A Proclamation from the King of Kings
(No. 1833)
A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, APRIL 5, 1885,
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON OCTOBER 16, 1884.
"Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, you
backsliding Israel, says the Lord; and I will not cause My anger to
fall upon you: for I am merciful, says the Lord, and I will not remain
angry forever. Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have
transgressed against the Lord your God, and have scattered your ways to
the strangers under every green tree, and you have not obeyed My voice,
says the Lord." Jeremiah 3:12,13.
BACKSLIDERS are very many. Departing from the living God is no strange
thing. Every Church has to lament many that turn aside. In fact, it has
become so common in many Churches, that they have not faith enough to
hold to the Scriptural doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints–as
if the lack of perseverance in mere professors could alter the Truth of
God that where the life and power of God are really in the soul, there
it will abide and remain. Bitter are the disappointments which result
from the apostasy of avowed disciples and the declension of true
followers of the Lamb. We sow, but when we expect to reap, we fill not
our bosoms with sheaves, for many of those who sprung up hastily from
the stony ground are withered as soon as the sun has risen! The morning
cloud charms us with the hope of rain, but it soon vanishes–the early
dew gives us promise of moisture, but it is exhaled–and the earth is
hot beneath our feet. Our hearts ache because of blighted hopes where
we looked for blessed results.
And not only is it a common thing for men who profess godliness and,
for a while, run well, suddenly to turn aside, but even God's own
people do not keep up the pace as they should! Many Christians are one
while hot, another lukewarm and even cold. They are diligent and
fervent today, but idle and indifferent tomorrow. There are still
Galatians among us who seem, one way or another, to be bewitched with
error. Even the best of Believers are not always at their best. Who
among us has not had cause to make confession that he has not kept up
to his first love at all times? Neither has his lamp been always
clearly burning, nor has he, himself, been all through the night
equally wakeful and watchful for the coming of the Lord. The wise
virgins sleep as well as the foolish ones!
Alas, that it should be so! Had it not been for the interposition of
God's Grace, in many an instance, backslidings that have been healed
might have been backslidings unhealed–and the gaping wound might have
bled to the dreadful weakness of those who suffered from it. May God,
in infinite mercy, help those of us who have been kept by His power
until now, to rest in faith in Him–and may we be very careful that we
slip not with our feet and decline not with our hearts! Nor let our
earnestness end with self, but let us pray with all our might for those
who have wandered upon the dark mountains, that they may not wander for
another hour, but that at once, before this service is ended, they may
be restored to the Shepherd and Bishop of their souls–and may find
rest as once they used to find it–at the feet of Jesus Christ.
Pray for me, that I may speak in the power of the Holy Spirit, so as to
lead back benighted ones who are now stumbling upon the dark mountains.
I feel deeply my need of such help and would breathe my own desire to
God in the language of our sweet poetess–
"O strengthen me, that while I stand Firm on the Rock, and strong in
Thee, I may stretch out a loving hand
To wrestlers within the troubled sea."
I. I shall keep to the passage before us and we will commence with it
at once and notice, first, in the text–THE PROCLAMATION. The Prophet
receives this message–"Go and proclaim these words toward the north,
and say, Return, you backsliding Israel, says the Lord."
It was to be a proclamation, for God is King, and if His subjects
rebel, He does not lose the rights of His sovereignty. He sends them,
therefore, a royal message with all the power which belongs to the word
of a king. "Go and proclaim." It is meant to be a loud summons, such as
a proclamation should be when the herald, in the name of his royal
master, publishes a decree. "Go and proclaim." It is to be done in
state, with order and regularity, with a purpose and with authority.
And so do I wish to speak at this time. Hear me, O my Brothers and
Sisters, while I plead with you in Christ's name! In the name of the
Ever-Blessed, who has not lost His right to you, O Backslider, you are
called upon to return! In His name, who is your Creator and your Lord,
is the message sent to you, "Return unto Me." It is not delivered as a
mere piece of advice from myself, personally, which you may treat as
you like, because it comes from your friend and your equal–it comes
from your God and your King, to whom you must give an account,
by-and-by! It is not even sent as a simple word of advice from Him, but
the majesty of God is at the back of it! At your peril it will be if
you trifle with it! I pray you act not so presumptuously. It is a
proclamation which demands that every ear should hear it and that every
heart should bow before it. Only traitors will despise our message when
the Lord says to us, "Go and proclaim these words, and say, Return."
