Hope for the Worst Backsliders
(No. 2452)
A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1896.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
FEBRUARY 14, 1886.
"Return, you backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings.
Behold, we come to You; for You are the LORD our God. Truly in vain is
salvation hoped for from the hills, and from the multitude of
mountains: truly in the LORD our God is the salvation of Israel."
Jeremiah 3:22,23.
SIN is quite sure to cause sorrow–and the longer the sorrow is
delayed, the heavier it will be when it comes. This ship may be long at
sea, but it will come home, at last, with a heavy cargo. There was
never a man who broke the Law of God who had not in the end to rue it.
"He that digs a pit shall fall into it and who breaks a hedge, a
serpent shall bite him," is one of Solomon's sayings, and it is most
certainly true. How many there are in this world who have upon them a
load of sorrow which is plainly and evidently the result of their own
folly and iniquity! Their sin procured it for them.
There is also a godly sorrow which comes after sin has been committed
and which is not merely occasioned by the sin, but by the love of God
and the action of the Spirit of God upon the heart. When God means to
save a man, He usually begins by making him sorrow on account of his
evil ways. It is the sharp steel needle of the Law of God that goes
through the convicted heart and draws the silken thread of comfort and
salvation after it! It is not God's way to make men alive, again, until
they are really dead. I mean, that, spiritually, they must be first,
slain by the Law, before they are made alive by the Gospel. It is not
God's way to heal the unwounded heart, or to provide garments for those
who are already clothed. Our heart must be broken and we, ourselves,
must be stripped before the healing balm can be applied–and the robe
of righteousness can be put upon us.
I know that what I say upon this subject will be had in small esteem by
those who have not learned the evil of sin. It is to such, only, as
have felt the arrows of the Lord's righteous anger rankling in their
spirit that the Gospel message will come with any kind of sweetness. If
any here are suffering greatly under the burden of sin–as once I was
myself–if any here are crushed to the earth as once I was crushed,
they will be glad to hear God's invitation of mercy and to know the way
by which it may be accepted!
The other day I read in the newspaper a story which certainly surprised
me and, undoubtedly, it is an instance of wonderful patience and
forbearance on the part of a loving woman. I do not think that I have
heard or read the likes of it in all my days. And I should think that
such action as hers never was excelled. The wretch of whom I speak must
have been the meanest man who ever lived–and died without being
hanged! And the woman must have been one of the most wonderful of women
ever seen upon the face of the earth! According to the account I read,
the man had not been long married, but he did not prosper in his
profession and, feeling that he had talent and ability, he came to
London with his wife's permission and consent, that he might make his
way in the world. He did make his way and became, afterwards, a
portrait painter of considerable eminence, so that he obtained
admission into fashionable society and lived upon the fat of the land.
He had told his wife, when he wrote to her once, that if she came she
might be a burden to him, so he never fetched her up to London. Indeed,
he never but on that one occasion communicated with her and never sent
her even a solitary sixpence! That state of things lasted for 40 years
and the wife remained true and faithful to him notwithstanding all the
heartbreak caused by his cruel conduct. In the process of time, he
spent all his money and reduced himself to beggary– beside that, he
was full of disease, yet he was mean enough to crawl to the door of the
woman he had neglected all those years and, strange as it may seem, she
opened it with delight and welcomed him back to her heart. She put him
in her bedroom, she carefully nursed and cared for him and she wore her
own life away by sitting at his bedside till he died.
Was it not splendid on her part? What monument ought not to be raised
to such a loving woman as that? But I merely tell you this story in
order to say that this woman's forgiveness of her unworthy husband is
but a faint picture of the great love of God towards ungodly men! He
feeds them and supplies their every need–they are always dependent
upon Him–they could not live an instant without His permission, yet
some whom I know have never communicated with their God for 40 years!
