Lecture XVII. False Comforts for Sinners (5)

(3.) “Be not weary in well doing, for in due time you shall reap if you faint not.” To apply this to a sinner for comfort, is absurd. Just as if he was doing something to please God. He has never done well, and never has done more ill, than now. Suppose my neighbor, who came in while I was trying to subdue my child, should say to the child, “In due time you shall reap, if you faint not,” what should I say? “Reap, yes, you shall reap, if you do not give up your obstinacy, you shall reap indeed, for I will apply the rod.” So the struggling sinner shall reap the damnation of hell, if he does not give up his sins.

22. Some professors of religion, when they attempt to converse with awakened sinners, are very fond of saying, “I will tell you my experience.” This is a dangerous snare, and often gives the devil a handle to lead him to hell, by trying to copy your experience. If you tell it to him, and he thinks it is a Christian experience, he will almost infallibly be trying to imitate it, and instead of following the Gospel, or the leadings of the Spirit in his own soul, he is following your example. This is absurd as well as dangerous. He never will have just such feelings as you had. No two persons were ever exercised just alike. Men’s experiences are as much unlike as their countenances. Such a course is very likely to mislead him. The design, is often, nothing but to encourage him, at the very point where he ought not to be encouraged, 336 before he has submitted to God, And it is calculated to impede the work of God in his soul.

23. How many times will people tell an awakened sinner that God has begun a good work in him, and he will carry it on. I have known parents talk so with their children, and as soon as they saw their children awakened, give up all former anxiety about them, and settle down at their ease, thinking that now God had begun a good work in their children, he would carry it on. It would be just as rational for a farmer to say so about his grain, and as soon as it comes up out of the ground, say, “Well, God has begun a good work in my field, and he will carry it on.” What would be thought of a farmer who should neglect to put up his fence, because God had begun the work of giving him a crop of grain? If you tell a sinner so, and he believes you, it will certainly be his destruction, for it will prevent his doing that which is absolutely indispensable to his being saved. If, as soon as the sinner is awakened, he is taught that now God has begun a good work, that only needs to be carried on, and that God will surely carry it on, he sees that he has no further occasion to be anxious, for, in fact, he has nothing more to do. And so he will be relieved from that intolerable pressure of present obligation, to repent and submit to God. And if he is relieved from his sense of obligation to do it, he will never do it.

24. Some will tell the sinner, “Well, you have broken off your sins, have you?” “Oh, yes,” says the sinner. When it is all false, he has never forsaken his sins for a moment, he has only exchanged one form of sin for another; only placed himself in a new attitude of resistance. And to tell him, he has broken them off, is to give him false comfort.

25. Sometimes this direction is given for the purpose of relieving the agony of an anxious sinner, “Do what you can, and God will do the rest,” or “Do what you can, and God will help you.” This is the same as telling a sinner, “You cannot do what God requires you to do, but if you will do what you can, God will help you, as to the rest.” Now sinners often get the idea that they have done all they can, when, in fact, they have done nothing at all, only resisted God with all their might. I have often heard them say, “I have done all I can, and I get no relief, what can I do more?” Now, you can see how comforting it must be to such a one to have a professor of religion come in and say, “If you will do what you can, God will help you.” It relieves all his keen distress at once. He may be uneasy, and unhappy, but his agony is gone.

26. Again they say, “You should be thankful for what you have, and hope for more.” If the sinner is convicted, they tell him he should be thankful for conviction, and hope for conversion. If he has any feeling, he should be thankful for what feeling he has, just as if his feeling was religious feeling, when he has no more religion, than Satan. He has reason to be thankful, indeed; thankful that he is out of hell, and thankful that God is yet waiting on him. But it is ridiculous to tell him he should be thankful in regard to the state of his mind, when he is all the while resisting his Maker with all his might.

ERRORS IN PRAYING FOR SINNERS.

I will here mention a few errors in praying for sinners in their presence, by which an unhappy impression is made on their minds, in consequence of which, they often obtain false comfort in their distress.

1. People sometimes pray for sinners, as if they deserved TO BE PITIED more than BLAMED. They pray for them as MOURNERS. “Lord help these pensive mourners,” as if they were just mourning, like one that had lost a friend, or met some other calamity, and they could not help it, and were very sorry for it, but death would come, and so they were greatly to be pitied, as they were sitting there, sad, pensive, and sighing. The Bible never talks so. It pities sinners, but it pities them as mad and guilty rebels, guilty, and deserving to go to hell, not as poor pensive mourners, that cannot help it, that want to be relieved, but can do nothing but sit and mourn.

