Oh ! it is a woful thing to look on a place or persons that give evi- dences of their withstanding the season of their healing, as so many in this nation do ! How was our Saviour affected with it in reference to Jerusalem, Luke xix. 41, 42, " And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace ! but now they are hid from thine eyes." Oh ! if we had but any measure of that pity and compassion which dwelt in his holy soul, how could we pass through towns and cities, and see and hear, and not mourn !
Use 2. Take that advice of the prophet, Jer. xiii. 16, " Give glory to the Lord your God, before he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and, while ye look for light, he turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness."
(2.) The second thing that God doth, in giving up an unhealed land unto barrenness, is his judicial hardening of them, or leaving
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them to hardness and impenitency, that so they may fill up the measure of then sins. Heb. vi. 8, " That which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing." When the care of God is once taken from them, they are nigh unto cursing. The next thing that God will do to them, is to curse them, as our Saviour did the barren fig-tree.
This woful judgment is at large set forth, Isa. vi. 9, 10, " And he said, Go and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not ; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed." Isaiah was a gospel preacher; " Yet this," saith God, " shall be the effect of thy preaching towards them that have withstood their season, and have not been healed by the word." And John tells us that this very thing was accomplished when the gospel was preached by our Saviour himself, chap. xii. 40, 41. And surely their condition is most woful whom the preach- ing of the gospel hardeneth, — whom the only remedy destroys.
Now, there are four things in this spiritual judgment that God sends upon unhealed souls, that have outlived their season of healing, more or less: —
[1.] Blindness of mind and understanding. Their natural blind- ness and ignorance shall be increased and confirmed; and that by two ways: —
1st God will send them a "spirit of slumber," Rom. xi. 8; that is, a great inadvertency and negligence as to the things of the gospel that are spoken of or preached unto them. As men that slumber take little notice of what is spoken to them or about them; they hear a noise, and sometimes discern a little what is spoken, but not to any use or purpose: so is it with these persons on whom God doth judicially send this spirit of slumber; they hear the sound of the word, and sometimes, it may be, take notice of some one thing or other that is spoken ; but to receive and understand the design of it, to ponder it and improve it, that they cannot do ; — they are under a spiritual slumber. We may see multitudes in this condition every day. The word hath no life nor vigour towards them ; they perceive not the mind of God in it ; they understand it not. God hath given them a " spirit of slumber," and they die under it.
Idly. God sends them a spirit of giddiness, causing them to err in their ways, Isa. xix. 14. We have a notable instance of this judg- ment of God, 2 Thess. ii. 10-12. The waters of the sanctuary came unto them, and they were not healed ; the gospel was preached unto them, but they withstood their season. They received not the love of the truth ; they did not believe and obey, that they might be saved ;
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— because they had pleasure in unrighteousness. How, then, doth God deal with them? Verse 11, He will send them a spirit of gid- diness or delusion, that " they shall believe a lie," — -false doctrine, false worship, superstition, and idolatry. This they shall believe, and have pleasure in ; which will have the fearful end mentioned, verse 1 2. And this judgment, as it is already come upon many, so it lies at the door, I fear, of the most. We see men every day that have for some years, it may be, enjoyed the preaching of the gospel; but not being- healed, quickened, and sanctified by it, are now, with all greediness, given up to follow after fables on the one hand, or superstition on the other; — there is a spirit of giddiness from the Lord upon them. And by these means is the darkness of the minds of men increased when God is giving of them up to barrenness.