9. Lessons Learned Too Late.
9. Lessons Learned Too Late.
"Oh, that you had heeded my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea!" Isaiah 48:18 When Charles IX of France, who gave the order for the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day, was dying, bathed in his own blood, he exclaimed: "What blood! what murders! I know not where I am. How will all this end? I am lost forever, and I know it."
"Ah! Mr. Harvey," said a dying man to that excellent minister, "the day in which I ought to have worked is over. And now I see a horrible night approaching, bringing with it the blackness of darkness forever."
Such are the expressions ofremorseof those who learn, too late, lessons that are of no avail. It might have been well for all such if the active faculties of the mind and soul could have been deadened to the awful facts of a mistaken life--dead to the scenes of blessedness that came in sight, then vanished never to return, except in taunting, tantalizing vision. Our Lord put it into the mouth of Abraham to say to the distressed Dives in his place of torment: "Son, remember! Remember that you in your lifetime had your good things, and likewise Lazarus his evil things." In this declaration, Jesus clearly meant to convey the solemn truth that it was indeed not only possible to learn when the lesson so received would be of no avail, but also that there will always be before such tardy students the barrier that separates, but does not conceal, the bliss of a rejected truth.
Said Professor Swing: "It is most pitiful that we all see the greatest duties of the world, only in the solemn hour when we are leaving it. We are willingly blind to the great things around us, and as the prodigal son, when he had found the desert world, looked back, and for the first time saw the sweetness of his father’s house--so we wander away in our vanity and folly, and at last, from a bed of bodily disease and spiritual husks and rags, look back and see the matchless charms of an age and a land to which we are bidding farewell. This is not Nature’s fault or plan. It is her revenge. She gives us a glimpse of the glory we declined to pursue and accept." The prophet Isaiah looked with sad heart and deep emotion upon the sorrows of a people who had been patiently taught and earnestly pleaded with, but who had persistently refused to hear and heed his words of instruction. It was no satisfaction to him, or to any godly man, to note the coming of the calamity he had been privileged to foretell. It only increased his grief to behold the misery of a people who heard a warning voice, had been instructed in right doing--yet had received too late the lesson to profit thereby--at least too late to turn aside the predicted evil. These sad facts of history cry aloud their warnings to all the future. They are bits of instruction for those who, passing that way, may, if wise, profit thereby. So the grief-stricken prophet--recalling his words of warning, remembering their rejection, and marking the disastrous effects of disobedience and arrogance--breaks forth into the language of regret, saying: "Oh, that you had heeded my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea!" The statesman, also, is a seer. He stands upon a loftier eminence than that occupied by the people, and from that standpoint is an observer of the tendencies of his people and the times in which they live. In spite of argument and appeal, contrary to reason and judgment, decisions are made, policies are entered in upon, leaders are chosen--resulting disastrously. Then, with grief and regret, the statesman exclaims, after the deed has been done that cannot be undone: "Oh, that you had heeded my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea!"
Such also is the feeling of the teacher whose pupils are heedless of his instruction; so also the grief of parents over wayward children--of pastors at the bedside of wrecked manhood and womanhood, where grief over misspent lives recall timely warnings; where penitence secures pardon, but fails to undo all the evil that waywardness has caused. Lessons that might have been learned without the bitterness of experience, loss, grief; lessons that might have been learned before it was too late to stay the tear of mother, the lament of teacher, the sorrow of pastor, or the penalty of disease or the punishment of the government.
If after all the centuries of experiment, men have not found that good could come by doing evil--then why should we persist in trying the same? Lessons learned by others when it was too late to be of value to them--may yet serve us well, if we are willing to profit by their experiences. The burnt child not only will dread the fire, but, by his scars, beg and beseech others to avoid the fatal contact.
1. Lessons of the Temperate Life.
"No drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of God." But men say, "We are not drunkards." They will drink, but will stop drinking the fiery liquid before the senses are destroyed--before the soul, created in God’s image of reason and righteousness, is made idiotic by strong drink. Year after year they tamper with and toil against the tide, trying to prove the truth of God untrue.
Against him coming with unsteady step--or even with the poison upon his breath . . .
the gates of social purity are shut,
employment is denied,
love grows sullen and disappears, and
the kingdom of grace closes her portals.
If at last, by a resolute will, aided by Divine mercy, the drinker reforms and seeks the path of sobriety, he may wish, and wish in vain, to be back where the paths parted, and where first he was assigned a lesson he refused to learn. Go where he will, the ex-convict cannot find the place where innocence left him, and felony became a part of his history. If he could, what pilgrimages he would make to get where the deed had never been done; where the consciousness of wrong-doing was not only absent, but not a part either of any other being in all God’s universe.
