Things We Never Get Over
“All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.” — Matthew xii., 31, 32. “He found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.” — Hebrews xii., 17.
ET it be understood at the outset that the Protestant pulpit has no revelation not given to the Protestant pew. The minister of Christ has no right to lord it over the consciences of men. When we preach, we do not utter edicts; we only offer opinions. Let the old Mother of Harlots from the Vatican issue the fiat that makes the people bow down into the dust; but in this land, and in this age, where King James’s translation is in almost every hand and in almost every house, let every man understand that he has a right, equally with others, to interpret the Word of God for himself, asking only Divine illumination.
As sometimes you gather the whole family around the evening stand to hear some book read, so to-night we gather — a great Christian family group — to study this text; and now may one and the same Lamp cast its glow on all the circle!
You see from the first passage that I read that there is a sin against the Holy Ghost for which a man is never pardoned. Once having committed it, he is bound hand and foot for the dungeons of despair. Sermons may be preached to him, songs may be sung to Lim, prayers may be offered in his behalf; but all to no purpose. ILe is a captive for this world, and a captive for the world that is to come. Do you suppose that there is any one in this house to-night that has committed that sin? All sins are against the Holy Ghost; but my text speaks of one especially. It is very clear to my own mind that the sin against the Holy Ghost was the ascribing of the works of the Spirit to the agency of the devil in the time of the apostles. Indeed, the Bible distinctly tells us that. In other words, if a man had sight given to him, or if another was raised from the dead, and some one standing there should say, “This man got his sight by Satanic power; the Holy Spirit did not do this; Beelzebub accomplished it;” or, “This man raised from the dead was raised by Satanic influence,” the man who said that dropped down under the curse of the text, and had committed the fatal sin against the Holy Ghost.
Now, I do not think it is possible in this day to commit that sin. I think it was possible only in apostolic times. But it is a very terrible thing ever to say any thing against the Holy Ghost, and it is a marked fact that our race have been marvelously kept back from that profanity. You hear a man swear by the name of the Eternal God, and by the name of Jesus Christ, but you never heard a man swear by the name of the Holy Ghost. There are those in this house who fear they are guilty of the unpardonable sin. Have you such anxiety? Then I have to tell you positively that you have not committed that sin, because the very anxiety is a result of the movement of the gracious Spirit, and your anxiety is proof positive, as certainly as any thing that can be demonstrated in mathematics, that you Lave not committed the sin that I have been speaking of. I can look off upon this audience and feel that there is salvation for all It is not like when they put out with those life-boats from the Loch Earn for the Ville da Havre. They knew there was not room for all the passengers, but they were going to do as well as they could. But to-night we man the life-boat of the Gospel, and we cry out over the sea, “Room for all!” Oh that the Lord Jesus Christ would, this hour, bring you all out of the flood of sin, and plant you on the deck of this glorious old Gospel craft!
But while I have said I do not think it is possible for us to commit the particular sin spoken of in the first text, I have by reason of the second text to call your attention to the fact that there are sins which, though they may be pardoned, are in some respects irrevocable; and you can find no place for repentance, though you seek it carefully with tears. Esau had a birthright given him. In olden times it meant not only tempoi’al but spiritual blessing. One day Esau took this birthright and traded it off for something to cat. Oh, the folly! But let us not be too severe upon him, for some of us have committed the same folly. After he had made the trade, he wanted to get it back. Just as though you to-morrow morning should take all your notes and bonds and Government securities, and should go into a restaurant, and in fi fit of recklessness and hunger throw all those securities on the counter and ask for a plate of food, making that exchange. This was the one Esau made. He sold his birthright for a mess of yX)ttage, and he was very sorry about it afterward; but “he found no place for repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.”
There is an impression in almost every man’s mind that somewhere in the future there will be a chance where he can correct all his mistakes. Live as we may, if we only repent in time, God will forgive us, and then all will be as well as though we had never committed sin. My discourse shall come in collision with that theory I shall show you, my friends, as God will help me, that there is such a thing as unsuccessful repentance; that there are things done wrong that always stay wrong, and for them you may seek some place of repentance, and seek it carefully, but never find it.
