JAMES I: 8.
"A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways."
One of the commonest and greatest faults and weaknesses of men is this that I am going to speak about to you to-night, and that is indecision. It is not only a weakness and a fault and a great hindrance in regard to religion, but in any and all the affairs of life. Do you not know men of competent ability and of good advantages and education who amount to very little in the world? And when you ask yourself why it is, is it not because they have not enough decision of character to keep at any one thing long enough to master the difficulties with which it is beset and to win success in spite of obstacles? Some of them are confused by the great number of ways that seem to open before them and are not decided as to which one they will pursue. And after embarking in one pursuit and continuing in it for awhile, they conclude they could do better at something else; and before they have studied and labored long enough to obtain success in this second enterprise, they conclude they could do better by changing for a third or going back to the first. And so, because study and time and labor are necessary to success in any occupation or profession and they do not bestow these, they do not succeed, and, in the nature of the case, can not succeed. Or, if they are not embarrassed by the number of openings before them, they are divided in their minds between a life of ease, indulgence and pleasure and a life of labor and self-denial, and, though they would be something and are not without ambition, yet a life of indolence and rest offers so many inducements that they prefer it to a life of hard work and of discouragements and battles and anxieties, or, at least, if they do not positively prefer such a life, yet they hanker after it; and in their effort to have ease and pleasure and, at the same time, to pursue some honorable and profitable calling, they miss both, and have no satisfaction, but only a consciousness of their own weakness and uselessness and a contempt for themselves. But maybe I need not ask you if you know persons of this sort. You who listen to me to-night may be of just that kind. Possibly—nay, probably—there are men here to-night whose lives have been failures just because of the miserable weakness I have been trying to describe. But if this weakness of character is the cause of many failures and the utter disappointment that many lives have ended in, in worldly matters, how much more so is it in religious concerns and interests. If concentration of thought and fixedness of purpose and firmness of will are necessary to overcome obstacles and to master success in business or in the learned professions, they are more so in the matter of religion. If indecision and dividedness of mind and wavering of purpose cause men to fail in worldly matters, much more so will they cause men to fail in religion. Some men are forever wavering between accepting and rejecting Christianity. To-day they are satisfied that Christianity is true, and to-morrow they say they have found proof that Christianity is false. Then, again, they get into trouble and find that nothing can help them but Christianity, and they believe it until some man comes along and argues against it, and away they go off after him. So they never believe in Christianity long enough at any time to get any good from it, and they will not utterly and finally reject it so as to be no longer troubled by it. But the trouble with most of the people who are in this wretched state of indecision is that they believe in Christianity, and are persuaded that it is far better to be a Christian and safer, but they love the world and the ways of the world and the honors of the world and the pleasures of the world; and it is impossible to love the world and partake of the pleasures of the world and at the same time to serve God with your whole heart. "Ye can not serve two masters," and yet you see people who are trying to do it. So they do not make good Christians, for their hearts are in the world, and their lives and influence are not for Christianity, but for the world. Nor do they get the good and pleasure of a worldly life, for they are restrained and harassed by their fear of conscience, God and hell. And Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, says, "Ye can not serve two masters." Many have tried it. Some whose histories are given in the Bible tried it. Saul, the first king of Israel, tried it. When God sent him to destroy the Amalekites, he obeyed the command in part, but not altogether. (I. Samuel xv., 13-25.) But God is not mocked, and because Saul trifled with Him He rejected Saul, and Saul went from bad to worse, until at last, in his abandonment to the power of evil, he committed murder after murder and finally died a suicide. The rich young man in the New Testament was another case of divided mind. He saw the desirableness of being good, and the safety of being at peace with God, and showed a zeal in trying to be good; but when Jesus told him to sell all he had and give it to the poor, he refused. He wanted to do both, obey God and inherit the kingdom of heaven and have a fortune for selfish enjoyment or for miserable greed at the same time. But he could not do both. King Agrippa said "he was almost persuaded" to be a Christian. His mind was divided; he could not do both. He chose to keep his worldly possessions, and, of course, could not be a Christian (Acts xxvi., 28). But, on the other hand, those men who were decided and positive in their rejection of the pleasures of the world found no great trouble in serving God. Moses was a man of this sort (Hebrews xi., 25-27). He deliberately chose to suffer afflictions with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. Paul was another man of this positive character. When Jesus revealed Himself to Paul his surrender was immediate and complete. He said, "What wilt thou have me do?" And to the end of a long and laborious life, amid persecutions and sufferings and disgraces and loneliness and bonds, he continually cried, "None of these things move me." And his Christian life was victorious and glorious.
II. TIMOTHY III: 5.
"Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof; from such turn away."
This text is a description of certain false teachers who had arisen in the midst of the church, or who would arise and assume the name of disciples of Christ, as well as authority to teach. They would assume the outward form of Christianity and adopt its expressions and conform to its usage in outward respects, but would deny that there was any supernatural power or divine unction in it. And there are such men to-day. But if Christianity be not attended by any supernatural agency and energy present in it and with it, then it is no better than any other of the so-called religions of the world. If it has only form and body, without a living and life-giving soul and divinity in it, it is on a level with the heathen religions, for they all have these. And, indeed, all men have a form of religion, and many of them are so devoted to it that they will suffer and some of them die before they will give it up. The ancient Jews held to the forms of their religion, and fought for it in bloody and bitter wars. And the Pharisees at the time of Christ were the most careful and scrupulous observers of all the forms of their religion, and yet Jesus denounced them as the wickedest sinners of His time. There are men of this kind in the Christian churches of to-day, men who go through the forms of religion, who perform the outward duties of religion, and who would not give these up for any consideration; and yet they not only do not experience anything of the power of inward religion, but they go so far as to deny that there is any such inward power, and call those who claim to have it fanatical.
But read the following passages, and see if we have not Scripture warrant for this power of religion: I. Corinthians ii., 4; I. Thessalonians i., 5; II. Timothy i., 7; Ephesians iii., 16; and our text, II. Timothy iii., 5.
1. The power of Christianity is shown in the conviction for sin.
It is impossible to get men to see and realize the sinfulness and hatefulness of sin. It is impossible for any power of men's eloquence to pierce through the deep native depravity of the heart—through the selfish motives, desires, ambitions and interests, and get men to see and feel the nature and danger of sin. Oh, the impossibility of making men feel guilt and danger by any human means while they are dead in sin! But under the power of this force, or, rather, this agent, who works in and through Christianity, the poor sinner sees and feels all this. He sees that, of all bitter and perilous things, sin is the most bitter and perilous and dreadful. He feels smitten with remorse. He feels that there is no beauty in the world, or in anything, because of the blackness and ugliness and foulness of his own evil heart and life. And he feels that, above all things, he must get rid of sin, and at whatever cost, and speedily at that, for the agony is unendurable. Everything seems as nothing compared with salvation from sin. "He will go and sell all he has to buy it," as Jesus says. This sense of sin and danger produces an earthquake in the spiritual nature that upheaves the hidden depths of the soul. Like the pilgrim in Bunyan's Pilgrims Progress, he puts his fingers in his ears and flees from the City of Destruction. Like the murderers of Jesus when convicted by this power, he cries out, "What must I do to be saved?"