The critical state of backsliders.
Passages like this we naturally avoid. There is reluctance to face its difficulties. We dread lest a hasty admission of certain premises may lead us to terrible conclusions. But since backsliding, falling away, is a melancholy reality among believers, it is above all things needful that the possible results of backsliding should be considered. The backslider's present condition we know; but one thing we may not distinctly apprehend until it is pressed upon us by solemn utterance of the Holy Spirit, and that is the future into which the present may lead.
I. THE BACKSLIDER, IN FALLING AWAY, HAS FALLEN FROM EXCEEDING GREAT PRIVILEGES. He who was enlightened by a great steady light, shining on him once for all, has yet fallen back into practical darkness. He is not in darkness because the light has gone, but because he has shut it more and more from the inward eye. The light is there, more and more rejoiced in by persevering believers, but he has become willingly negligent of the benefits. The free, peculiar gift of Heaven, Jesus Christ himself, once accepted, is now despised. The Holy Spirit of God, the great Pentecostal communication dwelling with the backslider, is yet shut out from the sympathies of his heart. Renewing and sanctifying work has ceased. The good Word of God, heavenly truth, heavenly promises, all that God has given as daily bread for the hungering inward life, all that shows how man liveth not by bread alone, but by every word proceeding out of the mouth of God,—all this has lost its relish. The powers of the age to come, so much greater than any powers of the present age, are little by little left unused. We have an actual instance of the backslider in Demas. "Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world." Demas had been put in the midst of heavenly light and heavenly food—nay, more; he was in the companionship of one who had received all these heavenly things to the full, and profited by them as much as any man ever profited. It is not a little treasure from which the backslider turns, under the dominion of carnal affections.
II. THE GREAT PROOF THEREBY AFFORDED OF HUMAN WEAKNESS. The theory of many is that if good things be put before a man he is sure at last to welcome them to his heart, and get all that they have to give, even to their innermost influences. But the fact for which God's Spirit would ever prepare us is that this present world is an object very fascinating. These glorious gifts of God in Christ Jesus mean that we must persevere in an arduous and lengthened effort to get at their fullness. The backslider is one who does not trouble to pierce the phenomena of grace, and so lay hold of the spiritual realities. He forgets his weakness, or rather he does not rightly believe how weak he is. Here is a new meaning of the saying, that when we are weak then we are strong; for, knowing our weakness, we distrust ourselves, and keep ourselves open to the inflowing of God.
III. THE GROUNDS OF HOPE THAT LIE HIDDEN IN THIS PASSAGE. It is impossible to renew the backslider again to repentance. So the passage plainly says; and if we take it in isolation and in bald literalness, it gives the backslider but a poor prospect. And yet the backslider is the very one who needs encouragement. We must not, therefore, let this word "impossible" so fill the field of thought as to exclude the most hopeful considerations. Jesus said it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into the kingdom of heaven. But it is impossible for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. Therefore it is impossible for a rich man to get into the kingdom of heaven. It must be distinctly put before the mind what a barrier worldly possessions are; and then the hope-inspiring word comes in, "With God all things are possible." Yea, with God it is possible to turn the backslider into the right way again, and set him forward with a recovered love and a strengthened heart. We do not know but what Demas came back again, and furnished in the end a crowning proof of how great are the powers of the world to come.—Y.
Teaching from the good land and the bad.
Here is a reminiscence of the parable of the seed in the four kinds of ground. The soil becomes invested with a kind of personality. One thinks, too, of that fig tree which the Lord withered up. And it may not be so entirely fanciful, as at first it appears to give land a sort of individuality; so that one piece of soil will behave in one way, and another in another. If, for instance, there be any real basis for the reputation attaching to certain vintages, it must come from some indefinable quality of soil. At any rate, we can imagine two different kinds of land, such as are set before us in this passage.
I. We are to imagine TWO MEN PUT INTO EXACTLY SIMILAR POSITIONS WITH REGARD TO THE BENEFITS OF DIVINE GRACE. Just as two contiguous pieces of land have the same copious showers falling on them, so two men may come under the same religious influences. There may, perhaps, be peculiar spiritual advantages in one district which are lacking in another, though even so much as this has to be said guardedly; for we must believe that in the end all men shall have enough light to throw upon them the responsibility of neglecting salvation. But one thing we do see, that men, so far as we can judge, under the same spiritual influences, meet those influences in quite different ways. One is attentive, the other negligent. One is receptive, the other unresponding. Nay, as the illustration puts it, both may be receptive, but differently receptive, so that there are very different ultimate results. The earth is represented as drinking in the oft-recurring showers. One man drinks in the grace and. truth of God so that they energize all the powers of his heart, and he puts forth corresponding fruit. Another drinks in God's truth, seems to appreciate it, but when the result is looked for nothing comes but noxious growths.
II. THE DECLARATION OF RESPONSIBILITY AND CORRESPONDING JUDGMENT. If one man is fruitful of good works, and another fruitful only of evil ones, then God will treat the men correspondingly. Compare with the illustration here, the parable of the talents. God is not arbitrary. It is we who determine how God shall treat us ultimately, for he treats men on great eternal principles. It is for men to be wise and diligent in time, and recognize the principles. It is sometimes asked why thorns and briers and wasting weeds have ever had existence. The answer may be that these were first of all made to be illustrations to men. Thorns and briers are burnt without hesitation, that the very seeds and germs of them may, if possible, be blotted out of existence. And if men will put out from their lives—from lives that have been so divinely blessed—nothing but thorny and briery products, then they must expect these to be for burning. All evil things must perish. Our folly is in building up the evil which must go, rather than the good which will remain.—Y.