Praying and Pleading

DELIVERED BY

C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"O Lord, though our iniquities testify against us, do it for Your
name's sake; for our backslidings are many. We have sinned against You.
O the Hope of Israel, his Savior in time of trouble, why should You be
as a stranger in the land, and as a wayfaring man that turns aside to
tarry for a night? Why should You be as a man astonished, as a mighty
man that cannot save? Yet You, O Lord, are in the midst of us, and we
are called by Your name. Do not leave us!" Jeremiah 14:7,8,9.

THIS passionate appeal for mercy was forced from the people by extreme
misery. There was a famine in the land until men fell in the streets of
the city exhausted with hunger. Drought had long prevailed and lack of
water was terribly felt. Meanwhile, invasion kept them in perpetual
fear, so that the Prophet lamented, "If I go forth into the field,
then, behold, the slain with the sword! And if I enter into the city,
then, behold, them that are sick with famine!" Such judgment had God
inflicted on a guilty nation for her sin. No springs were bubbling up
from the earth and no rain dropped down from Heaven. This dire
privation had produced universal distress. "Judah mourns, and the gates
thereof languish; they are black unto the ground; and the cry of
Jerusalem is gone up."

As the calamity, like a river of lava, burned its dreadful way, an
eyewitness, in his heart's anguish, describes a few common scenes which
forcefully tell the tale of utter desolation. Princes and peasants are
seized with the same consternation–the Prophet paints them both with
their heads covered in token of a common grief. Here in the city the
children are coming back from the place of pools and fountains with
empty pitchers, for they find not a drop of water in the pits. Out
yonder in the fields the ground is chapped and cleft by the scorching
sun in the absence of dew or rain. The plow is of no use in that
parched soil! Farmers are sitting down ashamed, confounded, utterly
dejected–it is vain for them to lift the hand of labor.

Down in the valleys the dumb cattle express their feeling with throes
of anguish–the hind calves and forsakes her young. And up on the
mountain heights the wild asses prove their share in the universal
distress. Those creatures which are most apt to scent water from afar
and to hasten to it to drink, are unable to discover a cooling brook,
though they snuff up the wind like dragons. What a dreadful thing for a
country to be placed, as it were, at the oven's mouth and to become so
completely burned up that even the wild beasts can discover no pasture
and their eyes fail because there is no grass! Nothing could help the
people. Grim death stared them in the face. None of their idol gods
could cause rain and, without it, they must all perish.

Under such circumstances prayer to God was the last and only resource.
Driven to their wits' end, they now began to be wise. The Prophet has
expressed in admirable words the penitent confessions and the earnest
supplications of those who were ready to perish. Our text is a most
appropriate model of humble petitioning. I can easily imagine that all
the Jews of the land were willing enough to adopt this form of prayer
at such an extremity and to follow it with a fervent, "Amen." But, alas
for them, the feet which had loved to wander were not willing to
return! And the hearts which had cast off their allegiance to the Lord
were not reconciled to His Law of righteousness. The Lord felt
compelled to say of them, "I will destroy My people, since they return
not from their ways."

Theirs was prayer in terror, not prayer in penitence! How many there
are who pray, similar to this, in times of dire distress! When the
plague was raging, the cross was marked on many a door which otherwise
had never known that token! When the cholera rages they go to Church.
When poverty invades their homes and they are sorely pinched, they cry,
"Lord, have mercy upon us." When they are brought to death's door, they
entreat, "Send for some minister to come and pray at our side." What a
wretched business is this, that we should only be disposed to think of
God when we are in our

utmost need! Dare we treat the Lord as if He were only to be called
upon in our emergencies? How can we expect that God will accept prayers
that are only forced out of us by selfish fears?

It is not uncharitable to suspect that too often such prayers are
either hypocritical or superstitious–and far different from the
contrite cries which are music in the ears of the Most High. What a
mercy it is that God hears real prayer, even if it is presented to Him
only because we are in distress! "Call upon Me," says the Lord, "in the
day of trouble. I will deliver you and you shall glorify Me." When the
prodigal went home to his father, his father did not say, "You have
only come home because you have a hungry belly. You seek a meal among
my hired servants because you could not fill yourself with the husks
with which the swine are fed." No, not so. Every word was welcome,
every look was love.