Belonging to this class of irrevocable mistakes is the folly of a missjjerit youth. We may look back to our college days, and think how we neglected chemistry, or geology, or botany, or mathematics. We may be sorry about it all our days. Can we ever get the discipline or the advantage that we would have had had we attended to those duties in early life? A man wakes up at forty years of age and finds that his youth has been wasted, and he strives to get back his early advantages. Does he get them back — the days of boyhood, the days in college,’ the days under his father’s roof? “Oh,” he says, “if I could only get those times back again, how I would improve them!” My brother, you will never get them back. They are gone, gone. You may be very sorry about it, and God may forgive, so that you may at last reach heaven; but you will never get over some of the mishaps that have come to your soul as a result of vour neo-lect of early duty. You may try to undo it; you can not undo it. AVhen you had a boy’s arms, and a boy’s eyes, and a boy’s heart, you ought to have attended to those things. A man says, at fifty j-ears of age, “I do wish I could get over these habits of indolence.” “When did you get them? At twenty or twenty-five years of age. You can not shake them off. They will hang to you to the very day of your death. If a young man through a long course of evil conduct undermines his physical health, and then repents of it in after-life, the Lord may pardon him; but that does not bring back good physical condition. I said to a minister of the Gospel, last Sabbath night, at the close of the service, “Where are you preaching now?” “Oh,” he says, “I am not preaching. I am suffering from the physical effects of early sin. I can’t preach now; I am sick.” A consecrated man he now is, and he mourns bittei’ly over early sins; but that does not arrest their bodily effects.
The simple fact is, that men and women often take twenty years of their life to build up influences that require all the rest of their life to break down. Talk about a man beginning life when he is twenty-one 3’ears of age; talk about a woman beginning life when she is eighteen years of age! Ah, no! In many respects that is the time they close life. In nine cases out of ten, all the questions of eternity are decided before that. Talk about a majority of men getting their fortunes between thirty and forty! They get or lose fortunes between ten and twenty. When you tell me that a man is just beginning life, I tell you he is just closing it. The next fifty years will not be of as much importance to him as the first twenty
Now, why do I say this? Is it for the annoyance of those who have only a baleful retrospection? You know that is not my way. I say it for the benefit of these young men and women. I want them to understand that eternity is wrapped up in this hour; that the sins of youth we never get over; that you are now fashioning the mold in which your great future is to run; that a minute, instead of being sixty seconds long, is made up of everlasting ages. You see what dignity and importance this gives to the life of all our young folks. Why, in the light of this subject life is not something to be frittered away, not something to be smirked about, not something to be danced out, but something to be weighed in the balances of eternity. Oh, young man! the sin of last night, the sin of to-night, the sin of to-morrow, will reach over ten thousand years, ay, over the great and unending eternity. You may, after a while, say, “I am very sorry. Now I have got to be thirty or forty years of age, and I do wish I had never committed those sins.” What does that amount to? God may pardon you; but undo those things you never will, you never can.
In this same category of irrevocable mistakes I put all parental neglect. We begin the education of our children too late. By the time they get to be ten or fifteen we wake up to our mistakes, and try to eradicate this bad habit, and change that; but it is too late. That parent who omits, in the first ten years of the child’s life, to make an eternal impression for Christ, never makes it. The child will probably go on with all the disadvantages, which might have been avoided by parental faithfulness. Now you see what a mistake that father or mother makes who puts off to late life adherence to Christ. Here is a man who at fifty years of age says to you, “I must be a Christian;” and he yields his heart to God, and sits in the house of prayer to-night a Christian. None of us can doubt it. He goes home, and he says, “Here at fifty years of age I have given my heart to the Saviour. Now I must establish a family altar.” What? Where are your children now? One in Boston; another in Cincinnati; another in
214 THINGS yE never get over
New Orleans; and you, my brother, at 3’our fiftieth year going to estabhsh 3’our family altar. Very well; better late than -never; but alas, alas that you did not do it twenty-five years ago!
