Jeremiah 18:12 And they said, There is no hope: but we will walk after our own devices, and we will every one do the imagination of his evil heart. One instance of this is related by a well-known religious writer. He says: "A zealous minister went to the house of an aged respectable man, a man who bore an unstained character, and there addressing him and his family, he told simply of the salvation that is in Christ, and urged those who listened to a hearty acceptance of it. The minister finished what he had to say, and when he left the house, his friend accompanied him; and when they were alone together said something like this: Spend your time and strength upon the young; labour to bring them to Jesus; it is too late for such as me. I know, he said, that I have never been a Christian. I fully believe that when I die I shall go down to perdition." I. ITS CAUSES. 1. One is the judgments of God, especially those severer dispensations with which the Almighty sometimes visits us. Their real significance, I need hardly say, is that our heavenly Father still loves us and cares for us — that He has not forgotten us, nor given us over to destruction — that He still thinks there is good in us, and a chance for us; and that He is bound by loud and louder calls to warn us back from ruin, and by heavier and heavier blows, if necessary, to drive us from the perilous paths in which we tread. Nevertheless, with the perversity of a chastised child, we put upon them precisely the opposite construction. 2. The discovery of one's sinfulness, and added to it the realisation of the jeopardy in which it places the soul, will often bring on a fit of hopelessness. That was the case with Judas. The author of the "Pilgrim's Progress" has testified to a similar experience. When conscience had turned the light upon his life, and sharply reproved him for it, says Bunyan, "I had no sooner thus conceived, in my mind, but suddenly this conclusion was fastened on my spirit that I had been a great and grievous sinner, and that now it was too late for me to look after heaven, for Christ would not forgive me, nor pardon my transgression." 3. Not only does the discovery of our sins produce this effect, but the same is also apt to follow upon long and unsuccessful conflict with them. For instance, if a man has struggled a great while with some besetting fault, with an appetite that has tyrannised over him — like that for strong drink, to give a common example, or with some passion, like a hasty temper or an uncontrollable tongue — if it seems to him that he has never conquered it, and never can, then there begins to spread over his soul that dark cloud of despair our text represents. 4. Finally, this feeling of despair may be sometimes accounted for by supposing it to be simply a satanic suggestion. Dante saw over the portals of hell this terrible sentence, "All hope abandon ye who enter here." It is the devil's trick, his masterpiece of malice and cunning, to copy that inscription and trace it on the hearts of men — All hope abandon. II. THE PROGRESS THAT THIS DISORDER OF THE SOUL MAKES WHEN LEFT TO RUN AN UNCHECKED COURSE. 1. The first stage of it is misery. It must be. There is a very dramatic scene in the life of Bonaparte, depicted by Guizot. It is the moment when "on that solitary road (to Paris) at the dead of night, the grand empire, founded and sustained by the incomparable genius and commanding will of one man alone, had crumbled to pieces, even in the opinion of him who had raised it." It is the moment when the officers announce to the great General that his capital is evacuated, and the enemy at its gates; and he realises that nothing is left for him to do but abdicate. The agony that pierced that dauntless soul who can paint! Napoleon, it is said, "let himself fall by the roadside, holding his head in his hands and hiding his face." The onlookers stood by, silently contemplating him with heartfelt sorrow, unable to utter a single word. But oh! what is the fall of a kingdom to any monarch — what is his despair, what can it be compared to the anguish which must seize upon one, when the full conviction rushes over him that he is really doomed — that no chance is left him to avert damnation — when he must answer in his heart, There is no hope! 2. The second stage of progress is when insensibility sets in. You know that some diseases occasion excruciating pain at the start. Then after a while all disagreeable sensations cease. The patient has got "past feeling." Well, so it is with the soul when attacked by spiritual desperation. From great suffering at the outset it is liable to pass on into a state of numbness and indifference. It is a condition worse and more alarming than the first. The individual I was alluding to a moment since is an instance in point. I mean the one who begged his clergyman not to waste time upon him, because he had become persuaded that he was predestined to destruction. I did not quote to you then all his conversation upon this subject. Let me give it more in detail now. He said, "I fully believe that when I die I shall go down to perdition. But somehow I do not care. I know perfectly all you can say, but I feel it no more than a stone." 3. The third and last stage is when one arrives at recklessness. That was the stage reached by those Jews who spoke our text. They said there is no hope. Then they added, "But we will walk after our own devices," etc. They sinned yet more and more, until Nebuchadnezzar came and carried them away captive. On the deck of a sinking ship, when rescue is impossible, and the end of all is nigh at hand, a curious scene, it is said, may often be witnessed. Here is a group weeping over their impending fate; there is another knot contemplating with utter apathy a watery grave; and yonder, is the strangest sight of all — men in the very frenzy of despair, cursing and swearing with their latest breath, and preparing, with wine cup in hand, and senses steeped in intoxication, to go to their last account. Most singular and dreadful influence this latter, which unavoidable physical danger exercises over the minds of men. But it is no more singular or dreadful than the influence of spiritual hopelessness at times over the soul. The more terrible the doom hanging over it, the more mad does the soul become to sink itself to lower and ever lower abysses of guilt and shame. III. IS THERE ANY FOUNDATION IN FACT FOR SPIRITUAL DESPERATION? Is there any truth in the feeling, there is no hope? No. It is not true of any living soul that there is no hope for it. I was reading the other day of an accident that befell an innkeeper of the Grindelwald. He "fell into a deep crevasse in the upper glacier which flows into that beautiful valley. Happening to fall gradually from ledge to ledge, he reached the bottom in a state of insensibility, but not seriously injured." What would you say of that man? Well, you would say of him, if you understood what it was to fall into a crevasse, that it was all over with him — that there was before him only a lingering death. In fact, the man himself was at first, when he returned to consciousness of the same opinion. But no, the event proves you both mistaken. When he awoke from his stupor he found himself in an ice cavern, with a stream flowing through an arch at its extremity. Following the course of this stream along a narrow tunnel, which was in some places so low in the roof that he could scarcely squeeze himself through on his hands and knees, he came out at last at the end of the glacier into the open air." So we see a man fallen into the crevasse of terrible sins. There he lies, spiritually insensible, at the bottom of the awful abyss of iniquity into which, by careless walking, he has slipped at last. You think there is no help for him, no opportunity or place of repentance and restoration left. You dare to say there is no hope. And in his troubled dreams, mayhap (for sinners dream), the poor unfortunate himself repeats your words, no hope. But it is false. A chance for even him still remains. The fallen sinner may yet wake from his stupor, and like that innkeeper of the Grindelwald, creep out on hands and knees into the open air and sunlight of God's forgiveness and eternal love. Once, it is said, the servants of Richelieu refused to obey his dictates. "Our Father," they pleaded, "it is useless, we shall but fail." The great Cardinal drew himself up, fixed upon them his piercing eye, and in a tone that left no place for further parley, replied, "Fall! there's no such word!" And when I see anyone today, a servant of the living God, perhaps afflicted, conscience-stricken, baffled, and mocked by whisperings of the Evil One, stand up and say there is no hope, I must despair, I hear a voice, loud as the wail of the dying Christ, ring out through the darkness from Calvary and its blood-stained cross, Despair! there's no such word!" (G. H. Chadwell.) Parallel Verses KJV: And they said, There is no hope: but we will walk after our own devices, and we will every one do the imagination of his evil heart. |
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