1 Samuel 28:15 And Samuel said to Saul, Why have you disquieted me, to bring me up? And Saul answered, I am sore distressed… I desire to set before you the end to which in this world allowed sin brings finally the impenitent man. Now that state is spoken of in God's Word under various awful descriptions. It is described as one in which the heart is hardened; as one in which a man is "given over to a reprobate mind;" in which he is "to every good work reprobate;" in which men "have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness." They are spoken of as "reprobate concerning the faith;" as having "treasured up" for themselves "wrath against the day of wrath;" as having "grieved," — yea, and "quenched," — the "Holy Spirit of God." Now these passages of God's Word suffice of themselves to show that there is here in this world such a state as that of final impenitence: and what can be added to those words to describe its misery and horror! Yet it may be well for us, instead of simply resting in them, to examine more in detail wherein their fearfulness consists; that so, of God's mercy, we may be driven by the sight to cry to Him with greater earnestness to save us from all danger of failing ourselves into this most deadly state. 1. Now, in entering on this subject, we must remember what is involved in that certain truth which is set before us from one end of the Bible to the other, namely, that we, in this world, are really in a state of probation. 2. Now, mark how that probation is accomplished:(1) We are placed amongst a multitude of outward things, which perpetually force us to choose whether we will act in this way or in that; and every one of these choices must agree with the holy and perfect Will of God, or be opposed to it. (2) But then, further: the especial trial of us Christians consists in our being placed amongst these temptations under the personal influence of God the Holy Ghost; so that in every such distinct act of choice, there is either a direct yielding or a direct opposition to His secret suggestions. Moreover, these secret influences of His are described as the Power which does effectually mould those who yield to them. Thus it is said that He "guides them into all truth." So that evermore He is with us; touching the inmost springs of our being; upholding and renewing our life in its highest fountainhead of existence; acting on us by restraint, by solicitation, by suggestion, by assistance in every choice. (3) This, then, being our moral and spiritual probation, not only is every voluntary acting of our spirit in contradiction to God's Will a fixing of our will in opposition to His Will; but, further, it is in us a direct personal resistance to the action upon our souls of God the Holy Ghost. And the necessary consequence of every such act of resistance must, by a twofold process, carry us on towards final impenitence. For first, by our own moral constitution, the breaking through any restraint from evil, or the resisting any suggestion of good, carries us by an inevitable reaction somewhat farther than we were before in the opposite direction. This first; and then, and far beyond this, by thus resisting the Holy Spirit we cause Him to withdraw from us those influences for good in which is alone for us the spring and possibility of amendment. This is the awful truth contained in such exhortations as that of the Apostle. — "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God." Now the effect of such conduct on an earthly friend would be that it would lead him to withdraw himself from the intimate relationship of an undisturbed affection; and so we are taught that from the heart so resisting Him the Holy One withdraws Himself. Now as a necessary consequence of such a withdrawal, the progress of the forsaken soul towards final hardness is inevitable. The injured quality of the soil makes it need more urgently than before, if it is to yield any good upgrowth, the refreshment of cooling showers, and at that very time the decree has gone forth to the clouds of heaven that they rain no rain upon it. 3. What the downward process of such a soul must be we may see at once by recalling what we saw to be the Spirit's gracious influences upon one whom He was sanctifying, and so estimating the consequences of their withdrawal. For reproofs for sin would in such a heart sink first into a whisper, and then die out in silence. And as they expired the conscience would be struck with dumbness, and the first cause therefore of a saving penitence would be removed. Next, the secret voice teaching the heart, and reminding it of the words of Christ, would cease to speak; and with this would fail also those first drawings of the affections towards God, which are as the tender bud of a future penitence, and which can awaken only beneath the Cross of Christ, and within the sound of His words of love, as the Blessed Spirit reveals them to the soul. So that there would be in such a heart nothing to begin that work of true repentance, which without the aid of the good Spirit cannot originate in fallen man. Nor is even this all. For in this heart there would be no shedding abroad the sweet reviving influences of love; there would be no sealing it by the pressure of a moulding hand to the day of redemption. So that such a heart must harden daily. The law of evil must daily pervade it more thoroughly, until it comes to choose sin as sin: whilst from such a state there is nothing to awaken it. And this is the awful, hopeless, rayless, outer darkness of the full and final impenitence of a reasonable soul which has failed utterly in its moral probation. Here, then, we reach the consummation of this course. It leads down to an impenitent despair. At this point, then, let us for a moment pause, and see the conclusion we have reached. It is, that this state of final, hopeless impenitence is the natural conclusion of a life spent under the influences of God's Blessed Spirit by a reasonable moral agent, who by his neglect of or resistance to them, makes them turn into his uttermost condemnation. For as death can come to no man by chance, as the time of closing his day of trial must be exactly and certainly fixed for every man by God's sovereign Will, does it not necessarily follow from the fact of God having placed him in this probation, that no man is taken from his life of trial with the trial incomplete? that no branch in the living Vine is taken away until it is indeed certain that it will bear no fruit. In fine, instead of its being a rare and uncommon thing for men to reach a state of final impenitence, it is the real and most awful secret of every hopeless death. And if this be so, with what a dreadful character does this truth invest every allowance of wilful sin in us Christians! That probation differs, of course, necessarily in every different man. The same act of sin may embody in itself, in the case of two different men, utterly different degrees of resistance to the Holy Spirit. Such is the lesson taught us by the examples set before us in God's Word. Yet two such examples at least there are set before us in its pages — that of Saul in the Old Testament, and that of Judas in the New. In the history of Saul are traced with minuteness of detail the gifts of grace against which his sins of self-will and rebellion against Gad had been committed, until "the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him." Thenceforward the features of one whose heart was hardening look ever out upon us from his life. And to what an end does all this bring him! Who can read unmoved the record of those wild throbbings of despair which drove him, who in his better day had cut off those that had familiar spirits and the wizards from the land, to the sorceress at Endor; or the history of all that there awaited him? The deceitful tempter, now turned into the merciless accuser, took up the fierce utterance of that still hard though broken heart — "I am sore distressed," etc. Here is no mingling of mercy with judgment, no call to repentance, no sweet whisper of pardon. These, then, are our lessons from this fearful subject. First, that we strive diligently to maintain such a temper of watchful observance for the motions of the Blessed Spirit as that we may never unawares resist or neglect any of His lightest intimations. Without this watchful observance we are sure to interrupt His work. For if the soul be heated with worldliness, or covered with the dust of the earth, how shall it receive those heavenly colours with which He would brighten and adorn it? if it be perpetually distracted by ten thousand cares, how shall it be ready to entertain His presence? Lastly, if through our exceeding feebleness we have fallen, let us learn to look straight to the cross of Christ, and strive diligently in His strength to arise again; that we fly to Him as for our lives, crying only to Him out of our low estate, "Forsake not, O Lord, the work of Thine own hands: Cast me not away from Thy presence; and take not Thy Holy Spirit, from me." (Bishop Wilberforce.). Parallel Verses KJV: And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up? And Saul answered, I am sore distressed; for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me, and answereth me no more, neither by prophets, nor by dreams: therefore I have called thee, that thou mayest make known unto me what I shall do. |
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