EXCUSES!

Edward Griffin (1770—1837)
 

Luke 14:18
"And they all with one consent began to make excuse."

In the parables which describe the treatment that the Gospel receives from men, the Savior drew several prominent features of the race. In one place he represents them as making light of the invitation, in another as getting rid of it by frivolous excuses.

A man made a great supper and gave out an extensive invitation. When the guests were sent for, "they all with one consent began to make excuse." One had purchased a piece of ground, another had bought five yoke of oxen, another had married a wife; not one had leisure to attend. At this the master of the house was angry; and after filling his rooms from "the streets and lanes of the city"—from "the highways and hedges,"—he lifted his hand and swore, that not one of those that were bidden should taste of his supper.

The parable plainly presents these three ideas:

I. That all rejecters of the Gospel are prone to make excuses.

II. That in the view of God all these excuses are frivolous and provoking.

III. That they arise from no other cause than an aversion to the Gospel and an unwillingness to bear the blame of rejecting it.

I. All rejecters of the Gospel are prone to make excuses.

This is plainly taught in the parable. The whole Christian world are here divided into two classes; those who accept the calls of God, and those who make excuses. It is expressly said of those who refused the invitation, "They all with one consent began to make excuse." It was foreseen that a resort to false pleas to get rid of the Gospel and of the blame of rejecting it, would be a general feature of the race; and the parable was intended to exhibit this universal feature in all its living hues.

What was foreseen has taken place, in every generation, in every land, in every house. Wherever you find a sinner who rejects the Gospel, there you find one, unless he is overwhelmed with conviction, as full of excuses as he is of sin. Besides those numberless pleas which he urges upon himself, such as:
that he is too young,
that if he makes the attempt he shall probably fall away,
that religion is a gloomy thing, that the world will mock.

Besides these, there are many excuses which he keeps on hand to protect himself against the attacks of others, such as:
that he cannot find evidence to convince him that the Gospel is true,
that he cannot change his own heart and it is in vain to try,
that he cannot get time to attend to the concerns of his soul,
that there is no need to make so much ado about religion,
that professors are no better than others,
that many of the doctrines are hard and are difficult to be understood.

Scores of such pleas are heard in every house as often as you urge upon the doltish an immediate attention to religion. They seem to think the pleas original; but they have been repeated and answered a million times in every generation since the Christian era. Upon these pleas the Savior had his eye when he drew the picture in the text. This certainly ought to produce a pause, and lead to greater caution in framing these self-protecting apologies.

II. In the view of God, all these excuses are frivolous and provoking.

In no conceivable manner could this be set forth in stronger language than in the parable before us. After those who were invited had urged the most plausible pleas they could frame, the master of the house was angry, and solemnly declared that not one of them should taste of his supper. If the parable did justice to this system of excuse-making, it did not overlook a single plea which a mortal man can make. It takes up excuses in the mass and condemns them all. Not a hint of any exception—of any privileged plea sent forth with a chartered right to insult the Majesty of Heaven. Here the entire system of excuses receives a wholesale reprobation. The parable is a grand proscription of them all. Its title might be written, "No excuse, in any age or country, for rejecting the Gospel!"

If any man seriously thinks that he has an excuse that is worth considering—a plea that has a particle of reason in it—let him come hither and get his judgment corrected. If anyone has wrought himself up to the belief that he is an unfortunate man, under an oppressive government—that he has real difficulties in the way of doing what is required, which call for pity rather than rebuke—let him come and stand and hear how the Judge of the world disposes of his case.

Be it known then and remembered that this trade of excuse-making which is driven so extensively in modern times, was noticed and pointedly condemned by the Savior of the world. These excuse-makers are wholly in the wrong. Their fig-leaf covering will not hide a particle of their shame. How could it be supposed that they could have a good excuse for neglecting what God has required? Do they mean to impeach him before all worlds? If there is a fair reason for neglecting an action, that action ought not to have been required.

But the question is about neglecting what God has required. What he has not commanded is no part of his service; but the question is about neglecting his service. If God has peremptorily required of every man who reads the Bible:
to love him with all the heart,
to repent and believe the Gospel,
to be holy as he is holy,
to die to this vain world, to profess Christ before men,
to pray without ceasing,
to be gentle, forgiving, candid, beneficent,
to have the same mind that was in Christ
—if all these things are required of every man, (and none who reads the Bible will dare to deny it,) then no man can excuse himself from any part of this service without impeaching his Maker. But let us examine these excuses one by one.

