Others are called in their 30s and 40s, and still others in their 50s and 60s. By now half of three quarters of life is gone. Youth has been invested in this world and deep roots have gone down into its pleasures. The trunk of your life which might have been trained into the right shape when they were younger, has now thickened and become fixed in position, impossible to bend. You would think that by then that you are at your hardest. You have tried certain things, and burnt your fingers, but gone straight back to them again. You have suffered disappointments, yes, but you have kept going in the same path. God’s message tells you that in spiritual terms you are a nobody and the message is extremely unwelcome. There are so many other tenants dwelling in the heart by now. We have formed deep seated habits and become set in our ways, and we have a certain mental programme that refuses to change. But God can trouble the heart and cause us to see our need. The apostle Paul was like this: very proud, very determined. Relishing the fame his learning would bring. He had to be cast down and brought to himself. There is hope even for you, God can save you.
You would think that the whole of life spent living for self and rejecting God would be such as snub and an insult that God would have nothing to do with us. So little time left for us to serve the Lord. We are often grumpy or angry; it shows in the lines of the face. We have become proud of what we have accomplished, or else become bitter. Most in their 60s are atheists or universalists – everyone is going to heaven. They have a foggy idea that they don’t have anything to worry about. Can such really be changed? Yes, this does happen. Yet Christ comes out again and works in hardened hearts. Not the lines on the face, but the personality within. We have countless examples of this.
By this time you say that sin is perfectly reasonable. You have always done it. You begin to be very hostile towards God. You hate the gospel; you seem to detect it a mile off – ‘This preacher is telling me my past life is worthless. He is telling me I have been a fool. I am not standing for that.’ Why doesn’t God say, ‘I don’t want to call him; he is set in his ways. There would be so much to do to rebuild that life’? There is an obvious pastoral observation. We justify our sin: bad temper, lying, uncleanness. Conscience has got tired out. We are further from the Lord. In our 20s, some are offended, but most will give the gospel a hearing, but later there is tremendous pride of accomplishment and bitterness for failure against man and God. Yet still, the call of God may be felt. God can give a new heart and true conversion, true life. Come to Christ while you may still come.