousand years before Christ was born. People were saying, "There is no God," and David said, "Yes, they say that because they are fools."
So humanists do not believe in God because, they say, we have no need of him. Why do people who are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight, need God? If they understand everything and can manage themselves and all life, well, they do not need God. That has increasingly been the position of the human race for the last hundred years, with knowledge growing and advancing and the various developments in scientific knowledge - we are all so advanced!
"Of course," they say, "there may have been a time when people needed God, but not now." Everybody has enough now. We have the money, we are getting better wages, we can get all we want! We can read, we have television sets, and we are men and women of knowledge. So we do not need God.
That is rebellion against God. "The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be" (Rom 8:7). That is always an immediate consequence of rebellion against God. The moment people think they are wise, and rebel against God, they begin to go wrong morally. This is a very subtle matter. Men and women in their folly do not realise that their real objection to God is that they have to obey him, that God is a God of justice, of righteousness and holiness. And the Bible tells us that God made man and woman in his own image, and he meant them to live in the same sort of manner as God himself.
But people do not want to live like that; they do not want to live upright, pure, disciplined and holy lives. They want to give rein to their passions and lusts. Desire, that is the trouble; forbidden fruit, of course. The illicit ah! This is love!
"Of course, stupid people don't understand," they say. "I thought I was in love before, but this is the real thing. I have it now. I thought I had, but I hadn't - this is true love!" Let them do what they like; let them commit adultery and spit upon the sanctities. "Don't talk about law," they say, "don't bring in morality. That's legalism. Love!"
The truth is, of course, that it is nothing but lust, but to suit their own lust and deaden their own conscience, they try to work out a philosophy, and in that philosophy there is nothing higher than human beings. There is no God, so they have nothing to fear; all is well and they can go on pleasing themselves.
There has never been any form of humanism without moral declension. The humanists I know claim to be moral - and in their own personal lives many of them are moral people - but the teaching of the Bible is that in every period when humanism has been in the ascendant, morality has invariably gone down. "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools," says Paul, as we have seen, in Romans 1:22. Then the moral declension came in.
Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather [in AV margin] than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature (Rom 1:24-26).
It is a recognised fact of history that some of the great Greek philosophers were moral perverts. High idealists, writing their blueprints of a Utopia, and yet guilty of the foulest vices! It always happens! The moral consequences always follow, and that is why God pronounces woe upon it. When people set themselves up as the final authority they always descend into the abyss. Why? Because they cannot extricate themselves, they have not got the power.
This leads us to the last point, which is that God pronounces "woe" upon this pride of intellect, this confidence in human understanding, because it is that which above everything else causes men and women to refuse God's way of salvation. This is the most calamitous thing of all. There they are in their awful plight and they try to extricate themselves. They perfect their educational systems, they multiply their cultural media. Never have they been so busy trying to put themselves right as they have been during the last hundred years. They have exhausted almost every conceivable approach and tried every avenue, but in spite of it all we see what is happening. And yet, in this very situation, when the gospel of Christ is offered to men and women, this gospel which alone can deliver them and set them free and save them, they refuse it.
Why is this? It is because they feel that they are sufficient, because they think that they are wise and prudent, because they still think that they can save themselves. Why do people not read history? Why do they not read their own books? History proves that men and women cannot deliver themselves, try as they will, with all their might and main. All great civilisations have gone down, and the present civilisation is going down. But people still refuse the offer of the gospel, They still laugh at Christ and ridicule the cross. They spit into the face of God and say they do not need him. This pride of intellect, this is the curse, this is the real trouble with humanity. They say, "I will not believe unless I can understand." They want to understand God! They think they are so big that they can measure God himself, they can measure Infinity!
So men and women are under the wrath and the woe of God, finally, because they refuse God's offer. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting.
For God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world throug him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: be he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light came into the world, and men love the darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. (Jn 3:16-19)
God pronounces a woe on all that; and I see calamity coming. More than ever before, men and women are standing up in their pride: proud of their own wisdom, wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight, saying they do not need God and that they can handle and order their own affairs. They maintain that they can perfect the world and they stand up and say all this, while refusing the gospel, ridiculing it and blaspheming against it! They are like that rich fool who turned to himself and congratulated himself, saying, "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry" (Lk 12:19).
"It's a good world," they say, congratulating themselves. "We're having a great time. Never had it so good!"
"But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee" (Lk 12:20).
What if some scientists are right, and this universe has not got many more years to go, what then? Where is your wisdom and your learning - where is it all? When God says, "Now, this night you must go out of this world, you must die" - whether of a virus infection or by bomb does not matter, but you have got to die- "This night thy soul shall be required of thee." What then? Do you know where you are going? Do you know what happens to you after death? Can you tell me what happens in that great unknown beyond? Here is wisdom - what am I? How do I live? How do I die? What happens to me afterwards? Where is your knowledge? What are you boasting of? The humanist has nothing, nothing at all, and God pronounces his "woes" upon it, and he does so in a very terrifying manner.
Let me direct your attention to some verses in the book of Revelation, which is the last book of the Bible, the book which tells us of the day that is coming when God will arise and say, "This night!" to the whole universe. And the great men of the earth, we are told:
..cried when they saw the smoke of her burning [this great city of Babylon, meaning civilisation], saying, What city is like unto this great city! And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas, that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate. Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her. And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all (Rev 18:18-21).
And this Babylon of civilisation is going to be destroyed in an hour when God arises. "Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!"
Is that the last word.) Thank God, it is not. But that is the last word as far as humanism is concerned. It is wrong, essentially. It is a fraud. It is deceit. It is a failure. It can do nothing. And it calls down wrath upon itself. But it is not the last word. In spite of this insanity of men and women, in spite of the fact that they are such blind fools, God has mercy upon them. There is an answer to it all.
"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom" (Prov 9:10). That is the answer. People must be awakened; they must realise it. They must see that they are fools, that they are failures and that their outlook and life will lead to a fatal end. And they must submit. The apostle Paul says, "If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise" (1 Cor 3:18). Human wisdom leads to nothing, but there is this "wisdom from God".
"We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God" (1 Cor 1:23-24).
"For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe" (I Cor 1:21).
When men and women had completely failed, "God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law" (Gal 4:4-5).
So what is necessary? Those who want to be wise must become as little children and admit that they know nothing. Let each one say, "I am but a child. I thought I knew but I was just fooling myself. I was drunk on my own intellect. When it comes to the point, I see that I know nothing about myself. I don't understand life, I don't understand the world and I cannot do anything about it. I cannot control myself and I see everything going wrong. I'm a fool, a child, I know nothing!" Blessed are those who come to that position. "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Mt 18:3).
And to such people, God says, "I sent my only begotten Son into the world to redeem people like you. You have become as a little child, so I offer you in Christ my Son, who bore your sins in his own body on the tree - I offer you free forgiveness. I will blot out all your sins as if you had never committed a sin in your life." God's wisdom in Christ! That is the way to solve the problem. This is heavenly, this is divine wisdom.
http://articles.ochristian.com/article533.shtml
This is the fifth woe pronounced by Isaiah on his contemporaries and it deals with something for which we have a new word today - humanism, the creed of our so-called intellectuals.
The relevance of this verse in general, and in some particular respects, too, to our present condition, is something that should cause us to pause for a moment because it brings out certain truths so very clearly. The first is that it again reminds us that the Bible is a strangely contemporary book. People think it is out of date, and that is why they do not read it. They feel that the Bible has nothing to tell us about life today. But the simple answer is that if you but read the Bible, you will find that it tells you all about the modern world. If you want the best description of life as it is being lived at the present time, go to the Bible, and you will find it. That shows us that this is no ordinary book.
But the Bible also gives us the explanation of why things are as they are. It tells us that the essential human trouble is always the same. In other words, as the Bible puts it in the book of Ecclesiastes, "There is no new thing under the sun" (Eccles 1:9) - nothing at all. There is nothing so futile as the curious boast of modernity that it is "with it"; of all the boasts that is the emptiest. From the intellectual standpoint there is nothing quite so ridiculous as the way in which people think that modern life is something entirely new. They look back upon people who lived before them, and feel that those people knew nothing about life. They say, "But we have advanced, we have discovered a new way of thinking and of living!" But all that has happened so many times before and it is all in the Bible.
Modern men and women, with all their cleverness, are incapable of inventing a new sin. The worst forms of vice and evil being committed today are to be found somewhere in the Bible. Nothing new under the sun! This boast and claim of modernity, and the idea that the majority of people are not Christians because they are "up to date" and "twentieth-century people", is a most futile and foolish claim. I can understand people who say that they are not Christians and do not accept the message, but they must not say that this is because they live in the twentieth century. There is nothing new about such a rejection of Christianity. People have been rejecting it throughout the centuries, and for exactly the same reasons, as we shall show.
This astounding chapter in Isaiah's prophecy shows us these things very clearly, both the contemporary character of the word of God, and the fact that there is nothing new under the sun. History is most important, and if you study it you will find that it goes round in cycles. We think that we are advancing, but that is an illusion; we are always going round in a cycle. This is seen very clearly in the matter of fashions in clothing, as everybody knows. I was reading in a newspaper the other day of a man who kept a suit a number of years. For a long time he had been ashamed to wear it, but now it had again become the fashionable thing to wear!
This is not only true of clothing - it is equally true in the realm of thought, indeed in every realm. Human beings are never very original; they merely go on repeating themselves and the Bible brings that out in a most extraordinary manner.
What does humanism mean? I cannot give a better definition of it than these words of Isaiah, "Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!" Humanism is belief in humanity. It is interested solely in men and women without God. It banishes God because it believes that human beings are sufficient in and of themselves. That is the very essence of humanism. Man is the centre of the universe, and there is nothing bigger, and nothing greater.
There are two main types of humanism. There is what is called "classical humanism", which means that for your guidance in life and your understanding of life, you do not go to the Bible but instead you go back to Greek literature and philosophy, Greek drama and Greek poetry. Classical humanists are people who study these great Greek authors and conduct their lives according to their teaching.
It is no part of Christian teaching to disparage those Greeks; they were truly great men. But classical humanism teaches that there is nothing beyond them and that if you desire wisdom you must go back to the thinking and the meditation of these giant brains of the past. You study them and grapple with them, and try to understand what they thought and what they laid down. Then you try to put that into practice, and that is the way to live a good and harmonious life in this present world.
