O Israel thou hast destroyed thyself; but in Me is thine help.
Man the self-destroyer, and God the Saviour
I.The lost state of man, both by nature and by practice. Observe to whom the words were spoken. Of His ancient people, the Lord, by His prophet, declares that “they had destroyed themselves.” He had warned them, but they had despised His warnings; He had threatened them, but they had made light of His threatenings; He had reproved them, but they would have none of His reproof. Is it not so now with God’s Israel, His Christian Church? Who is there whose account of sin is summed up in birth-sin only? Who is there that is guilty of imputed guilt only? Who is there that has only sinned in having the inclination to sin--the disposition to break God’s commandments--the capability of doing wrong? We are sinners not only by nature, but by practice. We have sinned in our thoughts. The very principle of mind being corrupt, whatever arises therefrom must be corrupt also. And what have our words been? Often insincere, flattering, proud, corrupt, empty. Words lead on to actions. He cannot act aright who does not first think aright.
II. The means of his recovery and restoration. Can we save ourselves? Let any man try of himself, and by his own unassisted strength, to think but one good and holy thought, and he will find the question answered. Is there no hope? In Me is thy help--in Me, the Almighty Father, the eternal Son, the Holy Spirit, the Creator, the Redeemer, the Sanctifier, the Just, the Merciful, the Holy God. (W. W. Champneys, M. A.)
The sinner his own destroyer
Ourtext gives the decision of God, who cannot be deceived, and who cannot deceive. Men do not believe His declarations. They cast the blame of their destruction from themselves upon God. Sometimes it is His decree which constrains them: sometimes it is the withholding of His grace which excuses them; sometimes it is the force of temptation and their own inability which exempts them from blame. The destruction of impenitent sinners is procured by themselves.
I. Establish this truth by arguments.
1. Drawn from the attributes of God. Where would His justice, His mercy, His veracity be, if He were the procuring cause of man’s destruction?
2. Drawn from the Word of God. What terms does it use when it speaks of the nature of God? If God be to blame for the sinner’s perdition, all these tender expostulations must be only a pompous display of unreal feelings. God gives many unequivocal assurances that He would “have all men to be saved.” If God is to blame, these assurances must be untrue.
3. Drawn from the conduct of God. Observe the way in which He has acted towards our race in general, or toward each one of us in particular, and we must be convinced that if we are lost, the blame of our perdition must rest entirely on ourselves.
4. The sentiments of all believers establish this same truth.
5. The testimony of believers is corroborated by the confessions of sinners them selves. Nevertheless, sinners object to this truth.
II. Answer the objections.
1. From the decrees of God. This objection is drawn from a subject of which we have very inadequate conceptions, and in which we soon get beyond our depth.
2. The principle on which this objection is founded is not a just one. It is that when two doctrines are affirmed in the Scripture, which to our limited capacity appear irreconcileable, we are authorised to embrace the one and reject the other. Show why this principle is unjust.
3. From the inability of man. It is said that God requires of men certain duties which they cannot perform. But inability is of two kinds, natural and moral. Natural inability consists in a defect of rational faculties, bodily powers, or external advantages. Moral inability consists only in the want of a proper disposition of heart to use our natural ability aright. And this is the essence of sin. If the sinner lies under the first inability, he is excusable; but if under the second, he is inexcusable. Moral inability is viciousness of heart, and depravity of disposition. By reason of wilfully cherishing this moral inability, you are inexcusable, you “destroy yourselves.” (H. Kollock, D. D.)
The sinner’s self-destruction and only remedy
I. His self-destruction. “O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself.”
1. That the ground of condemnation is personal character. The Bible puts it nowhere else. “ If I had not come and spoken unto them they had not had sin.” “Ye will not come to Me that ye may have eternal life.”
2. God governs every man as a free agent. He is left to choose between good and evil. But God will not force his choice, not even to save him.
3. The provision of grace is ample for all who will accept it. None are excluded from its scope. “Christ tasted death for every man.”
4. Life is tendered to you and urged upon you; the means of enlightenment, of conversion and training for heaven are all in your hands.
II. The only remedy--the only way to escape the eternal doom of the self-destroyer. “In Me is thine help.” The sinner can destroy himself, but he cannot save himself. Salvation from sin and death is all of grace. It is a supernatural provision outside of and independent of human device and human merit. (J. M. Sherwood, D. D.)
The cause of the destruction of impenitent sinners
Others cannot destroy us unless we contribute by our own negligence to our own destruction. TheIsraelites ought to blame none but themselves if judgments from heaven should overwhelm them, giving them up to the Assyrians in this life, and to punishment after death. Here God condescends to exonerate His conduct in regard to sinners by declaring that they ought to take the whole blame of their oval destruction upon themselves. The difficulties of this subject proceed either from our notion of the nature of God; or of the nature of religion; or of the nature of man.
I. The nature of God. As Creator and Author of every being that exists, and of everything that results from their existence, God seems the only cause of the miseries of His creatures. There are two ways in which we may satisfy ourselves on this subject. One is, to obtain a complete idea of the decrees of God, and to compare them so exactly with the dispositions of sinners, as to make it evident by this comparison that sinners are not under a necessity of committing such crimes, as cause their eternal destruction. The other is, to refer the subject to the determination of a being of the most unsuspected knowledge and veracity, whose testimony we may persuade ourselves is unexceptionable, and whose declaration is an infallible oracle. The first of these ways is impracticable, and always must remain so. Who can boast of knowing the whole arrangement, all the extent and all the combinations, of the decrees of God? Try the second. The question is whether, allowing the decrees of God, God doth any violence to sinners, compelling them to commit sin? God Himself declares that none of His decrees offer violence to His creatures; and their destruction can proceed from none but themselves. He has given this answer in those pathetic expostulations, in those powerful applications, and in those exhortations which He employs to redeem the greatest sinners. He has given the answer by tender complaints concerning the depravity of mankind; by express assurances that He would have all men to be saved; and by such passages as the text, that there are no difficulties insurmountable in our salvation, except such as we choose to seek there.