Forty years, did I say? Fifty, 60, or perhaps even more years than that
they have lived as if there were no God! And worse, still, they have,
perhaps, only used His name for the purposes of blasphemy! They have
made a mockery of holy things, they have provoked the Lord to jealousy
and yet even now, though they are decrepit and old, if they are not
only sick but sorry, if they are broken down and despairing, if they
will but come creeping to God's door, He will say, "Come in and
welcome!"
He never yet refused to receive a soul that came to Him by Jesus
Christ, His Son. And Jesus Christ Himself has said, "Him that comes to
Me I will in no wise cast out." Oh, how many old sinners have come to
Christ even at 80 years of age and He has never uttered a word about
those 80 wicked years–but He has said to each one of them, "Come in. I
died for you. Come in and welcome." There have been many, many sins of
the most aggravated kind committed, yet those who committed them have
been freely forgiven! What did the Lord Jesus say to Saul of Tarsus? "I
am Jesus whom you persecute: it is hard for you to kick against the
pricks." Yet, having asked, "Why do you persecute Me?" He had nothing
more to say to him by way of reproof or rebuke, but He blotted out his
sin and, more than that, He counted him worthy– putting him into the
ministry–so that this very man could afterwards say, "To me, who am
less than the least of all saints, is this Grace given, that I should
preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ."
I earnestly trust that God's infinite mercy and patience may be
verified in the case of some whom I am now addressing, who have not yet
turned to God. Pray, dear Christian Friends, that it may be so! In
handling this subject I shall notice two things in my text. The first
is, the call from God–"Return, you backsliding children, and I will
heal your back-slidings." The second is the method of obeying the call.
This is set forth in the words, "Behold, we come to You; for You are
the LORD our God. Truly, in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills
and from the multitude of mountains: truly in the LORD our God is the
salvation of Israel."
I. To begin, then, here is THE CALL FROM God–"Return, you backsliding
children, and I will heal your back-slidings."
You observe that it is a call to come back to God–and that means,
first, remember Him–begin to think of Him, let Him be a living God to
you. Come back to Him in your thoughts. The Lord Jehovah is the
greatest factor in the universe! He works all things. He is the great
Unit without which all the rest of the figures would be but ciphers. He
made you– you are dependent upon Him from day to day. Before long your
spirit must return to God who gave it–and you will have to stand
before His Judgement Seat. Why, of all the persons in the world, must
God be forgotten? Why, of all the things that are, should you forgot
this chief of all things, the great I AM? Do you say that there is no
God? Ah, then I have nothing to do with you–your conduct in forgetting
Him may be quite consistent with that declaration, though I am sure
that you know better. But if there is a God and you believe that He is,
begin to think of Him in due proportion. I mean that as He is the
greatest of all beings, give to Him your greatest and highest thoughts.
And as He is most to be reverenced, give Him your most reverent and
careful consideration.
I think that I am not asking too much of you. Certainly, if you are
sorry for your sin and wish the Lord to forgive you, the very first
thing for you to do is to obey that ancient command, "Acquaint, now,
yourself with Him, and be at peace: thereby good shall come to you." I
know that the thought of your sin sometimes troubles you–so it ought,
and it will do you good to be troubled if it leads you back to the Lord
against whom you have sinned! If you have offended anyone, go and
confess your offense and make matters right. Perhaps you say that you
do not like the person and you are not willing to go to the person. Of
course you are not! But that only proves how very right it would be for
you to do so! That dislike of yours has sprung out of two
things–first, your having been the offender and secondly, your not
being acquainted with the offended one. Now, if those two things are
acknowledged, confessed and remedied, you will soon find it to be the
most joyful thing in all the world to think of God! It will be your
delight above all things to rejoice in Him and in all that He does.
Begin, then, to think of God, for this is what He means when He says to
you, "Return, you backsliding children."
