Why This Stupor? by G. B. Thompson

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Feb 18, 1904

Why This Stupor?

By G. B. Thompson

G. B. THOMPSON

A BROTHER said to me recently, “Why is it that these great and solemn truths of the third angel’s message do not stir my soul as they did years ago when I first listened to the glad news of my Saviour’s return?”

How is it with you, my brother, my sister? Once you were mightily stirred as you listened to the message; and at the risk of losing everything,—friends, position, and every worldly joy,—you eagerly laid hold of it. As the various lines of prophecy were traced down, and the signs in the heavens, in the earth and sea, in the social and political world were studied, your heart was moved, and you believed that the end was very near, and that it was time to lay all on the altar a sacrifice to God. And it was no fable you heard, but the vital truth of God. But do these things awaken a response in your heart to-day as they did then? This was a number of years ago, perchance, and the Master was even then “at the door.” He is nearer now than when we first believed. But does it seem so? Are we as active in missionary work, as faithful in the church, as zealous in the prayer and social meeting now as then?

If we are not, there must be some reason for the change that has taken place in us. It is not because the message is less powerful and convincing. The numerous lines of prophecy are as clear to-day as ever. The study of the Word, and the events taking place around us, illuminates, rather than obscures, the tremendous and immovable pillars of our faith. After years of siege by the enemy, every fundamental principle stands unshaken. In some things we no longer walk by faith; for we have come down the stream of time so near to the vast ocean of eternity that we can, if we but open our eyes, really “see the day approaching.”

Can it be that our hearts are to-day less ready to respond to the appeals of the Holy Spirit than years ago? Herein lies a grave peril. This position is the most solemn and dangerous that it is possible to occupy. An alarm-clock unheeded will soon fail to arouse us. So with the heart. Stirred for years by the Holy Spirit, but in vain, it becomes hardened, calloused, and less susceptible to the call of God. The sin against the Holy Ghost is not some sin of such awful turpitude that God will not forgive it; for “all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men.” But if we continue to disregard the call of duty, smother the convictions of the Holy Spirit, and refuse to give up known sins, the heart becomes hardened, and we may reach a place where it is impossible to renew us “again unto repentance” (Heb. 6:6), having placed ourselves beyond the reach of the Spirit of God, the only thing in the earth which convinces of sin and changes the wicked, deceitful heart of man. “There are none so hardened as those who have slighted the invitation of mercy, and done despite to the Spirit of grace. The most common manifestation of the sin against the Holy Spirit, is in persistently slighting heaven’s invitation to repent. Every step in the rejection of Christ is a step toward the rejection of salvation, and toward the sin against the Holy Spirit. In rejecting Christ the Jewish people committed the unpardonable sin; and by refusing the invitation of mercy we may commit the same error.”—“Desire of Ages,” page 324.

To continue in sin is exceedingly dangerous. Sin is an opiate. Every refusal to yield the heart to God, obtunds our moral feeling and increases our drowsiness. Paul speaks of a class who, because of sin, have reached a place where they are “past feeling.” Eph. 4:19. This terrible condition is not reached at one step, but gradually. Sinning, living in violation of known duty, disregarding the plain injunctions of the Word, daily hardening our hearts against the appeals of the Holy Spirit, deadens our spiritual faculties until the truths of God’s Word can be heard with the ear, but they move our hearts no more. Unless we change this condition, the time will come when the most terrible warnings which ever fell on the ears of mortals will fail to stir us in any degree whatever, and we become dead, “past feeling.” Like the man who is freezing, yet feels comfortable, so sin has its congealing effect, and we do not, because of continued violation of our conscience, sense our real condition. This is a lamentable and an alarming condition indeed. Can any one ever be recalled from this terrible stupor of insensibility when once reached? We would not limit God, but the risk is too great to be considered. Physical death is not so much to be dreaded as the death of moral feeling or spiritual perception.

“There is a line by us unseen, That crosses every path,— The hidden boundary between God’s patience and his wrath. O! where is this mysterious bourne By which our path is crossed,— Beyond which God himself hath sworn That he who goes is lost?”

Have you lived past the meridian of life, yet unconverted? Have you felt the drawing influence of the Holy Spirit, and resolved that you would give yourself wholly to God, but are still standing out against the Lord, expecting sometime to yield and obey when circumstances are more favorable? Beware! There is danger in procrastination. The alarm-clock of the soul may warn unheard ere long, and you be “past feeling.”

In a few short years at most probation will close, and the irrevocable doom of the ungodly be pronounced, and upon your unsaved neighbors and friends, rich and poor alike, will fall the seven last and terrible plagues, and on every hand will be heard the lamentations and unutterable woe of the eternally lost.

This terrible truth is enough to move a heart of stone. Does it move you as it should, or as it once did, my brother? Why this insensibility, almost “past feeling”? Let the tocsin be sounded, that the latent energy of the soul may be awakened.

Can you listen, unmoved, to the plaintive cry which comes from the unwarned millions of the Orient for laborers to come and tell them about the coming One,—you who know that in a “little while” the besom of destruction from a long-suffering God will destroy the nations that forget God? Can you listen to this, and not say, Here I am, Lord, use me anywhere to save souls? Why this dearth of laborers? Why this stupor which has settled like a pall of death upon so many? It is surely time to heed the call, “Awake thou that sleepest.”

Can you read the urgent calls from the home and foreign fields for means to establish and extend the work in these fields, and though possessing much of this world’s store, give only a pittance to ease the conscience, an amount less than you once spent before receiving the message for some idol? Do you spend more annually to decorate your home, or for needless articles of dress for yourself, or to pander to the pride of unsanctified members of your household, than to extend the message in the “regions beyond”? Does the spirit of sacrifice burn as brightly in your soul to-day as when you began to obey the truth? Do you give less now than formerly to advance the message?

It is surely time to awake from the deadly stupor of the enemy. Have we allowed the world to enter our hearts, and to chill almost “past feeling” the tender love of God for lost souls? Have we lost our first love? Is the prevailing iniquity in the earth deadening our spirituality? The Lord calls us to repentance. The end of all things is upon us, and it is time we were honest with ourselves. In heaven it has been decided to end the delay in the prolonged controversy in the earth, and it is time that in the strength of God we cut loose from sin, and put a period to this everlasting delay and compromise with sin in our own experience.