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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Life After Death (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 64. A Study in Chances
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A Study in Chances
And now we swing back to our starting point on this talk. It is really quite accurate to say that this is a study of chances. That is to say, technically, theoretically, the thing is not settled at death. It is never settled. The way is always open for another chance. That statement is logically technically, accurate. Underscore technically. Technically means so far as the points of logic are concerned.
But what about actually? The man on the street is impatient of theory. He is concerned only with the practical. And so now we will discuss the thing wholly from the practical, the common sense point of view. What are a man's chances who passes out of this life without taking advantage of his opportunity Godward?
And the answer to this is very plain and positive. You know that there is now a science of chances. At least it is reckoned a science for all practical, that is to say, for money-making purposes. The great life insurance and assurance companies have experts on chances. And the huge volume of business they transact, involving billions of dollars, is based wholly on the findings of these experts.
These men are called actuaries. An actuary is one skilled in the doctrine and practice of chances as applied to human life. They calculate your chance of life in the most critical impersonal dispassionate way. They have the whole subject of chances down to a science. That is, down to the point of definite knowledge of certain facts and tendencies. They have worked out a law of chances. It is with them purely a matter of money.
Now let me say soberly that there is here a study in the science of chances. And when you sift the thing down to the last word, the final word is not spoken by God. It is spoken by the man concerned. It is wholly a matter of his choice.
It can be said, very thoughtfully, that so far as God is concerned, judging simply from His character as revealed in this Book, that there is never a time when a man turning to God in true penitence would not find God's door wide open.
But, but, the probability or chance of a man changing his choice is so extremely remote that it can be said in the most positive terms that there is not another chance beyond the grave. The matter rests with the man. And he won't give himself the chance.
The man who doesn't do today, what he knows in his heart he should do, is are you listening very quietly? is, let me say it very quietly, but as plainly as English can put it, he is playing the part of a it's a hard word to say, but it's literally a true word, so it must be said, even though saying it gives sharpest pain, he is playing the part of a fool.
He is a fool, and not even a bright fool. He is playing a losing game. That means a lost game. He is still playing but the game is settled by the law of chance, and settled lost. That is not simply using strong language. It is really an understatement. The word fool is less than what the man is.
Why do I say that? Listen very thoughtfully, and I will tell you why. It is easier to make the right choice today than it will be tomorrow. It will be actually harder tomorrow. No, that isn't simply good Methodist exhorting. That's true, as a mere bit of pure psychology. It's a scientific statement according- to the fixed law of chances.
Let me explain why. You see the whole thing depends on the thing in the man that does the choosing. If he knows today, by the inner feel, that he should accept Jesus as his Saviour, with all that that means, and he doesn't do it, he is making a decision. He is choosing. He is choosing not to choose.
That act of choosing affects his choosing power. It becomes at once a bit more set in its way, the way he has set it. It's like a bit of cement, it begins to harden. You say, "O, yes, but it's very slight." Yes, but however slight, it is so. He has a tougher task tomorrow. That inner pull is offset.
And every tomorrow the thing gets more set. It grows unlikelier every day that he will do that bit of choosing, simply because, just now, the choosing power is harder set the other way. If you do a thing once you can do it again. And
you are likely to. You will do it faster and more easily, and better or more decidedly or more skilfully.
Now let that go on for years, and then keep going on beyond the grave. And it comes to the point where he can't change. Theoretically he can. So far as God is concerned the way is open to him. Actually he can't. The choosing power is hardened beyond change. When he could, he wouldn't. Now he can't. And note sharply, he doesn't want to.
It isn't to say that now when he would he can't; not that. He still can, so far as God is concerned, but he does not want to. He wants to get away from the suffering, working out of his insistent choice. But he doesn't want to get into normal touch with God, through the crucified Christ.
This is the "great gulf fixed," the impassable gulf. The rich man in Luke Sixteenth evinced no desire to change his choice. There was no change in his attitude toward God nor toward his own selfish life on the earth. The only thing distressing him was the pain he was suffering. He wanted to get rid of that. That was all.
For notice how that choosing power in a man is limbered up so it can reverse itself. It is not by some act of judgment, nor by pain, nor suffering of any sort. All evidence makes it quite clear that these things of themselves do not soften; they harden. It is only God's gracious softening mellowing touch that can unlimber that hardened stiffened rusted will. And that's shut out. The man has shut out the one thing that would normalize his choosing faculty and help him change his choice.