Part 12 (2/2)

Therefore Ezekiel says to them: ”When the righteous man turneth away from his righteousness, he shall die.” ”When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness, he shall live.” ”Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord G.o.d, and not that he should return from his ways, and live?”

This, then, is the good news, that G.o.d is love; love when He punishes, and love when He forgives; very pitiful, and full of long- suffering and tender mercy and repenting Him, never of the good, but only of the evil which He threatens.

Both Jeremiah, therefore, and Ezekiel, give us the same lesson. G.o.d does not change, and therefore He never changes His mercy and His justice: for He is merciful because He is just. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. That is His everlasting law, and has been from the beginning: Punishment, sure and certain, for those who do not repent; and free forgiveness, sure and certain also, for those who do repent.

So He spoke to Jeremiah in the time of Jehoiakim: ”It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the evil that I purpose to do to them; that I may forgive them their iniquity and their sin.” The Lord, you see, wishes to forgive--longs to forgive. His heart yearns over sinful men as a father's over his rebellious child. But if they will still rebel, if they will still turn their wicked wills away from Him, He must punish. Why we know not; but He knows. Punish He must, unless we repent--unless we turn our wills toward His will.

And woe to the stiff-necked and stout-hearted man who, like the wicked king Jehoiakim, sets his face like a flint against G.o.d's warnings. How many, how many behave for years, Sunday after Sunday, just as king Jehoiakim did! When he heard that G.o.d had threatened him with ruin for his sins, he heard also that G.o.d offered him free pardon if he would repent. Jeremiah gave him free choice to be saved or to be ruined; but his heart and will were hardened. Hearing that he was wrong only made him angry. His pride and self-will were hurt by being told that he must change and alter his ways. He had chosen his way, and he would keep to it; and he cared nothing for G.o.d's offers of forgiveness, because he could not be forgiven unless he did what he was too proud to do, confess himself to be in the wrong, and openly alter his conduct. And how many, as I first said, are like him! They come to church; they hear G.o.d's warnings and threats against their evil ways; they hear G.o.d's offers of free pardon and forgiveness; but being told that they are in the wrong makes them too angry to care for G.o.d's offers of pardon. Pride stops their cars.

They have chosen their own way, and they will keep it. They would not object to be forgiven, if they might be forgiven without repenting. But they do not like to confess themselves in the wrong.

They do not like to face their foolish companions' remarks and sneers about their changed ways. They do not like even good people to say of them: ”You see now that you were in the wrong after all; for you have altered your mind and your doings yourself, as we told you you would have to do.” No; anything sooner than confess themselves in the wrong; and so they turn their backs on G.o.d's mercy, for the sake of their own carnal pride and self-will.

But, of course, they want an excuse for doing that; and when a man wants an excuse, the devil will soon fit him with a good one. Then, perhaps, the foolish sinner behaves as Jehoiakim did. He tries to forget G.o.d's message in the man who brings it. He grows angry with the preacher, or goes out and laughs at the preacher when service is over, as if it was the preacher's fault that G.o.d had declared what he has; as if it was the preacher's doing that G.o.d has revealed His anger against all sin and unrighteousness. So he acts like Jehoiakim, who tried to take Jeremiah the prophet and punish HIM, for what not he but the Lord G.o.d had declared. Nay, they will often peevishly hate the very sight of a good book, because it reminds them of the sins of which they do not choose to be reminded, just as the young king Jehoiakim was childish enough to vent his spite on Jeremiah's book of prophecies, by cutting the roll on which it was written with a penknife, and throwing it into the fire. So do sinners who are angry with the preacher who warns them, or hate the sight of good books. But let such foolish and wilful sinners, such full-grown children--for, after all, they are no better--hear the word of the Lord which came to Jehoiakim: ”As it is written, he that despiseth Me shall be despised, saith the Lord.” And let them not fancy that their shutting their ears will shut the preacher's mouth, still less shut up G.o.d's everlasting laws of punishment for sin. No.

G.o.d's word stands true, and it will happen to them as it did to Jehoiakim. His burning Jeremiah's book did not rid him of the book, or save him from the woe and ruin which was prophesied in it; for we have Jeremiah's book here in our Bibles to this day, as a sign and a warning of what happens to men, be they young or old, be they kings or labouring men, who fight against G.o.d. Jeremiah's words were not lost after all; they were all re-written, and there were added to them also many more like words; for Jehoiakim, by refusing the Lord's offer of pardon, had added to his sins, and therefore the Lord added to his punishment.

Perhaps, again, the devil finds the wilful sinner another excuse, and the man says to himself, as the Jews did in Ezekiel's time: ”The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge. It is not my own fault that I am living a bad life, but other people's. My parents ought to have brought me up better. I have had no chance. My companions taught me too much harm. I have too much trouble to get my living; or, I was born with a bad temper; or, I can't help running after pleasure. Why did G.o.d make me the sort of man I am, and put me where I am? G.o.d is hard upon me; He is unfair to me. His ways are unequal; He expects as much of me as He does of people who have more opportunities. He threatens to punish me for other people's sins.”

