Chapter 20
The Sin That Rejects God
Dear reader, we have come to the place that it seems to us it would be the thing to take up the mountain-top sin in a broader sense, or get down to the root of the matter, and see just what the mountain-top sin is. And by the way, we feel led to say that in the dispensation of the Father the greatest crime that could be committed was to reject God the Father, and in the days of the Son of Man the greatest sin of that age was to reject the blessed Son of God, and under the dispensation of the Holy Ghost, it is to reject the Holy Ghost. So we find the three dispensations, that of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. In order to get at the sin of all sins, we will have to take them up in their natural order, and if we do we shall see the mountain-top sin, and the sin that eclipses all other sins.
First, we will go back and look at the dispensation of the Father and see just what is the greatest sin in His age. Let the reader remember that Christ said all manner of sins should be forgiven unto man but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. Many people have wondered just what that sin was. Well, when I get up to it I think I can tell you just what it is, and I want to make it so plain that you will understand it all the rest of your life. Now we will go back and see what a fellow had to do under the dispensation of the Father to be a lost man. First, we will notice God’s first warning to man. In Gen. 6:3, we read that “My Spirit shall not always strive with man.” At a glance you can see that away back when this old world was young, that if a man acted in such a way that God’s Spirit quit striving with him, that he was a lost man. Now let’s look at a number of scriptures that show you that a man in that age could grieve God away until he was lost. In II Chron. 36:14-16: “Moreover all the chief of the priests and the people, transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen; and polluted the house of the Lord which he had hallowed in Jerusalem. And the Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes and sending; because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling place: But they mocked the messengers of God and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy.”
The reader will notice in the above text God did all that a gracious heavenly Father could do, but the people rejected Him and His prophets and rejected His messengers, and misused them until there was no remedy for them. Here was their trouble; they were under the dispensation of the Father, and their only hope of heaven was to go through the kindness bestowed on them by the Father. When they rejected Him and polluted His house, and turned their backs on Him, there was no remedy for them in the world.
It is like this: If I am in a deep pit and my only hope of ever getting out it is in one man, and he comes to help me out and I deliberately reject him, you see at a glance that I am a doomed man, for there is no hope for me in the world. At a glance you can see the condition of these people. When they turned their back on God the Father until there was no remedy, what could they do but perish? So the only way to heaven was to go through the love and compassion of the Father, and they reject Him and turn away from Him, and as it were, take the reins in their own hands and make shipwreck out of themselves and their posterity. No more remedy for the crowd who rejected the Father while they were under His dispensation.
In connection with this lesson we will look at some more scriptures. We next notice Prov. 1:24-32: “Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at naught all my counsel and would none of my reproofs; I also will laugh at your calamity and mock when your fear cometh, when your fear cometh as desolation, and when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall you call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me; for that they hated knowledge; and did not choose the fear of the Lord: they would none of my counsel, they despised all my reproof. Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own ways and be filled with their own devices. For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.”
Now reader, it would take all of your time for the next ten days to try to go into detail and explain this long quotation, but we can see at a glance that all of the above is a record of the people who rejected God the Father and were cut off from their hope of heaven. Under the dispensation of the Father, the only hope of heaven was to go through the Father, and when a people rejected the Father, there was no hope for them, and they were cut off without a ray of hope to hang over their doomed souls, but darkness would settle down over them and they had no God. For when they rejected the Father there was no one else to take His place. They were hopelessly lost, for we hear the Father say, “Because I have called and ye refused, and I stretched out my hand and no man regarded, but ye have set at naught all my counsel and would none of my reproof, I also will laugh at your calamity and mock when your fear cometh.”
This is one of the most fearful statements in the Old Testament. Of course I don’t suppose that it literally means that the great God would really laugh at the damnation of a lost soul, but when the poor souls are passing out into outer darkness, and no hope in sight, and no God to call on and no one to lean on, and in the awful agony of the lost soul they call on God, but they have treated Him with such contempt that while they cry for mercy, God does not listen to their awful sad cry. They had their day, but said “No” to God the Father, and when they rejected God the Father they had no claim on the Son or the Holy Spirit. They were offered heaven by the love and kindness of the Father, and they became God-rejecters.