The next thing is, really turn to Him. I know that you must have been
shocked with the figure used in this chapter. [See exposition at the
end of this sermon–EOD] That sense of shame I cannot help. As God used
this symbol, it is good enough for me, and I am sure that there is an
instructive meaning in it. I must turn again to that figure. We will
suppose–(and, alas, bad as the case is, we need not go very far to
find the likes of it)–that a woman has grievously offended against the
honor of her husband. She has gone away and left him and plunged into
all sorts of sin an vice. Well no, suppose that there should come to
her the message, "Return. He knows it all. He realizes all that it
means. He has grieved over it all, yet he says to you, Return." She
says, "I have spent all. I am in rags. I have but a miserable lodging.
Those who once flattered me and lived with me in sin, have forsaken me.
I am a poor cast-off wretch, whom even a reformatory refuses." Then the
husband writes to her and says, "Return. Return to me and all shall be
forgiven you, whatever it may be."
Do you not fancy that you can see her starting to go back to him? If
there is anything left in her that is worth saving, she makes haste to
accept the invitation. Yet she is very timid and very much afraid. Oh,
how her sad face is covered with the blushes of shame! How the tears
fall down her furrowed cheeks! Sometimes she can hardly believe that
such wonderful love can be exhibited to so undeserving a woman as she
is. Perhaps she is troubled, and rightly troubled, by the thought that
no man would do such a thing as her husband appeared to have done–and
that it would not be right that he should do so. She therefore stops a
while and considers the matter. Yet it is all true. Her husband is one
in a million, perhaps there is no other quite as loving and forgiving
as he is. "Come back," he says, "only confess your transgression and
comes back to me just as you are." I think she must be a wretch,
indeed, if she does not feel that she will lay all the rest of her life
out in service and love to such a forgiving husband as she has!
Now, this is just how the Lord offers to deal with you. He says, "Come
back. I will say nothing about the past. 'I have blotted out, as a
thick cloud, your transgressions, and, as a cloud, your sins: return to
Me; for I have redeemed you.' I have forgiven your iniquities. I laid
them all on My dear Son. He died for you, His precious blood has washed
all your guilt away. Come back to Me. Come back to Me. 'I have loved
you with an everlasting love: therefore with loving kindness have I
drawn you.' Come back to Me. 'The Lord, the God of Israel, says that He
hates putting away.' I have not put you away, notwithstanding all your
sin and all your iniquity. Here is the message of My love and mercy,
'Return, you backsliding children,' for I am married to you, says the
Lord your God."
Well now, in some such way as that striking figure would import, come
back to your God at once, poor wandering sinner, confessing all your
wrong, wondering that there should be mercy for you, trusting that what
the Lord says is, indeed, true because He says it–and resolve
henceforth to live and to die at His dear feet–His servant as well as
His beloved. This is the way to come back to God, so I would entreat
you thus to return to Him!
There is one word in this call from God which proves that you are
invited to come back just as you are. He says, "Return, you backsliding
children." I notice that He does not say, "Return, you penitent
children." He pictures you in your worst colors, yet He says, "Return,
you backsliding children." I also notice that He does not say, "Heal
your wounds, first, and then come back to Me." He says, "Return, you
backsliding children," with all your backslidings unhealed– "and I
will heal your backslidings."
Many sinners seem to suppose that they must make themselves better and
then come to Christ–a most unworthy supposition and an utterly
unfounded one! Come just as you are, with no goodness, or virtue, or
hope of any sort–come to Christ for it all! "But all who would be
saved must believe in Jesus and repent of their sins," says one.
Exactly so, but Christ does not want you to begin the work of salvation
and then let Him finish it! He never came to be a make-weight to add
the last half-ounce to all that you had gathered. Come to Him with
nothing and He will fill the scale! Come empty, ragged, filthy, just as
you are, and believe in God that justifies the ungodly. Cast yourself
on Him who came to call not the righteous, but sinners to repentance!
Bow in humility and patience before Him who flashes the lightning of
Sinai in the face of every self-righteous sinner, but who kindles the
milder, genial rays of Calvary to guide every truly humble and
repentant sinner into the Port of Peace and everlasting love!
Thus have I put before you the call from God–"Return, you backsliding
children, and I will heal your backslid-ings."
