Lecture XVII. False Comforts for Sinners (4)

11. Another way in which false comfort is given to anxious sinners, is to tell them God is trying their faith by keeping them in the furnace, and they must wait patiently upon the Lord. Just as if God was in fault, or stood in the way, of his being a Christian. Or as if an impenitent sinner had faith! What an abomination! Suppose somebody should tell my child, while he was standing by the book as I have described, “Wait patiently, boy, your father is trying your faith.” No. The sinner is trying the patience and forbearance of God. God is not setting himself to torture a sinner, and teach him a lesson of patience. But he is waiting upon him, and laboring to bring him at once into such a state of mind as will render it consistent to fill his soul with the peace of heaven. And shall the sinner be encouraged to resist by the idea that God is bantering? TAKE CARE. God has said his Spirit shall not always strive.

12. Another false comfort is telling a sinner, Do your duty, and leave your conversion with God.

I once heard an elder of a church say to an anxious sinner, “Do your duty, and leave your conversion to God, he will do it in his own time and way.” That was just the same as telling him that it was not his duty to be converted now. He did not say, Do your duty, and leave your salvation with God. That would have been proper enough, for it would have been simply telling him to submit to God, and would have included conversion as the first duty of all. But he told him to leave his conversion to God. And this elder, that gave such advice, was a man of liberal education too. How absurd! Just as if he could do his duty and not be converted. Just as if God was going to convert a sinner and let the sinner sit calmly under it in the use of means. Horrible! No. God has required him to make him a new heart, and do you beware how you comfort him with an answer of falsehood.

13. Sometimes professors of religion will try to comfort a sinner, by telling him, “Do not be discouraged; I was a long time in this way before I found comfort.” They will tell him, “I was under conviction so many weeks—or perhaps so many months, or sometimes years, and have gone through with all this, and know just how you feel, your experience is the same with mine, precisely, and after so long a time I found relief, and I do not doubt you will find it by and by. Do not despair, God will comfort you soon.” Tell a sinner to take courage in his rebellion! Oh, horrible. Such professors ought to be ashamed. Suppose you were under conviction 332so many weeks, and afterwards found relief, it is the very last thing you ought to tell to an anxious sinner. What is it but encouraging him to hold on, when his business is to submit. Did you hold out so many weeks while the Spirit was striving with you. You only deserved so much the more to be damned, for your obstinacy and stupidity.

Sinner! it is no sign God will spare you so long, or that his Spirit will remain with you to be resisted. And remember, if the Spirit is taken away, you will be sent to hell.

14. “I have faith to believe you will be converted.”

You have faith to believe! On what does your faith rest? On the promise of God? On the influences of the Holy Ghost? Then you are counteracting your own faith. The very design and object of the Spirit of God, is, to tear away from the sinner his last vestige of a hope, while remaining in sin; to annihilate every crag and twig he may cling to. And the object of your instruction should be the same. You should fall in with the plan of God. It is only in this way that you can ever do any good, by crowding him right up to the work, to submit at once and leave his soul in the hands of God. But when one that he thinks is a Christian tells him, “I have faith to believe you will be converted,” it upholds him in his false expectation. Instead of tearing him away from his false hopes, and throwing him upon Christ, you just turn him off to hang upon your faith, and find comfort because you have faith for him. This is all false comfort, that worketh death.

15. “I will pray for you.” Sometimes professors of religion try to comfort an anxious sinner in this way, by telling him, “I will pray for you.” This is false comfort, for it leads the sinner to trust in those prayers, instead of trusting in Christ. The sinner says, “He is a good man, and God hears the prayers of good men, no doubt his prayers will prevail some time, and I shall be converted, I do not think I shall be lost.” And his anxiety, his agony, is all gone. A woman said to a minister, “I have no hope now, but I have faith in your prayers.” Just such faith, this is, as the devil wants them to have—faith in prayers instead of faith in Christ.

16. “I rejoice to see you in this way, and I hope you will be faithful, and hold out.” What is that but rejoicing to see him in rebellion against God? For that is precisely the ground on which he stands. He is resisting conviction, and resisting conscience, and resisting the Holy Ghost, and yet you rejoice to see him in this way, and hope he will be faithful and hold out. There is a sense, indeed, in which it may 333be said that his situation is more hopeful than when he was in stupidity. For God has convinced him, and may succeed in turning and subduing him. But that is not the sense in which the sinner himself will understand it. He will suppose that you think him in a hopeful way, because he is doing better than formerly. When his guilt and danger are, in fact, greater than they ever were before. And instead of rejoicing, you ought to be distressed and in agony, to see him thus resisting the Holy Ghost, for every moment he does this, he is in danger of being left of God, and given up to hardness of heart and to despair.

