For he hates to hear the words which
tell him of his sin; he wishes they were not in the Bible; he longs
to stop the preacher's mouth; and, as he cannot do that, he dislikes
going to church. He says: "I cannot, and what is more, I will not,
give up my sinful ways, and therefore I shall not go to church to be
told of them." So he stops away from church, and goes on in his
sins. So that man's heart is hardened, just as Pharaoh's was. Yet
the Lord has come and spoken to that sinful man in loving warnings:
though all the effect it has had is that the Lord's message has made
him worse than he was before, more stubborn, more godless, more
unwilling to hear what is good. But men may fall into a still worse
state of mind. They may determine to set the Lord at naught; to hear
Him speaking to their conscience, and know that He is right and they
wrong, and yet quietly put the good thoughts and feelings out of
their way, and go in the course which they know to be the worst. How
many a man in business or the world says to himself, ay, and in his
better moments will say to his friend: "Ah, yes, if one could but be
what one would wish to be. . . . What one's mother used to say one
might be. . . . But for such a world as this, the gospel ideal is
somewhat too fine and unpractical.
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