He "gives liberally, and upbraids not." He does not fling into the
teeth of a sincere penitent any reproach concerning the past. There is
no scowl on the heavenly Father's face; no scolding words are uttered
by His lips. No, but He opens wide His arms of love and clasps His lost
one to His heart! The Lord of Mercy bids the poor and needy come to Him
and welcome, though he may have been a rake and a profligate. What a
dreadful state, then, must those men be in to whose prayers the God of
all Grace has resolved to shut His ears! Thank God, my dear Hearers,
that you are still on praying ground and pleading terms with Him. How
terrible is the case of any who have passed the frontier of hope!

The case described in this chapter did not admit of pity or pardon. No
chastisement could condone crimes which had been so repeated and
gloried in. The Lord Himself bade Jeremiah not to pray for these
people! If you read the sequel, you will find that God declared that
though Moses and Samuel stood before Him–though the mightiest of
intercessors and the best and most honored of saints were to join in
supplication–yet He would not hear them, for His mind was made up to
ease Him of His adversaries! Their hour of doom was come! The scaffold
was ready; the executioner was at hand. Take heed, you that trifle with
mercy, lest God should put away the silver scepter and draw the sword
out of its sheath!

Take heed, you that scorn the Mercy Seat, lest it turn into a burning
throne of wrath and you "perish from the way while His wrath is kindled
but a little." That is not the condition of things with us at this
time, blessed be His name, and so I may invite you to notice the text
as a model prayer–an excellent example to God's own people who are in
a wandering state. And afterwards I shall use it as an instructive
example for sinners, conscious of their sin, who would gladly come to
God and find mercy.

I. First, then, I speak to the Church of God at large, wherever it has
backslidden, and to each Believer in particular WHO MAY HAVE DEPARTED
FROM THE LIVING GOD IN ANY MEASURE OR DEGREE. Would you take with you
words and turn unto the Lord? You cannot have better words than those
now before you! I will read them again. "O Lord, though our iniquities
testify against us, do it for Your name's sake; for our backslidings
are many. We have sinned against You. O the Hope of Israel, his Savior
in time of trouble, why should You be as a stranger in the land, and as
a wayfaring man that turns aside to tarry for a night? Why should You
be as a man astonished, as a mighty man that cannot save? Yet You, O
Lord, are in the midst of us, and we are called by Your name. Do not
leave us!"

Begin by pleading guilty! It is hard to bring men to this, yet there is
no forgiveness apart from it. "O Lord, though our iniquities testify
against us, do it for Your name's sake; for our backslidings are many.
We have sinned against You." The sin-stricken soul has no defense, nor
even an excuse, to offer on its own behalf. The penitent cries–Guilty!
Yes, guilty, for there is no denying it. Our iniquities testify against
us. If there were no witnesses of our sin, our sins, themselves, bear
witness against us! Oh that every child of God felt this if he has in
the least gone aside from the paths of holiness!

It is not only that you see us, O our God, or that our brother
Christians may have seen our faults, or even that some scoffers in the
world have spied them out and may be all too ready to bear witness
against us–but our sins, themselves, have gone before us to the
Judgment Seat and testify against us! When the facts are in clear
evidence, what plea can we plead? No witnesses can more effectually
secure condemnation! Look at the lives of many professors. Yes, let us
look at our own lives. Is there not enough of fault, enough of folly,
enough of failure for our own lives, themselves, without any accusation
from others to witness against us? If I had to stand before God tonight
to plead upon the matter of my own righteousness, I could do nothing
but lie in the dust and hide my face for very shame! And it must be,
more or less, the same with every Believer who knows his own heart and
life–and sees it in the light of God's Countenance.

