The Ingratitude of Man

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John 1:10-11

He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.…

I. THE PEOPLE AMONGST WHOM OUR LORD DWELT WERE GUILTY OF INGRATITUDE TOWARDS HIM.

1. It was an act of distinguished favour our that He should be born among them; yet they rejected Him, which was a high-handed act of national ingratitude.

2. Special cases occurred involving still greater ingratitude.

(1) Among them were many whom our Lord healed. Strange ingratitude that a man should owe his eyes to Him and yet refuse to see in Him the Saviour; should owe to Christ his tongue and be silent in the great Physician's praise.

(2) He fed thousands of hungry persons: yet they followed Him, not for Himself, but for what they could get out of Him.

(3) When He acted as a teacher they tried to murder Him.

3. The further our Lord went on in life the more ungratefully was He treated. He forgot Himself and gave Himself away that He might seek and save the lost; and yet men strove to take away His life which was more valuable to them than to Him.

4. At last that evil generation had its way with Him and crucified Him.

5. When He rose and tarried for forty days to minister blessing, they first doubted and then invented an idle tale to account for it.

6. In this ingratitude those who were nearest to Him had a share. One denied Him, and all forsook Him and fled.

II. WE ALSO HAVE BEEN UNGRATEFUL TO OUR LORD.

1. Those who are most indebted to Christ's love and grace — believers.

(1) Every sin is ingratitude since Christ suffered for it and came to destroy it.

(2) The setting up of any rival on His throne in the heart, when Christ is dethroned in favour of wife, child, friend, ambition, pleasure, wealth, is base ingratitude.

(3) The same is true when we lose large measures of grace; when the Holy Spirit admits us into peculiar nearness to God and we act inconsistently.

(4) And so the little service we render and our lukewarm love. Christ's love is like the ancient furnace which was heated seven times hotter; ours like the solitary spark which wonders within itself that it is yet alive.

(5) The rare consecration of our substance is another case in point. Our gifts to His poor, His Church, missions, are an insult to Him.

(6) How base is our ingratitude when we neglect His commands and have to be driven to obedience.

2. There are those whose ingratitude is even greater.

(1) Those who refuse to trust Him, in spite of gospel announcements, loving invitations, the evident manifestation of Christ.

(2) Those who oppose Him, jest at His gospel, and treat His people with indignity. What evil has He ever done you? When has He given you an ill word or look? It is to His silence that you owe your life. There is no chivalry in such conduct as this.

3. Those from whom, above all others, such conduct ought not to have proceeded.

(1) Children of pious and sainted parents.

(2) The restored from sickness.

III. WHAT THEN? What comes out of all this?

1. Let us appreciate our Saviour's sufferings.

2. Admire our Saviour's love.

3. Apply the cleansing blood which can take away the scarlet sin of ingratitude.

4. Learn how to forgive. Christ loved men none the less for their ingratitude.

5. Judge how we ought to live in the light of this subject: devote ourselves entirely to Him. In conclusion, what will become of the finally ungrateful?

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