The other form that humanism takes is what is called "scientific humanism". This is the more popular of the two at the present time. The classical represents the poetic, the philosophic and so on, and on the other side there is the scientific outlook, the approach which says that the answer to the problems of the world is not going to come from Greek philosophy or poetry so much as from a scientific understanding of the whole universe, human beings included.
This is the more modem of the two humanisms. It claims that it is new, because the discoveries are at least comparatively recent, going back very little more than some four hundred years at the maximum. By delving into the mysteries of the universe and its constitution you discover the scientific truth about life, and from that you proceed to work out your whole scheme of living.
We must examine this because we are told, here in Isaiah, that this confidence in human wisdom leads to woe. But let us be clear about this. It is no part of the case for the Christian gospel to say anything derogatory of the intellect. Indeed, that is the very opposite of gospel teaching. The gospel places great value upon the intellect. Let nobody think that what Isaiah means is that there is no value in having a brain, or in the ability to use it, or in understanding, or the power of reason and so on. It is not that. There is nothing wrong with the intellect or with wisdom in themselves. Indeed, the Bible tells us that the highest gift that God has given to men and women in the realm of gifts-I am not talking about the soul and spirit but actual gifts- the highest of all the gifts is mind, reason, understanding.
The wonderful thing about human beings is that they can contemplate their own selves; they can analyse themselves, evaluate and criticise themselves. This is a tremendous gift, given, according to the Bible, by God - So we must say nothing derogatory about the intellect, reason, or the mind. The Christian preacher is not just a sentimentalist or an obscurantist. He is not just a man who tells stories and tries to entertain people. He is here to reason with them, because God has given them minds which they are meant to use. But, as I am going to show, the real explanation of the world's trouble is the fact that people's minds have gone wrong, that they do not know how to use them properly.
What, then, is the attitude of the Bible to humanism? It is that while there is everything that is right about the mind, the reason and the understanding, what is wrong is that people put their final confidence in the mind. They are so proud of it that they begin to worship it, they think that it is sufficient in and of itself and nothing is needed beyond that. The trouble arises when they begin to boast of reason and to claim that with their mind they can encompass the entire cosmos. This statement of Isaiah's puts it so perfectly - "Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes." They have put themselves up on a pedestal. "Look at me," they say, "am I not wonderful?" "Wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight." There is nothing wrong with being wise, but if you are wise in your own eyes, you are in a very dangerous condition. It is excellent to be prudent, but if you are prudent in your own sight, then you come under the condemnation that is delivered by the prophet.
I trust that that is clear. Far from saying that there is no value in intellect, I am going to use what little I have and I am going to ask you to do the same!
Why does God pronounce a woe upon those who are wise in their own eyes, and worship their brains and understanding - upon humanists? The first answer is that this is the very essence of their trouble and problem, this is the main cause of all the ills of the human race. Read the Bible and you will find that it says that this was their original trouble, and that it has been their trouble ever since. The temptation that first came to the man and the woman, as we have seen, was: "Hath God said?" (Gen 3:1). In other words, "Is God trying to keep you down? Is God trying to stand between you and a knowledge of good and evil? Is God trying to withhold something from you?"
"He is," said the devil, "because he knows that if you eat of that fruit you will become as gods yourselves, you will have understanding, you will know everything, you will be equal with God."
That was man's first sin, and it has been the cause of all his subsequent troubles.
But now let me show it in the New Testament. Take, for instance, what the apostle Paul says in the second half of Romans 1. He puts this very plainly. He is describing why the human race has become what it is, and he says,
"Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools." There it is exactly - "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up . . ." (Rom 1:21-24). This is a summary of the history of the human race.
In chapter 12 of Romans Paul puts the problem in the form of a piece of advice. We probably all need this advice: "Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits" (Rom 12:16). It is the same thing - the danger of trusting to your own wisdom, your own intellect, the feeling that you are wonderful and need no help at all.
It is found still more clearly in a great passage in 1 Corinthians from chapter 1:17 to the end of the third chapter. Here Paul draws a contrast between the gospel and the wisdom of the wise. Because they were trusting to their own intellects and their own understanding the Greek philosophers were dismissing the gospel as "foolish". That has always been the great trouble.
The Bible is full of this teaching. No kind of person was more condemned by our Lord than the Pharisee. The trouble was his conceit. He thought that he was all right, that he was very wise and that he was doing everything perfectly. Pharisees "trusted in themselves that they were righteous" (Lk 18:9). It is the same thing. They did not need any help and they resented the teaching of this upstart, as they regarded our Lord. Who was he to teach them? Pride of intellect: it was their central trouble, a manifestation of a curious kind of humanism. Christ also taught exactly the same point in his parable of the rich fool in the twelfth chapter of Luke's Gospel.
The case put forward in the Bible is that pride of intellect is, in a sense, the ultimate sin. This is the primary trouble that leads to all the others - men and women glorying in themselves, glorying especially in their intellect and their mind. In 1 Corinthians the apostle Paul explains how this becomes the ultimate sin. It is because men and women misappropriate God's greatest gift. God complimented human beings by making them in his own image, and he gave them this astounding gift. But this is the very thing that they use against God and for themselves, and so bring themselves down.
The second reason why a "woe" is pronounced on this is that people believe a lie. They think that they are wise and prudent; but they are not. Now this, surely, is a most astonishing fact. Modern men and women are proud of themselves, of their intellect and wisdom; they feel they are superior to all who have ever lived before them. But how can they possibly feel like that about themselves with the world as it is now and as it has been during this twentieth century, with horrible wars, mounting crime waves and utter confusion?
And the Bible explains this by saying that people glory in their wisdom and in their prudence because they are fools! The wiser the man or woman, the more humble they are. It is those who have a smattering of knowledge who are always difficult. Those who really have great knowledge know enough to know what they do not know. "A little learning is a dangerous thing!" And so the Bible says that the ultimate truth about those who do not believe in God, and who are not Christians, is that they are fools.
The Bible uses many terms in its descriptions of the sinner, but "fool" is the one it uses most frequently. Our Lord uses it in the parable about "the rich fool". Here is a man boasting - "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry" (Lk 12:19-20). The man who thought he was so clever, so wise, was nothing but a fool.
"I'm all right, Jack!" That is the modern way of putting it - "I'm all right; I've got money put by for the future. I've used my mind. What a clever fellow I am!"
"Thou fool," says God, "this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?" The Bible pronounces "woe" upon all this because it is a lie.
"But how do you prove that it's a lie?" asks someone.
Unfortunately, I can do so far too easily. I say that those who are wise and prudent in their own sight are to be condemned because they condemn themselves; they are a living lie. They claim to be wise; but how do they live? How do you test wisdom? How do you test intellect and understanding? It is not a matter of reading books and being able to give answers. That is the big mistake people make. No, the way to test people is not by how much they know, but by whether they have the power to apply what they know. Do they understand it sufficiently to put it into practice?
I have known many people who were excellent examinees, but who were useless afterwards. I have known people who, as medical students, could do well in examinations, they could learn facts off by heart and recite textbooks like parrots, but, clinically, when face to face with a patient, they were useless; they were quite incapable of applying their knowledge. But that is the test of wisdom.
The wise man or woman does not merely have knowledge - you can put that into computers - they have the power of appropriating and assimilating that knowledge until it becomes judgment. It becomes part of them, controlling their point of view, and determining their actions and practice. So our wisdom is judged not merely by the number of books we have read, or can quote and recite, but by the way we live, the way we use that knowledge. Christ put that in a famous question -"What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world [of knowledge and of wealth], and lose his own soul?" (Mk 8:36).
What about human beings individually at the present time? How are the so-called "wise" men and women living? Look at these people who can tell us all about life. How many times have some of them passed through the divorce courts? Take many of the most famous philosophers. Read their records. Never take people's books alone -find out something about them. To write a book is so easy, very much easier than it is to live! Yes, it is easier to preach than it is to live. But living is the test of wisdom. I am not interested in a man or woman's claim to great knowledge and perspicuity if they are failing in their own lives, if they are drunkards, or adulterers, if you cannot trust them. What then is the value of their knowledge and learning? They say they are wise, but they are not; they are fools, deceiving and deluding themselves.
But what of men and women collectively? How proud the world is of its learning, but look at it! While they are so proud of themselves and their intellect and so on, they must be reminded of these facts. With all their wisdom and knowledge, they have already had two world wars and they have blasted more people to destruction in this one century than ever before. That is what modern men and women with their wisdom and prudence do in practice. And here they are, still arguing about missiles and the means of destruction, still troubled by tensions and insecurity and discord and moral muddle.
Yet people go on boasting about their wisdom. They are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight - with their world a mess, with a kind of carnage before their very eyes! It is a lie! That is why it is condemned in the Bible. It is just boasting, nothing but talk. It has the bigness of an inflated balloon. It is loud in its profession, but there is no practice.
But I can demonstrate this in another way and that is the failure of people even to understand. They like to think that though they are not perfect saints, as they put it, they do have great understanding. But have they? "Wise in his own eyes." So what is your view of yourself? What is man? Do you understand him? Do you understand yourself? Do modern man and woman really understand themselves? Do they understand the meaning of life? They are so proud of their wisdom and knowledge, but what do they really tell us about life? Is it big, or is it little? Is it something grand or something ignoble? What is it?
Where, then, is their understanding? Where do they show their prudence and their wisdom? What is the whole meaning of the world? What is history? Is there any design in it at all or any purpose? Or is it all just a bag of nonsense, pointless, purposeless, just blundering along in any direction without anyone knowing where or what or how? Where is the wisdom in all this? What do men and women know about the most important things? They know a great deal about electricity and the atom and power, and all these abstruse scientific matters. I do not criticise that, but when you are talking about wisdom, what I want to know is: How do I live? What is it all about? How can I find happiness and peace? How can I live in such a way that I shall not be ashamed of myself at the end of my journey? That is wisdom, that is prudence.
But, further, people do not seem to know anything about the cause of their problems. These people who have been "wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight" for the last hundred years have been prophesying wonderful things for us in this century. We were going to solve all our problems. The Victorian thinkers - the philosophers, the poets, the politicians, the agnostics - all said this. The trouble with men and women, they said, was that they were too poor, and crime was inevitable while you had poverty. But once people were educated, once you gave them good houses and better salaries, everything would be put right. Well, we have dealt with most of those defects yet the problem is greater than ever - indeed, we are now told that the rising crime wave is due to affluence! Where is the wisdom? Where is the prudence? People obviously do not understand their problem, still less are they able to discover a cure.