II. The nature of religion.
1. As toevangelical morality--how clearly it is revealed. Heresy may attack our religious mysteries, but propositions that concern moral virtues are placed in a light so clear that nothing can diminish its brightness. Religion clearly requires a magistrate to be equitable, and a subject obedient; a father tender, and a son dutiful; a husband affectionate, and a wife faithful; a master gentle, and a servant diligent; a pastor vigilant, and a flock teachable. Religion clearly requires us to exercise moderation in prosperity and patience in adversity. Our moral relations are regulated in a manner so clear, distinct, and intelligible that we not only cannot invent any difficulties, but nobody hath ever pre tended to invent any.
2. The next character of Christian morality is dignity of principle. Why did God give us laws? Because He loves us, and would have us love Him. How pleasant it is to submit to bonds which the love of God imposes on us.
3. Another character is the justice of its dominions. All its claims are founded on justice and equity.
4. Another feature is a character of proportion.
5. Power of motive is another.
III. The nature of man. There are implied four vague and erroneous notions of human depravity.
1. When we speak of our natural impotence to practise virtue we confound it with an insurmountable necessity to commit the greatest crimes.
2. We confound the sure virtue that religion inspires with other virtues, which constitution, education, and motives of worldly honour are sufficient to enable us to practise.
3. We confound the natural depravity of a man born a pagan, and with only the light of reason, with that of a Christian born and educated among Christians, and amidst all the advantages of revelation.
4. We confound the condition of a man, to whom God hath given only exterior revelation, with the conditions of him to whom God offers supernatural aid to assist him against his natural frailty. (James Saurin.)
Pandora’s box; or, the cause of all evils and miseries
I should tremble to rehearse the text in your ears, if there were not comfort in it as well as terror. You may discern in it a double glass; in the one we may see our hurt, in the other our help. Israel is destroyed. Who hath destroyed Israel? Why is Israel destroyed?
I. The accident to the subject. “Destruction.” Destruction is opposed to construction, as corruption to generation. In the text destruction is the pulling down of the state, and downfall of the kingdom of Israel. All politic bodies are in some sort subject to the condition of natural bodies. As these, so they, have their beginning or birth, growth, perfection, state, decay, and dissolution. If the state of kingdoms and monarchies is so fickle, what folly, or rather madness, is it for any private man to dream of perpetuities and certainties! To compose the seeming difference between God’s promises to Israel and His threats against Israel, we must distinguish divers kinds of promises made to Israel, and divers Israels to whom the promises may appertain.
II. The subject of this accident. Israel may signify, properly, either the whole posterity of Jacob, or the Ten Tribes which were sent from Rehoboam; figuratively the spiritual kingdom of Christ over the elect. There is a threefold Israel.
1. According to the flesh only.
2. According to the spirit only.
3. According to the flesh and spirit.
Some of the promises are absolute, some conditional, some temporal, some spiritual.
III. The cause of this accident in this subject. Praise God, O Israel, for thy former prosperity, but now thank thyself for thy imminent desolation. Are not all mixed bodies corrupted on the disagreement of elements, and the elements themselves by the strife of contrary qualities within them Are not all metals defaced with their own rust? God is the cause of our woe, and we are the cause of our woe. God punisheth us, and we punish ourselves.
1. Let us then confess our sins to be the fuel of God’s wrath, and the fountain of all our miseries.
2. Let us compose ourselves to endure that with patience which we have brought upon ourselves.
3. Let us forsake our beloved sins; let repentance be our practice, and a speedy reformation our instruction, so God s judgments shall not be our destruction. (D. Featley, D. D.)
Israel self-destroyed
TheGospel of our salvation serveth at once to humble and to exalt us. Like certain medicines for the body, it first opens: and searches the wounds which it is intended to heal. The former of these operations is as necessary as the latter, though far from being so pleasing. It is much wiser for us to submit to all the pain which a reflection upon our past conduct may now occasion to us, than to shut our eyes against real danger.
I. Israel is in a state of destruction and misery. Consider this charge with regard to all mankind. If the misery is real, it must be felt. It may be felt, however, and yet not be acknowledged. Men are often ashamed to confess their real feelings on this subject. Can it be denied that man is in a state of wretchedness and destruction?
II. He is himself the author of his own destruction. He hath himself entirely to blame for all the misery which hath come upon him. Sin has brought the curse upon this lower world. “The soul that sinneth it shall die” is an irreversible decree of the Divine government. As long as a man continues a sinner, he must be miserable in the very nature of things. To bring the matter a little nearer us, let each of us put the question to his own breast, Canst thou plead exemption from that general corruption which hath universally affected the human race? (James French.)
Sin a universal disease
With us all the occasional derangements to which persons of the strongest health are liable teach every one the importance of knowing particularly of his own bodily constitution. But why is all this wisdom bestowed on the body, and disregarded in the corresponding case of our spiritual sickness? Every man bears the seed of spiritual disease in his inward frame. How important that he should understand his own symptoms. To brave refection, to despise precautions, to neglect predispositions, to shut his eyes to growing disease, to refuse proper remedies, where the life of the soul is concerned, is no less a blind folly and a fatal rashness in the case of the soul than in that of the body. Are not sins diseases--fatal diseases, if they lead to death? The text is addressed, in the first instance, to a whole people, personified or spoken to as an individual person. In Israel is typified all mankind, for all are concluded under sin, all are guilty before God. Sin is surely the symptom of fatal disorder in the soul, for it is God’s revelation that no sin on God s earth is forgiven without blood shed for it; and that there shall in no wise enter heaven anything that defileth--no sin, small or great, unconfessed, unforsaken, unforgiven. Where there is sin on the conscience, whether known or unknown, that soul has destroyed itself. Where is the soul that has not some time sinned? And where is the conscience that has washed out that stain for itself? And what is the washing that can take the stain of a sin out of an immaterial soul? We do not speak now of open vice and wickedness. We do not address the conscience that is seared with red-hot iron. There are sins which are not so gross, which lie so deep that they may long remain unseen; not so hateful to men, and yet as dangerous to the soul; for the root of dislike to God and enmity to godly things very often lies hidden among such secret forms of sins. How much real godliness of heart do the generality of professing Christians exhibit? Can there be a more fatal disorder of the soul than formality, indifference, hypocrisy, profession without practice, lip-service without heart-service? If you have enmities and cherish hatred, if you love idle gossip and carelessly utter slander, etc. etc., you must admit that these are fatal symptoms of something miserably wrong in the soul. It is a sure sign that persons have “destroyed themselves” when they have no hearts to praise God. Sin is not only the commission of particular stated offences; it is the state of the heart, it is being without a sufficient love, a sufficient liking, for God’s goodness, and having more liking for things. Sin is the transgression of the law. And this is the law--to love my neighbour as myself. But ii we have destroyed ourselves, is there no hope, is there no help? Few words will suffice to disclose that mighty remedy which is in our God alone. “In Me is thy help.” (Brereton E. Dwarris, M. A.)
