Could a greater curse come upon such a person than to be let alone by the Holy Spirit?
I Would not that "nest " of selfishness and hardened indifference to God become the prelude to righteous divine wrath and red burnings?
If the young eaglet would become a sorry weakling in its nest, and finally be left to starve if it were never trained to fly, how true it is, also, that any soul that is left alone in guilty indifference and unbelief will come to eternal ruin.
It is divine love that awakens the sinner to his guilt and danger.
Love sends the arrow of conviction into the soul. Love drives that arrow in deeper and deeper.
God so loves the self-condemned sinner that He not only has sent His only-begotten Son to die for him, but sends His awakening Spirit with the thrilling appeal, "Awake thou that sleepest! turn ye; turn ye; for why will ye die?" God stirs him up.
The living gospel comes with strong, fearless hand, and overturns his refuges of lies--rips to pieces his self-righteousness--reveals to him his guilt and the divine displeasure with his sins--and bids him repent and prepare to meet his offended God.
As the hooked talon of the parent eagle shakes the nest and stirs out the younglings, so God's Spirit with the arm of Truth shakes the sinner from his false security.
As with an Ithuriel spear--keen and sharp as the lightning--the Holy Spirit arouses the guilty soul to the enormous sinfulness of sin, and points him to the cross before him, the heaven above him, and the hell beneath him!
Into his ears the trumpet voice proclaims the wages of sin is death ; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ!
And so the fire that is kindled in his conscience drives the convicted transgressor to the cross of Calvary.
This has been, in innumerable cases, the process of our Heavenly Father in bringing myriads of His children to the new life here, and the endless life hereafter.
~Theodore Cuyler~
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