WHEN light is refused darkness ensues and God Himself gives men up to the errors which they choose in place of His truth.
It is a very solemn and serious thing to trifle with revealed truth. Pharaoh refused to hear the voice of God and was given up to hardness of heart, We read of some who, because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved, shall be given over to strong delusion that they all might be judged who obeyed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. Judgment does not produce repentance. When men are seen suffering from the results of their own waywardness we read, “They gnawed their tongues for pain, and blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds.” It is the goodness of God as seen in the cross of Christ that leads to repentance.
“Hear the just law; the judgment of the skies,
He who hates truth shall be the dupe of lies;
And he who will be cheated till the last
Delusions strong as hell shall bind him fast.”
—William Cowper.