There is no denying the charge–we are prone to wander! Therefore, O my
Brothers and Sisters, come with me– take the sinner's place! Be
abashed as an erring child and come before the great Father and say,
"Our iniquities testify

against us." While there is no denying it, let us admit that there is
no excusing it, "for our backslidings are many." If we could have
excused ourselves for our first faults by offering a degree of
extenuation for the fickleness of our youth, yet what are we to say of
the transgressions of our riper years? If you, my Brethren, could say,
"Lord, when we began to be Believers we were ignorant and feeble and
were readily carried away by temptation," you cannot make that apology
now, when years have given you stability; experience has brought you
knowledge and the favor and protection of God have ripened your
character, or should have done so. "Our backslidings are many."

I feel as if I could not preach about this, for it touches my heart and
makes me feel ready to weep! Much rather would I like everyone to say
to himself, "What have I done? What have I left undone? How far have I
declined from the ways of the Lord?" Turn over the records of your
life, Brother and Sister Christian! What have you done for Christ? What
have you done for the Truth of God, for the souls of men, for the
spread of your Redeemer's Kingdom? Alas, may you not have lived as even
to have disparaged the Truth and done injury to the cause which is so
dear to you? "Our backslidings are many." We cannot count them! Their
number is as great as their guilt!

It is well for us to feel that extenuation and apology and excuse are
out of the question. There is no use in our making any pretense to
self-justification. We are compelled to plead GUILTY! Guilty with gross
aggravations! Guilty again and again "Our backslidings are many."
Guilty, though we were under bonds to have lived in a very different
fashion. Yes, and not only is it past denying and past excusing, but
also it is past computing! We cannot measure how great have been our
transgressions, as that next sentence may well imply–"We have sinned
against You." It looks, at first sight, as if that were the smaller
sentence of the three. But let me read it again and throw the emphasis
where it ought to be–and then you will see that it is the heaviest
clause in the indictment.

"We have sinned against You." That is where David always lays the
emphasis upon when he makes his confession– "Against You, You only,
have I sinned and done this evil in Your sight." This is the prodigal's
confession–"Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before You." Oh,
Brothers and Sisters, to have sinned against our Father and His
infinite love; against our Savior and His precious blood; against the
Holy Spirit and all His gentle striving and His sweet comforting and
blessed teachings–this is to have sinned with a vengeance! What shall
we say of ourselves? Do not such sins strike us dumb? Sins against the
Law and against the Gospel! Sins against the Light of God and sins
against knowledge! Sins in our holy things; sins on our knees; sins in
our hearts–sins–where are they not? Sins as high as the clouds, broad
as the earth, immense as the sea! Who shall fathom the great ocean of
our iniquity? It is wise for us, therefore, to stand at the bar of God
and humbly confess that, "Our iniquities testify against us. Our
backslidings are many, for we have sinned against You."

Next to this plea of guilty, we find that the culprits do most
vehemently appeal to God for mercy. Please observe carefully how they
order their cause before Him and with what arguments, as Job has it,
they fill their mouths. No reasons whatever could they fetch from
themselves. They dare not plead before God that if He will have mercy
upon them they will do better, for their many backslidings render such
a promise hopeless. Brothers and Sisters, are you not sick of promising
that you will, from this time forward, amend your lives? I hardly think
that we are convinced of our sinfulness if we flatter ourselves that we
shall do better in the future! Can you again trust that broken bone
which has let you fall so many times? Can you again trust that tongue
of yours when already you have been unable to rule it? Can you trust
that flaming member which has been ready to set on fire the course of
nature? What? Trust your heart again? Go, confide in the wind or the
treacherous sea, but trust not your treacherous resolutions!

"If I could only have my life over again," says one, "I should do
better." My Brother, I should not like to have my life over again for
fear I should do worse! And worse I would do unless I had more Grace.
Ah, Brothers and Sisters, it never does to say to God, "Lord, forgive
the backslidings of the past, for I shall do better, by-and-by."
Suppose you do? There is no merit in that! But it is a wild
supposition, for you will do nothing of the kind. "Yes, but," you say,
"I am now more resolved than I was. I am older and wiser, now, and I
feel quite safe because may resolution is so strong." This is fine talk
for one who is no better than a reed shaken by the wind! How
preposterous is such boasting! Your strong resolution? How strong is
the wax before the fire? How strong is the twig in the midst of the
flame?