And then comes another and a darker temptation over the man, and the devil whispers to him such thoughts as these: ”G.o.d does not care for me; G.o.d hates me. Luck, and everything else is against me. There seems to be some curse upon me. Why should I change? Let G.o.d change first to me, and then I will change toward Him. But G.o.d will not change; He is determined to have no mercy on me. I can see that; for everything goes wrong with me. Then what use in my repenting? I will just go my own way, and what must be must. There is no resisting G.o.d's will. If I am to be saved, I shall be; if I am to be d.a.m.ned, I shall be. I will put all melancholy thoughts out of my head, and go and enjoy myself and forget all. At all events, it won't last long: 'Let me eat and drink, for to-morrow I die.'”

Oh, my dear friends, have not some of you sometimes had such thoughts? Then hear the word of the Lord to you: ”When--whensoever-- whensoever the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness which he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive.” ”Have I any pleasure in the death of him that dieth? saith the Lord, and not rather that he should be converted, and live?” True, most true, that the Lord is unchangeable: but it is in love and mercy. True, that G.o.d's will and law cannot alter: but what is G.o.d's will and law? The soul that sinneth, it shall die?

Yes. But also, the soul that turneth away from its sin, it shall live. Never believe the devil when he tells you that G.o.d hates you.

Never believe him when he tells you that G.o.d has been too hard on you, and put you into such temptation, or ignorance, or poverty, or anything else, that you cannot mend. No. That font there will give the devil the lie. That font says: ”Be you poor, tempted, ignorant, stupid, be you what you will, you are G.o.d's child--your Father's love is over you, His mercy is ready for you.” You feel too weak to change; ask G.o.d's Spirit, and He will give you a strength of mind you never felt before. You feel too proud to change; ask G.o.d's Spirit, and He will humble your proud heart, and soften your hard heart; and you will find to your surprise, that when your pride is gone, when you are utterly ashamed of yourself, and see your sins in their true blackness, and feel not worthy to look up to G.o.d, that then, instead of pride, will come a n.o.bler, holier, manlier feeling--self-respect, and a clear conscience, and the thought that, weak and sinful as you are, you are in the right way; that G.o.d, and the angels of G.o.d, are smiling on you; that you are in tune again with all heaven and earth, because you are what G.o.d wills you to be--not His proud, peevish, self-willed child, fancying yourself strong enough to go alone, when in reality you are the slave of your own pa.s.sions and appet.i.tes, and the plaything of the devil: but His loving, loyal son, strong in the strength which G.o.d gives you, and able to do what you will, because what you will G.o.d wills also.

x.x.xII--PHARAOH'S HEART

And the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did not let the people go.--Exodus ix. 17.

What lesson, now, can we draw from this story? One, at least, and a very important one. What effect did all these signs and wonders of G.o.d's sending, have upon Pharaoh and his servants? Did they make them better men or worse men? We read that they made them worse men; that they helped to harden their hearts. We read that the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, so that he would not let the children of Israel go. Now, how did the Lord do that? He did not wish and mean to make Pharaoh more hard-hearted, more wicked. That is impossible.

G.o.d, who is all goodness and love, never can wish to make any human being one atom worse than he is. He who so loved the world that He came down on earth to die for sinners, and take away the sins of the world, would never make any human being a greater sinner than he was before. That is impossible, and horrible to think of. Therefore, when we read that the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, we must be certain that that was Pharaoh's own fault; and so, we read, it was Pharaoh's own fault. The Lord did not bring all these plagues on Egypt without giving Pharaoh fair warning. Before each plague, He sent Moses to tell Pharaoh that the plague was coming. The Lord told Pharaoh that He was his Master, and the Master and Lord of the whole earth; that the children of Israel belonged to Him, and the Egyptians too; that the river, light and darkness, the weather, the crops, and the insects, and the locusts belonged to Him; that all diseases which afflict man and beast were in His power. And the Lord proved that His words were true, in a way Pharaoh could not mistake, by changing the river into blood, and sending darkness, and hailstones, and plagues of lice and flies, and at last by killing the firstborn of all the Egyptians. The Lord gave Pharaoh every chance; He condescended to argue with him as one man would with another, and proved His word to be true, and proved that He had a right to command Pharaoh. And therefore, I say, if Pharaoh's heart was hardened, it was his own fault, for the Lord was plainly trying to soften it, and to bring him to reason. And the Bible says distinctly that it was Pharaoh's own fault. For it says that Pharaoh hardened his own heart, he and his servants, and therefore they would not let the children of Israel go. Now how could Pharaoh harden his own heart, and yet the Lord harden it at the same time?

Just in the same way, my friends, as too many of us are apt to make the Lord harden our hearts by hardening them ourselves, and to make, as Pharaoh did, the very things which the Lord sends to soften us, the causes of our becoming more stubborn; the very things which the Lord sends to bring us to reason, the means of our becoming more mad and foolish. Believe me, my friends, this is no old story with which we have nothing to do. What happened to Pharaoh's heart may happen to yours, or mine, or any man's. Alas! alas! it does happen to many a man's and woman's heart every day--and may the Lord have mercy on them before it be too late,--and yet how can the Lord have mercy on those who will not let Him have mercy on them?