This proclamation is sent to the worst of sinners–to the very basest
of backsliders! The proclamation is to be given publicly, but it was
intended for a certain people and meant for their hearts as well as
their ears. It was meant for those who have backslidden–and the house
of Israel contained many jet-black backsliders! They were people who
had gone aside after beholding the most glorious manifestations of God,
for unto what people did the God of the whole earth ever reveal Himself
as He did unto Israel, a people that had been delivered by the plagues
of Egypt, that had drunk of water from the Rock and had been fed upon
angels' food–a people in the midst of whom the peculiar Presence of
God had been revealed? He had ransomed them, fed them, led them and
taught them–and they had been singularly indulged– and yet, for all
that, they had turned aside from the living God!
They were a provoking nation of backsliders because they turned aside
to the basest idols. After knowing something of Him who is invisible,
they made a golden calf and said, "These are your gods, O Israel"–and
in later years they bowed themselves before the lowest and most
degrading shapes of idols. They went after the wickedness and the
bestialities of the nations among whom they dwelt–and they defiled
themselves so that God, who never speaks too harshly, said–"They went
a whoring after the gods of the heathen." They broke their marriage
bonds to the one living and true God and made themselves loathsome in
His sight by the most detestable idolatries! It is sad that there
should have been such a race of backsliders, but it is glorious to
think that to such as these the message of God's mercy was sent! They
were the lowest grade of backsliders–and if there are any here,
tonight, who must be put in the same list, it is to them that the
message of God's Grace and mercy is to be proclaimed! And I proclaim it
in the name of Him that sent me!
These backsliders were old offenders who had long been false to their
vows and covenants. They went aside once and they were chastened–and
they repented. But their hearts were not true and so, when the scourge
was taken away, they went aside again and proved that deceit was bound
up in their souls! Many a time did He forgive them and put back His
wrath, but as often did they return to their provocations. Many and
many a time did He smile upon them, again, in favor and forgive their
transgressions, but they provoked Him unto jealousy yet more and more
until He declared that they were bent to backslide from Him. It seemed
to be the way of them. It was ingrained in their nature. "Israel is a
backsliding heifer," says the Lord. They would not go aright–they
would turn aside.
Do I address any such in this discourse? O my Hearers, may the Lord
deal graciously with you by my means, and my heart shall sing for joy!
I am not going to enlarge upon any of these points of character, for if
the Spirit of God is dealing with you, He will enlarge upon them. I
have lately met with a considerable number over whom I have both
sorrowed and rejoiced–I think of them, now, with mingled feelings
because God is bringing them very low under a sense of their
backsliding and I am hoping that this will be a blessing to them. The
Lord is chastening them and I trust they will turn at His rebuke. Their
sin, which was written with an iron pen upon the very horns of their
altars, they did not see and would not see, but now He says they shall
see and He is making them weep as they see! I know that some of you
bleed with an inward wound at the heart, a wound which man cannot
reach, which only God can heal. I am glad that it is so, for this will
con-
vince you that you shall not be at ease away from God–but that in
wandering from Him into the far country there shall come a mighty
famine for you and you shall begin to be in need. Oh, may your need
drive you home to the great Father's House where the best of welcomes
awaits you!
The Israelite people were not only the worst kind of backsliders, but
they had already reaped, in a very large measure, the result of their
backsliding, for they had been carried away captive. They were taken
away to the north country by the king of Assyria, far off from the land
of promise which flowed with milk and honey! They were bondslaves under
the cruellest of oppressors. They had suffered the loss of all things
because they had departed from their God and yet they had not learned
the lesson which affliction was meant to teach them. It was still
necessary to call them to repentance and God bade them return to
Him–His proclamation was to them!
I have known men to come down from wealth to poverty through their sin.
I have known them fall from health and happiness to disease and misery.
I have seen them brought down from honorable associations to
degradation and shame wholly as the result of their departing from the
living God! While they walked with Him, all went well with them. But
when they walked contrary to Him, He began to walk contrary to them.
There are some who hear me, at this moment, who know the meaning of
that text, "The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways."
