Why should he cease his striving? Not because he is not compassionate, for he is; nor forbearing, for that is his character; not that he is without patience, for he is infinite in this grace; nor because he is without mercy, for his mercy is from everlasting to everlasting.
1. But because it will do the sinner no good to continue his pleadings. It is a known law of the mind that truth resisted loses its power. Why should God continue when we only spurn his offers of mercy?
Agassiz, the great Christian scientist, tells of his work in the mountains when his assistants lowered him to his work by means of a rope and a basket. They always tested his weight before letting him down; and yet he said that one day when they had lowered him deeper than ever they found that they could not lift him, though they had tested his weight before he had been lowered. They must go away over the mountains to secure other assistance. "And then," said the scientist, "when they did lift me they found that their failure was due to the fact that they did not take into account the weight of the rope." Every time you refuse Jesus Christ as your Savior and God calls you again you must lift against that other refusal, and this is why it is so difficult for some to come to Christ.
2. Because to continue warning is to hinder the sinner. The more light we have the greater guilt. Better would it be for the sinner when all hope is gone for the Spirit to leave, for he shall be called to account for warnings. Oh, the solemnity of the day of judgment!
3. Because to resist the Spirit of God is for men to sin willfully if the rejection is final. It is a sad thing to say "no" to God, and if we sin willfully there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins.
V
What is meant by the Spirit not striving? Not that he will be withdrawn from men in general, but rather from the individual.
1. He may not follow the sinner, who will be indifferent to preaching, to praying, to his own spiritual condition, for he has given himself over to error.
2. It simply means that we have come to the limit of his patience, for we have trifled with him in our continued rejection.
3. It also means that there is just some one point where he will cease to work. That point may be here and that day may be now, and so the text is solemn. A long time ago an old woman tripped and fell from the top of a stone stairway in Boston as she was coming out of the police station. They called the patrol and carried her to the hospital and the doctor examining her said to the nurse, "She will not live more than a day." And when the nurse had won her confidence the old woman said, "I have traveled from California, stopping at every city of importance between San Francisco and Boston, visiting two places always—the police station and the hospital. My boy went away from me and did not tell me where he was going, so I have sold all my property and made this journey to seek him out. Some day," she said, "he may come into this hospital, and if he does tell him that there were two who never gave him up." When the night came and the doctor standing beside her said, "It is now but a question of a few minutes," the nurse bent over her to say, "Tell me the names of the two and I will tell your son if I see him." With trembling lips and eyes overflowing with tears she said, "Tell him that the two were God and his mother," and she was gone.