Mercy’s Master Motive

Delivered on Lord's Day Morning, March 17th, 1872, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

'For my name's sake will I defer mine anger, and for my praise will I
refrain for thee, that I cut thee not off. Behold, I have refined thee,
but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.
For mine own sake, even for mine own sake, will I do it: for how should
my name be polluted? and I will not give my glory unto another.''Isaiah
48:9-11.

THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL in all their generations were full of evil. Those
who came out of Egypt were a rebellious people, and for forty years
multiplied their provocations of the Lord in the wilderness, till at
last they all found a grave in the desert. The generation following
were stiff-necked and rebellious like their fathers, and they
continually went astray after false gods. Though by the good hand of
the Lord they were settled in a goodly land which flowed with milk and
honey, yet they forgot the covenant and sinned grievously. Though they
were smitten and bruised for their idolatries, yet their successors did
the same: whether they were ruled by the high priest, or governed by
the judges, or presided over by a king, it little mattered, they
started aside still, they were never to be depended upon. Idolatry and
rebellion against God were ingrained in their nature; this sin was in
their bone, and it would come out in their flesh. At last the Lord,
whose glory tabernacled in Zion, appeared to grow weary of keeping
house with such ungracious children and unfaithful servants, and he
broke up the house altogether: he gave up his temple to be destroyed,
the whole land to be ravaged, and the inhabitants to be carried away
captive into Babylon. The Lord was wroth with his heritage, and
therefore he gave his holy and beautiful house to the fire, and the
carved work thereof to be broken down with hammers, while the whole
Jewish state was utterly shattered, and of the kingdom not one stone
was left upon another that was not cast down. Yet such is the
immutability of God in his affection, that he had not long sent his
people into captivity before his bowels yearned towards them again. He
cast his eye over to Babylon, and saw his chosen sitting in sadness by
the far-off rivers, hanging their silent harps upon the willows, and
weeping at the remembrance of Zion; and he said unto himself, 'I have
chosen this people of old, and I have loved their fathers, and I have
made them to be people unto me above all the people that are upon the
face of the earth, therefore again I will have mercy upon them.' Then
the Lord looked to find a reason for mercy in their past conduct, but
could see none. He looked at their present character for a plea, and
found none, for even while they were under the rod they exhibited
hardness of heart, so that even the eyes of mercy could see no reason
for favor in them. What should the Lord do? He would not act without a
reason: there must be something to justify his mercy, and show the
wisdom of his way. Since there is none in the offender, where shall
mercy find her plea? Behold the inventiveness of eternal love! The Lord
falls back upon himself; and within himself finds a reason for his
grace. 'For my name's sake will I defer mine anger, and for my praise
will I refrain for thee, that I cut thee not off. For mine own sake,
even for mine own sake, will I do it: for how should my name be
polluted? and I will not give my glory unto another.' Finding a motive
in his own glory which was bound up in the existence of Israel, and
would have been compromised by their destruction, he turned unto them
in love and kindness; Cyrus wrote the decree of emancipation, the
Israelites came back to the land, and once again they sat every man
under his own vine and fig tree, and ate the good of the land. So far
we give the historical meaning of the passage.

We shall now use the text as an illustration of divine love in other
cases, for from one deed of grace we may learn all. As God dealt with
his people Israel after the flesh, in the same manner he dealeth with
his people Israel after the spirit; and his mercies towards his saints
are to be seen as in a mirror in his wondrous lovingkindness towards
the seed of Abraham.

I shall take the text to illustrate'first, the conversion of the
sinner; and secondly, the reclaiming of the backslider; and I pray,
dear friends, most earnestly, that while I speak God may move with his
Spirit upon your hearts, so that many of you may follow me, sincerely
feeling that which I describe. While I am speaking may your souls be
silently saying, 'Yes, we know what that means, we have felt it; we
gladly yield assent thereto, for we know it to be even so.'

