I. It was, no doubt, with surprise and regret that Paul wrote these words, as it is with surprise and regret that any Christian recognises how vast a multitude of men have not faith. In considering the causes which prevent men from coming to Christ and believing in Him he must divide them into two great classes, those who have never felt any desire to enter into fellowship with Christ, and those who have had some desire, but have stumbled at some difficulty. First of all, there are those who have never felt any desire whatever for the salvation that is in Christ, and that is because they have never felt the degradation and defilement of sin, and their helplessness under the defilement and degradation; or they have never felt the attractiveness of holiness. They may, unconsciously, admire goodness, they may admire truth, and courage, and honour, and love, but they never connected the idea of holiness with these virtues. There is no other way, no other way even proposed, whereby a man may reach maturity and manhood than by becoming a Christian. Without Christ a man may reach a very great deal, but he cannot reach all. The man who is not a Christian, who has no connection with those things which we reach in Christ, is a man only in an imperfect sense of the word, it is only by courtesy that he can be called a man. He is by no means like the person that he is yet to become in Christ. But then, until he himself is smitten with the love of holiness, until the beauty of holiness and union with God stands before him as it is shown us in Christ and wins his heart, or until, on the other hand, providential circumstances and the Spirit of God open up to him the deep degradation and defilement of sin, he is not likely to own that Christ is anything that he needs.
II. Closely allied to this great preliminary obstacle is the misconception which looks upon religion as concerned solely about the life to come, and as not likely to bring in considerable light or strength into our present concerns. Many persons deliberately put aside religion, believing that it would interfere with legitimate pursuits, waste their energies, and introduce gloom and constraint into their life. The professed secularist and the practical secularist each says to himself, "I have occupations and duties now that require all my strength, and if there is another world the best preparation for it that I can make is to do thoroughly, and with all my strength, the duties now pressing upon me." Most of us have felt the attraction of this position. It has a sound of candid, manly common-sense. It appeals to the Anglo-Saxon within us, and to our esteem for what is practical, and has its foot upon the solid earth. Moreover, it is directly true that the very best preparation, the only preparation, for any future world is to do thoroughly well the duties of the present. Of course that is so. But the whole question remains: What are the duties of the present? Can we determine what these duties are until we determine whether the proclamation made by Christ is true or false? If there is a God, it is not in the future only that we have to do with Him, but now. All our duties must be tinged with the idea of this sovereign purpose and of God's relation to us. To defer all consideration of God is simply impossible. God is as much in this world as in any world; and if so, our whole life in every part of it must be a godly not a secular life a life we live well and can only live well in true fellowship with God. A mind that can divide life into duties of the present and duties of the future, really does not understand what life is, and entirely misapprehends what Christianity is.
III. Turning to the other great class of men, we find that many are really willing; their thoughts are always turning towards Christ and His religion; and yet they are continually held back by some misconception of the way in which a fellowship with Him is formed, or some other misconception. One of these misconceptions is the not unnatural, nor altogether unworthy idea that some preparation for coming to Christ is necessary a deeper conviction, a firmer assurance of continuing in His service, or, perhaps, more feeling is thought to be required. This is a very common state of mind; because it is difficult for any man among us to grasp once for all the idea that Christ has been sent into this world to save us from every kind of evil, and especially from every kind of spiritual faultiness. Uniformly Christ offers Himself to men as they are; He offers the one effectual remedy for our whole condition, whatever it is. And until we accept the remedy that is in Him, we cannot expect to have any more trustworthy repentance or sincere and powerful purpose of amendment. Waiting does no good. To abstain from seeking His help while we strive to make ourselves more worthy of His society, is simply to propose to do the very hardest part of our salvation ourselves. If you are not penitent, Christ is exalted a Prince and a Saviour to bestow repentance. If you are not penitent, you are not very likely to become so anywhere else than at the foot of the cross. It is there that men learn what sin is. If you have no real pain on account of your severance from God, no sorrow that you have preferred your own will to His, no keen thirst for reconcilement to Him, surely this is only what may be expected until we see God and know His love in Christ. This spiritual deadness, which can neither see nor feel as it ought, this is by far the most serious element in our sinful condition; and if without Christ you could save yourself from this, then there is positively nothing else for which you need His aid nothing at all. The insensibility you are conscious of, your surprising indifference to the spiritual aspect of things, your unconcern about pleasing God, or even about being at peace with God all this is precisely what identifies you as the person who needed just the revelation of sin and of holiness that Christ made, and just that help of being delivered from sin that Christ offered you. If, then, any one has been delaying to accept Christ, on the understanding that before doing so he must pass through some preliminary and preparatory process, he should recognise that this is a mistake. No preparation is required. What Christ offers He offers freely; He offers to all, He offers on the spot. The preparation for salvation is sin, as danger is the preparation for rescue.
M. Dods, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xlii., p. 64.
References: 2 Thessalonians 3:2. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. viii., p. 98; Homilist,vol. v., p. 217.