We are speaking tonight on the subject that the preachers have entitled "The Unpardonable Sin." I believe that to be an unscriptural term. I believe what we have reference to is the act of God by which He reprobates or rejects a human being. I want to ask you to think with me tonight on the Bible teaching of God's rejection – reprobation – and I wish to bring three marks that describe a person who is under God's rejection.
We know this nation of ours is a wicked and adulterous generation, when we remember that one out of every seven people in New York City is a sexual pervert, a sodomite. When we remember that there are over 70,000 male prostitutes walking the streets of New York City. When we read the newspapers of the scandals like that which is happening in our government. When we face the fact of the multitudes of public preachers who have been discovered as being sodomites the last few years.
It seems that the folks in New York City who seem to be utterly out of reach of any hope are the people who were reared in so-called Christian homes and made Christian professions and apostasized. That is some statement. My conviction is that so-called Christian America has been placed, at least for a season, under God's awful reprobation. Apostasy, as I understand it in the Bible, is repudiation of profession, and that is true now in America. Long since this generation of church people have repudiated all effort to prove that they are God's people by being God's instruments of redemption and by reproducing the character of the God who called them unto holiness. This generation of people in America have not quit the churches; they give a little money, still do good, and try not to do bad, and still attend the services, at least when convenient; but they have been sealed in their refusal to bring the fruits of righteousness that prove that they are the called of God. That person who is concerned about his own salvation only has missed Christ. God saved us that we may enter into His redemptive task.
So-called Christianity today is not making people Christians, and for that reason I have some trembling in my soul when I say that I believe America now is a reprobate nation. I believe with all my soul that the average institution that we call the church stands under the judgment of a holy God for not preaching a whole Gospel, demanding a full surrender from every person, so that every time we have somebody added to us they have accepted the Lord's commission in John 20:21: "As my Father hath sent Me, even so send I you."
To go back on the clear call of Almighty God and to refuse to get in the battle is the apostasy of the New Testament. Hebrews 3:12: "Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God." That is the apostasy of this hour· And God's answer to apostasy is reprobation, rejection.
And for that reason, I read from 2 Corinthians 13:5: "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?"
Jeremiah 6:30: "Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the Lord hath rejected them."
Mark 3:28-29: "Verily, I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation." They have committed an eternal sin and hell begins here in this life, and they will spend eternity in hell. A child of the devil, a reprobate. "The way of the transgressor is hard." There is plenty of hell on the way to hell. When God rejects a man, that means he is under the rejection of a thrice holy God, doomed for hell with no hope, and he enters the awful pangs of eternal separation from God.
The Scriptures speak of three classes of men: (1) There are people that are called the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. (2) There are people called the children of wrath. (3) There are people called the children of the devil. In the Gospel of John we find the conflict between the Son of the living God and the children of the devil. Against much light they had rejected the truth until now there is no hope and they are told by Christ, "Ye are of your father, the devil."
Those people who are called the children of God in the Scriptures have been made the subjects of the redeeming grace of God, they are saved by God's grace. Then the people who are called the children of wrath are the subjects of God's common grace. These people have not yet been saved, but they have not yet been rejected. Then those who are called the children of the devil are under God's awful rejection – reprobation. I wonder how it is with you right now.
An unsaved man that has any sense can live as moral a life as a Christian. Many of them do. But there is so much difference in being moral and being a Christian. To be a Christian means to be committed to Christ's purpose of redemption. If you are not deeply concerned about your relationship to Christ, or lack of relationship to Christ, you are in a real bad shape. You are the only person who can be certain about yourself. You must examine yourself. Are you committed to Christ and His redemptive purpose?
There are three marks of one whom God has rejected and reprobated. A man is rejected, reprobated and turned over to hell in this life. No hope for him when the means whereby God resists your own evil nature no longer work. When the means by which a holy God resists, restrains that devil inside of you, if you please. When they no longer work, you can put it down, you are under God's rejection. That's a scary sign of this age. I am old enough to remember when there used to be things that were wrong, but most people think there is nothing wrong now. I have lived long enough to see America turn from a moral nation almost to an immoral nation; they just don't have any morals, good or bad.
The Bible tells us there are five great things that a loving God gives to men and women to make life liveable. To restrain the beast within them and to resist that awful nature. God's common graces: (1) heavenly given wisdom; (2) heavenly given knowledge; (3) God gives them natural affections. Have you got a good job? If that doesn't lead you to Christ, you are in a state of reprobation. Has God given you a happy home and a lovely family? If that isn't used of God to restrain you and resist the beast in you and make you inclined toward the claims of God in Christ, you are in a bad shape.