In proof of the fact that they cut themselves off, we turn now and read in Jer. 7:13-15, “And now because ye have done all these works saith the Lord, and I spake unto you rising up early and speaking, but ye heard not, and I called you, but ye answered not; therefore will I do unto this house which is called by my name wherein ye trusted, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers as I have done to Shiloh, and I will cast you out of my sight as I have cast out all your brethren, even the whole seed of Ephraim; therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me for I will not hear thee.” Now reader, here is a class of people who grieved God and rejected God and acted in such a way that the Lord even asked the people not to pray for them, for He said, “I will not hear thee.” Notice here just what He said about it: “Therefore, pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, for I will not hear thee.”
It would seem from reading the above text that a people can grieve the Lord until it is a real source of dissatisfaction to Him even to listen to anybody pray for them. The reader will remember that the Lord reproved Samuel, the best man in Israel in his day, for mourning over King Saul after He had rejected him and removed him from the kingship of Israel. The Lord said to Samuel, “How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing that I have rejected him from reigning over Israel.” See I Sam. 16:1.
If the Lord can be so misused and mistreated and so rejected and so despised and set at naught and snubbed and laughed at and mocked that He will leave the man forever, and if it be distasteful to the Lord even to hear the man’s name called, and all of the above scriptures say that it can, don’t you see at a glance that the fellow is a doomed man? There is no hope in the universe for such a man. Just think of it, the Book says that a fellow can go so far that the Lord won’t listen to his prayers and won’t even listen to the man’s friends as they pray for him. The Lord said don’t even lift up cry or prayer for them or make intercessions for them, for I won’t hear you. So you see the man has put himself out of God’s reach, so far as love and mercy are concerned.
Now we are beginning to see what it means to sin against the Holy Ghost. A man can reject the Father until he is lost, and under the dispensation of the Father they did that very thing, and they were cut off in their sins without one ray of hope and without one glimmer of mercy left to them, and all you have to do to blaspheme the Holy Ghost is to treat Him in His dispensation as these people did the Father in His dispensation. No one act of sin is the sin against the Father, so no one act of sin is the sin against the Son, and no one act of sin is the sin against the Holy Ghost. But one continual, long drawn out stubborn rejection of the Father, settled it with them forever and ever; no hope in their skies.
Well now, we turn to the prophecy of Zech. 7:11-13, and read a few verses. “But they refused to hearken and pulled away the shoulder and stopped their ears that they should not hear; yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone lest they should hear the law and the words which the Lord of hosts has sent in his spirit by the former prophets. Therefore came a great wrath from the Lord of hosts. Therefore it came to pass that as he cried they would not hear. So they cried, and I would not hear saith the Lord of hosts.”
Now the reader will see a class of people here who the Lord said stopped their ears in order that they might not hear the law, and that they would not listen to the Spirit that was sent to them by the Lord through the former prophets, and he goes on to say that they made their hearts as an adamant stone. Now folks, don’t you see that there is no hope for a man with his heart as hard as an adamant stone and his ears stopped? And at the same time He says of them that they turned away their shoulder; that is, they turned away with a kind of sneer and turned up the lip and turned up their nose and gave their head a toss and raised their shoulder as a sort of defiance to the God of Israel. And they refused to hearken, so the Lord says. We get a glance of them and we see at once that there is no hope, for they are in the dispensation of the Father, and the dispensation of the Son has not been inaugurated, and it is far off to the dispensation of the Holy Ghost, and the only one to deal with is the Father, and they have turned away from the Law and would not hearken to it; they have turned away from the prophets and will not hear them; and they have turned away from the Father, and will not hear Him, and have stopped up their ears and refused to hear, and have made their hearts as an adamant stone; so of course there is no hope.
Now what is to become of them? Well, they are as in much lost as if they were already in the pit. God is out of their thoughts, and of course if He is they are without hope. Don’t you see that a man with a heart like an adamant stone can’t think of feeling or loving or giving or shouting or praying? Don’t you know that a rock can’t do the service of the God of Israel? These men had become stones, and were rejected because they had rejected God.