The sinner his own destroyer
Self-destruction is a crime of awful and unparalleled turpitude. A few facts will make this clear beyond a peradventure.
I. No man is destroyed in hell for ever simply because he is a sinner. All have sinned, and all would inevitably perish had not Omnipotent Love intervened to prevent it. The sinner that dies at last, dies not because he is a sinner, but because being a sinner he refused the pardon and grace offered.
II. A free and full salvation has been wrought out and is proffered to every sinner. The physician is at hand. There is “balm in Gilead” to heal sin’s dreadful malady.
III. God wants long and graciously to welcome the sinner back to life. He restrains His anger. He affords every opportunity. He sends forth His messenger.
IV. God puts no hindrances in the sinner’s way, imposes no restraint on the free exercise of his will.
V. Every impossible inducement is held out, an amazing system of means and agencies is put in force, to morally constrain him to obey and live; so that, if he destroys his soul at last, it can only be by personally resisting and overcoming the combined efforts of God and man to prevent it! (J. M. Sherwood, D. D.)
Self-destruction,--God salvation
There is no more mournful spectacle in history than that of a nation concerning which thins has to be said, “Thou hast destroyed thyself.” It is bad enough when a nation is destroyed by other powers. But there is something sadder, if our eyes were only opened to see it. The sadder spectacle is that of the human soul of whom it can be truthfully said, “O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself.” It is bad enough to be destroyed by Satan; but it is worst of all to feel that we ourselves are the instruments of our own ruin. There is a whole multitude of different kinds of powers which are brought to bear upon the ungodly man for his ruin. But no existing force can ruin the human soul unless it is false to its own interests. As long as man is true to himself, and therefore true to his God, so long is he invincible. But let that man once turn his back upon that Being from whom he has derived his origin, and on whom he is wholly dependent, then the man is paralysed and stripped of all moral power. Why do I desire to bring the accusation of the text home? Because there is a tendency in the human heart to lay the blame of its own sins on somebody else, and pre-eminently on God Himself. Do not let us try and throw off the blame from our own shoulders on to God. The blame must ever be ours, and because the blame is ours, therefore the pain is ours. Some shift the blame on to God by misrepresenting application of His foreknowledge. Because God foresees a thing, He does not make us perform it. The fact that God foreknows arises from the fact that God inhabits eternity, and that we live in time. The vaster region in which God lives and moves encloses that smaller and more restricted region in which we live. As soon as you think God interferes with your own moral freedom, you may turn round and lay the blame of your sin upon God; but so long as God constitutes you a free, responsible agent, do not add to your other sins the sin of blasphemy, by making the everlasting God the source of the sin which has disgraced your life. How does Christ “help” us? He stoops to the very sepulchre where we are lying, and lifts the poor corpse right up from the very jaws of destruction by the power of His own resurrection. He infuses into our lifeless nature a new vitality, which comes from Himself; and triumphing over our foe, He exclaims: “I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death.” (W. Hay Aitken, M. A.)
The sinner self-destroyed
As regards the race of Israel, the prophet’s statement is self-evident. The national ruin of the chosen race was clearly due to national disobedience. But is not man in all eases the author of his own perdition? That it was so with our first parent admits of no doubt. His ruin was chargeable solely on him self. Is man a self-destroyer? Consider this question--
I. In its relation to the nature of God. We cannot comprehend God. Between the Creator and the creature there is an immeasurable distance. If God foreknows that this or-that man will finally perish, how can it be affirmed that he destroys himself? In reply we ask, Does the foreknowledge of God as to any particular action imply that He is the Agent? All that can be said is that God permits these actions to be wrought. We must not confound what God foreknows with what God appoints. The future punishment of the wicked is represented in God’s Word as the product of sin,--sin the grain sown, punishment the harvest to be reaped. If, then, the sin is the sinner’s own, and the punishment is the legitimate product of the sin, is not the conclusion just, that it is the man him self who commits the sin who destroys himself! Suppose that the decrees of God are apparently inconsistent with the doctrine that man destroys himself. There are two methods by which the question might be set at rest. One is through our being made fully acquainted with all those decrees, in all their relations to time and to eternity. But this method is inapplicable in our case, for we have not the capacity to comprehend the decrees of God. The other is our accepting the assurance that the purposes of God are not at variance with our personal responsibility. Life and death are before us, and we can choose. Therefore man’s undoing must be of himself. God’s decrees we cannot comprehend, His invitations we can
II. The question in its relation to the proposals of the Gospel. Some have attempted to show that the requirements of the Gospel are in effect the main hindrances to its acceptance. They are so rigid and unyielding, that practically they operate as a barrier to our embracing the proposals of mercy which the Gospel brings. With the requirements of the Gospel it is certainly no easy matter to comply. No man can comply with them in his own strength. But we must remember that the Gospel is of God. It is the plan which infinite wisdom contrived, and shall feeble man presume to say that the wisdom of Jehovah has erred? Bear in mind that the precepts of the Gospel are framed for the happiness and well-being of mankind; and note how carefully the Gospel adapts itself to our moral constitution in the appeal which it makes to those motives which have the most power to influence human con duct. It may, however, be further objected, that there is such an inherent weakness and depravity in human nature that practically it is impossible to attain to the standard of obedience which the Gospel demands. Least of all will this plea serve. We fully admit the depravity of human nature. But bear in mind the nature has been redeemed. The Son of God has taken our nature into union with the Divine, that He might redeem and sanctify and save it. Say not, then, that it is the nature of man which makes it impossible for him to be saved. The nature has been redeemed, and the redemption would be incomplete if it left any man in this life beyond the reach of being saved. If there had been no interposition in behalf of the fallen; if mankind had been allowed to multiply, and no movement on the part of God had been set on foot for their deliverance, there might then have been ground for the excuse. There is, how ever, nothing in the nature of God, nothing in the proposals of the Gospel, nothing in the moral nature of men, to render salvation impossible. (R. Bickersteth, D. D.)
