Our difficulties in the way of serving and obeying God are often
self-made.
They are always more or less self-made. This man pleads his own wrong
act as a reason why he should not do right now. He himself has raised
the obstacle which now stands in the way of obedience. He ought not to
have sought the help of an idolatrous king. He ought not to have
bargained for these hirelings, he ought not to have paid the money.
God had not put the difficulty in his way; his own foolish and wicked
action had created it. And people are constantly talking as this man
talked, declaring that there are hindrances and immense difficulties
which prevent them from doing what is right, prevent them from doing
what they know to be the will of God. They talk as if God was somehow
responsible for those hindrances, when, in fact, their own wrong-doing
has caused them.
For instance, some of you know perfectly well that you ought to be
Christians, avowed Christians, that you ought to take the Lord's side
in the great battle of life; you know that you ought to be His
servants, followers, and soldiers; you know that that is your duty, you
cannot help knowing it and admitting it, unless you reject the Bible
altogether, and deny the whole Gospel of Jesus Christ. You have known
from childhood that Christ has claims upon you, and that to live the
Christian life is your solemn obligation. It is more than probable
that you told your mother, your teachers, and yourselves long ago, and
perhaps many a time over, that you fully intended to give your lives
and hearts to Christ's service. But you have not done it yet, and the
reason is that there are certain self-made difficulties which hold you
back. God has not put them in the way--you have built them up
yourselves. I hear young men and women say, in the very tone of this
perplexed king. But what shall we do for the hundred talents? If we
take up religion, how shall we bear the loss which it involves? How
are we to get on without those pleasures, self-indulgences, and
dearly-loved habits which Christ's service would cut us off from? How
are we to abandon those very pleasant, but not very inspiring and pure,
companionships, with and among which we spend most of our leisure time?
How are we to resign all our free and easy and thoughtless ways, our
loose talk, our vain and sinful imaginations?
These are your difficulties, are they? But who made them for you?
Heaven did not send them. I am not sure, even, that the devil was the
author of them. You made every one of them yourselves. It was your
own weak yielding that formed those habits so dear to you. It was
because you preferred your own way to God's that you took to pleasures
and self-indulgences which were wrong in His sight. It was your own
choice that sought out and formed friendships and companionships of the
ungodly sort. If you have any joys, delights, and associations which
Christ would compel you to resign, they are only such as you ought
never to have entered upon. They are self-made difficulties which
ought never to have been made; and now, with curious inconsistency, you
are urging them as reasons why you cannot serve God. You are using the
sinful things which you have done in the past as an excuse for not
doing the right and noble thing now.
There are hundreds of people who, if they could begin again, would join
the ranks of the religious--at least they think they would, and perhaps
say it. If we could just start with a clean sheet, we would be
Christians, we would walk in the noble and faithful way. But then, you
see, we cannot undo the years that have been lived in the other way.
We have committed ourselves to the irreligious side. We have made all
who know us understand that we do not care about religious things. We
have talked about them carelessly, perhaps contemptuously, as if we put
no value upon them at all. We have made a reputation of that sort, and
now it stands in the way. We cannot go back of all our old
professions; the inconsistency would be manifest. No one expects it of
us. No one would believe if we did it. There you have the self-made
difficulties again. Because you did wrong all those years, you must
needs go on doing wrong. Because you talked and acted in an
unbelieving way, you must not now change into the higher and prayerful
way. Because you have robbed God and your own souls so long, there is
nothing for you but to continue repeating the offence. Yet these, when
you name them, are so absurd, that one could almost laugh at them. The
conviction that you have hitherto been on the wrong side is the one
thing that ought to force you now to the right side. Why should you
perpetuate blunders, follies, and misdoings? Why should the evil past
chain you? Let the dead bury its dead--forget the things which are
behind. You have paid the hundred talents to the wrong master. Why
should you go on paying because you have done it once? Let God's mercy
cover and forgive that. And now pay your vows and give your lives to
Him henceforth.