I am told that I must not criticise modern dramatists and novelists. I am told that they are moralists who are trying to improve conditions. But what is their method? Their method of trying to improve is to describe. But surely you do not solve a problem by simply describing it; you do not improve a situation simply by painting it? The business of the moralist is to solve the problem, to get us out of the predicament. We do not need any more descriptions. We know all about it. There is no need for anybody to write a book to tell us how people sin: it is all to be found in the Bible. And not only is it all there, but anybody who has lived in this world knows something about It. We do not need novels and films and dramas to tell us how people behave. What we want to know is how to get out of moral failure and confusion, how to stop doing wrong, how to be delivered.
But I am told that the work of modern writers and dramatists is very realistic! All right, but that makes no difference. What would you think of a doctor who, the next time you are taken desperately ill, comes to you and gives you an account of your temperature and your pulse rate and your respiration rate and the colour of your skin and the state of your pupils and so on, who describes your condition to you in a vivid manner and says, "That is your condition, very serious, very bad" - and then goes home?
That is not a caricature of modern pundits, that is exactly what our humanists are telling us today. I will grant them this, they are experts at description. They can tell us all about ourselves, and analyse the condition for US. "There you are," they say, "that is your condition."
But they have nothing to give us. Why? Because nothing is higher in creation than human beings, and it is they who have failed.
Take yet another reason why the Bible pronounces a woe upon the humanist. This is much more serious. It does so not only because humanism is a lie, but because of what it produces, because of what it leads to. This is the really serious aspect of the matter. So what is it? First and foremost, it is pride itself. Pride is the greatest of all sins. It is more prolific in causing trouble than anything else in the world. It is also the ugliest of the sins, and what havoc it has caused in the long history of the human race.
And what we are examining is nothing but pride of intellect. It shows itself in the despising of all who have gone before, and modern scientific humanists are very fond of doing that. Nobody knew anything until they arrived on the scene. They despise their forefathers. This is seen in every realm. They dismiss all previous books, all previous knowledge. Everything is out of date; nothing is of any value. Indeed, there are foolish people who occupy Christian pulpits who are really saying that, in effect, nobody could truly understand the Bible until this generation with its modern knowledge. They dismiss nineteen centuries of Christian exposition and Christian learning. That in itself is enough to put them out of court - their colossal conceit and pride. It is ugly. And God hates it. He sees man standing up and inflating himself, and he pronounces his woe upon it.
Then that in turn leads to self-confidence and self-satisfaction. Our Lord has painted the perfect picture of this in his parable of the Pharisee and the publican who went up into the Temple to pray. Look at that Pharisee walking up right to the front. Here is a man who is pleased with himself, a man who has a mind and a brain; and he thanks God that he is what he is. He does not need any help; he does not ask for anything. He has everything; he can do everything himself! That is the kind of man whom Christ denounced most bitterly. "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!" There is nothing more terrible in the sight of God than self-confidence.
But what makes this self-confidence such a terrible thing is that it always leads to rebellion against God. I reminded you earlier on that that was the cause of the original sin. The devil came and said, "God is trying to hold you down." And Adam and Eve believed him and began to feel a hatred of God. They felt that if only they could get that knowledge, then all would be well, and they would be able to lead an independent life. So they elevated themselves in their own esteem, and human beings have been on that pedestal ever since.
Rebellion against God - that is the essence of humanism. The humanist says, "I do not believe in God and I will tell you why. I do not need him. I can carry on perfectly well without him. There is no God."
God's comment on that is found in Psalm 14: "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God" (v. 1). But there are many people today who think that nobody ever said that until this century. But David said that in Psalm 14 nearly three thousand years ago! It was true at that time, a thousand years before Christ was born. People were saying, "There is no God," and David said, "Yes, they say that because they are fools."
So humanists do not believe in God because, they say, we have no need of him. Why do people who are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight, need God? If they understand everything and can manage themselves and all life, well, they do not need God. That has increasingly been the position of the human race for the last hundred years, with knowledge growing and advancing and the various developments in scientific knowledge - we are all so advanced!
"Of course," they say, "there may have been a time when people needed God, but not now." Everybody has enough now. We have the money, we are getting better wages, we can get all we want! We can read, we have television sets, and we are men and women of knowledge. So we do not need God.
That is rebellion against God. "The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be" (Rom 8:7). That is always an immediate consequence of rebellion against God. The moment people think they are wise, and rebel against God, they begin to go wrong morally. This is a very subtle matter. Men and women in their folly do not realise that their real objection to God is that they have to obey him, that God is a God of justice, of righteousness and holiness. And the Bible tells us that God made man and woman in his own image, and he meant them to live in the same sort of manner as God himself.
But people do not want to live like that; they do not want to live upright, pure, disciplined and holy lives. They want to give rein to their passions and lusts. Desire, that is the trouble; forbidden fruit, of course. The illicit ah! This is love!
"Of course, stupid people don't understand," they say. "I thought I was in love before, but this is the real thing. I have it now. I thought I had, but I hadn't - this is true love!" Let them do what they like; let them commit adultery and spit upon the sanctities. "Don't talk about law," they say, "don't bring in morality. That's legalism. Love!"
The truth is, of course, that it is nothing but lust, but to suit their own lust and deaden their own conscience, they try to work out a philosophy, and in that philosophy there is nothing higher than human beings. There is no God, so they have nothing to fear; all is well and they can go on pleasing themselves.
There has never been any form of humanism without moral declension. The humanists I know claim to be moral - and in their own personal lives many of them are moral people - but the teaching of the Bible is that in every period when humanism has been in the ascendant, morality has invariably gone down. "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools," says Paul, as we have seen, in Romans 1:22. Then the moral declension came in.
Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather [in AV margin] than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature (Rom 1:24-26).
It is a recognised fact of history that some of the great Greek philosophers were moral perverts. High idealists, writing their blueprints of a Utopia, and yet guilty of the foulest vices! It always happens! The moral consequences always follow, and that is why God pronounces woe upon it. When people set themselves up as the final authority they always descend into the abyss. Why? Because they cannot extricate themselves, they have not got the power.
This leads us to the last point, which is that God pronounces "woe" upon this pride of intellect, this confidence in human understanding, because it is that which above everything else causes men and women to refuse God's way of salvation. This is the most calamitous thing of all. There they are in their awful plight and they try to extricate themselves. They perfect their educational systems, they multiply their cultural media. Never have they been so busy trying to put themselves right as they have been during the last hundred years. They have exhausted almost every conceivable approach and tried every avenue, but in spite of it all we see what is happening. And yet, in this very situation, when the gospel of Christ is offered to men and women, this gospel which alone can deliver them and set them free and save them, they refuse it.
Why is this? It is because they feel that they are sufficient, because they think that they are wise and prudent, because they still think that they can save themselves. Why do people not read history? Why do they not read their own books? History proves that men and women cannot deliver themselves, try as they will, with all their might and main. All great civilisations have gone down, and the present civilisation is going down. But people still refuse the offer of the gospel, They still laugh at Christ and ridicule the cross. They spit into the face of God and say they do not need him. This pride of intellect, this is the curse, this is the real trouble with humanity. They say, "I will not believe unless I can understand." They want to understand God! They think they are so big that they can measure God himself, they can measure Infinity!
So men and women are under the wrath and the woe of God, finally, because they refuse God's offer. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting.
For God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world throug him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: be he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light came into the world, and men love the darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. (Jn 3:16-19)
God pronounces a woe on all that; and I see calamity coming. More than ever before, men and women are standing up in their pride: proud of their own wisdom, wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight, saying they do not need God and that they can handle and order their own affairs. They maintain that they can perfect the world and they stand up and say all this, while refusing the gospel, ridiculing it and blaspheming against it! They are like that rich fool who turned to himself and congratulated himself, saying, "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry" (Lk 12:19).
"It's a good world," they say, congratulating themselves. "We're having a great time. Never had it so good!"
"But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee" (Lk 12:20).
What if some scientists are right, and this universe has not got many more years to go, what then? Where is your wisdom and your learning - where is it all? When God says, "Now, this night you must go out of this world, you must die" - whether of a virus infection or by bomb does not matter, but you have got to die- "This night thy soul shall be required of thee." What then? Do you know where you are going? Do you know what happens to you after death? Can you tell me what happens in that great unknown beyond? Here is wisdom - what am I? How do I live? How do I die? What happens to me afterwards? Where is your knowledge? What are you boasting of? The humanist has nothing, nothing at all, and God pronounces his "woes" upon it, and he does so in a very terrifying manner.
Let me direct your attention to some verses in the book of Revelation, which is the last book of the Bible, the book which tells us of the day that is coming when God will arise and say, "This night!" to the whole universe. And the great men of the earth, we are told:
..cried when they saw the smoke of her burning [this great city of Babylon, meaning civilisation], saying, What city is like unto this great city! And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas, that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate. Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her. And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all (Rev 18:18-21).
And this Babylon of civilisation is going to be destroyed in an hour when God arises. "Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!"
Is that the last word.) Thank God, it is not. But that is the last word as far as humanism is concerned. It is wrong, essentially. It is a fraud. It is deceit. It is a failure. It can do nothing. And it calls down wrath upon itself. But it is not the last word. In spite of this insanity of men and women, in spite of the fact that they are such blind fools, God has mercy upon them. There is an answer to it all.
"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom" (Prov 9:10). That is the answer. People must be awakened; they must realise it. They must see that they are fools, that they are failures and that their outlook and life will lead to a fatal end. And they must submit. The apostle Paul says, "If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise" (1 Cor 3:18). Human wisdom leads to nothing, but there is this "wisdom from God".
"We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God" (1 Cor 1:23-24).
"For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe" (I Cor 1:21).
When men and women had completely failed, "God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law" (Gal 4:4-5).
So what is necessary? Those who want to be wise must become as little children and admit that they know nothing. Let each one say, "I am but a child. I thought I knew but I was just fooling myself. I was drunk on my own intellect. When it comes to the point, I see that I know nothing about myself. I don't understand life, I don't understand the world and I cannot do anything about it. I cannot control myself and I see everything going wrong. I'm a fool, a child, I know nothing!" Blessed are those who come to that position. "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Mt 18:3).
