Him Ye Will Receive - Glenn Conjurske

Him Ye Will Receive

“I am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not: if another come in his own name, him ye will receive.” (John 5:43).

This text sets forth a fact, and that fact illustrates a principle. The fact is that those who rejected the Christ will receive the antichrist. This of course applies to the Jews, but it cannot be limited to the Jews. It is also a fact that those who do reject the Christ will receive the antichrist. This is true certainly of the Jews, but also of the Gentiles.

The principle which is involved in this is simply stated. All who reject those whom they ought to receive, will in the end receive those whom they ought not to receive. Those who refuse to trust the man who is worthy of their trust, will trust the man who is not worthy of it. Those who reject the man who would do them good, will receive the man who will do them hurt.

There are two things which work together to secure the operation of this principle. The first is the righteous government of God. God is not mocked. When men reject the servants of God, God will secure that they receive those who serve their own lusts. It was no innocent mistake for the Jews to reject Christ, and it is never an innocent mistake for men to reject any servant of God. “And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when ye depart thence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against them. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgement than for that city.” (Mark 6:11). Such judgements are not pronounced upon innocent mistakes. It is no innocent mistake for men to reject anything which comes from God. It is rather the working of evil passions and lusts, and the righteous government of God will secure that they reap the fruits of their ways. “For this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” (II Thes. 2:11-12). It is no innocent mistake to “believe not the truth.” It is the fruit of a choice to “have pleasure in unrighteousness.”

As the verse immediately preceding indicates, this strong delusion comes upon those who “received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.” When men reject the truth, it is no problem of the mind—-no innocent misunderstanding—-but a problem of the heart, a manifestation of their departure from the love of the truth. The truth is plain enough, and easily enough discovered, by those who love it. Those who love the truth can feel after it and find it. Those who love it not cannot retain it when they have it. “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them up to an unsound mind.” (Rom. 1:28, Greek). All of this is the judicial working of the righteous government of God. “God gave them up to an unsound mind.” “God shall send them strong delusion.” Those who reject the truth have no more right to it, and God gives them up to believe a lie. Those who reject the Christ have no more right to him, and God gives them up to the antichrist. Those who reject the true prophets of God have no more right to them, and God gives them up to follow false prophets. And all such dealings of God are but the resounding echo of the word which he has spoken, “BE NOT DECEIVED: GOD IS NOT MOCKED.” (Gal. 6:7).

Yet sinners have so high an opinion of themselves, and so low an opinion of God, that they suppose that they may mock him with impunity. Those who deliberately reject Christ now, assure themselves that they will not receive the antichrist then. They are too shrewd to be thus taken in. They know better. Though they daily dare both the justice and the mercy of God, they yet suppose themselves immune to his promised judgement. Their own intellect will carry them through those Satanic deceptions which will deceive the whole world—-which would deceive the very elect if it were possible. Well—-supposing your own intellect is a match for all the cunning craftiness of the devil, are you a match for God also? Where will your great intellect be when God sends you strong delusion that you should believe a lie? If you had but a little of that wisdom with which you suppose yourself endowed, you would repent now, while the door of mercy yet stands open. Little do you realize that the very same passions which move you to reject Christ now, will move you to receive the antichrist then. Now you love sin instead of righteousness, and so will you then. Now you choose the broad way of self-indulgence, and reject the narrow way of self-denial, and so you will then. What reason do you have to suppose your heart will be any different then than it is now? And when to the working of your own lusts is added a strong delusion from God, where will you be?