Israel’s relief from God
“In Me is thy help.” That is--
(1) It might have been. “I would have helped and healed thee, but thou wouldst not be helped and healed.” This will aggravate the condemnation of sinners, that they opposed the offers God made them.
(2) It may be. “Thy case is bad, but it is not desperate. Come to Me and I will help thee.” This is a plank thrown out after shipwreck, and greatly magnifies the power of God, but also the niches of His grace, Dr. Pocock renders, “Presuming upon God and His favour has emboldened thee in those wicked ways which have been thy ruin.” (Matthew Henry.)
Help in God for sinners
When sinners are seeking salvation it is very important that they should know where to find it. There is no subject on which men are so likely to err as the subject of salvation. Nowhere else does the heart exert such an influence over the mind. Men have “carnal minds which are at enmity with God.” Men do not “seek first the kingdom of God,” putting eternity before time. Since unregenerate men are so apt to be dissatisfied with the rules of God everywhere else, we might expect them to be dissatisfied with the plan of salvation, and make many mistakes when they are seeking to be saved. Sinners are apt to lose sight of the essential truth of the text. God says, “In Me is thy help.” The meaning of this is unlimited. The sinner’s only help is in God. He cannot help himself. He will never have a heart that is right with God, he will never be reconciled to Him, he will never be a new creature in Christ Jesus without God’s help. The first proof of this is found in the language of the Bible. The second is found in the nature of the unrenewed heart. The third proof of the necessity of Divine influence is found in the inefficiency of all other influences. The fourth in the inefficacy of all motives. You may not always be sensible of your resistance; but the reason is, that you consider these things so little, and examine your own hearts and lives so little, that you remain in almost entire ignorance of yourselves. Many of you are waiting for stronger motives. Sinners do persuade themselves, and they are able to persuade themselves, that some stronger, more powerful motives would influence them to turn to God. Motives do not convert men. Your help is in God, not in motives. Practical improvement and profitable direction from this doctrine.
1. The folly of those who seek salvation in themselves. It is all very true that the sinner who seeks salvation must strive against sin, shun temptation, deny himself, guard well his heart, or he will not be saved. But when he relies upon himself and not on God, when he seeks to help himself instead of seeking help from God, he is leaning on a broken reed. Man must depend, and work while he depends.
2. The reason why so many of those who are awakened to a sense of Divine things, and begin to seek salvation, never attain it. They wish to take themselves out of the hands of God.
3. We learn why sinners who are making some attempts to be saved sometimes continue so long in affliction and trouble before they find peace with God.
4. We learn what is the great struggle of the sinner in coming to salvation. It is to give his wicked heart to God.
5. Sinners when awakened are often doing, or attempting to do, something directly contrary to what they suppose.
6. They are often guilty of resisting the Holy Spirit.
7. Sinners are their own destroyers. (J. S. Spencer, D. D.)
Man’s destruction, of himself; his salvation, of God
To understand things in their causes, and to trace them back from their first causes into their principles, has always been deemed the highest kind of knowledge. However agreeable and entertaining this kind of knowledge may be, it is not always the most needful and useful. We are now in a world of action, rather than of science. And usually we have more to do with thereality than with the philosophy. But in regard to our destruction and salvation, it is absolutely necessary that we should know the causes, in order that we may be enabled properly to levy the praise and the blame. God must not incur the infamy of our destruction, and we must not usurp the glory of our salvation. Two propositions are derivable from the text.
I. Man’s destruction of himself. What is this destruction? It is not a temporal loss; not the loss of the body, but the loss of the soul. Not the loss of its physical being and faculties, but the loss of its well-being and its happiness and its hope. At whose door is the blame to be laid? We make five appeals.
1. We appeal to the cause of your continuance in the state in which you are. Ii it were so, that you were not accessory to your own depraved and mortal state, surely you are accountable for your continuance in it. God has provided a fountain for sin and uncleanness open and free always; but if you love your pollution better than cleansing, your destruction will be of yourselves.
2. To the nature of Christianity. If in the Gospel call any had been overlooked, you might fear that you were in the number. If hard conditions and meritorious qualifications were required to be performed and possessed, you might despair. If the truths of Christianity were hard to be understood, you might complain of ignorance. If these benefits were sold at a high price, you might complain of poverty. If these duties were to require for their performance a power that was nowhere to be found, or was unattainable by you, you might complain of weakness. If upon making trial you could not succeed, if upon praying you were refused, you might then complain of the providence and the grace of God: but what can you complain of now?
3. We appeal toexperience. Your experience: the experience of a sinner, the experience of the true penitent. The true penitent is not only awakened, he is enlightened; and in God’s light he sees light.
4. To the Divine testimony. Let us defer at once to a Being whose judgment is always according to truth. Ask God whether we are compelled to sin, and whether, if we perish, the blame will be our own?
5. To the proceedings of the last day. Then every one must give account of himself to God. What will you do when He rises up, and when He judges? The hour cometh when “every mouth will be stopped, and all the world shall be found guilty before God,” whatever they now allege in their own defence or extenuation.
II. Our salvation is of God, Sinners of themselves cannot repair the con sequences of their transgressions. The reason why so many think of being their own saviours is, because they have such defective views of their fallen state itself, and because they have never seriously and earnestly made the trial of their supposed ability to deliver themselves. God’s help is--
1. The most gracious in its source. Whence did this scheme arise? Compulsion is out of the question. But may not merit have some influence? Alas I all our desert is on the other side. Has desire had no influence? Why, the scheme was not only formed, it was accomplished too, long before we had any being. “According to His mercy, He saved us.”