I. First, then, in reference to THE CONVERSION OF THE SINNER.

Let us suppose a case. It is God's will to save yonder sinner; he has
ordained him to eternal life, and predestinated him to he conformed to
the image of his dear Son. In due time the Lord begins to deal with the
man in a way of grace, and where does he find him? This shall be our
first point this morning. He finds him so utterly ruined and depraved,
that in him there is no argument for mercy, no plea for grace. I will
suppose that such a soul is here this morning, awakened into a
perception of his true condition, and craving for pardon. Soul, canst
thou upon calm reflection find in thyself some good thing which may be
pleaded in extenuation of guilt, or as a reason for forgiveness? What
has been thy past conduct? Are there redeeming features in it? Alas,
no! You must at once confess that your neck has been an iron sinew and
your brow brass. You have been obstinate in sin; against many warnings,
entreaties, and chastisements, you have persisted in it. Neither law
nor gospel, providence nor conscience, has sufficed to turn you from
your perverse ways. Your neck would not bend before either the terrors
or the mercies of God. You have heard sermons which seemed enough to
melt the heart of a stone, but you have been unmoved. You have seen
others bowing themselves before the Lord Jesus Christ with holy joy,
and yet you have done no such thing, but have been exceeding stout
against the Lord of Hosts. Looking back upon the past also, you have to
confess great impudence in your dealing with God; your brow has been
brass. You have gone direct from his house to sin. He claims but one
day in a week to himself but you have robbed him of that. It may be you
have used his name in common jests, if not worse; you have dared to
employ it profanely; you have scoffed at his people; you have derided
everything that has been good, and in looking back you are obliged to
confess that there are ten thousand reasons why God should not refrain
from his anger, and overwhelming reasons why he should cut you off; but
you cannot find so much as one single argument why he should be pleased
to spare and save you. Every man who is really brought to Christ is
first stripped of all on which he placed reliance as a ground of hope,
and made to see that in himself there is guilt deserving condemnation,
and rebellion demanding, punishment, but there is no quality which can
enlist divine sympathy or secure, by its own excellence, divine regard.
In us, by nature, there are no beauties of character, no charms of
virtue, or loveliness of conduct to win the Almighty heart. We were
called 'transgressors from the womb,' and rightly were we named.

O awakened soul, where art thou this morning? I wish I could speak with
thee face to face, and hear thee say, 'How can I expect divine goodness
to spare such a one as I am, for, in addition to all other sins, I have
behaved very treacherously towards the Lord my God. Not long ago I was
laid upon a sick bed, and then I repented, or thought I did, and I
sought God very vehemently, and I vowed unto the Lord, that if I was
raised up again, I would not rest till I had sought his face. But I
left my couch and my repentance died on my sick bed. No sooner had I
recovered than I returned to my sin, as a dog to his vomit, and as the
sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire. After this, how can I
have the face to go to God again? I lied unto him, I flattered him with
my tongue, and my heart was not sound in his ways. My goodness was gone
as the dew from the grass, or the meteor from the sky.' Yes, poor soul,
this confession is true, and it proves, beyond all question, that no
reason for mercy can be drawn from your past conduct when you have been
under the rod. Why should you be stricken any more? you will revolt
more and more. Chastisement is lost upon you; your nature is hopeless;
do what he may with you, you will not turn unto the Lord.

Ah, and I think I hear you say, 'neither can I promise to God anything
as to the future. I dare not say to him to-day, have mercy upon me, and
then I will be very different from what I have been. No, my heart is
too treacherous for me to trust it. I might sooner promise what the sea
will be to-morrow, than pledge my future character. Changeful as the
winds that blow from every quarter of the sky is my nature a fickle and
false am I. I seem to-day resolved for good, to-morrow I may be
resolved evil, and what I vowed to do most vehemently will never become
fact. I dare not say that in the future I can see any reason why God
should have mercy upon me.' Oh, how glad my heart is when I can meet
with a person who confesses this to be his case. It is a very sad
difficulty to be in, a very painful one, when the soul at last abandons
all arguments, extenuations, and apologies, and says, 'Lord, I am
guilty, I stand at thy judgment-seat and I can say nothing but guilty.
Thou art clear when thou judgest, thou art just when thou condemnest,
and if thou shouldst put on the black cap, and say, 'Prisoner at the
bar, hast thou anything to say why sentence should not be speedily
executed upon thee?' I could not even stammer out an apology, but must
stand speechless before my judge.'