And to such people, God says, "I sent my only begotten Son into the world to redeem people like you. You have become as a little child, so I offer you in Christ my Son, who bore your sins in his own body on the tree - I offer you free forgiveness. I will blot out all your sins as if you had never committed a sin in your life." God's wisdom in Christ! That is the way to solve the problem. This is heavenly, this is divine wisdom.
http://articles.ochristian.com/article533.shtml
Silence
By Martin Hope Sutton
The late Martin Hope Sutton, of Reading, one of the founders of the great Seed Firm, and who showed his practical Christianity in many ways, sent, shortly before his death, in 1901, the following message to "Good Lines", the organ of the Commercial Travelers' Christian Association.
THIS is the only way to know God. 'Be still, and know that I am God.' 'God is in His Holy Temple; let all the earth keep silence before Him.'
A score of years ago, a friend placed in my hand a little book which became one of the turning points of my life. It was called 'True Peace.' It was an old medieval message, and it had but one thought, and it was this-that God was waiting in the depths of my being to talk to me if I would only get still enough to hear His voice.
I thought this would be a very easy matter, and so I began to get still. But I had no sooner commenced than a perfect pandemonium of voices reached my ears, a thousand clamouring notes from without and within, until I could hear nothing but their noise and din. Some of them were my own voice, some of them were my own questions, some of them were my own cares, some of them were my very prayers. Others were the suggestions of the tempter and the voices of the world's turmoil. Never before did there seem so many things to be done, to be said, to be thought; and in every direction I was pushed and pulled, and greeted with noisy acclamations of unspeakable unrest. It seemed necessary for me to listen to some of them, and to answer some of them; but God said, 'Be still, and know that I am God.' Then came the conflict of thoughts for the morrow, and its duties and cares; but God said, 'Be still.' And as I listened and slowly learned to obey, and shut my ears to every sound,I found after awhile that when the other voices ceased, or I ceased to hear them, there was a still, small voice in the depths of my being that began to speak with an inexpressible tenderness, power, and comfort. As I listened, it became to me the voice of prayer, and the voice of wisdom, and the voice of duty, and I did not need to think so hard, or pray so hard, or trust so hard, but that 'still, small voice' of the Holy Spirit in my heart was God's prayer in my secret soul, was God' s answer to all my questions, was God's life and strength for soul and body, and became the substance of all knowledge, and all prayer, and all blessing; for it was the living God Himself as my life and my all.
This is our spirit's deepest need. It is thus that we learn to know God; it is thus that we receive spiritual refreshment and nutriment; it is thus that our heart is nourished and fed; it is thus that we receive the Living Bread; it is thus that our very bodies are healed, and our spirit drinks in the life of our risen Lord, and we go forth to life's conflicts and duties like the flower that has drunk in, through the shades of night, the cool and crystal drops of dew. But, as the dew never falls on a stormy night, so the dews of His grace never come to the restless soul.
We cannot go through life strong and fresh on constant express trains; but we must have quiet hours, secret places of the Most High, times of waiting upon the Lord, when we renew our strength, and learn to mount up on wings as eagles, and then come back to run and not be weary, and to walk and not faint.
http://articles.ochristian.com/article4090.shtml
The late Martin Hope Sutton, of Reading, one of the founders of the great Seed Firm, and who showed his practical Christianity in many ways, sent, shortly before his death, in 1901, the following message to "Good Lines", the organ of the Commercial Travelers' Christian Association.
THIS is the only way to know God. 'Be still, and know that I am God.' 'God is in His Holy Temple; let all the earth keep silence before Him.'
A score of years ago, a friend placed in my hand a little book which became one of the turning points of my life. It was called 'True Peace.' It was an old medieval message, and it had but one thought, and it was this-that God was waiting in the depths of my being to talk to me if I would only get still enough to hear His voice.
I thought this would be a very easy matter, and so I began to get still. But I had no sooner commenced than a perfect pandemonium of voices reached my ears, a thousand clamouring notes from without and within, until I could hear nothing but their noise and din. Some of them were my own voice, some of them were my own questions, some of them were my own cares, some of them were my very prayers. Others were the suggestions of the tempter and the voices of the world's turmoil. Never before did there seem so many things to be done, to be said, to be thought; and in every direction I was pushed and pulled, and greeted with noisy acclamations of unspeakable unrest. It seemed necessary for me to listen to some of them, and to answer some of them; but God said, 'Be still, and know that I am God.' Then came the conflict of thoughts for the morrow, and its duties and cares; but God said, 'Be still.' And as I listened and slowly learned to obey, and shut my ears to every sound,I found after awhile that when the other voices ceased, or I ceased to hear them, there was a still, small voice in the depths of my being that began to speak with an inexpressible tenderness, power, and comfort. As I listened, it became to me the voice of prayer, and the voice of wisdom, and the voice of duty, and I did not need to think so hard, or pray so hard, or trust so hard, but that 'still, small voice' of the Holy Spirit in my heart was God's prayer in my secret soul, was God' s answer to all my questions, was God's life and strength for soul and body, and became the substance of all knowledge, and all prayer, and all blessing; for it was the living God Himself as my life and my all.
This is our spirit's deepest need. It is thus that we learn to know God; it is thus that we receive spiritual refreshment and nutriment; it is thus that our heart is nourished and fed; it is thus that we receive the Living Bread; it is thus that our very bodies are healed, and our spirit drinks in the life of our risen Lord, and we go forth to life's conflicts and duties like the flower that has drunk in, through the shades of night, the cool and crystal drops of dew. But, as the dew never falls on a stormy night, so the dews of His grace never come to the restless soul.
We cannot go through life strong and fresh on constant express trains; but we must have quiet hours, secret places of the Most High, times of waiting upon the Lord, when we renew our strength, and learn to mount up on wings as eagles, and then come back to run and not be weary, and to walk and not faint.
http://articles.ochristian.com/article4090.shtml
The Scorpion
By Harriet N. Cook
This frightful creature is several times mentioned in the Bible. It is the largest among insects, and more dangerous than any of them. It is sometimes found in Europe, and is there about four inches long; but those of hot countries are sometimes more than a foot in length.
The scorpion is very easily made angry, and then its sting is terrible; it very often causes death, but not always. In Revelation, 9:5, 6, we read, "And their torment was as the torment of a scorpion when he striketh a man; and in those days shall men seek death and shall not find it: and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them." This shows that the pain caused by their sting is very great. When a person has been stung by a scorpion, the part around the wound swells and becomes very painful, the hands and feet become cold, the skin is pale, and there is a feeling as though there were needles in every part of it. This pain often increases and rages until the person dies in great suffering.
It is well for man that scorpions destroy each other as readily as they do animals of a different kind. It is said that a hundred were once put together under a glass, where they immediately began to attack and kill each other; so that in a few days only fourteen were left alive. I have heard that if a circle of alcohol or spirit of any sort, is set on fire, and a scorpion placed within it so that he cannot get out on any side, he will sting himself so as to cause his death. I am not certain that this is true, and it would be a very cruel thing to try it even upon so dangerous an animal as the scorpion.
It seems that this creature was sometimes seen in the wilderness through which the children of Israel passed. When they had nearly reached the end of their journey, Moses reminded them to praise God for having kept them safely in so many dangers, while passing through "that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions and drought; where there was no water."
Our Savior asks, "If a son shall ask of his father an egg, will he give him a scorpion?" The scorpions in that country are about as large as an egg, and when rolled up look a little like one. Yet no father would be so wicked as to give one to his child instead of the egg which he needed for food.
Christ once said to his disciples, when they were going out to preach and to heal the diseases of the people, "Behold I give you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and nothing shall by any means hurt you." This was a very wonderful power; and whoever should see one of those disciples tread on the terrible scorpion without being hurt, would know that Christ was surely with him to take care of him.
http://articles.ochristian.com/article4255.shtml
This frightful creature is several times mentioned in the Bible. It is the largest among insects, and more dangerous than any of them. It is sometimes found in Europe, and is there about four inches long; but those of hot countries are sometimes more than a foot in length.
The scorpion is very easily made angry, and then its sting is terrible; it very often causes death, but not always. In Revelation, 9:5, 6, we read, "And their torment was as the torment of a scorpion when he striketh a man; and in those days shall men seek death and shall not find it: and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them." This shows that the pain caused by their sting is very great. When a person has been stung by a scorpion, the part around the wound swells and becomes very painful, the hands and feet become cold, the skin is pale, and there is a feeling as though there were needles in every part of it. This pain often increases and rages until the person dies in great suffering.
It is well for man that scorpions destroy each other as readily as they do animals of a different kind. It is said that a hundred were once put together under a glass, where they immediately began to attack and kill each other; so that in a few days only fourteen were left alive. I have heard that if a circle of alcohol or spirit of any sort, is set on fire, and a scorpion placed within it so that he cannot get out on any side, he will sting himself so as to cause his death. I am not certain that this is true, and it would be a very cruel thing to try it even upon so dangerous an animal as the scorpion.
It seems that this creature was sometimes seen in the wilderness through which the children of Israel passed. When they had nearly reached the end of their journey, Moses reminded them to praise God for having kept them safely in so many dangers, while passing through "that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions and drought; where there was no water."
Our Savior asks, "If a son shall ask of his father an egg, will he give him a scorpion?" The scorpions in that country are about as large as an egg, and when rolled up look a little like one. Yet no father would be so wicked as to give one to his child instead of the egg which he needed for food.
Christ once said to his disciples, when they were going out to preach and to heal the diseases of the people, "Behold I give you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and nothing shall by any means hurt you." This was a very wonderful power; and whoever should see one of those disciples tread on the terrible scorpion without being hurt, would know that Christ was surely with him to take care of him.
http://articles.ochristian.com/article4255.shtml
The Raven
By Harriet N. Cook
The raven has always been very well known to man, and is mentioned almost at the beginning of the Bible. You remember that this was the first bird that Noah sent out of the ark to see whether the waters had begun to dry up; and that it did not go back to him again. I suppose it was very glad to be at liberty after it had been shut up more than a year; and as it lives upon the flesh of other animals, it probably found food enough from the bodies of those that had been drowned.