But this brings us to the second reason why those who reject the true receive the false. The rejection of a true servant of God is not an intellectual mistake, but is the fruit of wrong passions, and those same passions which lead a man to reject the true will lead him directly to receive the false. When men reject a true servant of God, it is not love of the truth which leads them to that rejection, but just the reverse. Let the same passion continue on its way, and it will lead them to embrace a false prophet. When men turn away from their spiritual fathers and guides, though they may profess many good and righteous reasons for it (for no servant of Christ is perfect, in either doctrine or practice), the real reasons at the root of the business are self-importance, wounded pride, ill will, resentment, bitterness, envy, and such like things. But none of those things are consistent with a conscience altogether clear. Those who act upon such passions (while professing to act for truth and righteousness) will naturally feel somewhat uneasy with the position which they have taken. They will thus very naturally gravitate to anything or anybody which will ease their conscience, or bolster their confidence in their own position. Thus the same passions which moved them to reject a servant of God will move them to receive that man’s enemies—-though they be the enemies of God besides. When they have withdrawn their confidence from him whom they ought to trust, they will very naturally trust his detractors, for to do so bolsters their confidence in their own opposition to the man of God.

“The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways.” (Prov. 14:14). When the backslider departs from the truth of God, from the ways of God, from the ministry of the man of God, it is God who secures that he shall smart for it—-yet his own ways work together with God to secure his undoing. When he departs from the good, his own ways work his hurt, and the righteous government of God secures that he shall be filled with them.

So Paul must say to those who despised and slighted him (though they owed their souls to him), “For ye suffer fools gladly, seeing yourselves are wise. For ye suffer”—-ye allow it, that is—-“if a man bring you into bondage, if a man devour you, if a man take of you, if a man exalt himself, if a man smite you on the face.” (II Cor. 11:19-20). It may seem passing strange that they would slight and contemn the self-sacrificing Paul, who wept and travailed for their souls, and yet trust and support those who devoured and smote them. But it was not reason which moved them, but passion, and the fact is, the very same passions which would move them to slight Paul would inevitably move them to give their confidence to anyone else who slighted Paul. The men who give place to lust or pride or resentment or envy or ambition have no idea to what lengths those passions will lead them. They never suspect, when they reject a true prophet of God, that before their course is finished they will countenance a false prophet, and yet the very passions which are at work in their souls when they turn away from the true will lead them to embrace the false.

I recognize that there are many degrees of sin and guilt in such matters, and that a partial turning from the things of God is not necessarily equivalent to a total turning. Allowance must also be made here, as everywhere, for honest ignorance. God knows exactly what degree of wrong there is in the course of every man, and he it is who will recompense. It remains true that men cannot slight the true without embracing the false. In whatsoever degree they turn from the true, to that degree they turn to the false. Those who distrust the harmless will trust the harmful. Those who slight the good will countenance the evil. Those who condemn the innocent will defend the guilty. The only escape from this downward course will be found in repentance—-that is, in judging and repudiating the workings of those passions which have turned us from the good and the true.

The principle which I seek to elucidate is of universal application, and there is something very solemn in it. “The time will come,” writes Paul, “when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears. And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned to fables.” (II Tim. 4:3-4). This slighting of the truth is no intellectual mistake, but rather the working of evil passions. It is not that men cannot understand sound doctrine, but that they will not endure it. After their own lusts they heap to themselves teachers—-and deal out hundreds and thousands of their hard-earned dollars to liberal preachers and psychologists and college professors, actually paying such men to teach them lies. It is not that they fail to attain the truth, but that they turn away from it. Led by “lusts” of worldly ambition or sensual pleasures, they “turn away their ears from the truth”—-and what then? They are “turned unto fables.” They reject the light of revelation, and even the light of scientific fact, and turn to the fable of evolution, which they accept as a fact, though the facts of science are directly against it. Some may call it a theory, and the more honest among them may even admit that it is an “unproved theory,” but even this is juggling terms. The fact is, it is a disproved theory. Why then do so many intelligent men hold it? Because the same passions which moved them to turn away from the truth have led them to embrace fables.