2. The most wonderful in its procurement. Not only is the agency entirely the Lord’s, but He accomplishes the thing in a way the most peculiar. God does not save us by the mere volition of His will, or a mere exertion of His power. We see the “Word made flesh and dwelling among us,” and suffering for sin, “the just for the unjust.”
3. The most suitable in its supply. Is light adapted to the eye? Is melody adapted to the ear? Is food adapted to the taste? So correspond the blessings of the Gospel with all our wants and woes and weak nesses. Here is wisdom for the ignorant, pardon for the offending, renovation for the depraved, strength for the weak, riches for the poor; a sun if you are in darkness, a shield if you are in danger.
4. The most perfect in its efficiency. He who “speaks in righteousness is mighty to save.”
5. The most extensive and accessible. None of you are excluded unless you exclude yourselves. This subject should preach--
(1) Candour. Persons differ in their opinions, and all are not equally clear in their religious views; but if they keep between the two grand lines of the text they cannot materially or essentially err.
(2) Terror. Self-preservation is the first law of nature. You can “destroy yourselves.”
(3) Encouragement. Not to those who wish to continue in sin, but to those who are desirous of deliverance from it, and of obtaining salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ. What compassion there is in God, who hath remembered you in your lost estate!
(4) Admonition. Though there is help in Him, there is help in Him only. In Him only is the hope of Israel. And there is only help now. “Now is the accepted time.” (William Jay.)
Moral self-destruction
If a man is lost he has only himself to blame. It is told of some poor heathens that, to please their god, they put themselves to death in the following way. They took a little boat, went out into the deep water, then took a little vessel in their hand, put itover the boat, filled it with water, and then poured the water into the boat. So they went on and on; the boat kept filling and filling, presently it began to tremble, and then sank, and thus they died. This is just what the sinner does. He goes on in sin for a month. What is he doing? He is putting water into the boat. He goes on for a year. He is putting water into the boat. He goes on yet longer. Take care! Take care! The boat is filling. The sinner is filling it. Stop! or it may sink for ever. (Thomas Jones.)
What man has to give thanks for
One thing of which the Lord casts the entire blame upon His creatures, and another thing of which He takes the entire glory to Himself.
I. Man hath to thank himself for his own destruction. That man is, by nature, in a destroyed and ruined state is too clear to be denied. Men do indeed try hard to soften down the fact. They strive to put the fairest face they can upon their situation and their prospects. Whatever other charges man is open to, self-hatred surely is not one of them. Yet man is said to be a self-destroyer. Both these things are true--man is a self-lover, and man is a self-destroyer. In proof see this. We have turned our backs on our best friend. We have rushed into the arms of our worst enemy. We have done, with our eyes open, things of which we have been perfectly well aware, that they work the death of the poor soul. And he is of all self-murderers the most determined who, having inflicted the wound, will not let it be bound up.
II. Sinners have to thank God for the work of the salvation. In this work man has no part or lot. What a humbling truth! Why cannot we help and save ourselves? Because we have reduced ourselves so low. The words of the text mean: I am qualified to help you. There is in Me all the sufficiency your case requires.” Nor is it a help up only which the Saviour offers, but a help forward. (A. Roberts, M. A.)
Man his own destroyer; God alone his Saviour
Whatever changes may be made by time, we are sure of one thing, that our God changeth not, and that the principles involved in His counsels and threatenings, in His warnings and promises and invitations, are immutable and everlasting as Himself.
I. Self-destruction is possible to us men; even the destruction of the highest, noblest, and Divinest part of our nature. Man, too, is the only being upon the earth to whom self-destruction is really possible; the being whose capacities are the noblest has the power of self-injury. A man cannot put out his life, but he can blight and blast all that is bright and blessed, happy and holy in his nature and life.
II. The only power by which we can destroy ourselves is the power of sinning. Sin does its work most rapidly and completely. Sinning darkens the understanding, impairs the judgment, makes a man a fool, disorders the imagination, deadens the best susceptibilities of the heart, and sears the conscience. It enslaves the will, and prevents peace of mind. It depraves the whole spiritual nature. And sinning is the breach of God’s law of love. God takes notice of every breach of His law.
III. Every finally destroyed man is self-destroyed. God will not destroy a man except as punishment for sin. The devil cannot permanently hurt you, excerpt as you combine with him to hurt yourselves. Two things are certain. The sin which finally destroys men is sin for which they are responsible. And the sin which inflicts most injury is the sin which men love, and which, because they love, they think lightly of.
IV. The self-destroyed may be saved from destruction. “In Me is thy help”--thy deliverance, thy salvation.
1. A man cannot save himself. All that he can do for himself is to submit to be saved. At first all men try to save themselves.
2. No fellow-man can save the sinner. God never sends a man to His priest; He invites the man to Himself.
3. Think of the encouragement to return to God. While God is speaking to you of salvation, you may have it. Self-destruction by sinning is the natural order. Salvation does not come in any natural order, but as the result of an extraordinary provision on the part of God. If after God has spoken to you, you be finally destroyed, your destruction will be self-destruction--wilful, inexcusable, and unbearable. (Samuel Martin.)
Sinners are self-destroyers, but salvation is of God
I. Sin is a most destructive evil. Sin is the grand disturber of the world. It disturbs the conscience, families, churches, cities, and nations.
II. Sinners are self-destroyers. It will be found that the blame is all our own, that there is an obstinate persistence is sin against the remonstrances of conscience and the admonitions of God.
III. There is salvation in Jesus Christ, even for self-destroying sinners. There is sufficient help for every purpose of our salvation. There is grace abounding for the greatest sinners. (G. Burder.)
The moral ruin and recovery of man
I. Man’s ruin is of himself. Many believe that God is in some way the author of evil. This is impiously false. God is not the author of man’s ruin. Being the first cause of all good, and independent, He is good, and only good. Satan is not the author of man’s ruin. He cannot force the will nor constrain the mind to sin without concurrence and consent on our part, and in the concurrence and consent consists the sin that causes our ruin.