Your resolution, however, seems to yourself to be firm as adamant!
Alas, it is only seeming! Peter's resolution was strong when he said,
"Though I should die with You, yet will I not deny You." Yet the look
and laugh of a silly maid at the palace door opened his mouth with
floods of blasphemy–that mouth which Peter thought would overflow with

brave confessions of his Master! We know not what spirit we are of. We
are worse than we think we are. When young folks tell me how terribly
wicked they are and, therefore, they are afraid that they cannot be
saved, I sometimes reply, "Yes, but you are much worse than you think
you are." They look so astonished, for they hoped to be comforted, and
ho, they are plunged into a deeper ditch!

Probably they cry out that they feel themselves to be more weak and
foolish than any other people alive. I tell them that most likely they
are near the truth, but that they are much worse than they fancy they
are, for, in fact, they are utterly undone and there is no good thing
in them! They look bewildered and then I tell them that the Lord Jesus
came to save the weak and worthless–and that He looks after the lost
and ruined ones. We lay the axe to the tree of self that men may fly to
the Tree of Life! There must be no reliance upon arguments based upon
our own excellence–we must beg for Grace and plead for mercy–for upon
no other terms but those of Grace can the Lord meet with us! Child of
God, it is well for you, in prayer before the Lord, to get rid of every
sort of excuse, apology, or palliation. Let your self-impeachment stand
in the forefront of your petition–"O Lord, though our iniquities
testify against us, do it for Your name's sake; for our backslidings
are many. We have sinned against You."

But still there is a plea, for they make a plea out of God's name. From
the badness of the rebellious subjects to the goodness of the righteous
Sovereign is a rapid but reasonable transition. A weighty motive is
suggested that may dispose God to be merciful–and that motive is drawn
exclusively from Himself–"Though our iniquities testify against us, do
it for Your name's sake." Oh the majesty of the name of the Lord! The
fame thereof is wonderful throughout all generations. You have a name,
O God, for pardoning iniquity. So David said, "For Your name's sake, O
Lord, pardon my iniquity, for it is great." Come, then, desponding
Brothers and Sisters! Here is a prayer which will avail for us when the
night is darkest and not a star is to be seen–"Do it for Your name's
sake"–because it will glorify Your name to save us! Because there is
something about Your name which encourages our soul to hope. "Do it for
Your name's sake."

The distracted nation is drawn into closer fellowship as the story of
the past suggests a plea for her present distress. Nor is this all–the
Covenant of Grace promises a glorious future and this promise is
pleaded as the Lord is called, "the Hope of Israel." It is well to draw
upon the bank of hope as well as upon the bank of experience. When your
cup is full of sorrow and your face is covered with shame–and not a
ray of light falls on your dreary path–remember that there is a
history full of Grace behind us and a prophecy full of Glory before us!
And it is all wrapped up in the name of Him who is the Hope of every
contrite heart. But take good heed that your hope is not a vague hope.
See to it that you believe firmly in God and that you lay hold upon an
actual promise of His Word or some statute of His Kingdom–for then you
may hope to your heart's content! Though you cannot see the way of
deliverance, you can feel that the Lord holds you by the hand.

Now plead with Him, "Lord, You are my only hope. You know that I have
no hope anywhere else. I am clean driven to despair except You look
upon me in Your Grace." This is good pleading. Everyone has a hope
somewhere. To the miserable there remains no other medicine. Deprived
of this, the sufferer would grow desperate and his melancholy would
drive him to the verge of madness! But there is a hope of some kind in
every man's bosom. Now, if you can truly say, "One thing I know, my
hope is alone in You, my God," you may plead that. You may argue thus–
"Lord, save me for Your name's sake, that I may never be ashamed of my
hope. You have never left a poor soul to use You as its anchor and then
to find that anchor drag and leave the vessel to drift upon a
lee-shore. Be true, then, to this, Your name, and rescue me and blot
out my transgressions, seeing I put my trust in You." Beloved, a hope
so grounded shall never fail you!