1. You plead that you cannot find evidence to convince you that the Gospel is true. What, after the wisest and best men in all ages have examined and been convinced? Have the wisest and best been the deluded, and the ignorant and wicked the only right ones? After millions have been transformed from sin to holiness by the power of this Gospel? After the Gospel has produced all the real goodness and elevation of character which have been found in our world? Have you no eyes to see the holiness and heavenly sentiments of this book? Do you overlook the testimony of miracles and prophecies? Is it nothing to you that churches have existed with these Scriptures in their hands ever since the Christian era, proving the history to have been written at the time of the events, and to have made its appeal to multitudes of witnesses then living? Or that the Jews have existed with their Scriptures in their hands ever since the days of Moses, and could not have been deceived as to the date or the author of the Pentateuch, nor as to the facts which were witnessed by a million of people?

Is it for lack of evidence that you do not believe? No, you will not search for light with the earnestness and candor which the subject demands. You revolt at conviction, because the Bible is against you, and because it would divorce you from your idols. You would believe any other book with a hundredth part of the evidence. "You are constantly yielding to proofs incomparably less in support of other histories and reports, and in your daily transactions of business.

Assuming then, as I have a right to do, that the Scriptures are a revelation from Heaven, I come to you with this book in my hands, and say to you, Thus says the Lord, "Repent and believe the Gospel!" I spread before you the hallowed page; I point you to the sacred canon, written with a pencil of light and guarded by a thousand thunders: "He who believes not shall be damned!"

2. You say that you cannot change your own heart, and it is in vain to try. If this is meant as an excuse for a moral agent, it is saying that you cannot love, repent, and believe—that you cannot do what God, upon penalty of eternal death, has required, and what he will actually send you to Hell for neglecting. It is saying that he requires more than you can perform, and that he will torment you forever for not doing impossibilities. It is alleging that he is infinitely the greatest tyrant that ever appeared in the universe. And if this is not blasphemy, and treason, and war against God, what in the universe can be?

Still you plead that you are not his enemies—that you love him, and would serve him if you could. But if this is not proof of the deadliest enmity, it is in vain to look for proof in any world.

3. You say that you cannot get time to attend to the concerns of your soul. That is, you cannot get time to do that for which all time was given you. Neglect your friends, neglect your sleep, neglect your food, but do not neglect the service of God.

4. You say that you are commanded to provide for your own. Just as though men could not be Christians and do this. Just as though Christians did not provide for their own. It is not to give up your business, but to lay your business on the road to Heaven, by pursuing it with proper motives. It takes no more time to transact business with a holy temper, than with a worldly spirit.

And as to the duties of devotion, if you would spend half the time in these that you waste in idle musings, in unprofitable talk, in vain amusements, you need no more. You can find leisure time for all these, why then not for converse with God? If you loved devotion as you love your ease or wealth, this objection would never be heard.

5. You say that there is no need to make so much ado about religion. What ado? More, (I suppose you mean,) than you make. Now it is notorious that they who urge this profane excuse, do for the most part neglect religion altogether; and as to offering homage to God, or referring anything to his will, or acting from a regard to his glory, or seeking his interest—they treat him with as much neglect as though they owed him no allegiance. Their only trinity is honor, pleasure, and gain. And is this enough? Is this so entirely all that God requires that more would be an unseemly ado? I care not how little noise you make about religion, if you will only love God and the Lord Jesus Christ supremely, and your neighbor as yourself. This is all I ask. Is this too much? Is this making an unreasonable ado about religion? Without as much as this, can you hope to escape the rebukes of your Judge?

6. You plead that professors of religion are no better than others. And what is that to you? You are not to take your law from professors. I admit that you can find hypocrites in the Church: this is no more than what the Bible taught you to expect. That states that tares grow in every field. False professors only confirm the Scripture testimony.

But the question is, does the Bible form characters no better than other men? You dare not say that. You know the holiness of that book, or you would not hate it as you do. For shame then dismiss your cavils; which to say the least, are both reproachful and unmanly.

I know that hypocrites in the Church are no better than others. I know that they are worse, far worse, and more mischievous, and will sink to a lower Hell. But what shall we say of those who eat up the sins of God's people as they eat bread and call not upon the name of the Lord? Have these nothing to fear?

7. You plead that many of the doctrines are hard and are difficult to be understood. But they are not hard or difficult to holy minds. "They are all plain to him that understands, and right to them that find knowledge." Why then are they hard and difficult to you? Let the Holy Spirit answer: "If our Gospel is hidden, it is hid to them that are lost; in whom the God of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not; lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them."

The blame which ought to attach to yourself, you cast upon the doctrines. But what is the Scripture view of this subject? It was a reproach to the stony ground hearers that they heard the word and understood it not; and the Jews were rejected because that, seeing they saw not, and hearing they heard not, neither did they understand.

"Without understanding," is numbered among the marks of pagan depravity. "Blind" is an epithet of strong reproach. It is the blindness of prejudice, the sightless eye of a depraved heart: "Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart."