John B. Gough looked back upon seven years counted as worse than lost, as a period of blackness that stood out in horror before him. Seven years that can never be regained;seven years of sin and self-degradation; seven years that might have put him far along in moral likeness to Him who knew no sin, though the Friend of sinners. Do you know of men who have hoped to live until they should reform, and yet in the end have failed? These are our teachers. They learned, too late for them, that a single day is too long to put off obedience to God. Their life is like the troubled sea, which cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. Better far that men should take the Word of God as their guide, than to be compelled to contemplate these sad experiences, and bemoan their folly and their loss.
2. Lessons of Social Purity.
Virtue is its own reward. Vice is sure of punishment. A life of strict integrity and purity may seem, to some, so dull, so devoid of spice and fun, that the temptation to escape the exactions of the narrow path often prove successful. Stolen waters are said to be sweet; but at the last, how bitter, bitterly bitter, do they become!
"Surely," said the Tempter, "if you but taste, you will be as gods, knowing good and evil." They tasted--and evil they knew, and all the world has known, alas! after it is too late! Better not to know, if the knowledge brings such disaster.
Thedark rivermay be called upon to hide from a cruel world, a shame the victim cannot, will not face. The questions of right and wrong have but one answer. These problems are not hard to solve. In fact, both in revelation and experience, the answers are written out so plainly that, if we will, we cannot help but know them. Why, then, tamper? Why experiment? Why learn by the hard and remorseful way of trial, when the lesson will be too late to serve any advantage? To these morally corrupt, disease-tainted, sorrow-laden souls, God’s Word cries in anguish: ""Oh, that you had heeded my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea!"
3. Lessons about Money.
Said the Wise Man: "I have seen a grievous evil under the sun: wealth hoarded to the harm of its owner!" Ecclesiastes 5:13
It is a pathetic lesson taught every day and everywhere, but whose truths are so seldom heeded--thisblinding, perverting, degrading, selfish love of money.Men and women are to be commended for the industrious, economical, and judicious habit of wealth accumulation; but are surely to be pitied when those hard-earned dollars are dissipated by children who know little of their cost, and care less. When wealth increases, without a corresponding increase of the benevolent spirit, it is at the expense of those nobler qualities that bind together in sympathetic compact all the children of men, and strengthen the tie that unites us all to God. No man can afford to pay so high a price for all the wealth the world contains; forour hold upon property is not permanent. Riches make themselves wings--and can only be made secure when they enter into affection, sympathy, well doing, and well-being. No longer will wealth be ours, when death has laid his heavy hand upon us, and separated all material things from the spiritual being. "Lay up for yourselves treasures in Heaven, where neither moth nor rust does corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal." The bestowment of gifts in large amounts at one time, is neither commended by results or by the Word of God, as compared to theregular and constant and watchful givingpracticed all through life, as God has prospered. Those who have watched the wasteful processes of courts in adjustment of estates, have often wished that a few years of personal supervision of his gifts might have been the privilege and blessedness of the giver himself. No man, or set of men, can possibly carry out the intentions as economically or as wisely and well as the testator, as he himself could have done while living.
Even when money is personally kept under one’s own supervision, and the children are denied its use in small measure and in a co-operative way, they are deprived also of that wise counsel and discreet assistance in its management that none but father or mother may be able to give.
"Had I a boy and one hundred thousand dollars, I would keep the two as far apart as possible," is credited to a recent member of the United States Congress. Men who have come up from the ranks, who have known what denial of self and subjection of spirit means, as well as the valuable lessons of industry and economy and judicious investment of time and means, could wish no better experience and result for their children, than they themselves have had.
Let the failures of others, be a lesson that benefits us, before it is too late! The best gift any man can bestow upon his child is a good name. If this is done, it will be followed by careful instruction in the fundamentals of an education--in mental, moral, and manual training. Help the young to independence. Take out from under them, all artificial and unnecessary supports; instruct them in the value and happiness of self-earned wealth, and they will then have a permanent source of income. The unwise and wicked accumulation of wealth without a constantly increasing benevolent spirit, will be seen in soul-shrinkage, in distrust of God, and wasteful distribution in the third generation, if not in the second, that will mean more than loss of money. It will be felt in indifference toward God’s children of misfortune; of hurtful excesses in luxurious living; in examples ofextravagancebeyond the means of the family of the next generation; in an overestimate of world values, and undervalue of eternal things.