It is a large bird, considerably larger than the crow; and its feathers are very black, very glossy, and very beautiful. People in ancient times seem to have liked a black color, and were especially pleased with black hair; so we read in the Song of Solomon, where one who is beautiful is described, "His locks are bushy, and black as a raven."
It is said that the raven always attacks the eye of an animal first; seeming to prefer that to every other part. This may explain one of the verses in Proverbs, "The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it." It has been the custom, in many countries, to hang those who have been guilty of great crimes on a tree or on a gallows in the open air; and there to leave the body for the birds to peck at and devour if they chose. I suppose this verse means that stubborn and disobedient children, or those who are not kind and respectful to their parents, must expect to come to some sad end; and they very often do so.
I have heard that the raven drives out its young ones very early from the nest, almost before they are able to seek their food. This may explain a verse in the Psalms, "The Lord giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry;" and another in Job, "Who provideth for the raven his food ? when his young ones cry unto God, wandering for lack of meat." Our Savior speaks of this bird in the 12th chapter of Luke, "Consider the ravens; for they neither sow nor reap; they have neither store-house nor barn; and God feedeth them." He was speaking to his disciples, and it was as much as to say, "If God takes care of the ravens, he will certainly take care of you; so you need not be anxious or afraid.
Have you read in the Bible how a good prophet's life was once saved by ravens? The people who were living then were very wicked, and would have been glad to kill the prophet Elijah; so God told him to go into the wilderness and live there alone by the side of a small brook. Elijah went to the brook, and there was water enough for him to drink, of course, but no food to keep him from starving. You may be sure that God did not forget his servant; but you would hardly believe, if it was not in the Bible, that he would send the ravens to carry food to him. Yet so it was: "the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the brook." It is supposed that he was fed in this way for as much as a year. It was a long time to stay there by himself; but I do not think he was lonely or afraid, for he loved God, and felt sure that He was always near him, even in the wilderness.
http://articles.ochristian.com/article4253.shtml
The raven has always been very well known to man, and is mentioned almost at the beginning of the Bible. You remember that this was the first bird that Noah sent out of the ark to see whether the waters had begun to dry up; and that it did not go back to him again. I suppose it was very glad to be at liberty after it had been shut up more than a year; and as it lives upon the flesh of other animals, it probably found food enough from the bodies of those that had been drowned.
It is a large bird, considerably larger than the crow; and its feathers are very black, very glossy, and very beautiful. People in ancient times seem to have liked a black color, and were especially pleased with black hair; so we read in the Song of Solomon, where one who is beautiful is described, "His locks are bushy, and black as a raven."
It is said that the raven always attacks the eye of an animal first; seeming to prefer that to every other part. This may explain one of the verses in Proverbs, "The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it." It has been the custom, in many countries, to hang those who have been guilty of great crimes on a tree or on a gallows in the open air; and there to leave the body for the birds to peck at and devour if they chose. I suppose this verse means that stubborn and disobedient children, or those who are not kind and respectful to their parents, must expect to come to some sad end; and they very often do so.
I have heard that the raven drives out its young ones very early from the nest, almost before they are able to seek their food. This may explain a verse in the Psalms, "The Lord giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry;" and another in Job, "Who provideth for the raven his food ? when his young ones cry unto God, wandering for lack of meat." Our Savior speaks of this bird in the 12th chapter of Luke, "Consider the ravens; for they neither sow nor reap; they have neither store-house nor barn; and God feedeth them." He was speaking to his disciples, and it was as much as to say, "If God takes care of the ravens, he will certainly take care of you; so you need not be anxious or afraid.
Have you read in the Bible how a good prophet's life was once saved by ravens? The people who were living then were very wicked, and would have been glad to kill the prophet Elijah; so God told him to go into the wilderness and live there alone by the side of a small brook. Elijah went to the brook, and there was water enough for him to drink, of course, but no food to keep him from starving. You may be sure that God did not forget his servant; but you would hardly believe, if it was not in the Bible, that he would send the ravens to carry food to him. Yet so it was: "the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the brook." It is supposed that he was fed in this way for as much as a year. It was a long time to stay there by himself; but I do not think he was lonely or afraid, for he loved God, and felt sure that He was always near him, even in the wilderness.
http://articles.ochristian.com/article4253.shtml
The Final Warning By Asahel Nettleton
By Asahel Nettleton
A STRONGER INDICATION OF A mind unreconciled to God can hardly be conceived than the unwillingness to receive reproof. The humble man is always thankful for admonition administered in the spirit of meekness and prompted by a sincere desire for the welfare of the offender; while the haughty sinner, whose ways are always right in his own eyes, indignantly rejects it. Hence the reasonable precaution which our Saviour addressed to His disciples: "Give not that which is holy unto dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you" (Matthew 7:6).
It is not the best policy to reprove offenders of every description and on all occasions. Prudence and judgment ought ever to be exercised in the discharge of this duty. Otherwise, the well-meant endeavors of the man who undertakes the unwelcome task of a censor will meet with a sad recompense. Few, when faithfully reminded of their offenses, will evince the placid temper of the pious David, who (doubtless in allusion to the plain and pointed reproof administered to him by the prophet Nathan) exclaimed, "Let the righteous smite me, it shall be a kindness; and let him reprove me, it shall be an excellent oil which shall not break my head!' (Psalm 141:5). Most persons, on the contrary, when closely pressed as he was, and to whose conscience crimes are sent home with a clearness which cannot be mistaken, "Thou art the man" (Second Samuel 12:7), will give free vent to their rage; and will not scruple to accost their reprovers in the libertine language ascribed to the wicked by the Psalmist, "With our tongues will we prevail; our lips are our own: who is Lord over us?" (Psalm 12:4).
The spirit which is discerned in the disdainful carriage of individuals of this sort, when reminded of their faults, is a striking commentary on the just maxims of the wise man, "He that reproveth a scorner getteth to himself shame: and he that rebuketh a wicked man getteth himself a blot" (Proverbs 9:7). "Reprove not a scorner, lest he hate thee; rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee" (Proverbs 9:8).
Such is the difference which marks the demeanor of the righteous and the wicked when reminded of their faults. From the passage which has been selected, it is purposed to contemplate:
First, The Care Which God Has Taken For the Reproof of Offenders - It Is Often Administered.
Second, The Effect of This Reproof-He Hardens His Neck.
Third, The Consequence of An Incorrigible Disposition-Sudden and Remediless Destruction.
THE CARE WHICH GOD HAS TAKEN FOR THE REPROOF OF OFFENDERS-IT IS OFTEN ADMINISTERED.
God has made it the duty of His people to deal faithfully with each other. "Exhort one another daily ... lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin" (Hebrews 3:13). And again, "Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbor, and not suffer sin upon him" (Leviticus 19:17). And says our Saviour, "If thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone; if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican" (Matthew 18:15-17). "Brethren," says James, "if any do err from the truth, and one convert him; let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins" (James 5:19,20).
Further, God has provided for the reproof of offenders by making it the duty of parents towards their children. To attend to the spiritual concerns of children and to restrain their wickedness is the most important of a parent's duty. "We have fathers of our flesh," says the Apostle, "which corrected us, and we gave them reverence" (Hebrews 12:9). Most persons can adopt his language in relation to their own experience, Yes, and what a load of guilt will rest upon the head of that ungodly child who has despised all the warnings, the entreaties, and tears and prayers of a pious father or an affectionate mother, who travailed in birth again that Christ might be formed in their souls, the hope of glory, when their own bodies slumber in the dust.
God also reproves sinners by His providence. He sends His judgments abroad in the earth that the inhabitants may learn righteousness. By the pains we feel, we are admonished that we are sinners and warned to flee from the wrath to come. We are admonished by His Word. "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works" (Second Timothy 3:16,17). All the invitations, commands, threatenings, and warnings in the Bible are so many admonitions to sinners.
Ministers reprove us. "Son of man, I have made thee a watchman to the house of Israel; therefore hear the word at My mouth, and give them warning from Me" (Ezekiel 3:17). "Show My people their transgressions, and the house of Jacob their sin" (Isaiah 58:1). Hear the injunction of Paul to Timothy, "I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom; preach the Word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables" (Second Timothy 4:14). It seems as if, in uttering this prediction, the Apostle had an eye upon sinners of our own day.
But woe to those ministers who do not feel the weight of this charge, and woe to those wincing hearers, who, having itching ears that will not endure sound doctrine, heap to themselves teachers that prophesy smooth things and say "peace, peace" to the wicked when God hath expressly declared that there is no peace for them. Against such preachers and hearers, the anger of the Lord and His jealousy will smoke and all the curses that are written in this Book shall lie upon them and the Lord shall blot out their names from under heaven.
"When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die; if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity: but his blood will I require at thine hand;" is the warning given by the Lord through the prophet (Ezekiel 33:8). Mark: the consequence of withholding the warning is the destruction of both the preacher and the hearer.
We are likewise reproved by His Spirit. "And when He is come, He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment" (John 16:8). The Spirit is sent to admonish. His language is, "Sinner, where are you going, and what will be the end of your sinful course? Prepare to meet your God!"
God sometimes reproves one sinner by the conviction and conversion of another. Here is one who has been your intimate friend and companion. Your views and feelings and pursuits and objects of delight, and I might add, your sins too, have been the same. Yesterday he thought and spoke and acted in all respects like yourself. Today he is alarmed at his awful condition. He trembles in view of a judgment to come. Hitherto he has been moving merrily along with you, side by side; but he dares follow you no further. He has quit your company and fled. But why? Alas, he finds himself a sinner. He has a soul to be saved or lost forever. This, my hearer, is strong preaching to some of you. When near and dear friends begin to forsake and shun you, it is time for you to begin to look about yourself. This is a silent but a solemn warning to you to flee from the wrath to come. When you see or hear of a hardened sinner, alarmed at his awful condition, sight or sound carries with it this solemn admonition: see the end to which you are coming. Though you may think to hold out, yet you cannot endure long. Your stout heart will soon tremble, and all your boasted courage will prove to be mere cowardice. Here you can see the fearful end to which you are fast approaching. You must repent or perish!