When I was in Chamouni, Switzerland, I saw in the window of one of the shops a picture that impressed my mind very much. It was a picture of an accident that occurred on the side of one of the Swiss mountains. A company o& travelers, with guides, went up some very steep places — places which but few travelers attempted to go up. They were, as all travelers are there, fastened together with cords at the waist, so that if one slipped, the rope would hold him — the rope fastened to the others. Passing along the most dangerous point, one of the guides slipped, and they all started down the precipice; but after a while, one more muscular than the rest struck his heels into the ice and stopped; but the rope broke, and down, hundreds and thousands of feet, the rest went. And so I see whole families bound together by ties of affection, and in many cases walking on slippery places of worldliness and sin. The father knows it, and the mother knows it, and they arc bound all together. After a while they begin to slide down steeper and steeper, and the father becomes alarmed, and he stops, planting his feet on the “Rock of Ages.” He stops, but the rope breaks, and those who were once tied fast to him by moral and spiritual influences go over the precipice. Oh, there is such a thing as coming to Christ soon enough to save ourselves, but not soon enough to save others!
IIow many parents wake up in the latter part of life to find out the mistake! The parent says, “I have been too lenient,” or, “I have been too severe in the discipline of m J children. If I bad the little ones around me again, bow different 1 would do!” You will never have them around again. The work is done, the bent to the character is given, the eternity is decided. I say this to young parents — those who are twenty -five or thirty or thirty- five years of age — have the fiimily altar to-night. How do you suppose that father felt as be leaned over the couch of bis dying child, and the expiring son said to him, “Father, you have been very good to me. You have given me a fine education, and you have placed me in a fine social position; yo. have done qyqyj thing for me in a worldly sense; but, father, you never told me bow to die. Now I am dying, and I am lost!”
In this category of irrevocable mistakes I place, also, tlte unhindnesses done the departed. When I was a boy, my mother used to say to me sometimes, “De Witt, you will be sorry for that when I am gone.” And I remember just bow she looked, sitting there, with cap and spectacles, and the old Bible in her lap; and she never said a truer thing than that, for I have often been sorry since. While we have our friends with us, we say unguarded things that wound the feelings of those to whom we ought to give nothing but kindness. Perhaps the parent, without inquiring into the matter, boxes the child’s ears. The little one, who has fiillen in the street, comes in covered with dust, and, as though the first disaster were not enough, she whips it. After a while the child is taken, or the parent is taken, or the companion is taken, and those who are left say, “Ob, if we could only get back those unkind words, those unkind deeds; if we could only recall them!” But you can not get them back. You might bow down over the grave of that loved one, and cry and cry and cry. Tbe white lips would make no answer. The stars shall be plucked out of their sockets, but these influences shall not be torn away. The world shall die, but there are some wrongs immortal. The moral of which is, take care of your friends while you have them; spare the scolding; be economical of the satire; shut up in a dark cave, from which they shall never swarm forth, all the words that have a sting in them. You will wish you had some day — very soon you will — perhaps to-morrow. Oh yes. While with a firm hand you administer parental discipline, also administer it very gently, lest some day there be a little slab in Greenwood, and on it chiseled “Our Willie,” or “Our Charlie;” and though you bow down prone in the grave, and seek a place of repentance, and seek it carefully with tears, you can not find it.
There is another sin that I place in the class of irrevocable mistakes, and that is lost ojoportunities of getting good. I never come to a Saturday night but I can see during that week that I have missed opportunities of getting good. I never come to my birthday but I can see that I have wasted many chances of getting better. I never go home on Sabbath from the discussion of a religious theme without feeling that I might have done it in a more successful way. How is it with you? If you take a certain number of bushels of wheat and scatter them over a certain number of acres of land, you expect a harvest in proportion to the amount of seed scattered. And I ask you to-night, have the sheaves of moral and spiritual harvest corresponded with the advantages given? How has it been with you? You may make resolutions for the future, but past opportunities are gone. In the long procession of futurcyears all those past moments will march; but the fircliangel’s trumpet that wakes the dead will not wake up for you one of those privileges. Esau has sold his birthright, and there is not wealth enough in the treasurehouses of heaven to buy it back again. “What does that mean? It means that if you are going to get any advantage out of this Sabbath-day, you will have to get it before the hand wheels around on the clock to twelve to-night. It means that every moment of our life has two wings, and that it does not fly, like a hawk, in circles, but in a straight line from eternity to eternity. It means that though other chariots may break down, or drag heavily, this one never drops the brake, and never ceases to run. It means that while at other feasts the cup may be passed to us and we may reject it, and yet after a while take it, the cup-bearers to this feast never give us but one chance at the chalice, and, rejecting that, we shall “find no place for repentance, though we seek it carefully with tears.”