My lips, with shame, my sins confess

Against thy law, against thy grace:

Lord, should thy judgment grow severe,

I am condemn'd, but thou art clear.

Should sudden vengeance seize my breath,

I must pronounce thee just in death;

And, if my soul were sent to hell,

Thy righteous law approves it well.'

In the text I beg you specially to remark our second thought, namely,
that God himself finds the reason for his mercy, and, O ye heavens hear
it, and be astonished O earth, he finds it in himself. 'For my name's
sake will I defer mine anger, and for my praise will I refrain for
thee, that I cut thee not off.' Here is the drift of the thought'the
Lord is a patient God, and determines to make his patience glorious.
When all was darkness the Lord said, 'Let there be light!' and light
was;'thus he glorified his power. When all was chaos Jehovah brought
fair order out of grim confusion, and so glorified his wisdom. So in
the sinner's case the Lord sees a wretch who has provoked him to his
face for thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, perhaps seventy or eighty years,
and as the Lord desires an opportunity to glorify his patience, he
finds it ready to his hand. Having permitted that sinner to live when
he scoffed at the gospel, scorned the atonement, and rejected the
Redeemer, the Lord at length crowns his longsuffering by blotting out
his sins, and forgiving all his misdeeds, whereat all creatures stand
amazed, and men, and angels, and devils in astonishment cry out, 'Who
is a God like unto thee, passing by transgression, iniquity, and sin?'
Who but the God of boundless grace could have borne with such a
provoking sinner, and then after all have taken him into his own bosom
as his child.

God also would illustrate in the salvation of a sinner not only his
patience, but his sovereign and abundant mercy towards sinners. If the
Lord were to select this morning as the object of his grace some soul
possessing merit, if such were the case, if he were to choose some soul
in whom there was a claim for pity (of course I am supposing an
impossibility), then there would be little glory to his grace; but
when, casting his divine eyes of compassion all round this assembly, he
selects a soul that is bad throughout, black without and black within,
a soul that has laid soaking in sin like the wool in the scarlet dye,
till the color is ingrain, then he magnifies the glory of his grace.
When he looks upon a wretch who confesses either by his silence or by
his tearful speech, that he deserves his wrath, and says, 'Thy sins
which are many are all forgiven thee: I have laid them on the Savior's
head, go and sin no more, thy transgressions are blotted out, I have
purchased thee unto myself by the death of my Son,' oh, then, how the
sinner's heart melts with gratitude, love, and wonder in the presence
of such a God. The Lord is loved much in that heart which feels that
much has been forgiven; thus God's glory begins to be known, and soon
it spreads abroad; The neighbors and friends and kinsfolk of the
pardoned penitent say unto one another, 'Was it ever done after this
sort before? Have you ever heard the like of this? Here is this man
saved'this man who lay at hell's dark door, and seemed only fit to be
cast into the pit!' Oh, how the shouts go up to high heaven from the
watchful angels who joy over penitents, 'Glory be unto almighty grace.'

