Cast Off Because

“My God will cost them off, because.. Hosea 9:17

MR. MOODY used to say that the gospel was a savor of life unto life or of death unto death, and always one or the other. He used to declare that the same sun that strikes upon the clay and hardens it, would strike upon the ice and melt it, and that the hardening and softening processes were always going on in audiences where the Gospel was preached. It seems to me that it is almost dangerous for men to have an invitation given them to come to God, that is, to have it given repeatedly, if it is rejected. You have imagined, some of you, that you can say “Yes” and “No” to God as you please, that it was for you to decide whether or no you would be a Christian. For ten years, for twenty years, with some of you for fifty years, there has been a rejection of God’s offer of mercy. You have wandered away, you have lost your faith in the Bible, and sometimes you marvel that you have lost your conception of Jesus. You have thought, “Why is it that I am criticising the church and the minister?”

I can tell you the reason. You are in these days reaping the harvest of other days of rejection. No man may reject God continually without having his heart harden, without making it more difficult for him to turn to Jesus. If you refused Him yesterday, it is more difficult to accept Him this evening. If you have been saying “No” for fifty years your conversion would indeed be a miracle, not only of God’s grace, but of His power. I am becoming alarmed because people refuse Him.

I have a text of Scripture which has been given me as a warning for all such. I shall use only a portion of it. All through the Old Testament I have found God’s reasons for turning away from His people again and again. The Old Testament is an illustration for us in modern times. The things that point to Israel are an illustration for you and me. My text is found in the prophecy of Hosea, chapter nine, verse seventeen: “My God will cast them off because” I

shall stop there in the verse. If I had only one text of Scripture, I should complete this verse, but because I have four texts very much like the one used, I shall stop in the midst of the first one and enlarge upon

the others. “My God will cast them off because.”

There is always a reason and the responsibility never rests with God. If any man is ever finally lost, it will be in spite of God’s mercy, and in the face of His constant pleadings. “My God will cast them off because God willeth not the death of any sinner

but that all may turn unto Him and live.” That is God’s position. There is another text of Scripture which I think ought to be read in this connection. It is exceedingly striking: “Ye will not come unto

Me that ye might have life.” If you are ever finally lost the responsibility must be upon you and upon no one else. “My God will cast them off because

I have, specially in these last days, been turning over the pages of the Old Testament. I find that the Old Testament is a marvelous picture of God. Take away the New Testament and you will be amazed at the story of God in the Old Testament. I find the story of His yearning when He walks through the garden in the cool of the day, saying, “Where art thou?” I find an illustration of his compassion when David hears Absalom is dead. He staggers down the stair between the gates saying, “O Absalom, my son, my son, would God I had died for thee,” for as a father David is a picture of God. I turn again to the Old Testament and I find the best possible illustration of His love, in His yearning for Israel. You must take story and add to story in the Old Testament if you would know Him.

Then turn to the pages of the New Testament and behold Him manifest in the flesh. Watch Jesus as he heals the sick, opens the eyes of the blind, blesses the little children, comforts the sorrowing mothers, gives peace to the distracted fathers, and then hear Him saying, “He that hath seen Me hath seen my Father also.” And you never know the pity of God until you see it in Jesus. You never understand the compassion of God until you find it in His Son. You never know the immeasurableness of His love until you see Jesus by day and by night with the tears in His eyes, the blood upon His brow, the scourges upon His back and agony in His heart, seeking, seeking and seeking again. Put the Old Testament and the New Testament together and I do not understand how any of you can resist this pleading.