THE EFFECT OF THIS REPROOF-HE HARDENS HIS NECK
Allusion is made to the bullock which has repeatedly felt the galling yoke. At length his neck becomes hardened, and he can bear it without flinching or feeling. The sinner never hears a galling reproof without it producing some effect. If his heart is not subdued and changed, he becomes altogether more hardened. The child which is often corrected but not subdued becomes more hardened.
The sinner, under the afflictive hand of divine providence, is always made better or worse. If sickness and pain and the death of friends do not wean him from the world and drive him to God, they harden his heart. This is the effect of all the judgments of heaven and of all the calamities and miseries of human life. This is strikingly illustrated in the case of Pharaoh, King of Egypt. "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil" (Ecclesiastes 8:11). Thus despising the riches of divine goodness and forbearance and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads him to repentance, after his hardness and impenitent heart and with a stiff neck, he perseveres in his course of rebellion, treasuring up unto himself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God (Romans 2:4,5).
Oh, the awful reckoning that awaits such offenders!
It is wholly impossible that a person should be frequently and faithfully admonished for his crime, and yet experience no alteration in is condition. His rancorous pride will be augmented, and his conscience seared as with a hot iron. "The earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God; but that which beareth thorns and briars is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned" (Hebrews 6:7,8).
On this work, the sinner may make rapid advances. He may acquire the faculty of silencing the remonstrances of his conscience and, with a stoic apathy, proudly boast that he is superior to the thunders of Sinai. He may resist the mild accents of mercy and do despite to the Spirit of grace. He may spurn the offers of a bleeding Saviour. The darkened heavens, the rending rocks, and the quaking earth may have no effect; to all these, he may render himself impervious. But the day comes that shall burn as an oven. Then his stiff neck and his stout heart will not exempt him from the terrors that shall overtake the soul of every guilty culprit that shall stand at the judgment seat of God.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF AN INCORRIGIBLE DISPOSITION-SUDDEN AND REMEDILESS DESTRUCTION.
"He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy." He "shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power" (Second Thessalonians 1:9). This is the doom of the incorrigible sinner.
His punishment shall have no end. "Where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched" (Mark 9:44). "The smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever" (Revelation 14:11). "The rich man also died, and was buried; and in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and he cried and said... Father Abraham, have mercy on me... But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented." And to cut off from Dives the last hope of relief in his torments, Abraham added, "And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence" (Luke 16:22-26). The redemption of the soul is precious for the soul lives forever; but its destruction is eternal.
It is sudden. "....Shall suddenly be destroyed." Thus the Psalmist said, "How are they brought into desolation, as in a moment! They are utterly consumed with terrors" (Psalm 73:19). "As the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them" (Ecclesiastes 9:12). When sinners lose their souls, they always lose them unexpectedly, especially those who have been hardened offenders. "When they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape" (First Thessalonians 5:3).
This sentiment is verified in the providence of God. The fact is common that it has become a proverb. The text itself is the result of a wise observation of the conduct of divine providence. It embodies the wisdom of the ages. Thus was it with the inhabitants of the old world. They were often reproved by the preaching of Noah and by the strivings of the Spirit; but they hardened their necks and heeded neither. "They were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, and knew not until the flood came and took them all away' (Matthew 24:37-39). They were suddenly destroyed and that without remedy.
Thus it was with Pharaoh who was so often reproved by Moses and by the judgments of God. Conscience was aroused; but as often did he silence her voice and harden his neck. At length he was suddenly drowned and went down quickly into hell.
Thus it was with the inhabitants of Sodom. Righteous Lot warned them of their danger. The very evening before their destruction, the men of Sodom compassed the house of Lot around, both old and young, all, people from every quarter; and Lot went out and reproved them for their wickedness; but they were too far gone to bear it, and they said, "Stand back." This unwillingness to take reproof marked them out as ripe for destruction. The same night Lot went out and delivered his last warning to his sons-in-law, "Up, get ye out of this place, for the Lord will destroy this city' (Genesis 19:14). And what was the effect of this alarm? Why they felt just as sinners now feel; he seemed as one that mocked. So hardened were they that Lot appeared like a fool, and his message like an idle tale. They were not to be frightened by him. They saw no signs of an approaching storm and heard no distant thunder roar. The morning arose fair as ever; and all was peace and safety. "They did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all" (Luke 17:28,29). They were suddenly destroyed and that without remedy.
Ah! Methinks, it is enough to curdle the blood in our veins to consider how suddenly the most stupid and hardened sinner in the house may lose his soul. He may, and doubtless will, sleep on until he is awakened by the voice of God, "Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee" (Luke 12:20).
For there is no remedy. The sinner who continues to harden his neck under reproof cannot be saved. He shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy, because it cannot be prevented. Here is a sinner who will not take reproof. The question arises, what shall be done to prevent the loss of his soul? The answer is, Nothing! He is marching forward to eternity and to the pit of destruction with a proud heart and with a stiff neck, and nothing can stop him in his mad career. Such a sinner must go to destruction, and no means can prevent it. This is the meaning of our text. There is no remedy. The only remedy which can be applied for the salvation of sinners is the Gospel, and this remedy never takes effect without alarming and arousing the guilty conscience. But when warned to break off his sins and to flee from the wrath to come, the hardened sinners says, 1 will not be frightened to heaven."
Thus was it with the old world. "Noah, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house, by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith. (Hebrews 11:7). By his preaching, and by his example, he warned the wicked world of the coming flood. But they were not to be frightened. Thus was it with the inhabitants of Sodom. The preacher applied the most powerful means, the only remedy to prevent their destruction, "Up, get ye out of this place, for I will destroy the city' (Genesis 19:14); but they were not frightened. He seemed as one that mocked. They would not be alarmed, and so there was no remedy. What could the preacher do more? Nothing! Sinner, if you cannot be alarmed, you cannot be saved' If you do not believe that you are under sentence of death from God's holy law, then you do not feel your need of pardon, and "Ye will not come to Christ that ye might have life" (John 5:40). "He that believeth not is condemned already" (John 3:18), and "the wrath of God abideth on Him" (John 3:18, 36). The sinner who does not feel the awful conviction of this truth cannot be pardoned or saved.
The language of the Gospel is "Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish' (Luke 13:3). But no sinner ever repented without conviction of sin. Even the Spirit of God never interposes to rescue the sinner from destruction in any other way than by arousing his guilty conscience to perform its office. His genuine effects on the heart are thus described, "and when He is come, He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin because they believe not on Me; of righteousness because I go to My Father, and ye see Me no more; of judgment because the prince of this world is judged" (John 16:8-11). But you are not to be frightened! "When they heard this they were pricked in their hearts, and exclaimed, men and brethren what shall we do?" (Acts 2:37). But you are not to be frightened! "When the commandment came, sin revived, and I died" (Romans 7:9). But you are not to be frightened! The sinner who talks in this strain is either an infidel or ignorant of the contents of the Bible.
For such a sinner, with such views and such feelings, the Gospel contains no remedy. To such a sinner the Spirit of God offers no remedy. "He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy." The sinner who will not take reproof must be destroyed. The physician who has exhausted his skill and tried every experiment upon his patient can only look on and see him die. So fares it with the incorrigible sinner. You may soothe him in his sins; you may flatter his vanity; but this is only hastening the work of destruction. The only salutary application is conviction of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment to come; but this his proud heart will not endure. Every attempt to rescue him from destruction will be resisted. It will only exasperate. "He that reproveth a scorner getteth to himself shame, and he that rebuketh a wicked man getteth to himself a blot" (Proverbs 9:7). Therefore, says the wise man, "Reprove not a scorner lest he hate thee" (Proverbs 9:8).
But if such be the effect of reproof, methinks I hear someone say, "Then I will not hear the Gospel. I will shun all reproof." Answer: A resolution not to take reproof proclaims yourself to be one of the very persons described in the text. Whoever objects in this manner shows his determination to harden his neck at all events; for no one can shun reproof, or a preached Gospel, without hardening his neck in the most effectual manner. He voluntarily places himself beyond the reach of hope. The man who has drunk poison may say, "I will run, I will shun it!" But he is too late! You have heard the Gospel and can never rid yourself of its everlasting obligations. "If they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from Him that speaketh from heaven" (Hebrews 12:25). "They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. For the turning away of the simple shall slay them" (Proverbs 1:30-32).
From this subject we make the following reflections:
REFLECTION ONE. The equity of the sinner's punishment. He hardens his neck against reproof and brings destruction on himself. When the Spirit of God comes and with a still small voice whispers conviction to his guilty conscience and he feels some concern for his soul, he tries not to be alarmed but to appear above it. He shuns the light of divine truth. He loves darkness, and now he shall have darkness enough. God says, "Let their eyes be darkened that they may not see" (Psalm 69:23).
The sinner says, "Peace and safety, let us alone." God says, "He is joined to idols, let him alone" (Hosea 4:17). The sinner says, "Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee." (Acts 24:25). God says, "I go My way. My Spirit shall no longer strive."
The sinner chooses not to be under conviction, and now suppose God's choice and the sinner's choice should happen to coincide? All can see the equity of the sinner's punishment. If he will not lay up treasures in heaven, then he must lay up treasures in hell. This is done by hardening his own heart. After his hardness and impenitent heart, man treasures up unto himself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God (Romans 2:5).
When sinners are lost, their consciences will forever reprove them for destroying themselves. They are made to eat of the fruit of their own ways, and are filled with their own devices. They utterly perish in their own corruption. By hardening his neck, the sinner, with his own hand, doses the door of heaven against himself.
REFLECTION TWO. Our subject is full of alarms to the aged sinner. My aged fathers, how long have you lived without God in the world? How many warnings have you heard and lost? You have lived so many years and have heard so many warnings and have lost them all!
I now appeal to your own experience. Do you not find that the longer you live, the harder are your hearts? Can you not bear testimony to the truth of our text? Where are you now? Once you enjoyed a season of youth, but alas it is over and gone forever! Your sun is almost down. I address you on the very brink of the grave. You are just ready to launch into eternity; and if you are not suddenly saved, you will be suddenly destroyed and that without remedy. You now live in an interesting crisis, the season of a revival. It has an important bearing on the aged in this congregation. Oh, how many younger than yourselves have hopefully entered the kingdom of God before you! In this you have often been reproved. And are you still out of Christ? Your case is becoming more and more hopeless. The probability, oh fear, is a thousand to one that you will be lost. You have no prospect of witnessing another revival in your day. Let the present season slip, and where are you? This very warning, if neglected, will render your case more hopeless still.