II. Now, in the second place, I want to show you THE METHOD OF OBEYING
THIS CALL. There are two things in the text that are specially
noteworthy. First, he who would return to God and find salvation, must
distinctly renounce all other trust except that which God Himself gives
him and sets before him in the Gospel. Listen–"Truly in vain is
salvation hoped for from the hills and from the multitude of
mountains." Judea was a hilly country and wherever there was the peak
of a mountain, or the summit of a hill, there was an idol temple–and
wherever there was a grove of oaks, there would be an idolatrous
shrine. Whenever the people traveled through the valleys, they kept
looking up to these shrines, so their trust was in the hills and in the
multitudes of mountains. They had gods everywhere, blocks of wood and
stone. So the Lord said to them, "If I am to receive you back, you must
renounce all this idolatry." The spiritual meaning of this passage is
this–if you are to be saved by the Grace of God, you must solemnly,
formally and heartily renounce all confidence in any but the living God
and His Son, Jesus Christ!
First, there must be a distinct renunciation of all righteousness of
your own. You are a very excellent person in your own estimation. You
think yourself well up to the mark–what have you ever done that is
wrong? Ah, Friend, there is no salvation for you on that ground! Your
righteousness must in your own esteem become as filthy rags! You must
acknowledge yourself to be defiled and undone or there is no hope for
you! The man who clings to his own righteousness is like a man who
grasps a millstone to prevent himself from sinking in the flood. Your
righteousness will damn you if you trust in it, as surely as will your
sins, for it is a false proud lie–there is no truth in it and no
dependence must be placed upon it. There is not a man living who, by
nature, does good and sins not–and the soul that sins must die. We
have not, any of us, a righteousness that will stand the test of the
all-searching eyes of God! And in our heart of hearts we know it is so.
Therefore, away with that lie once and for all!
When I came to Christ, this matter did not trouble me, for I had not
any righteousness of my own to which I could trust. And there are many
poor souls who are in much the same condition in which I was. They do
not want to keep the counterfeit money which they once reckoned to be
great riches–they are anxious to be rid of it! Yes, Brothers and
Sisters, and even at this present moment I do not know of anything that
I have ever been, or done, or thought, or said that I could patch up
into a righteousness upon which I could place the slightest reliance! I
have not anything to trust to except the blood and righteousness of
Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior! And, what is more, I never wish to
have, and never shall have any other ground of confidence. And I am
sure, Beloved, that you must build on the same foundation, or else
Christ will never save you. You must altogether renounce any trust in
your own righteousness.
The next thing that you must renounce is your own strength. There is
many a young man whom I have known who has been going into impurity and
into drunkenness. And he has been warned by kind friends to see the
wrong in his course of action, but he has said, "Yes, I see it, but I
shall make everything right. I shall become a total abstainer. I shall
forsake evil companions. I shall keep out of harm's way. I shall be as
right as a trivet, I know that I shall. I have great strength of mind
and I always could command myself." Excuse me, dear Friend, but I
should like very politely and very kindly to tell you that you are a
fool. You have not any strength and, what is more, if you have, you
will certainly be lost, for I read concerning those who are saved,
"When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the
ungodly." So that those for whom He died had not any strength! Believe
me, dear Friend, you have not any strength.
Oh, I have seen many a young man with splendid moral principles
trusting in himself! But where has his moral principle been when a
woman's pretty lips and smiling face have enticed him to wantonness, or
when, in frivolous company, he has been chaffed into that other glass
of wine that has upset his balance of mind and has led him to say
things which he never thought could have come out of his mouth? Poor
Hazael was told by the Prophet Elisha of the enormities he would commit
and he said, "Is your servant a dog, that he should do this great
thing?" No, he was not a dog, but he was much worse than a dog, for he
was a devil–yet he did not know it! And there is many a man who is
fair to look upon, who is like John Bunyan's tree which was green on
the outside, but inwardly it was as rotten as to be only fit to be
tinder for the devil's tinderbox! You must give up your own
strength–there is not much of it to give up, but whatever there is,
give it all up, renounce all trust in your own strength as well as in
your own righteousness!
