CLOSE OF PROBATION

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 24, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 12.

“CLOSE OF PROBATION.”

ONE of the arguments which are frequently put forth to induce souls to turn to the Lord is that probation may soon close, and the Lord will say: “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still; and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still; and he that is holy, let him be holy still. And, behold, I come quickly; and My reward is with Me, to give every man according as his work shall be.” Rev. 22:11, 12.

The Lord will sometime utter those words. That time will mark a point beyond which the unsaved can not be saved, the saved can not be lost. But will that condition be brought about by the arbitrary decree of God? Will it be that if that decree had delayed a little longer, others would have sought God, and some would have fallen away from the steadfastness of grace? These are important questions. What is it which closes man’s probation? What is it which fixes his character?

It is not that God’s mercy is exhausted. He is “plenteous in mercy unto all that call upon Him.” “He delighteth in mercy.” He “taketh pleasure” “in those that hope in His mercy.” He will “abundantly pardon” the wicked and the sinner. Exhaustless, unfathomed, measureless, “His mercy endureth forever.”

In a parable in Matthew 18 the Lord represents man’s debts to Him by 10,000 talents, $15,000,000, and man’s debts to his fellow as 100 pence, or $15, one to one million. Yet human mercy would not forgive the one, while God freely forgave the million. There can, therefore, be no comparison between a mercy which will not forgive a unit and a mercy which freely forgives 15,000,000 units.

Again, it is an expression of human mercy to forgive “seven times.” The Lord says that man ought to forgive “seventy times seven,” and as frequently as “seven times in a day,” and even to forgive whether the offender asks it or not. Truly, then, God is infinite in mercy. He is also unchangeable in character. “I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.”

It is therefore by no arbitrary decree of God that man’s trial, or probation, closes. It is by man’s own act. God will compel no soul to accept of Him. It were tyranny so to do. Man’s service to God must not be a have-to service. It must be freely, willingly given. So God will not compel men to receive His wonderful, healing mercy. He offers it freely. Nay, more, He gives it in sun and rain, in food and raiment, in light and air, in life and intellect. But He does not compel men to receive these blessings as from Him. The very air they breathe is from God, yet men use it to curse Him. The intellect God gives is used to plot and plan against God’s free Gospel. Infinite Love pleads that men will not do this, but it will not compel.

But men reject God’s mercies and become hardened and blinded. God reveals them in greater abundance, His truth in clearer light; men are moved to do right, but reject Him again. And thus the work goes on, God giving, teaching, instructing, man ever refusing, rejecting, till the heart becomes so hard that it can no longer be impressed with God’s goodness. God can do no more without compelling the will of man, and that, in harmony with His character—love,—He can not do. Man, by continually refusing counsel, by continually rejecting God, fixes his own character by repeated acts for all eternity. And because it is so, God says, “Let him that is unjust, be unjust still.”

So also man forms an eternally righteous character by willingly yielding to do God’s will. Every act of obedience repeated forms a habit of obedience, and a power of resistance to opposite evil. The aggregation of such habits forms a character of like nature, strong in the appropriated power and life of God moment by moment. Such constant faithfulness to God finally establishes a character, a fixedness of purpose, a solidity of faith, a union with God, that no temptation can break, no evil power overcome. It has in it the strength of God.

But to resist the temptation to-day, to yield to it to-morrow, forms a weak, vacillating character. God will forgive every failure, pardon every sinful yielding, but the repetition weakens faith and assurance, and, finally, the weakened soul turns in despair from God forever, and is lost. But he is not lost because God failed to bestow grace and mercy, but because he failed to choose and appropriate the grace and mercy in time of need.

But these cases are not hopeless. Let the feeble, vacillating soul yield himself to God; cast all his doubts upon the Lord Jesus Christ; forsake all evils and associations which drag him downward; and depend upon the mighty power of God’s Word. Let the faith which would appropriate God’s mercy to forgive sin lay hold upon God’s power to keep from sin. Hope not for some great triumph by and by, but for strength to do present duty, to meet present temptations. By thus doing, every day will help to establish a character which Satan with all his hosts can not move. And in the soon-coming day when the Gospel will have done its work upon the hearts of men, he may be found on the right side of that line which will divide character by man’s own choice for all eternity.