Now, look thee, man, once more, God can, by saving such a one as thou
art, not only glorify his patience and grace but display his power. It
is evident that it is not an easy task to conquer thee. Thou hast been
like Leviathan whose heart is hard as a stone; yea, as hard as a piece
of the nether millstone. 'The sword of him that layeth at him cannot
hold: the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon; the arrow cannot make him
see; he laugheth at the shaking of a spear.' Thou hast laughed at all
men who would convince thee, and even the thunders of God's providence
have not solaced to alarm thee; yet now the Lord intends to show what
his Almighty grace can do. Now will he by a miracle of gracious power
turn the lion to a lamb, the raven to a dove. The conversion of little
sinners, if such there be, would but little honor him; but if they be
desperately set on mischief there is room for the eternal and ever
blessed God to display the glory of his name. For his name's sake will
he do it; even for his own sake will he do it, that men may see what
his patience, grace, and power can accomplish. Truly the Lord's love
does accomplish great moral wonders. Forgiveness even among men is
often more potent than punishment. I have heard it related of a soldier
at Woolwich, that he had frequently been drunk and disorderly; and,
though he had been very frequently imprisoned, and otherwise punished
for his offenses, he was incorrigible. On one occasion he had incurred
the severe penalty of the lash, and expected to receive it. He had no
excuse to offer, and did not pretend to make any. He was sullen and
obdurate. At last the commanding officer said to him, 'We cannot do
anything with you; we have imprisoned you; we have dogged you; yet we
cannot improve you. There is only one thing we have never done with
you, and that we are going to try; we forgive you.' The culprit broke
down at once. Hard as he was, this new treatment overcame him. That
word, 'You are fully forgiven,' broke him down far more than the
nine-thonged cat; he was never an offender again. Many a soul that has
been very obstinate against God, even to persecuting the followers of
the Lord Jesus, when the Lord has by the Holy Spirit said in his heart,
'I have loved thee with an everlasting love, I gave my Son to die for
thee; I laid thy sins on him, and now I freely forgive thee, and take
thee to be my child, my well-beloved.' Oh, the heart dissolves and the
rebellious will surrenders.

'I yield'by mighty love subdued,

Who can resist its charms?

And throw myself, by wrath pursued,

Into my Savior's arises.'

God grant that in many and many a case this may be true at this moment.

But, now, it may be that a soul here present is saying, 'Well, I can
see that God can thus find a motive for mercy in himself, when there is
none in the sinner, but why is it that the Lord is chastening me as he
is?' Possibly you are sickly in body, have been brought low in estate,
and are grievously depressed in mind. God now, in our text, goes on to
explain his dealings with you, that you may not have one hard thought
of him. It is true he has been smiting you, but it has been with a
purpose and in measure. 'I have refined thee, but not with silver.' You
have been put into the furnace of affliction, but not,'note the
'but,'''but not with silver.' Now, when silver is refined it requires
the most vehement heat of all metals. God has not brought upon you the
severest troubles. You have been chastised, but not as you might have
been, nor as you deserved to have been. You have been made to suffer,
but his strokes have been fewer than your crimes and lighter than your
guilt. You are now bowed down and depressed, but you are not quite
without some rays of hope, especially now that you have heard the glad
sound of a free-grace gospel. You have been 'refined,' that was God's
object, but the process has been slight, it is 'not with silver.' The
Lord has not dealt with you as men do with silver. What do they do with
it? They put it into a fire that the dross may be consumed, and the
silver may be made pure. Now, if you, poor sinner, had been put into
such a fire as that, you would have been utterly destroyed, for in you
there was no silver at all. As you are by nature you are not at all
like silver, and the heat of a silver furnace would quite consume you.
True it is that now his grace has created a vein of silver in your
heart, but he does not yet intend to put you to extreme tests, for your
weak graces would fail in the process. What he has sent to you has been
with a view to awaken and to quicken, to take away your self-confidence
and false peace, and so in a measure to refine you; but he does not
depend for the refinement of either you or his people upon the furnace
of affliction, he has other and more effectual modes of purification.
The furnace of trouble is often used as a mode of refining, but after
all it is only a means; the real refining fire is the Holy Ghost, the
true purification lies in the blood of him who sits as a refiner.
Remember it is not said that trouble will purify the sons of Levi; but
'HE is like a refiner's fire and like fuller's sope,' and 'he,' not
with trouble but by himself, 'shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge
them as gold and silver.' Here suffering would only make a man more
drossy; apart from divine grace affliction has no good effect. If we
are not sanctified by the Eternal Spirit when in the furnace of
affliction, and if the precious blood of Jesus be not applied to our
soul, all the distress and grief in the world will not purify us. And
so, poor soul, God has wrought in your trouble, but he does not mean to
continue to vex you until your soul is perfectly refined, for that
would be more than you could bear, even could it be possible. No, no,
he will put away your sin by better means. Behold the precious blood!
You have not to suffer for your sins, for Christ has suffered for them
in thy stead. You are to be refined, but not by processes of a fiery
character. Behold the sacred water from the river side of your
Redeemer, for that will take your filthiness away. Behold the Eternal
Spirit waiting to renew your soul'that will effectually remove your
dross. The Spirit has refined you, in a measure, by what you have
suffered, by awakening and convincing you; but the true refining shall
come to you in another way, therefore be of good courage, thank God for
what you have felt, but be not bowed down with abject terror as though
your trials would quite consume you. They shall be both mitigated in
degree, and useful in result.