REFLECTION THREE. Our subject contains a warning to the young. If he, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy, then beware how you feel and how you conduct yourself under reproof. How often have you been reproved by preaching, by conversation, by the conviction and conversion of your companions, by the admonition of conscience and by the voice of the Holy Spirit? How is this revival season likely to leave you? Certainly not as it found you! if you do not profit by all these warnings, you will be seven-fold harder than when it commenced. What improvement have you made of all the warnings you have heard? Where are you now. If my preaching does not prove a savor of life, it will be a savor of death unto death to your souls.
Every warning you neglect is rendering your salvation less and less probable. It is making the work of repentance more and more difficult. You are wandering farther and farther from God and plunging deeper and deeper into misery at every step which you advance. With your own hands you are now forging those chains which will bind you down in darkness and despair.
To you the Saviour calls, "Turn you' Turn you at My reproof!" "Because I have called, and you have refused; I have stretched out My hand, and no man regarded; but you have set at naught all My counsel, and would none of My reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon Me, but I will not answer; they shall seek Me early, but they shall not find Me: for that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord; they would none of My counsel; they despised all My reproof. Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices" (Proverbs 1:23-31). Today then, if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.
REFLECTION FOUR. The more stupid and hardened the sinner, the nearer to destruction he is. Thus was it with the inhabitants of the old world. They never were more thoughtless than before the flood came. It came when they least expected it. "They knew not until the flood came and took them all away' (Matthew 24:39). Never was Sodom more stupid than the very night before it was destroyed. The preaching of Lot seemed like an idle tale. They were doubtless making themselves merry with it until the very moment when the flames of hell took hold of them.
Thus was it with the rich fool: "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry" (Luke 12:19). And thus it has been with all who have gone to hell from under the light of the Gospel. They cried peace and safety until they were lost. Death came too soon, and they dropped into hell as into a snare, and it closed suddenly upon them.
Those sinners are commonly nearest destruction who think and care the least about it. Hell is truth learned too late. Stop, poor sinner! Stop and think!
http://articles.ochristian.com/article499.shtml
A STRONGER INDICATION OF A mind unreconciled to God can hardly be conceived than the unwillingness to receive reproof. The humble man is always thankful for admonition administered in the spirit of meekness and prompted by a sincere desire for the welfare of the offender; while the haughty sinner, whose ways are always right in his own eyes, indignantly rejects it. Hence the reasonable precaution which our Saviour addressed to His disciples: "Give not that which is holy unto dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you" (Matthew 7:6).
It is not the best policy to reprove offenders of every description and on all occasions. Prudence and judgment ought ever to be exercised in the discharge of this duty. Otherwise, the well-meant endeavors of the man who undertakes the unwelcome task of a censor will meet with a sad recompense. Few, when faithfully reminded of their offenses, will evince the placid temper of the pious David, who (doubtless in allusion to the plain and pointed reproof administered to him by the prophet Nathan) exclaimed, "Let the righteous smite me, it shall be a kindness; and let him reprove me, it shall be an excellent oil which shall not break my head!' (Psalm 141:5). Most persons, on the contrary, when closely pressed as he was, and to whose conscience crimes are sent home with a clearness which cannot be mistaken, "Thou art the man" (Second Samuel 12:7), will give free vent to their rage; and will not scruple to accost their reprovers in the libertine language ascribed to the wicked by the Psalmist, "With our tongues will we prevail; our lips are our own: who is Lord over us?" (Psalm 12:4).
The spirit which is discerned in the disdainful carriage of individuals of this sort, when reminded of their faults, is a striking commentary on the just maxims of the wise man, "He that reproveth a scorner getteth to himself shame: and he that rebuketh a wicked man getteth himself a blot" (Proverbs 9:7). "Reprove not a scorner, lest he hate thee; rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee" (Proverbs 9:8).
Such is the difference which marks the demeanor of the righteous and the wicked when reminded of their faults. From the passage which has been selected, it is purposed to contemplate:
First, The Care Which God Has Taken For the Reproof of Offenders - It Is Often Administered.
Second, The Effect of This Reproof-He Hardens His Neck.
Third, The Consequence of An Incorrigible Disposition-Sudden and Remediless Destruction.
THE CARE WHICH GOD HAS TAKEN FOR THE REPROOF OF OFFENDERS-IT IS OFTEN ADMINISTERED.
God has made it the duty of His people to deal faithfully with each other. "Exhort one another daily ... lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin" (Hebrews 3:13). And again, "Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbor, and not suffer sin upon him" (Leviticus 19:17). And says our Saviour, "If thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone; if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican" (Matthew 18:15-17). "Brethren," says James, "if any do err from the truth, and one convert him; let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins" (James 5:19,20).
Further, God has provided for the reproof of offenders by making it the duty of parents towards their children. To attend to the spiritual concerns of children and to restrain their wickedness is the most important of a parent's duty. "We have fathers of our flesh," says the Apostle, "which corrected us, and we gave them reverence" (Hebrews 12:9). Most persons can adopt his language in relation to their own experience, Yes, and what a load of guilt will rest upon the head of that ungodly child who has despised all the warnings, the entreaties, and tears and prayers of a pious father or an affectionate mother, who travailed in birth again that Christ might be formed in their souls, the hope of glory, when their own bodies slumber in the dust.
God also reproves sinners by His providence. He sends His judgments abroad in the earth that the inhabitants may learn righteousness. By the pains we feel, we are admonished that we are sinners and warned to flee from the wrath to come. We are admonished by His Word. "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works" (Second Timothy 3:16,17). All the invitations, commands, threatenings, and warnings in the Bible are so many admonitions to sinners.
Ministers reprove us. "Son of man, I have made thee a watchman to the house of Israel; therefore hear the word at My mouth, and give them warning from Me" (Ezekiel 3:17). "Show My people their transgressions, and the house of Jacob their sin" (Isaiah 58:1). Hear the injunction of Paul to Timothy, "I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom; preach the Word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables" (Second Timothy 4:14). It seems as if, in uttering this prediction, the Apostle had an eye upon sinners of our own day.
But woe to those ministers who do not feel the weight of this charge, and woe to those wincing hearers, who, having itching ears that will not endure sound doctrine, heap to themselves teachers that prophesy smooth things and say "peace, peace" to the wicked when God hath expressly declared that there is no peace for them. Against such preachers and hearers, the anger of the Lord and His jealousy will smoke and all the curses that are written in this Book shall lie upon them and the Lord shall blot out their names from under heaven.
"When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die; if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity: but his blood will I require at thine hand;" is the warning given by the Lord through the prophet (Ezekiel 33:8). Mark: the consequence of withholding the warning is the destruction of both the preacher and the hearer.
We are likewise reproved by His Spirit. "And when He is come, He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment" (John 16:8). The Spirit is sent to admonish. His language is, "Sinner, where are you going, and what will be the end of your sinful course? Prepare to meet your God!"
God sometimes reproves one sinner by the conviction and conversion of another. Here is one who has been your intimate friend and companion. Your views and feelings and pursuits and objects of delight, and I might add, your sins too, have been the same. Yesterday he thought and spoke and acted in all respects like yourself. Today he is alarmed at his awful condition. He trembles in view of a judgment to come. Hitherto he has been moving merrily along with you, side by side; but he dares follow you no further. He has quit your company and fled. But why? Alas, he finds himself a sinner. He has a soul to be saved or lost forever. This, my hearer, is strong preaching to some of you. When near and dear friends begin to forsake and shun you, it is time for you to begin to look about yourself. This is a silent but a solemn warning to you to flee from the wrath to come. When you see or hear of a hardened sinner, alarmed at his awful condition, sight or sound carries with it this solemn admonition: see the end to which you are coming. Though you may think to hold out, yet you cannot endure long. Your stout heart will soon tremble, and all your boasted courage will prove to be mere cowardice. Here you can see the fearful end to which you are fast approaching. You must repent or perish!
THE EFFECT OF THIS REPROOF-HE HARDENS HIS NECK
Allusion is made to the bullock which has repeatedly felt the galling yoke. At length his neck becomes hardened, and he can bear it without flinching or feeling. The sinner never hears a galling reproof without it producing some effect. If his heart is not subdued and changed, he becomes altogether more hardened. The child which is often corrected but not subdued becomes more hardened.
The sinner, under the afflictive hand of divine providence, is always made better or worse. If sickness and pain and the death of friends do not wean him from the world and drive him to God, they harden his heart. This is the effect of all the judgments of heaven and of all the calamities and miseries of human life. This is strikingly illustrated in the case of Pharaoh, King of Egypt. "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil" (Ecclesiastes 8:11). Thus despising the riches of divine goodness and forbearance and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads him to repentance, after his hardness and impenitent heart and with a stiff neck, he perseveres in his course of rebellion, treasuring up unto himself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God (Romans 2:4,5).
Oh, the awful reckoning that awaits such offenders!
It is wholly impossible that a person should be frequently and faithfully admonished for his crime, and yet experience no alteration in is condition. His rancorous pride will be augmented, and his conscience seared as with a hot iron. "The earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God; but that which beareth thorns and briars is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned" (Hebrews 6:7,8).
On this work, the sinner may make rapid advances. He may acquire the faculty of silencing the remonstrances of his conscience and, with a stoic apathy, proudly boast that he is superior to the thunders of Sinai. He may resist the mild accents of mercy and do despite to the Spirit of grace. He may spurn the offers of a bleeding Saviour. The darkened heavens, the rending rocks, and the quaking earth may have no effect; to all these, he may render himself impervious. But the day comes that shall burn as an oven. Then his stiff neck and his stout heart will not exempt him from the terrors that shall overtake the soul of every guilty culprit that shall stand at the judgment seat of God.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF AN INCORRIGIBLE DISPOSITION-SUDDEN AND REMEDILESS DESTRUCTION.
"He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy." He "shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power" (Second Thessalonians 1:9). This is the doom of the incorrigible sinner.
His punishment shall have no end. "Where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched" (Mark 9:44). "The smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever" (Revelation 14:11). "The rich man also died, and was buried; and in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and he cried and said... Father Abraham, have mercy on me... But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented." And to cut off from Dives the last hope of relief in his torments, Abraham added, "And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence" (Luke 16:22-26). The redemption of the soul is precious for the soul lives forever; but its destruction is eternal.