They have sinned and they have smarted–and in the smart this thought
has come to their mind, "He will never forgive me. He has beaten me
with the blows of a cruel one. He has set me for the target of all His
arrows; His arrows drink up the blood of my soul. I am sorely wounded
and broken in the place of dragons."
Yes, so was Israel carried away by Shalmaneser and yet they were bid to
return unto God with a promise of mercy! Captives and poverty-stricken,
they sat down and wept when they remembered Zion–and then came this
royal proclamation of reconciliation upon repentance. From the Throne
of God, where they might have expected condemnation and the sentence of
death, there came this mission, this word, this message, "Go and
proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, you backsliding
Israel, says the Lord."
I see some mercy, and that of no little kind, in the messenger who was
sent to deliver this message, for it was Jeremiah, that man of a broken
spirit, who could say of himself, "I am the man that has seen
affliction." Somehow, your bright-eyed joyous spirit astonishes the
backslider into greater grief. "Alas," he cries, "such joy I might have
known, but I put it all aside!" Such reflections deepen the poor
sinner's woe. Moreover, the man that has never been emptied from vessel
to vessel and has had no experience of the bitterness of sin is too apt
to speak proudly, or, at least, harshly and severely, to a wandering
brother. He does not sufficiently remember himself, lest he, also, is
tempted. But as for Jeremiah, his eyes were red with weeping and his
cheeks were guttered by his burning tears! And when he spoke, there was
a depth of pathos about every word–thus he was qualified to meet
mourning souls upon their own ground.
How he longed for men to come back to God who had chosen them! How
pathetically he exclaimed, "Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a
fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the
daughter of my people!" And God selected this man that he might go
after the smitten ones and proclaim in stately manner, blended with
womanly tenderness, this message, "Return." I do not feel so fitted as
Jeremiah and yet I have an intense desire that any of you who have gone
away from God would come back while I speak with you. The Lord knows
how this has burdened me of late, for I cannot bear it that you who
have sunned yourselves in His smile should choose darkness! That you
who once rejoiced in Christ and gloried in His Cross, should now be
crucifying Him afresh and putting Him to an open shame!
Here is a huge world that "lies in the Wicked One" and we need all our
time to try and enlighten it and, meanwhile, you that are our camp
followers and, as we thought, our fellow soldiers, have put away your
swords and gone over to the enemy! At least you act as if you had, and
it pains us! It pains us at the heart! Hear, then, at this hour, the
proclamation which we will give forth as best we can, looking in your
direction if you have gone up to the north, and proclaiming these words
towards your place, your cold and shivering place, your place of
darkness and of misery, your place in the far-off country. I say, we
look anxiously and yet hopefully in your direction and proclaim these
words to you, "Thus says the Lord, Return!"
So far concerning the proclamation.
II. But now, secondly, in our text we find A PRECEPT. It is a very
simple one and as short as it is clear. It is given in the
proclamation–"Return, you backsliding Israel." Return–be as you were.
Come back–repent and do your first works. O Wanderer, return to your
God! You have forgotten Him. You have transgressed against Him and you
have
grieved Him exceedingly. For these months you have not sought Him, nor
called upon Him. You have not trusted Him nor confided in Him. You have
not loved Him, nor sought His honor. Return! You can never be right if
you stay where you are! All ills attend the man who forsakes His God.
Come back–back to the old place of humiliation in His Presence, of
confession, of childlike faith, of holy consecration–come back to the
happy place which was yours when you were in your best estate! Yes,
further back than that–back nearer to God than ever you were before!
Return unto your God!
Listen! This is the precept–return to your Savior! Just as you are,
come back to Him. Come back as you came at first, with your sin
acknowledged, looking to His Cross for pardon! Did you grow too great
and think you could live without your Savior? Return! Did you dream of
being so perfect that you did not need His righteousness, for your own
would suffice? Away with that glittering bauble, that idle notion of
your perfection, and come back and beat upon your breast, and say, "God
be merciful to me, a sinner!" Repent of your pride and return, again,
to your Lord Jesus Christ. He will as gladly receive you as a mother
presses to her bosom a lost child. The road is paved for your return,
the stumbling blocks have been removed, the door of the Father's House
is open wide!