I like to find this text of mine in the Prophecy of Hosea for three reasons. First, because Hosea himself was almost a brokenhearted man. You know the story of his wife; she had betrayed him again and again, and still he loved her. He pardoned her only to be betrayed again. He took her back unto him only to have her disgrace him still again. And in his treatment of his wife Hosea gives us a great illustration of God’s treatment of Israel. Quivering with pain, his eyes full of tears, with his heart almost breaking, he gives us this prophecy and as he comes to the close of one of the heights of his arguments he gives us this text. Hear this expression, “Oh Israel return unto the Lord thy God, for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity.’’ “I will heal their backslidings, I will love them freely, for mine anger is turned away.’’ The other day in reading the comments upon this prophecy, I found that he gave this title to the whole prophecy: “Man’s sin against love.” And it is a sad thing that you may sin against love. Some have sinned against their mothers’ love. A man concerning whom I have a note, received recently, has sinned against his wife’s love. Many have sinned against God’s love. It is a sad thing that you can do it, but you have done it and you are doing it, and for you the text is spoken:

“My God will cast them off because.” I want

you to let these words sink deep into your heart. You must remember that God is the same yesterday, to-day and forever, that you are still dealing with the God revealed in the Old Testament in His treatment of Israel, only the picture to-night is more intense, the danger is greater, the sin is greater, because added to the God of Israel we have Jesus of Nazareth, we have the Son of God, we have the Saviour of men.

It was an awful thing in the light of all God’s dealings for Israel to reject Him. Where is there a man with power of mind great enough, with speech thrilling enough, to tell men what the sin of rejecting Jesus Christ really is? Turning over the pages of the Old Testament I find two or three texts which give me an illustration of man’s drifting from God. In them I read your story. The first text is in Hosea 4 :6. “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee.” They refused to know. Taken up with other things they turned a deaf ear unto God’s pleadings.

I believe that the first step away from God is pre-occupation. There are too many of us to-day who are occupied with trifling things instead of eternal questions. You are considering the gaining of a fortune. That is not wrong in itself, but you had better not consider the gaining of wealth until you can be sure about your eternity. You have been taken up with the pursuit of pleasure, possibly not wrong in itself, but it would be well for us to turn away from everything else until we have settled this question. Jesus thought it was important enough to say, If your right hand is in the way, if your right eye is in the way, cut off the one and pluck out the other. It is better to be maimed and halt and blind than to be lost. You are occupied with other things. Some men and women have been occupied with sin. It blinds your vision, it finally quiets your conscience. It weakens your character. It takes away from you the taste for God’s word. It puts a word of criticism for the church and the minister upon your lips. You are occupied with other things, when the greatest question in this world is this one: “What shall it

profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” You have forgotten that. God has stated in His Word that He can free us from sin. He tells us that He can transform our lives. He tells us that all along the journey of time He can make us strong to resist evil, beautiful to reflect the righteousness of God in Jesus. We have dismissed His statement with a sneer. He tells us that when we are through with time He will give us an unending eternity, and we have counted the gaining of a fortune as of greater importance. We are too much occupied with other things.

One day I heard Fred. B. Smith preach to men in a western city. He said that one morning when they lived in the country his father and his household were aroused with the tidings that one of their neighbors was dying. This old farmer was one of the richest men in the state where they lived. They called in the physician and the physician said to the man, “You are facing death. You had better send for the minister.” The minister came and then they sent for the neighbors. Mr. Smith said that they gathered round this aged man’s death-bed. They tried to pray and could not. They started to sing and broke down. They spent a day and a night with him and started upon the second day when just as the day was being born the old man started to rise from his pillow and then fell back upon it. His great, strong son put his arms under his shoulder and raised him a little bit so that he could get his breath. Then the old farmer said this, “Boy, it is getting dark. It is getting dark.” And when they tried to make him think that it was all the time getting lighter he sank back upon his pillow with this awful message: “It is all a failure,” he said,

“It is all a failure.” He was one of the greatest farmers in the state. He had a bank account that was very large. He had friends by the score, but he had turned to other things and away from Christ, and some of you are doing that.

I think there is a second step in drifting away from God, and for that I have a text. It is indifference. When you started, you were not indifferent, when the minister pleaded with you your heart did respond, when the revival of other days swept through your city, you did give attention, you listened and all but heeded. Now it is different. I have a text for you, too. Isaiah 65: 12. “Ye shall all bow down to the slaughter, because when I called ye did not answer, when I spake ye did not hear.”