The Church of God pleads the name of God under another title, "The
Savior in time of trouble." God has saved His people. In the roll of
fame His name is written as a great Deliverer. The annals of Israel
were full of anniversaries. By feasts and fasts they were taught to
remember dire emergencies and delightful escapes. The mighty deeds of
the Lord of which their fathers had told them are celebrated in Psalms
and songs–and their charm is this–His mercy endures forever! Here,
again, is a lesson in the art of prayer. He has been a Savior,
therefore plead with Him, "Lord, I have no right to salvation, but,
still, You are a Savior. You have been accustomed to save Your people
in time of trouble–save me! Fulfill Your gracious office. Lord, save,
or I perish! It will glorify You to save me. Why is Your name thus
revealed but to guarantee the Grace that is wrapped up in it? Savior is
an empty name if You do not save." Is not this fine pleading? O
Laodicea, you that are neither cold nor hot, do you mourn your
lukewarmness? Then awake to some such a plea as this–"O Hope of
Israel, O Savior in time of trouble, for Your name's sake deal
graciously with me."

Then, next, she does not mention the name, but it is implied in the
words. She says, "Why should You be as a stranger in the land?"–one
who is merely traveling through the country and takes little interest
in its trouble because he is not a citizen–one who merely puts up for
a night in an inn and, therefore, does not enter into the cares and
trials of the family. She does as good as call Him, Master, Lord of the
house, and His ownership is pleaded in the suit. Jesus, You are Head of
the family? You are the Lord, the Husband. Will You act as if You were
a mere lodger or a stranger? Tell Him that your house is His–that the
Church is His–that He is the Head of it and plead with Him that He
will not lay aside His position or neglect that condescending
responsibility which He voluntarily took upon Himself when He became
the Head of His Church and undertook, on her behalf, to be her
Redeemer! Plead with Him, then, for His name's sake, and you will win a
gracious reply!

Then the argument ventures a little farther and the plea is this, "You,
O Lord, are in the midst of us, and we are called by Your name." God's
Presence with His Church and His connection with it becomes a plea.
Have I not thus pleaded, sometimes, for this Church when I have thought
over its sins and its wanderings? I have said–"And yet, Lord, You are
in the midst of us. We have Your Presence at Your Table and in the
Prayer Meeting. You are with this people right blessedly and we are
called by Your name. And if You shall leave us, the ungodly world will
say, 'In that edifice was once assembled a Church of God, but it has
become deserted! There, in former times, a Gospel ministry flourished,
but it has failed.' If ever it should be so said, Your name will be
dishonored."

See how Israel pleads in the text– "Why should You be as a man
astonished?" That is, like a man confounded who does not know what to
do–who is distracted and amazed! She says, "Lord, if You do not help
us now, the men of the world will say, 'Their God could not help them.
They were brought into such a condition, at last, that their faith was
of no use to them and their God could not deliver them.' Why should You
be as a mighty man that cannot save? A champion defeated in all his
efforts? No, but You have given us a banner, a sacred standard that
must not suffer defeat–let it be displayed because of the Truth of God
and give us victory."

Some of you who are trying to serve God have floated into shallow
waters, lately, and you are in great trouble. Now, if you can somehow
implicate God in what you are doing, you will greatly strengthen your
cause. Are you His servant, acting in His name and entangled with
difficulties that arise out of conscientiously following His command
and trusting in His promise? Then you may say to Him, "Lord, what will
the Egyptians say? What will the Philistines say? Will they not say
that at last it is proved that faith is a delusion, that the promise is
a snare and that there is either no God, or else that He is a God who
cannot aid, or will not hear prayer and help His servants?"