And now, notice the next thing: the Lord declares that the time of
trial is the chosen season for revealing his love to you: 'I have
chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.' This verse does not teach
that God's choice of any man begins in time, or begins when he is under
affliction. Oh, no, the choice of God is without beginning, it is
eternal. God seeth the things that shall be as though they were;
everything is now with him. But it often happens that the time in which
God reveals his choice and manifests his electing love to a soul is
when that soul is almost consumed with trouble. And now, dear hearer, I
must again picture thee, for my object is not to preach to the winds,
but to preach right into thy soul; thou hast been brought very low of
late, thou hast been like a field ploughed, harrowed, cross-ploughed,
scarified; there is no rest to thee; and thou canst plead no reason why
God should give thee rest. Thou art brought into abject distress of
spirit. Now is the time when the Lord reveals his love to such as thou
art. I never knew his love when I strutted abroad in the bravery of my
selfrighteousness, and I never should have known it. I never heard him
say 'I have chosen thee,' when I fared sumptuously every day at the
table of my own self-sufficiency. I never heard him say, 'My son that
was dead is alive again, he that was lost is found,' when I had still
the gold in my purse and was spending my living riotously. But, I will
tell you when I heard him say, 'I have chosen thee': it was when I came
fresh from the swine-trough with my belly aching because I could not
fill it with husks, with my filthy rags about me, and my soul all
sinking in despair; with no argument upon my lip except this: 'Father,
I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to
be called thy son.' Then for the first time I heard him say, 'I have
chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.' It is when we are down to
the very lowest, when we are brought to bankruptcy and beggary
spiritually, when we lie at Christ's feet as though we were dead, it is
then he puts his hand upon us, and says, 'Fear not, I am the first and
the last': it is then he anoints us with the oil of joy, it is then he
clothes us with the garments of salvation, it is then we hear the voice
of eternal love, saying, 'I have loved thee with an everlasting love,
therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.'

But note, once more, before I leave the sinner's case, that lest the
soul should forget it, the Lord repeats again the point he began with,
and unveils the motives of his grace once more. What is the eleventh
verse but the echo of the ninth: 'For mine own sake, even for mine own
sake, will I do it; for how should my name be polluted? and I will not
give my glory unto another.' God cannot save you, sinner, for your own
sake, you are not worth the saving. If you are cast away upon the
dunghill of oblivion for ever, it is as much as you deserve; you are
not worthy of God's notice, you are a mere speck in his great universe,
and having dared to sin against him, it is as fit that he should
destroy you, as it is fit that a venomous reptile should be crushed
beneath your foot. Yet the Lord declares that he will refrain from
wrath. He will have mercy upon you, oh, broken heart, for his own sake;
do you observe why it is 'for his own sake,' namely, that his name 'may
not be polluted.' Now, suppose a sinner shall come to him and cry,
'Lord, I am a guilty soul, I have no merit to plead, but I appeal to
thy mercy, I trust in thy love. Thou hast said that through Christ
Jesus, thou wilt forgive sinners. Lord, I trust in thy dear Son. Save
me for his sake. Now if he does not save you, we speak with reverence
and bated breath, but we use his own words, his name will be
'polluted,' because then it will be said, 'Here is a soul that came to
the Lord, and he cast it out, and yet he said, 'him that cometh unto me
I will in no wise cast out.' Here is a poor sinner that rested on the
love and mercy of God in Christ Jesus and yet was confounded, whereas,
he promised that they that trust in the Lord should never be
confounded, nor ashamed, world without end.' I know this morning that
my hope is fixed on Christ Jesus alone. If I am ever lost I shall be a
soul in hell resting upon Christ, and do you think that can ever be?
Will they not publish it in the streets of Tophet; here is a soul that
dared believe in Jesus, but Jesus repelled him as presumptuous. Here is
a poor soul who cried

