RESISTING THE SPIRIT
‘Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee.’
Felix made two great mistakes. He did not know what constituted ‘a convenient season’; and he presumed he might repent and turn to God whenever he pleased.
I. The folly of trusting to external circumstances.—We are all apt to give too much weight—whether to help or hindrance—to external circumstances. It is a testimony to true religion that almost every one will say, that he hopes and means some day or other, to be, if not very religious, yet certainly more religious than he is now. But, then, all fancy that by and by they will be in a position which will be more favourable to make a beginning They will be holier; or, their anxieties will be fewer; or, their temptations will be less; or, their religious advantages will be greater; or, their associations in life will be more fitting. So their state of mind will be better prepared. They picture a certain future, which wears a sober, and almost a religious, aspect; and then they call that ‘a convenient season.’
II. It is the Holy Spirit Who calls.—It is the felt willingness of God to receive us; it is the ‘still small voice’ consciously heard within—it is the drawings of the secret, constraining power, which is the operation of the Spirit of God upon the conscience and the affections—these make the ‘convenient season.’ Where these are, everything is sure to be ‘convenient’—God will make it ‘convenient’—how unlikely soever it be. Where these are not, there will be an ‘inconvenience’—an utter impossibility. Remember, if the Spirit is now striving, the ‘convenient,’ the most ‘convenient,’ the one ‘convenient,’ perhaps the only ‘convenient season’ of life is come.
III. The danger of procrastination.—It needs no other proof that ‘now’—that emphatic ‘now’ that God has written before your eyes, so awfully and so solemnly—your ‘now’ is here! No man can say that the Spirit will work in him at any given time. Felix might think, ‘I will send for Paul another time.’ But he would not have the wish to send for St. Paul unless the Spirit put it in his heart; and, if even he did send for St. Paul, could he command that the Spirit would come too? And yet, if St. Paul came, and the Spirit did not come, what use is it? We are, most of us, so accustomed to have the good Spirit always acting on our hearts, that it is very difficult for us to imagine a time when He shall not act. No man can say that a year hence, or a day hence, or an hour hence, the Holy Spirit will lead him to God and enable him to repent. All religious procrastination is an insult to the Holy Ghost.
—Rev. James Vaughan.
Illustration
‘The Hindoos believe that the waters of the Ganges possess such attributes, that he who drinks of that stream must enjoy eternal life. Two pilgrims who had come from afar reached the river together, and one ran down at once to lap the waters; but the other stood on the bank and said, “I am in no hurry; you go back home to-morrow, hut I am about to build my but here, and shall spend all my life here, and drink whenever I please.” He built his hut, and every day would say to himself, “I shall be here to-morrow, and shall drink then.” He lived there for years, and died without tasting the Ganges, as he always put off till the morrow his opportunity.’