Come yet again and receive pardon and cleansing from the precious blood
of Jesus. It has not lost its power! The fountain of cleansing is open,
not only for the common sinner, but for you, the backslider, for
remember how the Scripture has it, "A fountain opened to the house of
David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem." It is open for those who
are already in the Church of God, as well as for those who are newly
brought into it! Come at once and tarry not! If your feet are foul with
your wandering through the mire and through the slough, your Savior
takes the towel, yet again, and fills the basin from the ewer and
stoops to wash your feet! Will you not have them washed at this moment
till He can say to you, again, "You are clean every whit"? You have
once been washed in the atoning blood and you need not now except to
wash your feet–and when this is done, all is well! Go and wash your
brethren's feet in gratitude. "When you are converted, strengthen your
brethren."
You see, then, dear Friends, how the Lord puts it to you. "Return," for
where you lost your roll there you will find it. Mr. Bunyan pictures
his pilgrim dropping his passport under the seat in that arbor at the
bottom of the Hill Difficulty, or half way up it, where he sat down to
rest–but where he did not only rest, but fell into a sinful slumber.
Under that very settle, whereon you sat and went to sleep, you will
find the roll which you must carry in your bosom to secure you a
welcome at the Palace Beautiful! You must go back and look for your
spiritual enjoyment where you lost it. Did you lose it by neglect of
prayer? Then search the closet through. Did you lose it by a dusty
Bible? Dust that Bible and search its pages till you find it. Did you
lose it by neglect of the means of Grace? Were your Sabbaths wasted and
week-night services neglected? Then go back, I say again, to the place
where, by your sin, you allowed your holy confidence to slip from
you–and there you will find it again. The point at which you diverged
from the right road is the point that you must find and come back to.
"Repent, and do your first works," is the Master's call to you tonight!
It is His royal proclamation, "Return, you backsliding Israel."
But listen while I make this proclamation, again, in God's name. Return
at once. Delays are always dangerous, but never so dangerous as when
they are proposed by backsliders. Return without another day's
indulgence in sin! The message tolerates no further backsliding. Come
back at once! Wait not for second thoughts–your prompt, immediate
thoughts are best. And come you back with all your heart. Let there be
no mimic repentance; no pretended returning. You shall find the Lord if
you seek Him with all your heart and all your soul. God help you to do
it now!
And mind that you return practically. That is, that your life shall be
changed, your idols broken, your omitted duties fulfilled with
eagerness, neglected means of Grace pursued with fervor–that done
which you have left undone and that evil forsaken into which you have
gone with such headlong folly. When the Lord says, "Return," He does
not mean, "Think about returning; promise to return; talk about your
wandering" and all that–He means that you should practically come back
to Him with weeping and with supplication, with a true heart believing
in the Lord Jesus Christ and beginning again.
"Alas," says one, "I do not know whether I am a backslider, or whether
I have been a hypocrite up till now!" Do not argue that question at
all. I am constantly asked to decide for people whether they ever were
true Christians or were in error about their condition. It is a
difficult enquiry and of small practical value. I say to myself,
sometimes, "Well if I never was a child of God, I know that I am a
sinner, and Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners–and so I
will at once trust in Him." Thus I recover confidence. If ever I was a
child of God, then I am a child of God and He will bring
me back. But if I never was a child of God and my profession was all a
mistake, yet still the free salvation sounds out its silver trumpet–
"Come, and welcome, Sinner, come,"
and I hasten to accept the invitation! You can discuss the question of
your previous character after you get back into the fold. But while you
are out of it, it does not matter much to you. You had better leave
such discussions till you are out of the reach of the wolf. In all
probability it would be impossible for you to discover your precise
condition–but, O poor Soul, this is clear enough, that the Lord cries
to you, "Return, you backsliding Israel!"
This precept is clear as noon-day, and it is sent to you. Come back
with the whole of your nature, in all ways and respects, back to your
God and back to your Savior–and back to prayer, and back to holy
living, and back to the people of God–back to the very Church from
which you have wandered! It will be wise to do that before another sun
has risen. Come back to the Lord's Supper, back to feeding spiritually
upon His flesh and upon His blood and living only in Him, and by Him,
and to Him, and with Him! God help you to hear this precept and to turn
it into practical effect!
