They are always more or less self-made.  This man pleads his own wrong act as a reason why he should not do right now.  He himself has raised the obstacle which now stands in the way of obedience.  He ought not to have sought the help of an idolatrous king.  He ought not to have bargained for these hirelings, he ought not to have paid the money.  God had not put the difficulty in his way; his own foolish and wicked action had created it.  And people are constantly talking as this man talked, declaring that there are hindrances and immense difficulties which prevent them from doing what is right, prevent them from doing what they know to be the will of God.  They talk as if God was somehow responsible for those hindrances, when, in fact, their own wrong-doing has caused them.

For instance, some of you know perfectly well that you ought to be Christians, avowed Christians, that you ought to take the Lord’s side in the great battle of life; you know that you ought to be His servants, followers, and soldiers; you know that that is your duty, you cannot help knowing it and admitting it, unless you reject the Bible altogether, and deny the whole Gospel of Jesus Christ.  You have known from childhood that Christ has claims upon you, and that to live the Christian life is your solemn obligation.  It is more than probable that you told your mother, your teachers, and yourselves long ago, and perhaps many a time over, that you fully intended to give your lives and hearts to Christ’s service.  But you have not done it yet, and the reason is that there are certain self-made difficulties which hold you back.  God has not put them in the way—­you have built them up yourselves.  I hear young men and women say, in the very tone of this perplexed king.  But what shall we do for the hundred talents?  If we take up religion, how shall we bear the loss which it involves?  How are we to get on without those pleasures, self-indulgences, and dearly-loved habits which Christ’s service would cut us off from?  How are we to abandon those very pleasant, but not very inspiring and pure, companionships, with and among which we spend most of our leisure time?  How are we to resign all our free and easy and thoughtless ways, our loose talk, our vain and sinful imaginations?

These are your difficulties, are they?  But who made them for you?  Heaven did not send them.  I am not sure, even, that the devil was the author of them.  You made every one of them yourselves.  It was your own weak yielding that formed those habits so dear to you.  It was because you preferred your own way to God’s that you took to pleasures and self-indulgences which were wrong in His sight.  It was your own choice that sought out and formed friendships and companionships of the ungodly sort.  If you have any joys, delights, and associations which Christ would compel you to resign, they are only such as you ought never to have entered upon.  They are self-made difficulties which ought never to have been made; and now, with curious inconsistency, you are urging them as reasons why you cannot serve God.  You are using the sinful things which you have done in the past as an excuse for not doing the right and noble thing now.