Various Hindrances

Never censure indiscriminately; admit and praise that which is good, that you may the more effectually rebuke the evil. Paul did not hesitate to praise the Galatians, and say, “You did run well.”

It is a source of much pleasure to see saints running well. To do this they must run in the right road, straight forward, perseveringly, at the top of their pace, with their eye on Christ, etc.

It is a great grief when such are hindered, or put off the road.

The way is the truth, and the running is obedience: men are hindered when they cease to obey the truth.

It may be helpful to try and find out who has hindered us in our race.

I. WE SHALL USE THE TEXT IN REFERENCE TO HINDERED BELIEVERS.

1. You are evidently hindered.

   • You are not so loving and zealous as you were.
   • You are quitting the old faith for new notions.
   • You are losing your first joy and peace.
   • You are not now leaving the world and self behind.
   • You are not now abiding all the day with your Lord.

2. Who has hindered you?

   • Did I do it? Pray, then, for your minister.
   • Did your fellow-members do it? You ought to have been proof against them: they could not have intended it. Pray for them.
   • Did the world do it? Why so much in it?
   • Did the devil do it? Resist him.
   • Did you not do it yourself? This is highly probable.
   • Did you not overload yourself with worldly care?
   • Did you not indulge carnal ease?
   • Did you not by pride become self-satisfied?
   • Did you not neglect prayer, Bible reading, the public means of grace, the Lord’s Table, etc.?
   • Mend your ways, and do not hinder your own soul.
   • Did not false teachers do it, as in the case of the Galatians?
   • If so, quit them at once, and listen only to the gospel of Christ.

3. You must look to it, and mend your pace.

   • Your loss has been already great. You might by this time have been far on upon the road.
   • Your natural tendency will be to slacken still more.
   • Your danger is great of being overtaken by error and sin.
   • Your death would come of ceasing to obey the truth.
   • Your wisdom is to cry for help, that you may run aright.

II. WE SHALL USE THE TEXT IN REFERENCE TO DELAYING SINNERS.

1. You have sometimes been set a-running.

   • God has blessed his word to your arousing.
   • God has not yet given you up; this is evident.
   • God’s way of salvation still lies open before you.

2. What has hindered you?

   • Self-righteousness and trust in yourself?
   • Carelessness, procrastination, and neglect?
   • Love of self-indulgence, or the secret practice of pleasurable sins?
   • Frivolous, skeptical, or wicked companions?
   • Unbelief and mistrust of God’s mercy?

3. The worst evils will come of being hindered.

   • Those who will not obey truth will become the dupes of lies.
   • Truth not obeyed is disobeyed, and so sin is multiplied.
   • Truth disregarded becomes an accuser, and its witness secures our condemnation.
   • God have mercy on hinderers. We must rebuke them.
   • God have mercy on the hindered. We would arouse them.

Spurs

Cecil says that some adopt the Indian maxim, that it is better to walk than to run, and better to stand than to walk, and better to sit than to stand, and better to lie than to sit. Such is not the teaching of the gospel. It is a good thing to be walking in the ways of God, but it is better to be running—making real and visible progress, day by day advancing in experience and attainments. David likens the sun to a strong man rejoicing to run a race; not dreading it and shrinking back from it, but delighting in the opportunity of putting forth all his powers. Who so runs, runs well.—The Christian.

The Christian race is by no means easy. We are sore let and hindered in running “the race that is set before us,” because of—(1.) Our sinful nature still remaining in the holiest saints. (2.) Some easily-besetting sin (Hebrews 12:1). (3.) The entanglements of the world, like heavy and close-fitting garments, impeding the racer’s speed. (4.) Our weakness and infirmity, soon tired and exhausted, when the race is long, or the road is rough.—“In Prospect of Sunday,” by G. S. Bowes.

Some are too busy, they run about too much to run well; some run too fast at the outset; they run themselves out of breath.—T. T. Lynch.

Henry Ward Beecher, in a sermon on this text, describes one of the hindrances to Christian progress thus: “We have fallen off immensely on the side of religious culture—earnest, prolonged, habitual, domestic, religious culture, conducted by the reading of God’s Word, and by prayer, and its family influences. And this tendency is still further augmented by the increase of religious books, of tracts, of biographies and histories, of commentaries, which tend to envelop and hide the Word of God from our minds. In other words, these things, which are called ‘helps,’ have been increased to such a degree, and have come to occupy so much of our attention, that when we have read our helps, we have no time left to read the things to be helped; and the Bible is covered down and lost under its ‘helps.’ ”

It is possible that fellow-professors may hinder. We are often obliged to accommodate our pace to that of our fellow-travelers. If they are laggards we are very likely to be so too. We are apt to sleep as do others. We are stimulated or depressed, urged on or held back, by those with whom we are associated in Christian fellowship. There is still greater reason to fear that in many cases worldly friends and companions are the hinderers. Indeed, they can be nothing else. None can help us in the race but those who are themselves running it: all others must hinder. Let a Christian form an intimate friendship with an ungodly person, and from that moment all progress is stayed; he must go back; for when his companion is going in the opposite direction, how can he walk with him except by turning his back upon the path which he has formerly trodden?—P.

A sailor remarks—“Sailing from Cuba, we thought we had gained sixty miles one day in our course; but at the next observation we found we had lost more than thirty. It was an under-current. The ship had been going forward by the wind, but going back by the current.” So a man’s course in religion may often seem to be right and progressive, but the under-current of his besetting sins is driving him the very contrary way to what he thinks.—Cheever.