With that must also go all trust in your own knowledge and abilities
and even in your own understanding. Yet this is the bane and ruin of
many men! They know so much that, like Solomon's sluggard, they are
wiser in their own conceit than seven men who can render a reason. See
how they treat the Bible, itself–when they open it, it is not that
they may hear what God says in it–but that they may tell God what He
ought to have said! When they condescend to listen to the
Gospel, it is not that they may hear what the Gospel is, but that they
may note how the man preaches it. Is he an eloquent orator? Does he use
fine words? That is all that many care to hear. Sirs, if I could use
grand words, I would loathe to use them lest I should ruin your souls!
As the Apostle Paul said, so say I, "Not with wisdom of words, lest the
Cross of Christ should be made of no effect." If I could get you to
Heaven by using the plainest words that can be uttered, I would sooner
do it than I would leave any to perish in their sins because I was
anxious to display the niceties of language and the beauties of style!
There are some men who are so wonderfully wise that they would quarrel
with the angel Gabriel, or with the archangel Michael, himself.
Solomon–well, Solomon did not know everything, but these men do.
According to their own ideas they not only know everything, but they
know a little more besides! If ever we need anybody to rule the nation,
I would undertake to find 50 prime ministers, so wise in their own
esteem are many men, who are, I must add, so little and so foolish when
they come to be weighed in the balance of the sanctuary and the
unerring scales that God holds in His hand! Hear this, you great ones
of the earth, "Except you are converted and become as little children,
you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven." He must become as a
little child who would become a child of God. To be saved, we must not
only–
"Cast our deadly 'doing' down, Down at Jesus' feet,"
but we must also–
"Lay our boasted reason down, Down at Jesus' feet,"
and ask that He may be made of God unto us "wisdom, and righteousness,
and sanctification, and redemption."
Now, Friends, what do you say to this? Are you willing to give up your
own mind to God and simply to believe what He tells you in His Word?
Are you also willing to give up self-rule? "We are our own," says one.
"We may do as we like. Our tongues are our own, we may say what we
like. We are free thinkers and free livers." Let me tell you that if
you are saved by Christ, you shall find the only true freedom you can
ever enjoy! But there must first be a complete surrender of yourself to
your God. Come now, who is to rule? Shall it be His will, or your will?
Shall it be His way, or your way? If it is to be your way, it will be
your ruin! But if it is to be God's way, it shall be your salvation!
When the Romans attacked a city and the people yielded to them, they
usually drew up a declaration which ran something like this–"We,
craving mercy at the hands of the powers of Rome, surrender ourselves,
our houses, our goods, our bodies, our souls, all that we have, and all
that we are, to be dealt with by the Roman power exactly according to
its will." It was so worded that there could be no escape from it and
it contained no stipulations and no conditions. And then, as soon as it
was signed, the Roman conqueror, in the generosity of his power, said,
"You have yielded to me, now you are free."
God demands just that kind of submission! If you are to be forgiven,
you must yield yourself up body, soul, spirit, purse, heart, brain,
everything to belong wholly to Christ henceforth and forever! I wish
that yielding were over with all of you. If you would be saved, that
submission must be yours. Oh, then, let it be so at once! Will you keep
your sins and go to Hell, or leave your sins and go to Heaven? Will you
have sin or the Savior? Which shall it be? Oh, that the blessed Spirit
may lead you to the right decision and lead you to that decision at
once!
Finally, it is clear from the text that there must also be a hearty,
true-minded acceptance of God, alone, as our one hope. Read the passage
again. "Behold, we come to You; for you are the LORD our God…Truly in
the LORD our God is the salvation of Israel."