'If I perish, I will pray,

And perish only there;'

and yet this soul is damned.' Why, surely such an one would be carried
in triumph through the blazing streets of hell, and held up as an
insult to the God of mercy, as a proof that he had not kept his word. O
soul, he will save you, for his own sake, lest his name should be
'polluted,' for he is jealous of his name. He will never permit it to
be truthfully said, even by a devil, that he ever broke a promise, even
to a devil. If you will go to him in Christ Jesus, though you be all
but damned already, and feel that your death warrant is signed; he will
not, he cannot, reject you. Throw yourself at the cross-foot, and say,
'Lord I believe, help thou mine unbelief;' and God will never tarnish
his name by thy destruction.

And then, he adds, 'And I will not give my glory unto another.' But if
a soul should perish while trusting in the blood of Christ, the glory
of God would go over to Satan. It would be proved that Satan had
overcome the truthfulness of God, or the power of God, or the mercy of
God; that at last evil had proved more mighty than good, and sin had
abounded over grace. Can it ever be that goodness shall find a
difficulty which it cannot overcome, a Red Sea it cannot divide, or a
Lebanon which it cannot climb? No, never, while God is God. Oh, that I
had before me the biggest sinner that ever lived! I would like to look
this morning into the face of a criminal who has piled up mountains on
mountains of sins, defied his God, and derided the laws of his country;
a ruffian red-handed with murder, and dripping with lust; for I would
glory in saying to him, 'All manner of sin and of blasphemy shall be
forgiven unto men. Come but to God's arms through Jesus Christ his Son,
and you shall find him a God ready to forgive, and abounding in
lovingkindness. He retaineth not his anger for ever, because he
delighteth in mercy.'

I do not know how to preach the gospel more fully than I am now doing.
I am laboring to set before downcast sinners an open door, and to show
them how effectually grace has removed every hinderance out of the way,
by basing its arguments of love upon the name of God, and not upon the
merit of the creature.

II. Thus much to the sinner; we shall now speak OF THE RECLAIMING OF
THE BACKSLIDER.

Backsliding professor, your case is more evidently meant in the text
even than that of the sinner, for God was speaking to his own people
Israel in these remarkable words. Now your crime, if any thing, is a
more censurable one than that of the sinner. I can see no more reason
why God should have mercy upon you than upon the ungodly, indeed, I see
more reason for punishing you, for you have made a profession and
belied it. 'Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the
name of Israel, which swear by the name of Jehovah, and make mention of
the God of Israel, but not in truth or in righteousness.' That is your
character, you have taken Christ's name upon you, I cannot say
altogether that you have been deceived and a deceiver, but your actions
look as if you have been, for you have gone aside from the faith, and
turned aside from your Lord. You did know something of his love; and,
unless awfully deceived, you once rested on the Lord Jesus. Shall I
publish abroad your guilt? How hath the much fine gold become dim! How
hath the blazing sun of your profession been altogether eclipsed? You
have transgressed in opposition to light and knowledge; you knew more
than the sinner, and yet you have sinned as he did; you knew something
of the sweets of Christ's table, but you have joined yourself to the
table of devils. And you have been very perverse about it too, for
providence has dealt sharply with you, but you would not come back to
your God. Your neck has been an iron sinew, and your brow has been
brass! Alas, how treacherously have you dealt with the Lord your God!
No sin is so destructive to married love as that of adultery, yet the
Lord puts the backslider's case on the same footing, in the third
chapter of the book of Jeremiah. 'They say, if a man put away his wife,
and she go from him, and become another man's, shall he return unto her
again? Shall not that land be greatly polluted? But thou hast played
the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, saith the Lord.'
Cavil not at the imagery for its coarseness, but rejoice in its
matchless grace. Read on in that same chapter, from the twelfth verse
to the end, and note the verse, 'Turn unto me, O backsliding children;
for I am married unto you, saith the Lord.' But why should the Lord bid
his chosen nation come back? Not because she deserved to be received
again, not because in heaven, or earth, or hell, there could be found
any reason why she should for her own sake be restored. Her sins said,
'Put her away, put her away; shall the holy God have anything to do
with such an one as this?' Justice said, 'Put her away, the law demands
it.' Holiness said, 'Put her away, how shall she come into God's
house?' But, his infinite love replied, 'The Lord, the God of Israel,
saith that he hateth putting away.' He will not hear of a divorce; and
again he cries, 'Return, ye backsliding children, I am married unto
you, saith the Lord.' Backslider, you see there is no reason for God's
grace that can be found in your person or in your character, but it is
found in the divine heart. I must go over the same ground again. 'For
my name's sake will I defer mine anger, and for my praise will I
refrain for thee, that I cut thee not off.'