(1) Our personal conduct shows this truth, and evinces that our sins result from the free choice of our wills, because there can be no responsibility where there is no freedom of choice.
(2) The state of our mind shows the same truth. This evidence indeed is cognisable only to our own conscience; but this is as it ought to be. What is the nature of the ruin? Loss of rectitude, or the Divine image; exposure to Divine wrath now, and in the world to come. These are the outlines of the misery we have brought on ourselves through sin.
II. Man’s recovery is of God. “In Me is thine help.” The doctrine here is, that the salvation of man is of the grace of God. “By grace ye are saved.” He delivers us from the evils which involve our ruin. The guilt of conscience, the defilement of the heart, the disorder of the faculties, the dominion of the passions, the bondage of sin. He restores to us the blessings that involve our happiness. (D.V. Phillips)
How sin destroys
One of the most famous pictures in the world is the Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci. Jesus sits at the table with His twelve disciples. It is said that the artist sought long for a model for the Saviour. He wanted a young man of pure holy look. At length his attention was fixed on a chorister in the cathedral named Pietro Bandinelli. This young man had a very noble face and a devout demeanour. Leonardo used him as a model in painting the face of the Master. Soon after this Pietro went to Rome to study music. There he fell among evil companions and was led to drink, and then into all manner of debasing sins. Year after year the painter went on with his picture. All the apostles were now painted save one--Judas, the traitor. Da Vinci went from place to place, looking for some debased man who would be suitable as a model. He was walking one day on the streets of Milan, watching the faces of evil men he chanced to meet, when his eyes fell on one who seemed to have in his features the character he sought. He was a miserable unclean beggar, wearing rags, with villainous look. The man sat as the artist’s model for Judas. After the face was painted Da Vinci learned that the man who sat for him was his old friend Pierre Bandinelli, the same who had sat a few years before as the model for the Master. Wickedness had debased the beautiful life into hideous deformity. Sin distorts, deforms, and destroys the human soul. It drags it down from its greatness until it grovels in the dust. In Me is thyhelp.
Helpfor all:--The first thing that a man does after waking up to his sinful condition, is to try to help himself. How are we to come to moral and spiritual health? As long as the heart is wrong the life will be wrong.
I. God is willing to help us by giving us the holy spirit to show us just the position we occupy. What is the use of conviction? Without it, a man does not want Christ and His salvation. The Holy Spirit coming into the heart, a man wakes up to see his true state.
II. God is ready to help us, by giving us repentance. There is a great difference between seeing my sin and turning from it. Conviction and conversion are not the same thing.
III. God is willing to help us, byenabling us to exercise faith in christ. The most exhausting work to which I ever put the energies of my soul was to believe in Christ. Indeed, it is so great an undertaking that no man can accomplish it of himself.
IV. God is willing to help us, by giving us the pardon and peace of the gospel. He can save you. (T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.)
Man’s destruction and God’s restoration
I. Consider the destruction of sin.
1. Adam ruined himself and all his children by sin (Rom_5:19; Rom_5:21).
2. We have destroyed ourselves by actual transgression (Rom_3:23).
3. The intellect or understanding is ruined (Jer_8:7).
4. The will is become a rebellious faculty (Rom_8:7).
5. The conscience is rendered past feeling (1Ti_4:2; 1Ti_4:6).
6. The passions and affections of the soul are equally defiled (1Jn_2:16).
7. He is destroyed both in body and soul, but for Christ (Psa_9:17).
II. Christ is our salvation and help.
1. Christ is the true light (Mal_4:2).
2. He shines in our hearts and understandings (Psa_36:9).
3. He restores to us an enlightened conscience (Heb_10:22).
4. The soul is now sensible of the least transgression (2Co_1:12).
5. He strengthens our memories to retain Divine things (Joh_14:26).
6. He rectifies and restores all our affections (Psa_73:25).
7. Provision is made for the everlasting life of the Church (Joh_6:37).
8. He is our help in delivering us from the wrath to come (Joh_14:3).
III. The improvement.
1. This help is omnipotent in its energy (1Co_1:24).
2. It is prompt in its manifestation (Isa_59:19).
3. It is always successful in its undertakings (Col_2:15).
4. It will not admit of any co-operation in the work (Eph_2:8-9).
5. It is unceasing in its application (Isa_41:17). (T. B. Baker.)
Man self-destroyed, but not self-saved
That man is a fallen and ruined creature is generally acknowledged. The moral condition of the world is a certain demonstration of this distressing truth. It is confirmed by the unrighteous propensities, by the vices of character, and by the aberrations from virtuous conduct which are exhibited more or less frequently even in the best of men. Man does not impute his ruin to himself; and yet, for the most part, he expects his recovery from himself. The first of these errors blinds him to the necessity of repentance; the second prevents the exercise of faith.
I. Man’s ruin is from himself alone. Our first father sinned voluntarily. But is it our fault that our natures are depraved If the fault be not yours, it must be imputed to God, or to the tempter, or to Adam. The first would be no less impious than absurd. The second cannot be entertained. Satan cannot constrain. The fault must lie between Adam and yourselves. And you cannot separate yourselves from him.
I. Adam was the head and representative of the entire human race. The consequences of Adam’s sin are witnessed in all his posterity. They all sin, invariably; they all die, invariably. Do you complain that, instead of giving man a general law, God entered into special covenant with him? Then you complain of that which is, in fact, the strongest argument of Divine goodness and condescension; for a law contains no promise. But a covenant holds out the certain prospect of a recompense in case of fidelity. Would it have been better that the fate of the human race should not have been entrusted to the hands of one? It is not only a fact that we are implicated in the first sin, but that fact is demonstrably consistent with the righteousness and goodness of God. Instead of evading the charge, we are called upon to confess its truth.
2. Men have universally followed in the footsteps of the first transgression, and have thus made it their own. The original act is not repudiated and disavowed, but is repeated and imitated. There has never been one individual exception. All have sinned, are sinning every day and every hour. Every individual gives ample ground for his own condemnation.