I delight to get upon this track. It refreshes me to feel that I have
no help but in God, but that His promise binds Him to help me! When I
am quite out of my own depth, I feel that I must swim, for if the
Lord's power does not buoy me up, I shall sink to destruction. How can
He suffer one to be destroyed whose trust is in Him? If this faith is a
lie, it will be exposed by my failure. And if this God is not the
living God and He does not hear prayer, the adversaries of the Lord
will laugh. Ah, then you may plead with Him, "Do it for Your name's
sake." Though our iniquities have been many– though we have not served
You as we ought to do–though we have backslidden often, yet, Lord, do
not punish Yourself on account of us! Do not put Your name to dishonor
because of our folly! Do not put Your Gospel to the rout because we are
so unbelieving! But, for Your own honor's sake, interpose and deliver
Your servants in this, their time of need!

II. Having thus tried to put before you, though very feebly, the good
ground on which your feet may stand while you are wrestling with God, I
need, for a very few minutes, to speak with THOSE POOR TROUBLED HEARTS
THAT DO NOT YET KNOW THE LORD or fear that they do not. To my text, as
a whole, they have no title. But from the matter of it we may draw some
valuable suggestions for their use. Are there not among us many, who
though strangers to the fellowship of the saints, are distressed in
soul and desirous to find peace with God? Are there not many who would
gladly obtain salvation from the God of Grace? You say, "I need peace."
Then, I pray you, take heed that you do not put up with a false peace,
or calm your conscience with anything less than true reconciliation
with God! It is better to be always restless than to find rest in a
delusion.

Begin and continue in the way of the Truth of God, for this will endure
to the end, while all that is false will burst like a bubble. Begin
first by confessing your guilt. Come, my dear Hearer, there can be no
benefit in trying to conceal anything–therefore acknowledge your
transgression. God can see it all, but there will be great benefit in
your seeing it

and confessing it before Him. Do not try to patch up a righteousness of
your own! Jesus Christ is never sweet to any but to sinners. You have
to prove that you are a sinner, not a saint–for Jesus gave Himself for
our sins–not for our merits. Remember, when Christ comes to fill us,
the first thing we need to know is our own emptiness. Do not,
therefore, go upon the tack of trying to make any kind of defense!
Acknowledge your sins and say, "My iniquities testify against me."

Some of you could not make out a plea of righteousness if you were to
try–your life-long actions would confuse you if you attempted it. When
people come in here who have never heard the Gospel, they are often
brought speedily to receive Christ because when God blesses the Word to
such, it is not difficult to convince them of sin. They are so plainly
guilty that they do not dream of disguising it. They never attempt to
mend their old clothes, for they are too far gone and only fit for the
dunghill! They would only make greater tears by patching up such old
and rotten materials.

Come, oh you poor ragged sinners, in all your torn garments; in all
your loathsomeness and sin–and say, each one–"Lord, I acknowledge
that my transgressions testify against me! It is not the first time
that I have been anxious, or the first time that I have promised better
things, but I have been a deceiver until now. My backslidings are many.
I am an old sinner and a hardened sinner. I have sinned against
convictions, sinned against a tender conscience, sinned against the
restraints of Your Spirit. If I did seem to leave my evil ways, the dog
has returned to its vomit and the sow that was washed, to her wallowing
in the mire."

Ah, my Hearer, you are a bad fellow, and I want you to admit that you
are! I want you to stand in the dock like a felon and plead, "Guilty!"
And be sure you do not add, "Only there are extenuating circumstances."
There are no such circumstances in your case! You are thoroughly
unworthy and deserve to be sent to Hell! If you had died in your sins
20 years ago and had been condemned without mercy, your wickedness
would have abundantly vindicated the sentence of the Judge! Do you kick
against that? I hope not–it will be your wisdom to admit your terrible
desert of punishment. I beseech you, put your confession into words and
state, truthfully, what you have done! The sense of your wickedness
will grow more keen when you recall your follies.