The grand difficulty is that the truths of God are against you, and you are so prejudiced in your own favor that you cannot see them to be right. Thus a selfish man whose interest has been crossed by another, can never see that other to be right. The doctrines of the Gospel may be explained ever so clearly, but so long as they are against you, they will never seem to you consistent. While you dislike them they will always appear unjust.

But in another point of view your ignorance is altogether from yourself. How little pains have you taken to acquire an accurate knowledge of divine truth. How little have you read or thought on the subject. How little have you prayed for light. How many months has your Bible lain neglected upon its shelf. How much more eagerly has your mind run on politics or science or business, than on those glorious mysteries in which your eternal salvation is involved—mysteries whose grand and awful heights and depths engage the eager study of adoring angels.

You can compass sea and land to obtain objects gratifying to your taste. Had you employed half the pains in candidly examining the doctrines of the Gospel, you would not have been thus ignorant and complaining that they are difficult to be understood. And now will you take advantage of your own wrong and urge this willful ignorance as your excuse?

III. These excuses arise from no other cause than an aversion to the Gospel, and an unwillingness to bear the blame of rejecting it.

Look at the parable again. Does it not plainly imply that those who made the excuses did it from a reluctance to accept the invitation, and from a desire to avoid the blame of refusing it? What else are we taught by the strong resentment awakened in the master of the house? That they did not wish to attend, is plain; and if they did not desire to avoid reproach, then why any excuse at all? Why not come boldly out with a plain avowal of their reluctance? If the parable has any meaning in it, it clearly supports the charge I have made.

But these two motives are obvious from the very nature of the case. If the excuses which sinners urge are frivolous, they are not those which influence the heart; and when a man offers reasons to excuse himself from duty which the heart disowns, he can give no stronger proof of aversion to the duty. These excuses then betray the opposition which they seek to hide. And they certainly reveal an unwillingness to bear the blame of refusing. They are doubtless intended as an apology for neglect; and what is the design of an apology but to prevent the imputation of blame? They betray an unwillingness in sinners to bear the blame in the sight of God—a reluctance to take that low and guilty place under his eye which he assigns them. They often betray a reluctance to bear the blame in the sight of men—taking a shape which clearly bespeaks a solicitude to preserve appearances. But they are chiefly prompted by a reluctance to feel in their own minds the uneasiness of guilt.

Sinners are neither willing to engage in the service of God, nor to endure the agonies of a troubled conscience; and therefore they seek to hide their guilt from their own view by the tapestry of their thousand excuses. Thus while they loudly profess a desire to be convicted, they are struggling against conviction with all their might; determined to live without disturbance while they live without God in the world.

From what has been said:

(1.) We see the wickedness, the folly, and the ruinous tendency of all these excuses.

The wickedness, for they are prompted by pure opposition to the Gospel, and by a hardened determination not to bear the blame of rejecting it. They stand forth as sin's apologists, and cast all the blame on God.

The folly, for they defeat their own ends and betray the guilt they would conceal.

The ruinous tendency, for they apply all their strength to resist conviction, and thus to prevent the possibility of an escape from damnation. If they can succeed the soul is inevitably lost.

(2.) We see that doltish sinners are in a most guilty, forlorn, and unprotected state. They are stripped of all excuse and left naked under the eye of an omniscient God. That pure and penetrating eye finds them without a covering and pierces them through and through. Not one word of apology can they offer:
for all their years of sin,
for all their hatred of God,
for all their hardened impenitence,
for all their stubborn rejections of the Savior.

They have no plea to make. They must be "speechless." They must bear all the guilt forever. And what a world of guilt it must be, when every extenuating circumstance is removed.

(3.) Let me beseech my poor impenitent hearers never to make another excuse. It can do you no good. It will only betray your folly, and increase your guilt, and ruin your souls. If you have any pity on yourselves, instead of resisting, strive to increase conviction. Court it and do not repel it. Lie down under it and draw it over you with all your might. Take all the shame and blame to yourselves, and clear your Maker. In no other way can you find pardon. You must be convicted thus or perish forever.

(4.) Here then you stand without one excuse for rejecting the Gospel another moment. Why then will you not accept it at once?

Do you begin to name a reason? That is taken from you. You have none left.

Do you say, your wicked heart will not consent? But my business is with that wicked heart. Why will not you, O stubborn heart, now submit? Hardened rebel, why will you not lay down your arms? If you have no reason for holding out, why will you hold out any longer?

O remember the conclusion of the parable. He lifted his hand and swore that not one of those that were bidden should taste of his supper. While you delay, that sentence may proceed against you. Remember the rebels in the wilderness. You are now brought to the border of the promised land. Refuse now and you die; accept now and you live forever. Amen.