But there is something yet more serious in this principle. The fact is, all who reject the testimony of God receive the testimony of the devil. All who turn away from God turn to the devil. There is no neutral ground, and the very same passions which turn them away from God turn them to the devil. This is very plain in the case of Eve. When Eve lost her confidence in God, it was replaced by confidence in the devil. There was no middle ground. It was either “Ye shall surely die,” or “Ye shall not surely die,” and one or the other of them must be true. One or the other of them must be believed. It is outside the realm of possibility to reject both the testimony of God and the testimony of the devil. When Eve fell, she fell by faith—-but it was faith in the devil. All unbelief is actually faith in the devil, and in this consists the heinous wickedness of it. Eve withdrew her confidence from the God whom she had every reason to trust, and reposed that confidence in the fiend, who sought only her destruction. So does the whole world today.

Nor was Eve’s fall a mere mistake. She was not led by a mistake of the reason, but by wrong passions. If reason had been consulted, she must have peremptorily rejected the devil’s insinuations and temptations. She had every reason to trust God, who had endued her with life and breath, and lavished upon her all the delights of paradise. She had no reason at all to trust the devil, who was unknown and untried. Nay, she had every reason to distrust the devil, from the very fact that he was making evil insinuations against the God whom she had overwhelming reason to trust. But she was not led by reason. She was led by lust for what her Creator and Benefactor had forbidden. She was led by pride and unholy ambition. The devil first inspired her with those wrong passions, and then used them to lead her on to a choice which was wicked. He directed her gaze to the one thing which God had forbidden, and praised its virtues to the skies. It was good for food. It was pleasant to the eyes. It was to be desired to make her wise. It would in fact make her like God. And as the forbidden fruit filled her vision and took possession of her heart, her confidence in God was undermined. He was withholding from her the very thing which was essential to her happiness. And as her confidence in God was destroyed, it was replaced by confidence in the devil. This is the true pedigree of unbelief. These are the true colors of the backslider. His whole course is a direct challenge to all that God is. His every step is a proclamation that sin is better than holiness, which is in effect a proclamation that the devil is better than God.

And so it is with every sinner on earth. There is really no middle ground. Those who do not trust God do in fact trust the devil. The essence of unbelief in God is in fact faith in the devil. It is not a mistake of the intellect, but a matter of allegiance. There are only two ways, with no neutral ground between them. There is the narrow way of self-denial which leads to life, and the broad way of self-indulgence which leads to destruction. The former is the way of the Lord, and the latter the way of the fiend. He who turns from the narrow way of necessity turns to the broad way. He who distrusts the word of the Lord of necessity trusts the word of the devil. All who reject God receive the devil.

Not that they are hopelessly shut up to this. There is a way out, but only one way. That way is repentance. “…if peradventure God will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.” (II Tim. 2:25-26). Those who have rejected the Lord and his truth suppose themselves free and independent, but this is the opposite of the truth. They are led captive by the devil. Yet they are not so hopelessly bound that there is no remedy. The door of repentance is open. But what is repentance? Repentance is the renunciation of sin. Those who hold repentance to be a mere change of mind greatly err. The mind is not the culprit, but the heart. It is not the mind which needs to be changed. And a change of mind is precisely what men are incapable of, so long as they indulge the passions of sin. To return to the text whence we started, the Jews’ rejection of Christ was no mistake of the mind, but the fruit of sinful passions. “I am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive. How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?” (John 5:43-44). There was pride and ambition, self-seeking and man-pleasing, at the root of their rejection of Christ, and it was not possible for them to receive him while those passions were indulged. “How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another?”—-or, as it may be better translated, “How can ye believe, while ye receive honour one of another?” There is no receiving of God without repentance from those things which have turned us from him.

To conclude, when men reject the word of God, the Christ of God, a doctrine of God, or a man of God, it is sin which is at the bottom of this. That same sin which turned them from the true turns them to the false. That same sin, so long as it is indulged, will keep them from ever returning to the true. It will indeed confirm them more and more in the false. The only remedy for such a state of things is repentance. But there will come a time when there is no remedy at all, for the longsuffering of God is not inexhaustible, and the just judgement of God will at length overtake all who turn from the good and the true. If that judgement comes in the form of “strong delusion, that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness”—-how hopeless will be the condition of such sinners! Then will they feel the awful import of “Be not deceived: God is not mocked.”

Glenn Conjurske