17. “You will have your pay for this, by and by, God will reward you.” Yes, sinners, God will reward you, if you continue in this way, he will put you in the fires of hell. Reward for all this distress! Yes, if you are ever rewarded for it, it will be in hell. I once heard a sinner say, “I feel very bad, I have strong hopes that I shall get my reward.” But that individual afterwards said, “Nowhere can there be found so black a sinner as I am, and no sin of my life seems so black, and damning as that expression.” He was overwhelmed with contrition, that he should ever have had such an idea, as to think God would reward him for suffering so much distress, when he brought it all upon himself, needlessly, by his wicked resistance to the truth, The truth is, what such people want, is to comfort the sinner, and being all in the dark themselves on the subject of religion, they of course give him false comfort.

18. Another false comfort, is to tell the sinner he has not repented enough. The truth is, he has nor repented at all. God always comforts the sinner as soon as he repents. This direction implies that his feelings are right as far as they go. To imply that he has any repentance, is to tell him a lie, and cheat him out of his soul.

19. People sometimes comfort a sinner by telling him “If you are elected, you will be brought in.” I once heard of a case where a person under great distress of mind was sent to converse with a neighboring minister, They conversed a long time. As the person went away, the minister said to him, “I should like to write a line by you, to your father.” His father was a pious man. The minister wrote the letter, and forgot to seal it. As the sinner was going home, he saw that the letter was not sealed, and he thought to himself, that probably the minister had written about him, and his curiosity at length led him to open and read it. And there he found it written to this purport: “Dear sir. I find your 334son under conviction, and in great distress, and it seems not easy to say anything to give him relief. But, if he is one of the elect, he will surely be brought in.” He wanted to say something to comfort the father. But now, mark. That letter had well-nigh ruined his soul. He settled down on the doctrine of election—“If I am elected, I shall be brought in,” and his conviction was all gone. Years afterwards he was awakened and converted, but only after a great struggle, and never until that false impression was obliterated from his mind, and he was made to see that he had nothing at all to do with the doctrine of election, but if he did not repent, he would be damned.

20. It is very common for some people to tell an awakened sinner, “You are in a very prosperous way, I am glad to see you so, and feel encouraged about you.” It sometimes seems as if the church was in league with the devil to help sinners resist the Holy Ghost. The thing that the Holy Ghost wants to make the sinner feel, is, that all his ways are wrong, and that they lead to hell. And everybody is conspiring to make the opposite impression. The Spirit is trying to discourage him, and they are trying to encourage him; the Spirit to distress, by showing him he is all wrong, and they to comfort him by saying he is doing well. Has it come to this, that the worst counteraction to the truth, and the greatest obstacle to the Spirit shall spring from the church? Sinner! Do not believe any such thing. You are not in a hopeful way. You are not doing well, but ill; as ill as you can, while resisting the Holy Ghost.

21. Another very fatal way, in which false comfort is given to sinners, is by applying to them certain Scripture promises, which were designed only for saints. This is a grand device of the devil. It is much practised by the Universalists. But Christians often do it. For example:

(1.) “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” How often has this passage been applied to anxious sinners, who were in distress because they would not submit to God; blessed are ye that mourn. Indeed! That is true, where they mourn with godly sorrow. But what is this sinner mourning about? He is mourning because God’s law is holy and his terms of salvation so fixed that he cannot bring them down to his mind. Tell such a rebel—Blessed are they that mourn! You might just as well apply it to those that are in hell. There is mourning there too. The sinner is mourning because there is no other way of salvation, because God is so holy that he requires him to give up all 335his sins, and he feels, that the time has come, that he must either give them up, or be damned. Shall we tell him, he shall be comforted? Go and tell the devil, “Poor devil, you mourn now, but the Bible says you are blessed if you mourn, and you shall be comforted by and by.”

(2.) “They that seek shall find.” This is said to sinners in such a way as to imply that the anxious sinner is seeking religion. This promise was made in reference to Christians, who ask in faith, and seek to do the will of God, and is not applicable to those who are seeking hope or comfort; but to holy seeking. To apply it to an impenitent sinner, is only to deceive him, for his seeking is not of this character. To tell him “You are seeking, are you? Well, seek, and you shall find,” is to cherish a fatal delusion. While he remains impenitent, he has not a desire, which the devil might not have, and remain a devil still.

If he had desire to do his duty, if he was seeking to do the will of God, and give up his sins, he would be a Christian. But to comfort an impenitent sinner, with such a promise, you might just as well comfort Satan.