2. Praying for them as poor sinners. Does the Bible ever use any such language as this? The Bible never speaks of them as “poor sinners,” as if they deserved to be pitied more than blamed. Christ pities sinners in his heart. And so does God pity them. He feels in his heart, all the gushings of compassion for them, when he sees them going on, obstinate and wilful in gratifying their own lusts, at the peril of his eternal wrath. But he never lets an expression escape from him, as if the sinner was just a “poor creature” to be pitied, as if he could not help it. The idea that he is poor, rather than wicked, unfortunate, rather than guilty, relieves the sinner greatly. I have seen the sinner writhe with agony under the truth, in a meeting, until somebody begun to pray for him as a poor creature. And then he would gush out into tears, and weep profusely, and think he was greatly benefited 338by such a prayer. “Oh, what a good prayer that was.” If you go now and converse with that sinner, you will find he is pitying himself as a poor unfortunate creature, perhaps weeping over his unhappy condition, but his CONVICTIONS OF SIN, his deep impressions of AWFUL GUILT, are all gone.

3. Praying that God would help the sinner to repent. “O Lord, enable this poor sinner to repent now.” This conveys the idea to the sinner’s mind, that he is now trying with all his might to repent, and that he cannot do it, and therefore Christians are calling on God to help him, and enable him to do it. Most professors of religion pray for sinners, not that God would make them WILLING to repent, but that he would ENABLE them, or make them able. No wonder their prayers are not heard. They relieve the sinner of his sense of responsibility, and that relieves his distress. But it is an insult to God, as if God had commanded a sinner to do what he could not do.

4. People sometimes pray: “Lord, these sinners are seeking thee, sorrowing.” This language is an allusion to what took place at the time when Jesus was a little boy, and went into the temple to talk with the rabbis and doctors. His parents, you recollect, went a day’s journey towards home, before they missed him, and then they turned back, and after looking all around, they found the little Jesus standing in the temple and disputing with the learned men, and his mother said to him, “Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.” And so this prayer represents sinners as seeking Jesus, and he hides himself from them, and they look all around, and hunt, and try to find him, and wonder where Jesus is, and say, “Lord, we have sought Jesus these three days sorrowing.” It is a LIE. No sinner ever sought Jesus with all his heart three days, or three minutes, and could not find him. There Jesus stands at his door and knocks, there he is right before him pleading with him, and facing him down with all his false pretences. Seeking him! The sinner may whine and cry, “Oh, how I am sorrowing, and seeking Jesus.” It is no such thing; Jesus is seeking you. And yet how many oppressed consciences are relieved and comforted by hearing one of these prayers.

5. “Lord, have mercy on these sinners, who are seeking thy love to know.” This is a favorite expression with many, as if sinners were seeking to know the love of Christ, and could not. No such thing. They are not seeking the love of Christ, but seeking to get to heaven without Jesus Christ. 339Just as if they were seeking it, and he was so hard-hearted that he would not let them have it.

6. “Lord, have mercy on these penitent souls;” calling anxious sinners penitent souls. If they are penitent, they are Christians. To make an impression on an unconverted sinner that he is penitent, is to make him believe a lie. But it is very comforting to the sinner, and he likes to take it up, and pray it over again, “O Lord, I am a poor penitent soul, I am very penitent, I am so distressed, Lord have mercy on a poor penitent.” Dreadful delusion!

7. Sometimes people pray for anxious sinners as humble souls. “O Lord, these sinners have humbled themselves.” Why, that is not true, they have not humbled themselves; if they had, the Lord would have raised them up and comforted them, as he has promised. There is a hymn of this character, that has done great mischief. It begins,

“Come HUMBLE sinner in whose breast

A thousand thoughts revolve.”

This hymn was once given by a minister to an awakened sinner, as one applicable to his case. He began to read, “Come humble sinner.” He stopped, “Humble sinner, that is not applicable to me, I am not a humble sinner.” Ah, how well was it for him that the Holy Ghost had taught him better than the hymn. If the hymn had said, Come anxious sinner, or guilty sinner, or trembling sinner, it would have been well enough, but to call him a humble sinner would not do. There are a vast many hymns of the same character. It is very common to find sinners quoting the false sentiments of some hymn, to excuse themselves in rebellion against God.

A minister told me he heard a prayer, quite lately, in these words, “O Lord, these sinners have humbled themselves, and come to thee as well as they know how. If they knew any better, they would do better, but O Lord, as they have come to thee, in the best manner they can, we pray thee accept them and shew mercy.” Horrible!

8. Many pray, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” This is the prayer which Christ made for his murderers. And, in that case, it was true, they did not know what they were doing, for they did not believe that Jesus Christ was the Messiah. But it cannot be said of sinners under the Gospel, they do not know what they are doing. They do know what they are doing. They do not see the full extent of it, but they do know that they are sinning against God, and rejecting Christ, and the difficulty is, that they are 340unwilling to submit to God. But such a prayer is calculated to make him feel relieved, and make him say, “Lord, how can you blame me so, I am a poor ignorant creature, I do not know how to do what is required of me. If I knew how, I would do it.”