It is sudden. "....Shall suddenly be destroyed." Thus the Psalmist said, "How are they brought into desolation, as in a moment! They are utterly consumed with terrors" (Psalm 73:19). "As the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them" (Ecclesiastes 9:12). When sinners lose their souls, they always lose them unexpectedly, especially those who have been hardened offenders. "When they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape" (First Thessalonians 5:3).
This sentiment is verified in the providence of God. The fact is common that it has become a proverb. The text itself is the result of a wise observation of the conduct of divine providence. It embodies the wisdom of the ages. Thus was it with the inhabitants of the old world. They were often reproved by the preaching of Noah and by the strivings of the Spirit; but they hardened their necks and heeded neither. "They were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, and knew not until the flood came and took them all away' (Matthew 24:37-39). They were suddenly destroyed and that without remedy.
Thus it was with Pharaoh who was so often reproved by Moses and by the judgments of God. Conscience was aroused; but as often did he silence her voice and harden his neck. At length he was suddenly drowned and went down quickly into hell.
Thus it was with the inhabitants of Sodom. Righteous Lot warned them of their danger. The very evening before their destruction, the men of Sodom compassed the house of Lot around, both old and young, all, people from every quarter; and Lot went out and reproved them for their wickedness; but they were too far gone to bear it, and they said, "Stand back." This unwillingness to take reproof marked them out as ripe for destruction. The same night Lot went out and delivered his last warning to his sons-in-law, "Up, get ye out of this place, for the Lord will destroy this city' (Genesis 19:14). And what was the effect of this alarm? Why they felt just as sinners now feel; he seemed as one that mocked. So hardened were they that Lot appeared like a fool, and his message like an idle tale. They were not to be frightened by him. They saw no signs of an approaching storm and heard no distant thunder roar. The morning arose fair as ever; and all was peace and safety. "They did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all" (Luke 17:28,29). They were suddenly destroyed and that without remedy.
Ah! Methinks, it is enough to curdle the blood in our veins to consider how suddenly the most stupid and hardened sinner in the house may lose his soul. He may, and doubtless will, sleep on until he is awakened by the voice of God, "Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee" (Luke 12:20).
For there is no remedy. The sinner who continues to harden his neck under reproof cannot be saved. He shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy, because it cannot be prevented. Here is a sinner who will not take reproof. The question arises, what shall be done to prevent the loss of his soul? The answer is, Nothing! He is marching forward to eternity and to the pit of destruction with a proud heart and with a stiff neck, and nothing can stop him in his mad career. Such a sinner must go to destruction, and no means can prevent it. This is the meaning of our text. There is no remedy. The only remedy which can be applied for the salvation of sinners is the Gospel, and this remedy never takes effect without alarming and arousing the guilty conscience. But when warned to break off his sins and to flee from the wrath to come, the hardened sinners says, 1 will not be frightened to heaven."
Thus was it with the old world. "Noah, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house, by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith. (Hebrews 11:7). By his preaching, and by his example, he warned the wicked world of the coming flood. But they were not to be frightened. Thus was it with the inhabitants of Sodom. The preacher applied the most powerful means, the only remedy to prevent their destruction, "Up, get ye out of this place, for I will destroy the city' (Genesis 19:14); but they were not frightened. He seemed as one that mocked. They would not be alarmed, and so there was no remedy. What could the preacher do more? Nothing! Sinner, if you cannot be alarmed, you cannot be saved' If you do not believe that you are under sentence of death from God's holy law, then you do not feel your need of pardon, and "Ye will not come to Christ that ye might have life" (John 5:40). "He that believeth not is condemned already" (John 3:18), and "the wrath of God abideth on Him" (John 3:18, 36). The sinner who does not feel the awful conviction of this truth cannot be pardoned or saved.
The language of the Gospel is "Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish' (Luke 13:3). But no sinner ever repented without conviction of sin. Even the Spirit of God never interposes to rescue the sinner from destruction in any other way than by arousing his guilty conscience to perform its office. His genuine effects on the heart are thus described, "and when He is come, He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin because they believe not on Me; of righteousness because I go to My Father, and ye see Me no more; of judgment because the prince of this world is judged" (John 16:8-11). But you are not to be frightened! "When they heard this they were pricked in their hearts, and exclaimed, men and brethren what shall we do?" (Acts 2:37). But you are not to be frightened! "When the commandment came, sin revived, and I died" (Romans 7:9). But you are not to be frightened! The sinner who talks in this strain is either an infidel or ignorant of the contents of the Bible.
For such a sinner, with such views and such feelings, the Gospel contains no remedy. To such a sinner the Spirit of God offers no remedy. "He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy." The sinner who will not take reproof must be destroyed. The physician who has exhausted his skill and tried every experiment upon his patient can only look on and see him die. So fares it with the incorrigible sinner. You may soothe him in his sins; you may flatter his vanity; but this is only hastening the work of destruction. The only salutary application is conviction of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment to come; but this his proud heart will not endure. Every attempt to rescue him from destruction will be resisted. It will only exasperate. "He that reproveth a scorner getteth to himself shame, and he that rebuketh a wicked man getteth to himself a blot" (Proverbs 9:7). Therefore, says the wise man, "Reprove not a scorner lest he hate thee" (Proverbs 9:8).
But if such be the effect of reproof, methinks I hear someone say, "Then I will not hear the Gospel. I will shun all reproof." Answer: A resolution not to take reproof proclaims yourself to be one of the very persons described in the text. Whoever objects in this manner shows his determination to harden his neck at all events; for no one can shun reproof, or a preached Gospel, without hardening his neck in the most effectual manner. He voluntarily places himself beyond the reach of hope. The man who has drunk poison may say, "I will run, I will shun it!" But he is too late! You have heard the Gospel and can never rid yourself of its everlasting obligations. "If they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from Him that speaketh from heaven" (Hebrews 12:25). "They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. For the turning away of the simple shall slay them" (Proverbs 1:30-32).
From this subject we make the following reflections:
REFLECTION ONE. The equity of the sinner's punishment. He hardens his neck against reproof and brings destruction on himself. When the Spirit of God comes and with a still small voice whispers conviction to his guilty conscience and he feels some concern for his soul, he tries not to be alarmed but to appear above it. He shuns the light of divine truth. He loves darkness, and now he shall have darkness enough. God says, "Let their eyes be darkened that they may not see" (Psalm 69:23).
The sinner says, "Peace and safety, let us alone." God says, "He is joined to idols, let him alone" (Hosea 4:17). The sinner says, "Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee." (Acts 24:25). God says, "I go My way. My Spirit shall no longer strive."
The sinner chooses not to be under conviction, and now suppose God's choice and the sinner's choice should happen to coincide? All can see the equity of the sinner's punishment. If he will not lay up treasures in heaven, then he must lay up treasures in hell. This is done by hardening his own heart. After his hardness and impenitent heart, man treasures up unto himself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God (Romans 2:5).
When sinners are lost, their consciences will forever reprove them for destroying themselves. They are made to eat of the fruit of their own ways, and are filled with their own devices. They utterly perish in their own corruption. By hardening his neck, the sinner, with his own hand, doses the door of heaven against himself.
REFLECTION TWO. Our subject is full of alarms to the aged sinner. My aged fathers, how long have you lived without God in the world? How many warnings have you heard and lost? You have lived so many years and have heard so many warnings and have lost them all!
I now appeal to your own experience. Do you not find that the longer you live, the harder are your hearts? Can you not bear testimony to the truth of our text? Where are you now? Once you enjoyed a season of youth, but alas it is over and gone forever! Your sun is almost down. I address you on the very brink of the grave. You are just ready to launch into eternity; and if you are not suddenly saved, you will be suddenly destroyed and that without remedy. You now live in an interesting crisis, the season of a revival. It has an important bearing on the aged in this congregation. Oh, how many younger than yourselves have hopefully entered the kingdom of God before you! In this you have often been reproved. And are you still out of Christ? Your case is becoming more and more hopeless. The probability, oh fear, is a thousand to one that you will be lost. You have no prospect of witnessing another revival in your day. Let the present season slip, and where are you? This very warning, if neglected, will render your case more hopeless still.
REFLECTION THREE. Our subject contains a warning to the young. If he, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy, then beware how you feel and how you conduct yourself under reproof. How often have you been reproved by preaching, by conversation, by the conviction and conversion of your companions, by the admonition of conscience and by the voice of the Holy Spirit? How is this revival season likely to leave you? Certainly not as it found you! if you do not profit by all these warnings, you will be seven-fold harder than when it commenced. What improvement have you made of all the warnings you have heard? Where are you now. If my preaching does not prove a savor of life, it will be a savor of death unto death to your souls.
Every warning you neglect is rendering your salvation less and less probable. It is making the work of repentance more and more difficult. You are wandering farther and farther from God and plunging deeper and deeper into misery at every step which you advance. With your own hands you are now forging those chains which will bind you down in darkness and despair.
To you the Saviour calls, "Turn you' Turn you at My reproof!" "Because I have called, and you have refused; I have stretched out My hand, and no man regarded; but you have set at naught all My counsel, and would none of My reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon Me, but I will not answer; they shall seek Me early, but they shall not find Me: for that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord; they would none of My counsel; they despised all My reproof. Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices" (Proverbs 1:23-31). Today then, if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.
REFLECTION FOUR. The more stupid and hardened the sinner, the nearer to destruction he is. Thus was it with the inhabitants of the old world. They never were more thoughtless than before the flood came. It came when they least expected it. "They knew not until the flood came and took them all away' (Matthew 24:39). Never was Sodom more stupid than the very night before it was destroyed. The preaching of Lot seemed like an idle tale. They were doubtless making themselves merry with it until the very moment when the flames of hell took hold of them.
Thus was it with the rich fool: "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry" (Luke 12:19). And thus it has been with all who have gone to hell from under the light of the Gospel. They cried peace and safety until they were lost. Death came too soon, and they dropped into hell as into a snare, and it closed suddenly upon them.
Those sinners are commonly nearest destruction who think and care the least about it. Hell is truth learned too late. Stop, poor sinner! Stop and think!
http://articles.ochristian.com/article499.shtml
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