The procrastinator family.
The fear of suffering is universal and instinctive. All the lower animals exhibit it. So do men in different ways. It is not joyous, but grievous. Human life and happiness are shaped largely by this feeling. Men make their relations to it a chief concern. If it be past, they seek compensations for it. If it be present, they seek relief. If it be coming, they try to prevent it; or, failing that, to postpone it; or, failing both, to mitigate it. And as a certain proportion of the pain is altogether mental, and due to our thoughts about it, one of the commonest palliatives for it is the endeavour to ignore it altogether. Among her other follies and sins, the attempt to do so on the part of Israel is here announced.
I. THE EVIL DAY WHICH MEN WOULD PUT OFF. This will be:
1. The day of actual evil. To the wicked there are many such days, with almost as many individual characteristics. Such a day pre-eminently is:
2. The day of imagined evil. Such days would be:
II. THE FOOLISH DEVICES BY WHICH MEN TRY TO ACCOMPLISH THE IMPOSSIBLE. A foolish thing is never attempted for a wise reason or in a wise way. As to the evil day:
1. Some do not practically believe that it is coming at all. They minimize their own guilt, which is the provoking cause. They magnify the considerations which bear in the direction of postponement. They ignore the sure Word of God, which denounces inevitable suffering on sin. The result is an amount of ignorance or scepticism about the matter sufficient to prevent its exercising any practical effect. It is believed in a vague and heedless way, but not so as to lead to appropriate, nor in fact to any, action.
2. Some trust to the chapter of accidents. They know the evil day is denounced. They know it is coming. They know that, if it comes, it will involve them in its calamities. But they hope events will take some happy turn. and something indefinite, but highly convenient, will occur, which will change the issue, and prevent the crisis from touching them (Isaiah 28:15). All sinners persist in the life of sin, yet hope, somehow or other, to escape hell.
3. Some endeavour not to think about it at all. They, of set purpose, divert their attention from the subject. They refuse to "consider their latter end." They busy themselves about other things. They insanely act as if the danger would be annihilated by being ignored. Into this snare of the devil many fall. They cannot see the nearness of the evil day who refuse to look at the matter. Blinder and more stupid than the ox or the ass is the people that will not consider (Isaiah 1:3).
III. THE LAST STATE OF THE PROCRASTINATOR, WHICH IS WORSE THAN THE FIRST. What he gains is a heritage of woe (Amos 6:1). As to the coming of this, it is evident:
1. He cannot prevent it. God makes his own arrangements and keeps to them. We cannot resist his power. We cannot change his purpose. His word on any matter is the last word, and fixes it once for all. What he has spoken, and as he has spoken, must come to pass.
2. He cannot postpone it. The justice, goodness, and wisdom that combine in fixing an event enter also into the timing of it. All possible considerations are taken into account, and infinite power no more surely does the thing it means than at the time it means. It would be as wise to attempt and as easy to accomplish the defeat of God's purposes as their postponement. Our mental and active attitude are alike inoperative as to both.
3. He disqualifies himself for facing it. "Be ye also ready" is the Divine prescription in reference to the unrevealed date of the day of God. To be unready is to face it at tremendous disadvantage. To be inexpectant besides is to aggravate the disadvantage to the very utmost. Prepare and watch are equally essential conditions of meeting the day of God in safety. Wilful delusion about the event means woeful injury by it. Men ought to be prepared for what is sure to come, and when it comes be in expectation of it. "Be ye also ready;" "Watch therefore." By the confluence of these streams of action is made the river of a life "throughly furnished."