In Regeneration Man Must Cooperate with God's Spirit
H. W. Beecher. Isaiah 1:16 Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil;… If men would have the help of the sun they must not sulk in caves; if men would set the sun to bringing forth vines and corn and other grains they must employ it according to the sun's laws and methods. If they do this they shall have the benefit of its might. All the power that is in nature is mine if I but study natural law and obey it. Now, the invisible influences in the Divine nature, we are taught very abundantly in the Word of God, are to be sought as men seek the seasons. If the power that is in God is to come to the help of a man there should be at least as much seeking as men give to the laws of nature when they seek them. How do men attempt to renovate their spiritual nature? With what dalliance, what carelessness, what facile discouragement, what intermissions, what associations that neutralise or blur that which is bright in us do men seek to bring the Divine influence to bear upon their constitutional peculiarities! Are you proud? You know how to extract the roots of the mightiest tree that ever grew; you know how to attack it and draw it forth; and yet the influences by which a man may extract by the roots all the evil influences within him are a hundred times greater, if men had some conception of the necessity. A man can overmaster his pride. Paul did it. Can a man change his basilar passions so that they shall be held in abeyance? Certainly he can. Something can be done for every man by physiological methods. A man of violent temper, easily excited, an excessively meat-eating man, or a man addicted to the use of stimulating drinks, can hardly expect to overcome the animal in himself while he is gorging him, and is building fires under the very caldrons which he would cool off. If a man choose to go through the necessary practice, he certainly can change; but if a man say to himself, "I do not believe in religion; I will change by and by; it is not convenient now; I do not under. stand this great change, and I do not like to go into anything which my reason does not comprehend," I say to him, Do you insist, when you are sick, and you send for your physician, upon entering into an argument with him? Do you say to him, "What is the matter with me?" and when he prescribes for you do you say, "Sit down and tell me the whole history of this medicine, who invented it, what its use is, who has employed it, and what right the man had to compose it or mix it"? You do not act so. A man under such circumstances instantly makes a practical matter of it, and takes certain practical steps. On the other side, no man can tear himself away from surrounding temptations and evil influences without an adaptation of his life and will to the peculiar work which is required. Shall a man attempt to change himself from evil to good, and do it easily and thoughtlessly and carelessly? Such a change never comes by accident nor by a little striving. Here is the simple fact of this whole subject: both philosophy and example teach that in our strife for virtue the passions and appetites, the infelicities of our organisation, can be overmastered; that we can take ourselves out of our constitutional faults, and that if we have fallen under temptations, it is possible for us to break the net and escape from them. When Jesus came, one of the most matchless and eloquent of all His utterances was that He had come to open the prison doors, to break the shackles, to give the prisoners liberty, and to let those that were bound go free. (H. W. Beecher.) Parallel Verses KJV: Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; WEB: Wash yourselves, make yourself clean. Put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes. Cease to do evil.