The Lord has a reason for not cutting off backsliders, and it is
this'first, his many promises must be kept in which he has declared
that his chosen shall not perish, neither shall they utterly depart
from him. Is not this the very tenor of the covenant? 'If his children
forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; If they break my
statutes, and keep not my commandments; Then will I visit their
transgressions with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes.
Nevertheless my lovingkindness will I not utterly take from him, nor
suffer my faithfulness to fail.' His gifts and calling are without
repentance, irrevocable. It shall not be said that his promise was ever
revoked or broken; he has made a covenant with our Lord Jesus, and that
covenant is sealed with blood; know ye not the sum and substance of it?
'I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn
away from then, to do them good; but I will put my fear in their
hearts, that they shall not depart from me.' Thus the faithfulness of
God to his promises would be questioned if any of his people finally
apostatised.

God's grace is also interested in it; for if after all your
provocations God were to say, 'I have given thee up, I will never deal
with thee in grace again,' then it would be said that God's grace had a
limit, that it could not abound over sin, and after all was a mutable
thing. Can it be that forgiving grace should punish the forgiven? That
adopting grace could unchild the child? That wrath should dismember the
body of Christ, and mangle the Redeemer, to be avenged upon the
backslider? Oh, no, such is Jehovah's truth, that he will keep every
promise to the letter; such is his grace, that his people shall never
sin to such an extent but what his grace will overtop it all; and such
is his immutability, that though we believe not, yet he abideth
faithful, he cannot deny himself. Hath he said, and will he not do it;
hath he commanded, and shall it not come to pass? Come back,
backslider, God has not changed towards you; return at once to him. His
heart is still full of love to you. Return unto him, for still doth he
say, 'How can I set thee as Admah, how can I make thee as Zeboim? My
repentings are kindled; I will not destroy him, for I am God and not
man.' There is a free course for mercy to those who have wandered
furthest, when God finds a motive for grace in his own name and in his
own praise. Why, do you not see, poor trembling backslider, that if God
forgives you, and you once get to heaven, you will be among the
heartiest of heaven's choristers? I mean to sing the loudest of any if
I ever enter the celestial seats, for I shall owe so much to the sweet
love and grace of God; but David and other great backsliders will also
love most intensely. It is amazing grace which not only saves at first,
bet restores the wandering sheep after it has gone astray. Oh, you
Christians who are kept by divine grace walking with God, you have much
to praise him for, you ought to bless him every day you live; but you
who have fallen and gone aside, if the Lord brings you back you must
henceforth render double diligence and sevenfold love. Henceforth you
must be like the woman who broke the alabaster box over Christ's head,
you must feel that you cannot do enough for that dear Lord and Savior
who saw you in all your rebellions, and yet loved you. Loving you
because he would love you; not because you were lovely, but because he
would love you; not because you were deserving, but because he would
love you. This ought to make you the very choicest of Christians, this
should place you in the front of the champions of the Lord in the day
of battle.