There is but one living and true God! Men have made almost as many gods
as there are sands on the seashore. There is, however, but one
God–whose name is Jehovah–the Creator of all things, in whom we live,
move and have our being. Will you have this God to be your God? Will
you say, "This God is our God forever and ever–He will be our Guide
even unto death"? Will you take Him to be yours, not regarding Him
merely as another man's God, but henceforth as your God, whom you love,
whom you embrace, not comprehending Him by thought, but apprehending
Him by love?
Will you take God to be your God and shall He be truly yours? Notice
how the text says, "Truly in the LORD our God is the salvation of
Israel." There must be no playing at this acceptance of God as our one
hope. There must be no mocking of God by a pretended yielding up of
ourselves to Him. It must be a true acceptance of God, to be our God
henceforth and forever.
God only must be accepted as yours. There cannot be two Gods, nor two
Christs. No man can serve two masters, nor can a woman love two
bridegrooms. If you would be saved, you must, by a deliberate act, give
up yourself, your whole self, to Christ, and take His whole salvation
to be yours!
To help you to do this, let me remind you that there is a blessed
Trinity in Unity. There is, first, the ever-blessed Father. What say
you? Will you have this Father to be your Father? You have sinned
against Him, will you crave His forgiveness for Christ's sake? Will you
ask to be admitted into His house by the blood-stained door of His
Son's atoning Sacrifice? Will you honor Him as your Father? Will not
each of you young people from this time cry unto Him, "My Father, You
are the Guide of my youth"?
The next blessed and adorable Person of the United Trinity is the Son
of God. Will you have this Son of God as your Savior? He died that
sinners might live–will you have His death to be your life? He poured
out His blood to cleanse the guilty from every stain of sin–will you
be washed in the crimson stream? Shall Christ be Prophet to you? Will
you sit at His feet and learn of Him? Shall Christ be Priest for you?
Will you trust Him to present His Sacrifice for you and to intercede
for you? Christ is a King–will you have Him as King to reign over you?
In reality, will you have Him in all His offices and in all His
relationships, in the majesty of His glorious Godhead and in the
humiliation of His perfect Manhood? Will you have this Man as yours? I
put the question to you as one of old put it to the damsel he met at
the well, "Will you go with this man?" Will you have Christ to have and
to hold, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, so that death,
itself, shall not part you from Him? If so, have Him and welcome, for
He is prepared to give Himself to every soul that is willing to accept
Him!
There is a third Person of this blessed Unity and that is the Holy
Spirit. Are you willing to let the Holy Spirit come and dwell in you?
It is He who must regenerate you if you are to be born again. It is He
who must teach you. It is He who must sanctify you. It is He who must
illuminate you. It is He who must comfort and guide you. Without Him
you can do nothing. The Holy Spirit is the very life of the Christian.
What the Father decreed, what the Son purchased, that the Holy Spirit
applies–and without that Holy Spirit, there is nothing for you. Will
you obey His monitions? Will you put yourself under His
superintendence? Will you resign your body to be His temple?
If you will do all this, God helping you, then believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ and you shall be saved! His own word is, "He that believes
and is baptized shall be saved." With the heart, believe on Him, then
let the body be washed with pure water in Baptism. Those two things the
Lord Jesus Christ asks of you. Again I remind you that it is He who
says, "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved." Demur not to
either of these Gospel words. Come at once and do what He bids you, and
enter into life, for he that believes in Him has everlasting life! And
then, at once, make the Scriptural confession of your faith, as they
did who heard the Apostle Peter on the day of Pentecost–"Then they
that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there
were added unto them about three thousand souls."
Now look, Sirs, I have done, for I do not know what more I can say to
you than I have said. If I did know what more I could say, I am sure
that I would say it, but I will tell you how this matter strikes me. If
I had come into this Tabernacle, tonight, conscious of guilt and
desirous to be saved, I feel that, after hearing what has been said,
tonight, I could not go out of this place without willfully refusing
the Gospel invitation, if I did refuse it. May you not refuse it, but
accept it, for Christ's sake! Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JEREMIAH 3:1-23.