If the first step is pre-occupation, then I think the second step away from God is indifference. To me that is positively impossible of conception. Doctor Torrey used to have an illustration that was repeated to me, of an old father and mother who determined to give their boy an education. They were as poor as they could be. They had a conference in their home and decided to send their boy to the university. They knew he must be away three years in his preparatory work and four years in his college work. Seven years in all. In the summer vacation he must work near the school but could not come home. Every dollar sent to him increased the pinch of poverty at home. Finally the old father said, “Wife, I cannot stand it, I am going to see him.” He did not have money enough to go by train so he drove across the hills. It took him days and days, and the horse he drove was ridiculous. The wagon in which he drove provoked a smile from all who saw him come into the university yard. He never knew that his boy had drifted, he had not been told that he had forgotten his father’s God. Three young fellows came swinging down the sidewalk in the university town. When they saw the old man they laughed at him. He saw them in the distance, too, and his old heart began to beat rapidly, he recognized one of them as his boy. He threw down his lines, sprang out of his wagon and ran to meet his boy. They told me in the south that that boy looked at him for only a moment, then in the presence of his friends who had jeered at this old man, told him he did not know him. He said, “You are not my father.” The old man turned without a word; he did not touch his boy, he did not kiss him. He got into his wagon, rode away back over the hills, went into the old farm house, sat down in the old chair; his head dropped forward on his breast and he was dead.

I wondered when I heard the story why the boy did not have a vision of the old days when his father said he would educate him; I wondered why the recollection of his father’s prayers did not stir him. But

U7

I can explain that better than that you should be indifferent to Christ. Everything you have in life that is worth having God gave you. God gave you vision, God gave you hearing, God gave you hands with which you have wrought out your fortunes; He gave you feet with which you have been walking the journey of life; He gave you your home, your mother, your baby. And for years He has been pleading, and pleading, and pleading, and you have grown indifferent to Him. When you have your Bible some day just go to the close of that passage to which I have referred you — Isaiah 65:12; the closing portion runs thus: “Behold my servants shall eat, and ye shall be hungry: behold my servants shall drink and ye shall be thirsty: behold my servants shall rejoice, and ye shall be ashamed.” I pity you when the crisis comes. Some day you will reach the crisis. Death will stand knocking at the door and you will not be prepared to meet it. Or you will go home from your office and find your baby is sinking, and all the money you have will not stop your aching heart or your flowing tears. You are indifferent. In God’s name how could you be? He is infinite in His love; He is matchless in his tenderness. How can you be indifferent?

I find the third step also in the Scripture which I think you ought to hear. Proverbs 1: 24-29. “Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand and no man regarded; but ye have set at nought 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 they shall call upon Me but I will not answer; they shall seek Me early, but they shall not find Me.” The first step, pre-occupation; and money it seems is worth more than your soul; you have taken the second step — indifference — and as the minister pleads your heart is like a stone, your mother prays and your eyes never moisten with tears; and the third step is wilful rejection of Jesus Christ.

It is an awful thing to become accustomed to the power of God, but I think if there is anything else that is more awful it is this — to become indifferent to the pleadings of God. Do not imagine for a moment that it is only a man’s voice that is speaking to you in the preaching. Oh, if God would only speak to you as never before. A wilful rejection! You are like a man in the city of New York who ran away from a police officer and sprang into the river. He pushed his way from the dock. The policeman threw a rope to him. It was too short. They threw another. It fell across his arm. He raised himself from the water just a little bit and twined the rope around and then with an oath cast it from him and sank out of sight. You have done the same thing with God. He called you when you were a boy. He called you when you were a young man just starting business. He called you when the marriage bells were pealing forth, when your first baby came and went into its grave. He called you when the telegraph ticked and ticked and the message came to your door and you opened it and read it, and you said, “My God, mother’s dead.” He called you when the great calamity swept through your city and all but gained entrance to your home, and you have done nothing but drift, and drift, and drift. God pity you.