III. Now, listen, in the third place, to THE PROMISE–"Return, you
backsliding Israel, says Jehovah, and I will not cause My anger to fall
upon you." "I will not cause My anger to fall upon you." See that
anger, like a black cloud, charged not with refreshing rain, but with
fire flakes that shall burn as they fall–yes, burn their way into the
very core of your being as with the fires of Hell! A sense of wrath is
Hell setting the soul on fire till conscience flames with its own
peculiar fierceness and seems to anticipate the fire that never can be
quenched. You see that gathering storm around you, do you not?
But here is the fair promise, "Return, and I will not cause My anger to
fall upon you." Not a flake of it shall burn you if you return unto
your God. There is forgiveness, there is full, free and immediate
forgiveness to be had! "I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, your
transgressions, and as a cloud, your sins. Return unto Me." This is a
grand motive for coming back–the sin that separates is put away! He
will wash you thoroughly from your iniquity and cleanse you from your
sin and whatever you need, He will give to you–and He will not upbraid
you. When the father received the prodigal, did he remind him of his
ingratitude, or of his wasting of his substance? Not a word of it–he
kissed away the memory of his wrong-doing! He covered him with a robe
of righteousness and he put a new song into his mouth. The Lord is
prepared to do that with you at this moment!
I know that your doubts and fears ask the question again and again,
"Can it be possible?" All things are possible with God and especially
all deeds of mercy! His mercy endures forever and He delights in it! I
know that you say, "Oh, but does the promise mean me, even me?" It
means you, even you! You are a backslider! You plead guilty to the
charge and, therefore, it is to you that the promise is given. Accept
the mercy! The man that is condemned by that description– the
"backslider"–is the man who is commanded to return and he is the man
to whom the promise is made, "I will not cause My anger to fall upon
you." In all this you can see yourself as in a mirror!
I find that the passage might be read, "I will not cause My face to
fall upon you," meaning this–that if the child of God comes back, God
will not look angry at him any more. This is a very great blessing, for
when the Lord does not lay chastisement upon His people by way of
judgment and wrath, yet He does often hide His face from them, or
frowns upon them like a cruel one. If you have sinned, God cannot smile
upon you! He must chasten you. His own words are, "you only have I
known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for
all your iniquities." You are a child and, therefore, you must be
whipped if you do wrong–love ensures you the chastisement. "As many as
I love, I rebuke and chasten."
But the great Father, here, shows that He will not continue to frown on
you–He will not make His face to fall at the mention of you. He has
said, "I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for My
anger is turned away from them." He might justly say, "you are My
child, but I cannot speak comfortably to you, for you are so
disobedient that I must send you to a distance and make you feel the
evil of disobedience." But, instead of that, He says, "I will not cause
My anger to fall upon you. I will not even cause my face to fall at the
sight of you; but I will receive you graciously; I will, in tender
mercy, put away your transgressions and reveal My love to you." "Come
now, and let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are as
scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like
crimson, they shall be as wool." Will you not come to Him, when He
speaks thus?–
"Return! O erring, yet beloved!
I wait to bind your bleeding feet, for keen
And rankling are the thorns where you ha ve been.
I wait to give you pardon, love, and rest.
Is not My joy to see you safe and blest?
Return! I wait to hear once more your voice
To welcome you anew, and bid your heart rejoice."
A woman has a husband who has loved her as his own, but she has lent
her ear to a serpent–to one who with words of flattery has beguiled
her, and she has sinned against her fidelity. She has defiled herself
with another and she has gone away, far away–and the man who has
deceived her has forsaken her. She is now a woman of a sorrowful
spirit, broken down and cast off. A friend whispers to her, "Return to
your husband, for it was better with you then, than now." But this is
her stumbling block–"Will he receive me? Can he receive me? I have
dishonored him. Will he take me back? Can I expect the love that
gladdened my girlish days to be lavished upon me again? Will he not
call me an outcast and say that I have darkened his house and shall
never enter it again?"
But if the message comes to her, "He will receive you graciously and
love you freely," will she not hasten home? When she learns that the
anger which he felt is gone and that his heart yearns towards her, will
she not fly home as on the wings of the wind? Unless she has become a
monster of wantonness, she will seek the man whom she has grieved and,
at his feet she will fall in gratitude for his forgiveness! The parable
is concerning ourselves who have backslidden from the Lord Jesus
Christ. Shall we not, also, return, now that we hear Him thus inviting
us to come back–yes, making a royal proclamation of His Grace?