In this chapter, the sin of God's people is put in the strongest
possible light. The figure used may even be said to be a coarse one,
but man's sin is, itself, a coarse thing. The thoughts suggested in
this chapter are not what the delicate might desire, but then there is
no delicacy in sin.
1. They say, If a man divorces his wife, and she goes from him, and
becomes another man's, may he return to her again? Would not that land
be greatly polluted? God Himself seems, here, to be at a nonplus. His
people had gone away from Him, they had acted unfaithfully to Him, they
had joined themselves unto other gods. The case was a very difficult
one. If the Lord takes these people back, will it not look like putting
a premium upon sin? That is just the question that is constantly being
raised. If God freely forgives great sinners, will it not look as if He
treated sin too leniently? Will not free salvation, by faith in Jesus,
lead to sin? The world says that it will and even the Scripture seems
to raise the question–"If a man divorces his wife, and she goes from
him, and becomes another man's, may he return to her again? Would not
that land be greatly polluted?" Yet Judah had been worse than the woman
here described.
1. But you have played the harlot with many lovers. Here was an awful
depth of sin, a terrible enormity of wickedness!
1. Yet return again to Me, says the LORD. What a splendor of Divine
Love is here revealed! I do not wonder that the question should be put,
"How can God act thus, and yet be just?" He can do it and yet be just,
as we have often showed you, but, still, it is a very great wonder of
Grace.
2, 3. Lift up your eyes unto the high places, and see where you have
not lain with men. By the road you have sat for them, as the Arabian in
the wilderness and you have polluted the land with your whoredoms and
with your wickedness. Therefore the showers have been withheld, and
there has been no latter rain; and you have had a whore's forehead, you
refused to be ashamed. This was very strong, rough language, but oh,
how true it was! The people had gone astray from God into all manner of
filthiness and pollution. And even when God had chastened them by
withholding the showers till they were threatened with famine, they did
not turn to Him. They seemed to have a brow like granite, they could
not be made ashamed. There may be some persons of that kind in this
assembly–if so, let them notice what God says–
4. Will you not from this time cry unto Me, My Father, You are the
Guide of my youth? Will not you come back again? You are invited to
return to the Lord, in spite of your wandering, your perverseness, your
abominable iniquity! Will you not remember the better days when God was
the Guide of your youth? You were not always what you are now. Will you
not, from this time on, cry unto the Lord, "My Father, you are the
Guide of my youth"?
5. Will He remain angry forever? Will He keep it to the end? No, that
He will not! There is none so slow to anger as our God and there is
none so ready to be rid of it as He is. He is a God ready to pardon,
waiting to forgive, delighting in mercy. Even though the sin should be
as foul as that I read to you–I seem almost to blush in the reading,
as you may in the hearing–yet, black as it is, God can put it all away
in the greatness of His mercy.
5. Behold, you have spoken and done evil things as you could. You have
gone as far in sin as you could go! Only lack of power has prevented
you from being even worse than you are. Yet this is the kind of people
to whom God speaks in mercy, inviting them to return to Him.
6. The LORD said also unto me in the day of Josiah the king, Have you
seen that which backsliding Israel has done? She is gone up upon every
high mountain and under every green tree, and there has played the
harlot. Building temples to false gods on every mountain and in every
grove.
7. And I said after she had done all these things, Turn you unto Me.
But she returned not. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it. That
made Judah's sin even worse than that of Israel! She saw this great
iniquity in another, and yet went and committed it herself.
8,9. And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel
committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce;
yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the
harlot also. And it came to pass through the lightness of her whoredom,
that she defiled the land, and committed adultery with stones and with
trees. Bowing down before idols made of wood and stone!