Lessons learned too late multiply in the money marts of the world. Destruction of property by fire and flood and famine are to be deplored, but are not to be compared with the sadness that is seen in the wrong use of means that brings the owner to poverty in old age, or scatters it to the winds when death comes to settle up accounts. Why should not God be taken into partnership when wealth and worth are sought? Why should not His counsel be heeded in its use and distribution? "If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?" "Whoever stops his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard."
4. Lessons of Graciousness. To be discreet in speech and conduct, should be the desire and effort of every social being. The unkind word or ungracious act, like an arrow speeding away from the bow and the archer, cannot be recalled. How much of regret, how much of sorrow--such thoughtless, heartless actions have caused! The scandal-monger is not a murderer, yet he waylays the innocent and unsuspecting, robs them of their best ornaments of a good name, assassinates reputation, ruins character, and is in turn an object of ill-repute among his fellows.
"Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by Hell!" James 3:5-6. Easy indeed is it to scatter to the winds theseeds of the thistle, but impossible to gather up again all these germs of an evil crop. The cultivation of a gracious spirit goes far toward abating the strife and contention of the world. Grievous words stir up strife. One is not a hypocrite because he hesitates to say all that might be said upon every occasion; for silence, at times, is golden. The least said--the sooner mended. To be able to refrain from harsh and unkind criticism, is far easier than to attempt the recall or secure the forgiveness for saying what ought not to have been spoken.Seal your lips, if poison is on your tongue.Put a guard over your words, lest they lead you a sad chase. Learn to sweeten your spirit, if you would master your speech. Who has not lost much out of life--a loss beyond recovery--by the churlish action of the ungracious soul? Friends become few, enemies multiply, when there is no honey in the tongue, and only a sting in the speech.
Too late in life has the lesson and its value been learned, of graciousness, to be an effective force in many a soul left to nurse regrets in solitude and sorrow.
5. Lessons of the Christ-life.
More valuable than temperance, social purity, material conquest, and even graciousness itself, is the gift of the Christ-life, which may not be appreciated until it is too late. To all men there comes a call to righteousness. All history and human experience, all nature, all visions of the poets and seers and statesmen, all voices of the Spirit and speech of the Infinite One--teach, exhort, and plead that this truth be accepted and obeyed. In opposition to all these entreaties, in spite of love and law and learning, mankind has taken advantage of the liberty of the human will, and made it license to defy truth and reason and life and God. But, after all, such liberty is limited, such license is within bounds, and, when too late, the lesson is learned between hard lines, and the loss sustained is irreparable. Can we berichwithout God? Men have tried it. Parks and palaces have been multiplied, fertile acres have increased in number, and wealth in bonds and banks and buildings has abounded. To the self-satisfied and greatly gratified soul, has come the complacent exhortation: "You have much goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry." But the "many years" were soon, at the very longest, at an end, and as the pauper and the beggar, the body of the princely one must lie in the narrow cell and be forgotten. Can we haveknowledgewithout God? Men have ignored and defied God, yet have succeeded in knowing much of the world; of the earth beneath; of the starry heavens above; of man, his history, thought, and emotions and desires; but, with all his learning, made to admit a limit to his thought away in the dim mist of the Morning, and in the gathering clouds of the Evening of human life. Can men behappywithout wealth, without learning, without God? Men have been poor and ignorant and defiant, and yet have lived out a round of pleasurable excitement--existing within themselves and without God.Narrow, sensual, selfish souls!But these, too, have died within the walls of a very limited life. Did they know or care ofwealthunlimited beyond the grave; ofknowledgeinfinite in a school of unsurpassed facilities in the higher realm; ofpleasures for evermoreat the right hand of the Father? When they considered all this, it was too late. It overwhelmed their petty possessions, their little learning, their simple sensuousness--with the rejected splendor of things to come. The opportunity that is restricted to the narrow life of time and sense compels the soul, in its narrow cell, to eat itself away, and yet live hungry forever in sight of abundance. Limits are upon everything that does not reach out after God. In order to lift the horizon of a sin-cursed world, God came to us in the person of His Son, and lived with us the God-life. He showed us the Father, and, by His life, love, and sacrifice, lifted the pall of that death that separates, and lengthened infinitely the vision of soul possibilities. He went back to His Father, but sent His Spirit to abide with us--Comforter, Teacher, Life-Giver. Shall we accept or reject His office, work, and ministry? Shall we bid Him wait our convenience? He is long-suffering, patient, not willing that any should perish; but He will not always strive, or yearn, or wait. "Today, if you hear His voice, harden not your hearts;" do not presume upon the morrow; it may never come. "O that men were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!" "At midnight there was a cry made: Behold the Bridegroom comes, go out to meet Him. Those who were ready went in with Him to the marriage, and the door was shut!"
"Oh, that you had heeded my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea!" Isaiah 48:18