What do I mean? This is what I mean, my friends; Oh, listen to it, and take it solemnly to heart, you who are living still in sin; take it to heart, lest you, like Pharaoh, die in your sins, and your latter end will be worse than your beginning.

Suppose a man to be going on in some sinful habit; cheating his neighbours, grinding his labourers, or getting tipsy, or living with a woman without being married to her. He comes to church, and there he hears the word of the Lord, by the Bible, or in sermons, telling him that G.o.d commands him to give up his sin, that G.o.d will certainly punish him if he does not repent and amend. G.o.d sends that message to him in love and mercy, to soften his heart by the terrors of the law, and turn him from his sin. But what does the man feel? He feels angry and provoked; angry with the preacher; ay, angry with the Bible itself, with G.o.d's words. For he hates to hear the words which tell him of his sin; he wishes they were not in the Bible; he longs to stop the preacher's mouth; and, as he cannot do that, he dislikes going to church. He says: ”I cannot, and what is more, I will not, give up my sinful ways, and therefore I shall not go to church to be told of them.” So he stops away from church, and goes on in his sins. So that man's heart is hardened, just as Pharaoh's was. Yet the Lord has come and spoken to that sinful man in loving warnings: though all the effect it has had is that the Lord's message has made him worse than he was before, more stubborn, more G.o.dless, more unwilling to hear what is good. But men may fall into a still worse state of mind. They may determine to set the Lord at naught; to hear Him speaking to their conscience, and know that He is right and they wrong, and yet quietly put the good thoughts and feelings out of their way, and go in the course which they know to be the worst. How many a man in business or the world says to himself, ay, and in his better moments will say to his friend: ”Ah, yes, if one could but be what one would wish to be... . What one's mother used to say one might be... . But for such a world as this, the gospel ideal is somewhat too fine and unpractical. One has one's business to carry on, or one's family to provide for, or one's party in politics to serve; one must obey the laws of trade, the usages of society, the interests of one's cla.s.s;” and so forth. And so an excuse is found for every sin, by those who know in their hearts that they are sinning; for every sin; and among others, too often, for that sin of Pharaoh's, of ”NOT LETTING THE PEOPLE GO.”

And how many, my friends, when they come to church, harden their hearts in the same quiet, almost good-humoured way, not caring enough for G.o.d's message to be even angry with it, and take the preacher's warnings as they would a shower of rain, as something unpleasant which cannot be helped; and which, therefore, they must sit out patiently, and think about it as little as possible? And when the sermon is over, they take their hats and go out into the churchyard, and begin talking about something else as quickly as possible, to drive the unpleasant thoughts, if there are a few left, out of their heads. And thus they let the Lord's message to them harden their hearts. For it does harden them, my friends, if it be taken in this temper. Every time anyone sits through the service or the sermon in this stupid and careless mood, he dulls and deadens his soul, till at last he is able coolly to sit through the most awful warnings of G.o.d's judgment, the most tender entreaties of G.o.d's love, as if he were a brute animal without understanding. Ay, he is able to make the responses to the commandments, and join in the psalms, and so with his own mouth, before the whole congregation, confess that G.o.d's curse is on his doings, with no more sense or care of what the words mean, and of what a sentence he is p.r.o.nouncing against himself, than if he were a parrot taught to speak by rote words which he does not understand. And so that man, by hardening his own heart, makes the Lord harden it for him.

But there is a third way, and a worse way still, in which people's hearts are hardened by the Lord's speaking to them. A man is warned of his sins by the preacher; and he says to himself: ”If the minister thinks that he is going to frighten me away from church, he is very much mistaken. He may go his way, and I shall go mine. Let him preach at me as much as he will; I shall go to church all the more for that, to show him that I am not afraid.” And so the Lord's warnings harden his heart, and provoke him to set his face like a flint, and become all the more proud and stubborn.

Now, young people, I speak openly to you as man to man. Will you tell me that this was not the very way in which some of you took my sermon last Sunday afternoon, in which I warned you of the misery which your sinful lives would bring upon you? Was there not more than one of you, who, as soon as he got outside the church, began laughing and swaggering, and said to the lad next him: ”Well, he gave it us well in his sermon this afternoon, did he not? But I don't care; do you?”

To which the other foolish fellow answered: ”Not I. It is his business to talk like that; he is paid for it, and I suppose he likes it. So if he does what he likes, we shall do what we like. Come along.” And at that all the other foolish fellows round burst out laughing, as if the poor lad had said a very clever thing; and they all went off together, having their hearts hardened by the Lord's warning to them, as Pharaoh's was.

And they showed, I am afraid, that very evening that their hearts were hardened. For out of a sort of spite and stubbornness they took a delight in doing what was wrong, just because they had been told that it was wrong, and because they were determined to show that they would not be frightened or turned from what they chose.

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