I have heard of a fisherman who took his little girl out fishing. The fishing was not so good in the old place, so the fisherman left his little girl on a high rock and started away to where he thought the fish would be easier to get. He reached the place where the fishing was splendid and he was so fascinated with his success that he forgot all about his child. Finally he found as he consulted his watch that he had been fishing four hours. Suddenly he remembered his child. “My God,” he said, “My God!” Rowing frantically he made his way back to the place where he thought his child had been left on the rock. She could not be seen. Unconsciously to him the tide had risen as if a hand that was infinite was pushing it up. The child was gone and was dead. They told me that the old fisherman never fished again, that his hair became white and thin, that he all but lost his reason. Over and over he kept saying this, “Oh, if I had only stayed where I could hear her cry, where I could hear her cry.” To-day the call to repentance is sounding. You do not hear it. You have stopped your ears. You have turned your back upon God. God pity you.

The last text has to do with blasphemy. The text is in Zachariah 7:11, 12, and 14. “But they refused to hearken and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears that they should not hear. Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law and the words which the Lord of hosts hath sent in His spirit by the former prophets; therefore came a great wrath from the Lord of hosts. * * * But I scattered them with a whirlwind

among all the nations whom they knew not.” Listen. How many times have you rejected God? Stop and think. I do not ask you how many times you have rejected the minister. If it is only a man’s appeal drive it out of your mind with a song; if it is only the fanatical cry of a man who thinks you are in danger, reject it. Go on, eat and drink and be merry, and die when the time comes. But if it is God’s call, in God’s name how can you reject Him?

Dr. George Adam Smith says the greatest sin is a sin against love. He says that love is inseparable from pain. He says that when a mother bends over her sick child the more she loves it the more she suffers. If the child dies her pain is indescribable, but if the child sins and the boy she used to hold in her arms, whose lips she used to kiss, into whose eyes she used to look, comes staggering home drunk and maudlin, can any word describe her pain. God is like that. You thought you could dismiss Him but He loves you. The sin against love is a dangerous thing. You can sin against human love again and again, but every time human love comes back to you she comes with a lagging step and drooping wing, and some day you will sin against human love for the last time. But you can sin against God’s love also — God’s matchless love, and that is the terror of it. Dr. Smith says we say that we break God’s laws but we never do; we break ourselves against His laws. But we can break His love. It has been swinging out to us. One strand of it was a memory — you broke it. Another strand of it was a picture of your early home when your father prayed and your mother loved, and you broke it. Another strand was the sermon your minister preached when you were but boys, and you have broken it.

John B. Gough tells a story of a boy gathering eagle’s eggs. He has a rope around his waist with one end tied to a tree, and he is down on hands and knees gathering the eagle’s eggs on a ledge of the cliff, when suddenly with a great swoop and scream the eagle is upon him. He has lived in the mountains long enough to know his danger, so he throws himself back from the ledge and holding on to the rope with one hand he draws his knife to protect himself. As the great bird comes swooping down upon him he strikes at it and nicks the rope. It is swinging out over the abyss, and he hears the snap, snap of the rope as it is blown to and fro by the wind. But he was trained in the mountains and he throws himself up and catches the rope above the cut, and hand over hand makes his escape. Is that what you have been doing to God? God called you and you said “No.” He pleads with you and you say “No.” You have been nicking the rope, breaking His love. I shall never forget what Dr. George Adam Smith says. He says that there is only one sin that is unpardonable, and that is the sin against God’s matchless love. He says that men must believe in a hell. There is no alternative. “But,” he said, “hell is not a place where God puts men; hell is the place where men fling themselves.”

But I would not like to leave you with this. Oh, if God would give me some new way to plead, if He would only give me some new illustration that I have not used, if He would only suggest to me some way by means of which I could appeal to you now and bend the will that has been as hard as iron, and touch the heart that has been as flinty as a rock! Turn ye, oh, turn ye, for why will ye die? “To-day if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.” “Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near.” God help you.