There is one more class of sins that I put in this category of irrevocable sins, and that is lost opportunities of tisefulness. Your business partner is a proud man. In ordinary circumstances, say to him, “Believe in Christ,” and he will say, “You mind your business, and I’ll mind mine.” But there has been affliction in the household. His heart is tender. He is looking around for sympathy and solace. Now is your time. Speak, speak, or forever hold your peace. There is a time in form-life when you plant the corn and when you sow the seed. Let that go by, and the farmer will wring his hands while other husbandmen are gathering in the sheaves. You are in a religious meeting, and there is an opportunity for you to speak a word for Christ. You say, “I must do it.” Your cheek flushes with embarrassment. You rise half way,
218 THIJ^^GS WE ^:£V£E GET OVER.
but you cower before men whose breath is in their nostrils, and you sag back, and the opportunity is gone, and all eternity will feel the effect of your silence. Try to get back that opportunity! You can not find it. You might as well try to find the fleece that Gideon watched, or take in your hand the dew that came down on the locks of the Bethlehem shepherds, or to find the plume of the first robin that went across paradise. It is gone; it is gone fovever. When an opportunity for personal repentance or of doing good passes awaj’’, you may hunt for it; you can not find it. You may fish for it; it will not take the book. You may dig for it; you can not bring it up. Remember that there are wrongs and sins that can never be corrected; that our privileges fly not in circles, but in a straight line; that the lightnings have not as swift feet as our privileges when they arc gone, and let an opportunity of salvation go by us an inch, the one hundredth part of an inch, the thousandth part of an inch, the millionth part of an inch, and no man can overtake it. Fire-winged seraphim can not come up with it. The eternal God himself can not catch it.
I stand before those who have a glorious birthright. Esau’s was not so rich as yours. Sell it once, and you sell it forever. The world wants to buy it. Satan wants to buy it. Listen for a moment to these brilliant offers, and it is gone.
Why do I tell you these truths? I have stood before you year after year telling 3’ou these things. Some have yielded their hearts to God, and a glorious crop of souls has been reaped; but this audience of immortal men and women, are they all prepared for the great future? I could stand here and play a sweeter harp. I could talk of the gates of pearl, and the walls of precious stones, and the crowns of light. AVbat is the use of talking of those things to those who have no preparation for that land, and who are on the wrong road?
I remember the story of the Lad on the Arctic some years ngo — the lad Stewart Ilolland. A vessel crashed into the Arctic in the time of a fog, and it was found that the ship must go down. Some of the passengers got off in the life-boats, some got off on rafts; but three hundred went to the bottom. Daring all those hours of calamity, Stewart Holland stood at the signal-gun, and it sounded across the sea, boom! boom! The helmsman forsook his place, the engineer was gone, and some fainted and some prayed and some blasphemed, and the powder was gone, and they could no more set off the signal-gun. The lad broke in the magazine and brought out more powder, and again the gun boomed over the sea. Oh, my friends, I behold many of you in immortal peril! Sickness will come down after a while upon you, death will come upon you, judgment will come upon you, eternity will come upon you. Some, having taken the warning, have gone off in the life-boat, and they are safe; but others are not making any attempt to escape. So I stand at this signal-gun of the Gospel, sounding the alarm. Beware! beware! “Now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation.” The wrath to come! The wrath to come! Boom! Boom! Fly to the hope of the Gospel. Jesus waits. He stretches out his arms to all this auditory, and cries to-night with a tenderness I have never heard before, “Come unto me, all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” That is what 3’ou want, sinful, tempted, bruised, and dying soul! May the Lord help you to accept the mercy and the solace and the salvation of the Gospel! Hear it, that your soul may live!