Gold Nugget 178 - Prevailing Indifference

Click here to download:
Zephaniah 8-9.doc (25 KB)
(download)

      The backslider may remember the joys he has forfeited, and, by the sacred memories of the past, which even his estrangement cannot obliterate, may be constrained to return unto the Lord.  But in proportion as a man is callous and indifferent to the claims of God, he places himself outside the circle within which holy and gracious influences operate.  Less fear need be cherished of the pernicious influence of the skepticism of the age than of the fatality attendant upon the spirit of indifferentism to God and his claims which so widely prevails. …

      Is it not so that our very familiarity with anything is likely to lead us in a sense to be somewhat indifferent to it?  A walk may appear long, and may be long; but take it frequently, and the distance will appear to lessen, and in time it will cease to affect you.  View constantly the scenery of some charming dale, and however much of quiet enjoyment you will get out of it perpetually if you are a lover of natural beauty, yet you will no be so enthusiastic as a stranger who gazes upon it for the first time.  And much of the prevailing indifference concerning God and his truth may be traced to this cause. …

      You neglect to insure your property, and perchance a fire breaks out and destroys it, and you find yourself thrown back for years to come; or you neglect your health and fail to heed the first symptoms of disease, and it may end in the disease gaining too firm a hold for it ever to be eradicated; and so spiritual and eternal honour may be forfeited, not willfully, but through indifference and unconcern. …

 

                        “There is a tide in the affairs of men,

                          Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune

                          Omitted, all the voyage of their life

                          Is bound in shallows and in miseries.”

      And it is so that there is a tide in the spiritual affairs of men.  Human feelings, sentiments, desires, ebb and flow like the sea; and there are seasons in which this tide sets towards piety; and such a season, if only improved, “is the accepted time,” “the day of salvation.”

 

The Pulpit Commentary, Zephaniah p. 8-9, Zephaniah 1:6, (S. D. Hillman)

 

Gold Nugget 178

Prevailing Indifference

 

http://www.goldnugget.posterous.com