And yet in America, the more prosperous we get, the more God has blessed us, the more good-bye to holiness and good-bye to commitment. Hold on to formality and going through the motions and live in such a way that we can sin and be comfortable with our god and be laws unto ourselves. A man is in a bad shape if God has given him a good wife and lovely children, a good job and a nice place to live, and that hasn't been used of God to lead him to Christ. Did you know that?
Then in Romans 2, the Bible speaks of the gift of God called a conscience. It is described for us in Isaiah 30:21: "And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left." All men have these gifts from God to restrain them. For it is still true that the goodness of God leads men to repentance. If the goodness of God does not lead you to repentance, and He sends judgment, that will be to punish. The Scriptures talk about how men deal with their conscience. 1 Corinthians 8:7: "Their conscience being weak is defiled." If you go on a little while sinning against it, you will get what the Bible calls an evil conscience.
Titus 1:15: "Unto the pure all things are pure; but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled." And if you continue to sin and heed not the warnings of the conscience, it will become seared, 1 Timothy 4:2: "Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron." Then after awhile, it will arrive at the place where your conscience, which is given by God to accuse you, you have so defiled it and sinned against it until now it excuses you.
Romans 2:15-16: "Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another; In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my Gospel."
There is hope for a man when he is wrong and he will admit it. But there is no hope for a man when he is wrong and he defends it. It is terrible enough to sin, but it is ten times more terrible to refuse to admit it and seek to hide it and cover it up. The second mark of a reprobate is when a man's conscience, that gift that God gives him, excuses him instead of accuses him.
The fifth gift of God's common grace is the terror of human government. The mayor and all of the law officials are servants of God to produce terror to the lawbreaker, but they don't obey the Word of God now, so no one is afraid of the law now. Wisdom is being used in the world now to try to banish God from His world. Knowledge is being used now to produce a generation who frankly says we have no need of God; we can get along without Him. Natural affection is now another occasion for turning the grace of God into lascivious living. Consciences now excuse us instead of accuse us. These are gifts of God, they are used of God out of His goodness to all men.
The marks of a reprobate – those graces and gifts of God intended for the good of men – no longer accomplish that whereunto they are sent. That means God has rejected when the conscience comes to the place where it excuses instead of accuses. This is the most solemn thing I ever faced. I believe American so-called Christianity has been placed under God's reprobation. Why? The most terrible mark of this age nationwide, church-wide, individual-wide is the silence of God. To be put under God's silence. It looks like God has said, "Let America alone." I do not hear people screaming in agony for the mercy of God as much as I used to hear and I can't find anybody that has lately. I do not see God break forth with the truth of His Word; I do not see the Spirit of God stab men as I used to, and I can't find any preachers that don't say the same thing. Everybody has got religion now and has told God good-bye, and it looks like God said okay.
What on God's earth can we do? Unto God we need to confess we have been doing everything except making Christians out of people. We need to ask God for His mercy and cry to Him for His wisdom and try to warn everybody we can. Unto God, surely we have so sinned in this nation till God has marked us with the most terrible mark that God can place on any nation or person. He has just quit talking to us. Oh, my soul! The silence of God! Looks like He's not speaking with that voice from heaven. I've seen men have to be carried out of my meetings on stretchers so deeply convicted of sin as God called them and so deep in their refusal they couldn't walk. I've seen them when they couldn't get up out of their seat. I've seen a little evidence in past days that there was a living God and that He was disturbing men and crossing their path. It seems mighty quiet and still now. The silence of God. When God rejects a man, He quits talking to him.
We believe God speaks to a person. In the New Testament, 167 times the word "call" is found. God calls men. To be put under the silence of God means He doesn't talk any more. And there is no voice from heaven. You can hear my voice, but not His voice. If mine is the only one you hear, I've got no power in my voice. The silence of God! That is the most scary thing about this day we live in.
Does God still talk to you? Do you ever hear from God? That is a serious question, but it is a very important question because men are saved as God calls them. The Scriptures say: "Whom He called, them He also justified." 2 Thessalonians 2:14: "Whereunto He called you by our Gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ." Romans 10:17: "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. .... Many hearing believed." That is not the Bible, that is God speaking through the Bible. That is hearing from a living God; that's how faith is wrought in a person, not apart from it.
To be put under God's silence is not to hear from God anymore. According to the Scriptures, the only way God has got to reach a man savingly is to call him. Men are in the prison house of sin and sin crushes and crushes, and if God can't reach you by calling you, He can't reach you. So if He quits calling, you are gone. You had better listen to God so that if He is pleased to call you, you will hear Him. He calls men through the Gospel when the Gospel is preached by a man of God in the power of the Holy Ghost!
1 Thessalonians 1:5: "For our Gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance."
I Thessalonians 2:13: "For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the Word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the Word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe."