TEXT: "_My Spirit shall not always strive with men._"--Genesis 6:31.
For the truth of this statement one needs only to study his Bible and
he will find written in almost every book of Old Testament and New a
similar expression. At the same time in the study of God's word it
will be revealed to him that God has a great plan which he is carefully
working out. We must be familiar with the beginning and the unfolding
of this plan and with the conclusion he reached. When after the
rebellion of his people and their unwillingness to obey his precepts we
find him saying, "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in
the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was
only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man
on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I
will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both
man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for
it repenteth me that I have made them."
Then turning to the New Testament Scriptures we find almost a similar
expression when Jesus reaches the climax of his compassionate and
gracious ministry with the children of Israel. "He came unto his own
and his own received him not"; and in the twenty-third chapter of
Matthew and the thirty-seventh to the thirty-ninth verse, inclusive, we
hear him saying, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the
prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I
have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her
chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left
unto you desolate. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth,
till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord."
From that day on his special ministry was to the Gentiles, and he has
been seeking in every possible way to bring us to an appreciation of
what it means to know him and to be filled with all his fullness. We
have but to stop for a moment and consider to realize that by many his
overtures have been declined, his Spirit grieved and his Son rejected.
Men have lived as if they had no responsibility towards him at all and
in many instances they have put him entirely out of their
consideration. If we compare present day indifference and sin with the
condition of things at the time of the flood, and then again compare
them with the position of Israel when Jesus turned away from them with
tears, it would seem almost as if the world of the present day had made
progress both in the matter of indifference and rejection; and
therefore it is not strange that such an Old Testament text as this
would be applicable to people living about us. It is a solemn text.
"_My Spirit shall not always strive with men_." It is along the line
of those solemn words of Dr. Alexander:
"There is a time, we know not when;
A place, we know not where,
That seals the destiny of man
For glory or despair."
Again we read, "Ye shall seek me and shall not find me, and where I am
there ye cannot come." That also is the spirit of the text. God tells
us, "To-day if ye will hear his voice harden not your heart," which
simply means that if we neglect to hear the heart will become hardened,
the will stubborn, and we shall be unsaved and hopeless. Again he
tells us, "Now is the accepted time, and now is the day of salvation."
So for men to act as if they might come at any time and choose their
own way of salvation is to sin against him, and to all such he speaks
the text--"My Spirit shall not always strive with men."
It is assumed that the spirit of God does strive with men. If he will
not strive always, then he does strive at some particular time, and
with many of us he is striving now. We may not be willing to confess
it to our friends, but nevertheless it is true. In many ways he is
bringing to our attention the eternal interests of our souls, and this
is striving.
It is implied that men are resisting the Spirit of God. If this were
not so there could be no striving, and the text indicates that men may
continue so long to resist him and to sin against him that after a
while the door of mercy will close and hope be a thing of the past.
I
What is the striving of the Spirit? I have no doubt but that many are
asking this question seriously and fearfully and it is worthy of our
most careful consideration.
1. It is just God speaking to us and causing us to say to ourselves if
not to others, "Well, I ought to be a Christian; this life of
worldliness does not pay." There is nothing but an accusing
conscience, a weakened character and a blighted life as the result of
it. Do not for a moment think that this is just an impression that has
come to you; it is the voice of God and you would do well to hear it.
This striving of the Spirit is simply the Spirit of God seeking to
convince men that the only safe life is that which is hid with Christ
in God, safe not only for eternity--the most of us believe that--but
safe for time. Temptations are too powerful for us to withstand alone
and trials are too heavy for us to bear in our own strength. The
striving of the Spirit is just our heavenly Father graciously
attempting to persuade us to yield to him, sometimes by providences.
When but a lad my old pastor used one night an illustration from which
I never have been able to get away. It was the story of the old
fisherman who took his little boy with him to fish and found that on
his accustomed fishing grounds he was unsuccessful; so, leaving the boy
upon the little island, he started away to fish alone. The mists came
down in his absence and, missing his way, he lost his boy. He rowed
everywhere calling him and at last he heard him in the distance,
saying, "I am up here, papa; over this way." The fisherman found him,
but not quickly enough to enable him to escape the cold night winds,
and the boy sickened and died. The old fisherman said: "Every night
when I stood at my window I could see his outstretching hands and
always above the storm I could hear his voice calling me upward. I
could not but be a Christian." My mother had just a few weeks before
gone home to God, and I heard her voice as plainly as I could hear the
voice of my friend at my side. Every vision of a mother in heaven, of
a child in the skies, is a call of God. He seeks to persuade us by
calamities. The Chicago theater horror, with its hundreds of women and
children dead and disfigured, was God's call to a great city and to the
world. This is the striving of the Spirit. Not with audible voice
does he speak to us but by means of impressions and convictions. Let
us not think for a moment that these come simply because the preacher
has influence and may possibly be possessed of a certain kind of genius
or power. These are God's warnings to us. Be careful, therefore, how
you resist them. Jesus said in John the sixteenth chapter the seventh
to the eleventh verses, "Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is
expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter
will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. And
when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness
and of judgment. Of sin, because they believe not on me; of
righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; of
judgment, because the prince of this world is judged." The word
"_reprove_" is a judicial word. When the judge has heard the testimony
for or against the criminal and the arguments of the counsel, he
himself sums up the case and lays it before the jury, bringing out the
strong points or the weak ones in relation to the criminal. This is
reproving, and it is this that the Spirit does. He brings before us
Jesus Christ and then presents unto God our treatment of him, and so it
is easy to understand how the text could be true. "My spirit shall not
always strive with men."