3. Down to the present day the sins of men are committed of their own free will, and without any external restraint. Consult your own reason. Do you not feel that you are free? You are not conscious of any foreign force, or of the pressure of inevitable necessity. It is true that you are tempted; but the tempter can employ no compulsion. Since men sin willingly and by choice, they cannot be exculpated.
4. Men have added to the guilt of a single act of disobedience an immense multitude and variety of new transgressions, clustering about it from age to age; so that it stands not alone, but is only the first, and yet not the worst, of all sins. It is difficult to conceive how they could have done more to appropriate Adam’s guilt The torrents of iniquity have been deepening and widening from generation to generation.
5. Men choose to abide in their present depraved condition, though a method of recovery is proposed to them in the Gospel. This is the crowning evidence which ought to produce conviction. No sooner was the guilt incurred than redeeming mercy was proclaimed; and how has that proclamation been treated by the world? On the ground of all these considerations, we insist that all transgressed in Adam, and have, in point of fact, made themselves partakers of his sin. Man is the author of his own ruin. The recognition of this truth is necessary to excite repentance, without which there can be no escape from perdition. Whom else can the sinner accuse? Will he lay the blame upon God, because He endued man with a free will? That liberty of choice is the glory of human nature. Or because He subjected man to a test, in token of the homage due to His supremacy? Or because He did not render man immutable in holiness from the very first? Will you quarrel with the permission of evil? Would you lay the fault upon the tempter? Or upon Adam? Vain evasions all!
II. Man’s recovery is from God. This truth meets the second delusion of man. He looks generally to himself for salvation. Four considerations will set this truth in a clear and convincing light.
1. Man wants a proper sense of his own condition and danger, and therefore he never will (even if he could) take the very first step towards his own recovery. There is no adequate motive. If it had been left to man, the least effort never would have been put forth to recover the friendship of God, and to restore His lost image in the soul.
2. Man has lost all his love of righteousness, and, therefore, never would have sought recovery of his own accord. There is a great deal of virtue in the world, but whence is it derived? Take away all that has been wrought for the morals of mankind by the indirect influence of religion,, and how much will be left? There is not to be found, anywhere in the world, any hatred of sin as sin, nor love of righteousness as righteousness, except in the man renewed and sanctified by the Spirit of God, and by the blood of Christ. If a righteous and holy God had not seen and pitied the want of righteousness in man, that want had never been perceived, never lamented; and, for this cause, there could have been no salvation.
3. Man has no means of satisfying the justice of God for his sins; and, therefore, even if willing, he could not be the author of his own recovery.
1. Some satisfaction is necessary.
2. Man has none to offer which can be acceptable.
3. He has not that moral strength which is necessary to the renewal of his heart and the amendment of his life; and, therefore, he cannot be the author of his own recovery.
God alone can awaken the soul to a conviction of danger, implant in it a love of holiness, provide the means of reconciliation, and by the influence of His Holy Spirit renew the heart, the character, and the life. Salvation belongeth unto the Lord.”(Daniel Katterns.)
Religious unreality
Ihave long been convinced that many of our opinions and practices of these days differ enormously from the simple Gospel which Christ preached. I see but little hope for the re-animation of the true Christian ideal until God in His mercy raises up amongst us some prophet like Savonarola or Luther, or John Wesley, or some saint like St. Paul, or St. Francis, who is a saint indeed. Nothing is easier than to forget that religion means a good mind and a good life. Give me righteousness and not talk, conduct and not opinions, character and not ceremonies, love and not shams.
I. Doctrine and practice. In every religion there must be doctrine and practice. Christ came to show us that God’s will is our sanctification. The age, the nation, and the Church, supremely need this lesson. “Get sincerity. Simplify your lives, simplify your religion; return to the simplicity which is in Christ Jesus. Whatever our belief may be, whatever our worship may be, unless we keep innocency, and do the thing that is right, we have missed the one thing, and only thing, which will bring any human being peace at the last.”
II. The bridge of life. There is on every side of us a false life, and on every side of us a sham religion. There is open to us all a blessed life and a real religion. Christianity in nearly all of us produces fruits so crude, so scant, so hunger-bitten, as to be little better than a store of Levitism or a godless heathenism. Christianity smitten through and through with the curse and the blight of our unreality,--that is the reason why it makes such little way, and is losing its hold of the masses of the population. Yet let us not despair. God judges not as man judges.
III. Help in God. Life is short. There is nothing which the world, tile flesh, or the devil can offer us which is not profoundly unsatisfying. Yet God who giveth more grace, can deliver us from that fraud or subtlety of the devil or man, which is the only final irremediable curse of our mortal lives. He can give us holiness; He can give us peace; He can give us happiness in Him. There m nothing to complain of in life, but only in ourselves, who pervert, and dwarf, and degrade, and poison it; and so God ever calls to us, and pleads with us through His Son, our Lord. “O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in Me is thy help.” (Dean Farrar.)
Christ, the sinner’s refuge
These words bring before us two subjects--man’s state by nature: and his restoration by God.
I. We have destroyed ourselves. Most men, though self-destroyers in a spiritual sense, yet appear to be quite unconscious of it. By many sin is thought to be a thing quite harmless, altogether innocuous; but a more dangerous or poisonous reptile does not exist. You must be judged by the rigorous demands of the law of God, and that law requires obedience, in thought, word, and deed, and that without the smallest deviation. You cannot discharge the debt you owe to this law. You are in this respect helpless, hopeless, remediless.
II. We cannot help ourselves. Our own obedience to the law cannot possibly justify, and consequently cannot save us. This fact the Scriptures declare. Some say, but God is merciful. Will He show mercy at the expense of justice? He delights in mercy when His justice is satisfied.
III. When and how does God become the sinner’s help? When the sinner believes on Christ to salvation. He could not obey the law perfectly, so as to be justified thereby, but when he believes in the Saviour, Jesus becomes to him justification. He could offer no sacrifice to God for his sins. Jesus is to the believer an all-sufficient sacrifice. The sinner could not redeem his soul from death. Jesus becomes to the believer “wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.” (G. M’Clelland, A. B.)
