Hardened under reproof
I. REPROOF MAY RE REJECTED. It is not violent and compulsory correction. We have free wills, and God does not destroy our wills in order to reform our conduct, for he only delights in voluntary obedience; but he sends warnings and chastises us as his children. This treatment should lead to repentance. Still, it is addressed to our reason, our conscience, our affections. Pharaoh repeatedly rejected Divine reproofs, when he refused to let the Hebrews go after each successive plague was removed. The Israelites in the wilderness murmured and rebelled again and again, in spite of continuous mercies and numerous sharp rebukes. God is often warning his children now. The faithful preaching of his truth is a rebuke to the thoughtless and the sinful. The interior voice of conscience utters its own solemn Divine reproof. If we sin heedlessly, we do not sin unwarned. The rejection of the reproof is no sign of its weakness or insufficiency. Even the warning words of Christ failed to arrest the wilful people of Jerusalem in their headlong race to destruction (Matthew 23:37).
II. REPROOF IS REJECTED BY STUBBORN SELF-WILL. The neck is hardened. The obstinate man is like a horse that will not obey the reins; like one that has taken the bit into its teeth and will rush on in its own wild course.
1. This implies determination. One who was unreproved might plead ignorance or forgetfulness. Such an excuse cannot be put forward by the man who has been often reproved. His disregarded warnings will rise up in the judgment to condemn him. Meanwhile his continiuous refusal to give heed to them is a sure sign of deliberate sinfulness.
2. This also implies hardness of heart. It is the hard heart that makes the neck hard. The stiff-necked generation is a stony-hearted generation. The repeated rejection of reproof tends to harden the heart more and more. The ear grows deaf to the often-neglected alarum.
III. REPROOF, WHEN REJECTED, IS FOLLOWED BY RUIN. The reproof is a warning. Its very sternness is inspired by love, because it is intended to guard the foolish soul against impending danger. But after this has been heard unheeded there can be no escape.
1. There is no excuse. The warning has been uttered. Everything possible has been done to arrest the downward career of the stubborn reprobate.
2. There is double guilt. The rejection of the reproof is an additional sin—an insult to the Divine righteousness and love.
3. There can be no hope of escape. The destruction may be sudden, after its long delay, and "that without remedy."
IV. REPROOF, WHEN HEEDED, LEADS TO RESTORATION.
1. It contains hope. For if there were no way of escape open the language of reproof would be wasted. In that case it would come too late, and might as well be spared. The sternest reproof is a call to repentance, and this call points to a restoration.
2. It prepares for the gospel. John the Baptist makes straight the way for Christ. After we have humbly submitted to reproof, we shall hear the joyous message of the gospel.