"Return, you backsliding Israel, says the Lord; and I will not cause My
anger to fall upon you." The Lord grant that this word may go home to
those whom He has ordained to bless.
IV. I pass on, in the next place, fourthly, to notice THE ARGUMENT. The
argument here used is twofold and you will recollect the two arguments
all the more readily because they begin with the same letter–Mercy and
Marriage. We have, in the 12th verse, "For I am merciful, says the
Lord." And in the 14th verse, "For I am married unto you."
Here is, first, God's mercy. Nothing delights God more than to forgive
sin–He is at home in this blessed work! To some men it is a hard task
to forgive an injury. They do it with a squeeze, a twist and a
wrench–and even then it is questionable if it is done at all, for
forced forgiveness is no forgiveness. Some are not unlike the dying man
who said to the priest, "If I die, you will remember that I forgive Pat
Maloney, but if I live, I'll pay him back as soon as I can." Many
forgive because they cannot revenge–their virtue is the result of
their inability to be vicious. But, with God, it is His nature to
forgive–He is Love–and mercy is a drop from the honeycomb of love.
God must be just, but to punish is His left-handed labor, while to
forgive is His right-handed work. He is happy at it! He finds pleasure
in man's turning to Him and finding life.
Mercy was His last-born attribute. Until sin came there was no room for
mercy–the mercy that forgives and, therefore, mercy is God's Benjamin,
the son of His right hand and He delights to give to it 10 times as
much as to His other attributes when they feast together. It is
written, "He delights in mercy," but I never read that He delights in
justice, or delights in wisdom, or delights in power–He delights in
mercy! God is charmed when He can wash a scarlet sinner white. It is
the Heaven of His Heaven to receive a Hell-black sinner to His heart
and put away his sin. "I am merciful," says the Lord.
Did I hear a trembling voice exclaim, "Oh, but you do not know what I
have done, Sir"? No, and, "Sir," does not want to know! But then I do
know that the Lord delights in mercy! Perhaps you had better not tell
those midnight deeds, those sins that have defiled you through and
through–the confessional is by no means a healthy place–the smell of
it is putrid! Confess to God–not to me! You have lain in the dye till
you are soaked and saturated in sin. You are ingrained with the scarlet
of iniquity, but the Lord delights to take out these glaring stains!
Things which are impossible with man are the joy of God. Therefore come
to Him and believe in His mercy! Doubt no longer, but lovingly receive
what He lovingly gives.
As for you who once knew Him, loved Him and rejoiced in Him, I want you
just to dwell on that second argument, namely, marriage. "For I am
married unto you, says the Lord." Oh, those were blessed days when you
used to sing–
"'Tis done, the great transaction's done! Iam my Lord's, and He is
mine. He drew me, and I followed on
Charmed to confess the voice Divine." And then you used to join with
all of us in singing–
"Happy day! Happy day!
When Jesus washed my sins away " Ah, poor Soul, where have you been
since then? You have been where you ought not to have been and now your
Bridegroom says, "Return, for I am married unto you. You may have put
off the ring, but you are Mine for all that, and I will have you come
back to Me. Return." The bonds that Christ makes are not to be broken.
The favor that Christ has shown is not to be removed. Stronger than
death and Hell is the love of Christ and who shall separate us from it?
Notwithstanding all your sins and iniquities, He says, "Return, for I
am married unto you, says the Lord." It is done and though you do not
stand to it, He does! The great transaction still stands on His
part–though you believe not, He abides faithful!
He has bought you with His blood and the price will never return into
His veins. He has loved you with an everlasting love and, therefore, it
cannot cease! In that love He will always rest, nor from His oath
return. Come back to Him!–
"Return! O fallen, yet not lost!
Can you forget the life for you laid down,
The taunts, the scourging, and the crown of thorns?
When o ver you first My spotless robe I spread
And poured the oil of joy upon your head,
How did your wakening heart within you burn!
Can you remember all, and will you not return?
Return! O chosen of My lo ve!
Fear not to meet your beckoning Savior's view;
Long before I called you by your name, I knew
That very treacherously you would deal;
Now I have seen your ways, yet I will heal.