Man’s ruin and God’s remedy
These words are prophetic of the great disasters and that awful ruin which came upon God’s chosen people, when the Assyrian led them into captivity, and desolated their land with fire and sword. They were spoken in a time of comparative security, when the cities of Israel were teeming with inhabitants, and the broad harvest fields were offering their rich reward to the labour of the husbandman. Amid the glitter and promise of material civilisation, God had discerned and denounced the real tendencies of this rebellious people. He declares that the ruin should be the natural consummation of the nation’s progress, that they should be self-destroyed by the simple operation of the principles which they had adopted, and the institutions which they had founded. This brief address proclaims the solemn truth, that as he stands amid the bounties of God’s providence and the natural arrangements of the world, man is continually perverting them from their Divine intent, and thereby bringing ruin upon his highest interests; and the only remedy for his abuse of mercies and disarrangement of established order is found in the constant interposition of Jehovah’s arm in the processes of nature, providence, and grace. Our subject then is, the destructive tendency of human progress, and the remedy supplied by God to counteract the ruin. A weakness of the present age is the temper in which men are wont to glorify its institutions, its achievements, and its progress. As if by general consent the nineteenth century has been established upon a throne of honour, and around it have gathered the high priests of science and the leaders of opinion, to proclaim its successes and its destiny. But the object of all this idolatry is no less a shadow and a deceit than is that crowned and jewelled mortal whose life is flowing on to death, while his flatterers are extolling his immortality.
I. The natural progress of man in the world is a steady lapse towards corruption and destruction. In spite of the arts, institutions, and triumphs of civilisation, the natural development of the race is a descent towards misrule, oppression, anarchy, and ruin. Reason, revelation, and history make this evident.
1. Consider the nature of the ideas of civilisation and progress as they are held by men, and as they operate in the world. That there is a “law of progress” in relation to man’s material interests cannot be overlooked, and ought not to be denied. On behalf of his various needs, man is a ceaseless worker. Thus there is progress in the art of living, in mechanical inventions, in the range of the fine arts, and the scope of great enterprises, and in the fellowship of nations. One age profits by the mistakes and successes of those which have preceded it. Great results are produced, dazzling to the eye, and flattering to the pride of man. But when this process is closely surveyed, and its real tendencies are accurately noted, what is it more or better than a reconstruction of the tower of Babel, in which railroad iron, and telegraphic wires, and social comforts, are substituted for asphaltic brick, and the fine arts for the builder’s lofty plan, but the intent of which is equally with that of the ancient enterprise, to exalt man upon the earth, and screen him from the scrutiny of God! Expand it, modify it, or disguise it as you will, the fact remains that a process of development which rests upon these ideas and aims at these results is rotten to the core, and from it there can only spring corruption. In material prosperity we have the real end of progress, so far as it is sought by any human institutions, and in this there cannot be a single element of conservative effect, or a single principle of enduring force.
2. This view is confirmed by the lessons of history. “History” is philosophy teaching by examples. In the light of the solid facts of history we learn the real tendencies of that refinement and civilisation of which those who see things in the present only, are so prone to boast. Every nation that has culminated in such a civilisation as has been described, has found thereto the elements of its decay and ruin. Illustrate from Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Rome, India, Ottoman Empire, States of Italy, South American Republics, etc.
3. Refer to our own land, and the influence of our own institutions. We have received a goodly heritage. Our institutions were founded in the hatred of oppression and the love of right. The broad Atlantic rolls between us and the corruptions which have vitiated the oldernations of the world. But what has been the direction of our progress Has there been ascent or descent in the march of empire? It is true that, in our national career, we have gained in territory, and increased in revenue, and advanced in culture and refinement, but amid all this the primal vigour and intensity of the nation’s life has wasted. Republicanism does not check depravity. Consider the fierce partisanship of politics, the strife of interests between different sections of the Union, the corruption of our legislators, the apologies for oppression, the insecurity of our cities, our eagerness in the pursuit of wealth for its own sake, the recklessness of our expenditure, and the fearful increase of crimes of darkest hue, and you cannot but acknowledge the general tendency towards license and corruption.
II. Amid these destructive tendencies there is hope for man in thehelping hand of God. God is continually averting perils, reconstructing ruined institutions, and infusing new life into the organisms which man has corrupted. Among the vivid creations of the Scandinavian mythology there is one which represents Life under the similitude of a Tree. Igdrasil, the ash-tree of existence, has its roots deep down in the very kingdom of death. At its base sit the three Fates, who water these roots from the sacred well, while its trunk mounts high towards heaven, and its branches spread into every land. Its boughs are the histories of nations. Its rustle is the sound of human life, swelling onward from of old. It grows there in spite of death below, and storms above, the true emblem of man’s life and progress, by means of the forces through which God sustains him in the midst of moral evil. Out of the very elements of death He is evolving a progressive revelation which will change the tendencies of the race: The process by which this is being accomplished is not natural, as men understand the laws of nature. It is a process of miraculous effect, and supremely glorious to the grace of God. The formal statement of this Divine method we find only in the Word of God. It is by implanting living ideas of truth and righteousness, and by renewing sinful human hearts in the Divine likeness, that man’s ruin is turned aside. In the spiritual influences of the Gospel lies the help which His Wordhas promised, and which His hand affords. Christianity is the one power of real progress in the world. Christianity saves the world from corruption and destruction. By it society would be truly civilised, the State be reared on the great principles of righteousness, and the highest welfare of the world be secured by a prosperity which should be at once material and spiritual, temporal and eternal. (R. R. Booth.)
Men’s misery from themselves--the remedy in God
In the history of the Jewish race are set forth the waywardness and the misery of men under alienation from God. In the mingled tenderness and severity of its treatment, we have a representative instance of the general dealings of providence regarding the disobedient and rebellious. The kingdom of the Ten Tribes had fallen upon evil times. Their sufferings were no doubt judicial--the awarded judgments of the Supreme Ruler; but they were likewise the natural and inevitable consequences of their conduct. These are equally true propositions, that no evil is from God, and that all good is from Him. Help and deliverance upon repentance and amendment are precisely as much in the cou