10-12. And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah has not turned
unto Me with her whole heart, but feignedly, says the LORD. And the
LORD said unto me, The backsliding Israel has justified herself more
than treacherous Judah. Go and proclaim these words toward the
north–What must these words be? Must they not be, "You have treated Me
so ill that I will never have anything to do with you again! Even
common decency requires that I should put you away from all hope
forever"? No! Listen to these words and be astounded–
12. 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 stay angry forever. Oh, the measureless mercy of these
gracious sentences! Deep and black as the sin is and fearful and
terrible as is the description of it, how bright, how clear is the
immeasurable love which promises to put that sin away and forget and
forgive it once and for all!
13. 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.
Confess that sad fact. Acknowledge that you have thus sinned. Into the
ear of God pour out the full confession of your criminality. He cannot
ask for anything less than this–surely you cannot refuse to do it! If
you have thus treated Him, come and confess it with your head on His
bosom, for He is willing to receive you even if you are the biggest
sinner out of Hell.
14, 15. Turn, O backsliding children, says the LORD; for I am married
unto you: and I will take you, one from a city, and two from a family,
and I will bring you to Zion: and I will give you pastors according to
My heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding. When
God once begins to pardon men, there is no end to it. He goes on to
bless them with all that they need! He makes them to be like the sheep
of His pasture who shall be richly and happily fed.
16. And it shall come to pass, when you are multiplied and increased in
the land, in those days, says the LORD, they shall say no more, The Ark
of the Covenant of the LORD: neither shall it come to mind: neither
shall they remember it; neither shall they visit it; neither shall that
be done any more. You know that they had been accustomed to the old
ceremonial religion which was full of outward rites and forms. God says
that when He brings His erring people back to Himself, they shall have
done with all that mere externalism. They shall come to worship God in
spirit and in truth and to commune with Him without the medium of the
Ark of the Covenant or an earthly priest. They shall walk before Him in
the joy of their spirits–yet these, mark you–are some of the people
who are described in this chapter as having defiled the House of God,
and gone astray from Him to their utter disgrace!
17. At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the LORD; and
all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the LORD, to
Jerusalem. Even to that very city that had become like a harlot and was
full of abominations.
17,18. Neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their
evil heart. In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house
of Israel, There is no more quarrelling when Divine Grace comes in!
Israel and Judah in the old days fought against each other, but when
they, alike, taste of pardoning Grace, they shall love each other.
18-19. And they shall come together out of the land of the north to the
land that I have given for an inheritance unto your fathers. But I
said, how shall I put you among the children–When God had said all
this, He appears to have come to a pause and, even in His own heart the
question seems to arise, How can He deal with these greatly sinful ones
as His children? "I said, How shall I put you among the children"–
19. And give you a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the host of
nations? And I said, You shall call Me, my Father; and shall not turn
away from Me. God knew how to change the character and to change the
heart so that these filthy ones who went farthest astray, should come
back to Him and should become among the most holy, the most loyal, the
most obedient of all His children! Oh, that His Grace might work that
miracle, again, in our midst! Remember what He did for Saul of Tarsus,
that transcendent persecutor, how He made him to be the very bravest of
His Apostles? He can at this moment take those who form the chosen
bodyguard of the devil and so change them that they shall become the
soldiers of the Cross, nearest to Christ, the great Commander! The
Lord, by His servant the Prophet, goes over this sad story again–
20. Surely as a wife treacherously departs from her husband, so have
you dealt treacherously with Me, O house of Israel, says the LORD. But
listen–
21. A voice was heard upon the high places. The places where they had
built the altars to the false gods–"A voice was heard upon the high
places"–
21. Weeping and supplications of the children of Israel: for they have
perverted their way, and they have forgotten the LORD their God. How
pleasant to the ears of God is the weeping of His backsliding people!
The happy God does not wish men to be sorrowful, but He is glad that
they should be sorrowful for sin. Now that they have begun to bemoan
their wanderings and their wickedness, they will come back to their
God, so He says to them–
22, 23. Return, you backsliding children, and I will heal your
backslidings. Behold, we come to You; for You are the LORD our God.
Truly in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills, and from the
multitude of mountains: truly in the LORD our God is the salvation of
Israel. So they come back to Him and find the salvation which they
need.