Please to observe, that God having thus declared the reason of his love
to the backslider goes on to tell him, that the present sufferings
which he is now enduring as the result of his backslidings should be
mitigated. 'I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have put thee
into the fire, but I have not blown the heat to such an extreme degree
that thy sin should be melted from thee: that would be a greater heat
than any soul could bear. I have refined thee, that was needful, but
not as silver; that would have been destructive to thee.' Thou sayest,
'All that waves and billows have gone over me.' Not so; you know not
what all God's waves and billows might be, for there is a depth
infinitely lower than any you have ever seen. The deeps of hell are far
more horrible than anything you can imagine. If you are in the furnace
to-day do not repine, do not say like Cain, 'My punishment is greater
than I can bear,' but rather say, 'I will kiss the rod, and bless my
Father's name that he allows me to live at all, and now bids me to
return to him. I will thank him for the rod; it is the token of the
Father's love to his child.'

Then comes his next word: 'I have chosen thee in the furnace of
affliction;' that is, as if he said, 'I will renew my election of you.'
It was never revoked, but now it shall be more manifestly declared. God
has looked at you in prosperity and he has seen you treacherously
forgetting him. You prospered in business and you grew very worldly,
God could see no beauty in your face. You had your children about you,
and your wife made you glad, and you lived almost without prayer,
without reading the scriptures; God therefore hid his face from you.
Now, however, your affairs are at a low ebb and you begin again to
pray; the neglected Bible is brought down again; now the seat that
could be left unoccupied half the Sabbath-day is always filled by you;
now you begin saying, 'My God, my God, have mercy on me.' Hear this for
your comfort,'the Lord never thinks his children's faces more lovely
than when they are slobbered with tears; when repentance defiles the
face before men it beautifies it before God; when the eyes grow red
with sorrow they are lovely unto the Lord. Do you beat upon your
breast, and say, 'God be merciful to me a sinner,' then know, that no
sound of tabor is so sweet to God as the sound of beaten breasts, no
music hath more melody in it than the sigh of a broken heart.

Brethren, all of you, though you are not open backsliders, perhaps you
may be worse than those who are. I know in my own soul, I never feel
safe except when I stand as a sinner at the cross foot; and though I
desire to grow in grace, and to be a saint, and would use language
suitable to a child of God, and would not keep my hands off a single
covenant privilege that belongs to me as one with Christ; yet, for all
that, while I am in this flesh, I feel my happiest moments are those
lowly times when I feel that I am nothing, and that Jesus is my all in
all. God chooses his people over again when he sees them contrite in
the furnace of soul affliction. When he sees them how he loves them;
when he sees them down he lifts them up; when he sees them withered in
themselves then he makes them flourish; when they are nothing his love
is everything. When they are swollen with pride and self-reliant, he
turns his face away from them; but to his dear brokenhearted children,
he is all kindness; and this is his reason, 'How shall my name be
polluted? and I will not give my glory unto another.' If one poor
believer who is pining after Jesus' face were forgotten by him, his
name would be polluted'where would be his immutability? And then again,
Satan would glory over that child of God and say, 'I have dragged a
child of God down to hell!' Christ's blood would suffer dishonor, for
it would be said that a soul was punished though Christ was punished in
its stead, and that were to obliterate the atonement, and to make the
substitution of Christ to be of none effect. If it could once be said,
'Here is a spirit that God justified, and yet condemned it,' where were
God's immutability? There were no God at all. He were a changeable
being, and not Jehovah. If it could be said, 'Here is one that was
espoused unto Christ in righteousness, a soul that was one with Jesus
in vital union, yet he suffered this sheep of his flock to perish, this
jewel of his crown to be cast away, this member of his body to rot into
corruption, God's glory could be given to another, and he would not be
what he now is. Oh, beloved, let us to one and all, whether we be
unsaved sinners or backsliders, or may suspect ourselves to be either
the one or the other, let us go to the dear fountain of his blood,
whose open veins are the gates of healing to us; let us go again and
touch the hem of his garment and be made whole, and together let us
rejoice that he for his mercy's sake can save us, and magnify himself
by the deed of mercy.

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON'Isaiah 48 and 49:1-12.
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A Persuasive to Steadfastness

A Sermon