Return! Will you yet linger far from Me?
My wrath is turned away, I have redeemed thee." V. And I finish (for
time has failed me) by noticing THE ADVICE that He here gives as to how
we are to return. He says, "Only acknowledge your iniquity." "Oh," you
have said, "I cannot get back to God–it is such a long way back to
Him. I feel that I have to set myself right and in that process to pass
through a world of sorrow." Yet the Lord says, "Only acknowledge." I
rejoice in those blessed, "onlys" of the Bible! "Only acknowledge your
iniquity." "Alas, I have so wandered!" Acknowledge it! "But I have done
it so many times!" Acknowledge it! "But I have wandered against light
and knowledge!" Acknowledge it! It is not a hard thing to do, to get to
your chamber and, before God, confess your fault. You have, first of
all, to have a knowledge of it and then to acknowledge it. Feel your
sin and then confess it. Be convinced of it and then plead guilty at
the Judgment Seat. Do not attempt to excuse it, or to make apologies
for it. As long as you do so, you will never get peace–but let this
perilous stuff be purged from your soul by a clear, plain
acknowledgment, such as David made when he said, "Deliver me from
blood-guiltiness." He had tried to call his crime by other names, but
his forgiveness came when he admitted that it was murder! When we know
our sin, God will make us to know His Grace–but if we are
self-righteous, our pride will be our ruin.
"What am I to acknowledge?" Acknowledge chiefly three things. Your
breach of covenant–that you have transgressed against Jehovah your
God. You professed to be a child of God, a member of Christ, a temple
of the Holy Spirit and you have been false to all these avowals. You
have broken your vows, you have been false to your Baptism, false to
your communion at the Lord's Supper, false to your Church membership,
false to your prayers. Go and tell the Lord all this and acknowledge
that you have transgressed against Jehovah your God.
Next acknowledge your greedy sin–that you "have scattered your ways to
the strangers under every green tree." Israel had sinned wherever she
had an opportunity–sinned openly. You would not have thought that she
would have dared to do it–sinned again and again till as many as there
were trees in the grove were her adulteries with idol gods! Confess
this crime if it is, indeed, true–"Lord, I have sinned with both hands
since I have departed from You. I have committed sins of the eyes, sins
of the feet, sins of the hands, sins of the head and sins of the
heart–sins against Your holy Law, sins against Your love and blood,
sins immense and innumerable. I might as well hope to count the drops
that make the ocean as to tell the number of my sins." Make this
confession heartily and explicitly. Do not stutter over it and
try to lessen it, but bring it straight out in deep humility. As a
backslider you have done far more evil than you know and there is no
fear of your exaggerating your guilt!
And I finish with this–"You have not obeyed My voice, says the
Lord.''" That is to say, you have been guilty of sins of omission. This
is sufficient to swamp any one of us! Our sins of commission may be
few, but as for our omissions, these would sink me, I know, past all
hope, were it not for the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ. Dear
Friend, hasten to acknowledge your omissions.
Confess also your hardness of heart. God has spoken and you would not
hear. He has entreated and you would not regard Him. He has come very
near to you and you have turned your back on Him. Thus He complains of
you, "I have spoken and you would not hear. You have not obeyed My
voice."
Confess, also, your ingratitude. His voice, which is your Father's
voice, you have not heard or obeyed. What unnatu-ralness! Shall a wife
not know her husband's voice? Shall a brother forget his brother's? Yet
it is so with some of you who once used to be with us–you were our joy
and we were your joy–and God the joy of us both but you have gone
aside. You have left your first love. You have departed from the ways
of the Lord. Yet remember at this moment there is no judgment for
you–no threats, no scolding words–simply this, "Only return." The
heart of love has room in it for you! Hasten home to Him who is your
only resting place. You can never be happy where you are and as you
are. You have tried it! Oh, how long you have tried it, but you are
going downward and waxing worse and worse!
Oh, that you would say, "I will end it! I will end it! Never more will
I depart from Him who has redeemed me with His blood. I will yield
myself to Him at once." Happy is the preacher if this has been effected
by the Spirit of God. Happy shall you be, also, and happy are these
Christian folk to know that such a thing has been done in their midst.
God bless you, for Jesus' sake! Amen.
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