Remember, too, the forms in which you have sinned against God. You have
violated the Laws which regulate your life. You have set at nothing
those counsels which make for your physical health and your moral
welfare. It is bad enough to have sinned against a mother's tears and a
father's prayers. It is bad enough to have sinned against your own body
and to have disregarded your wife and your children. That is sad enough
and horrible enough. Many have gone deep enough in that direction to
crimson their cheeks with shame! But you have despised the God that
made you! You have dishonored your Creator. You have lived to gratify
your own lusts! You have delighted in defying His Laws. "The ox knows
his owner and the ass his master's crib." And, alas, dumb driven cattle
have been more dutiful than you!

The Lord raised you up from fever. He sheltered you in storms. He
rescued you from shipwreck. He has delivered you many times from going
down into the Pit by sudden death, yet you have been unmindful of Him
and unthankful to Him! You have doted on the idols that provoked Him.
Feel this! Admit this! Mourn this! Come before the Lord in penitent
contrition! But make sure you are sincere. Think not that the language
of a litany will avail you if you falsely say, "Lord, have mercy upon
us miserable sinners," when you are not miserable and do not believe
that you are sinners at all! Rather may God the Holy Spirit work such
deep conviction in your spirit that the language of my text may seem
too feeble for you–may you be compelled to cry out"–O God, no speech
can tell the depth of my guilt! Forgive me, for Your mercy's

sake."

Shall I leave you there sitting down in abject despair? Doubtless in
such depths we learn that salvation is of the Lord. Be sure of this–no
excuse can exonerate you! Apologies drawn from your constitution or
your circumstances will only aggravate your crimes. Your only ground
for hope must be based on His Grace. Call, now, upon His name! "For
Your name's sake." You big sinners say, "Lord, if you will save me, it
will be a great instance of Your power." "Well," said one the other
day, "it is of no use your trying to convert me. If I ever shall be
converted, it will need God Himself to do it, for I am such a tough
fellow." Yes, yes, and the Lord delights to let men see what He can do!
He proves that He is Omnipotent in the moral world as well as in the
physical world–and as able to subdue free will as to stay the raging
of the wild winds that sweep the sea! He is Lord and besides Him there
is none else! When He speaks, His Word can turn the lion into a lamb,
the raven into a dove!

Oh, plead with Him to glorify His power! Say, "Lord, it will show Your
power if You will save one like me! If You will cast a legion of devils
out of me, I shall be a standing wonder wherever I go! To men and
angels I shall be a convinc-

ing proof of the regenerating power of the Almighty–therefore save me
for Your name's sake." If the Lord were to forgive a dozen ordinary
sinners, it would not so much display His mercy among men as in saving
one unusually vile transgressor. Plead this! There may be somebody
listening to this discourse whom this word exactly suits. I feel as if
the Holy Spirit were prompting me to utter these words for your
use–"Lord, all the sin in the world seems to have run into me as into
a common cesspool! But, O Lord, if You can cleanse my heart, it will be
a wonder of mercy, indeed, and Your name shall be glorified! I am the
man who ought to be damned above all men! I deserve to be the center of
the target at which all Your arrows ought to be leveled! But oh, if You
will forgive me, it will make all Hell quiver with astonishment! That
God should save such an one as I will make Heaven ring with joy that
such an one should be delivered from going down into the Pit because
God has found a Ransom."

Here you may remember that all God's name is comprehended in Jesus
Christ. This master key unlocks every door! If you will cry, "Lord,
save me for Jesus' sake, that men may see what Jesus can do by the
cleansing power of His blood, by the strength of His hands and by the
love of His heart," you will have pleaded the name of the Lord. This
argument has matchless force! The dying thief–look what glory He has
brought to Christ all through the centuries! The Apostle Paul–changed,
renewed–what honor he has brought to Christ ever since he was saved!
Be this, then, your prayer, "O Lord, honor Yourself, honor Your Son,
honor Your Spirit by saving me. Bless me for Your name's sake." Cannot
you join me in this prayer? O Holy Spirit, enlighten men as to their
lost condition till they feel that there is no other way of pleading
and no other name to plead!

Is it not the desire of the Father that Jesus should see of the travail
of His soul in the salvation of the chief of sinners? The Lord give you
a grip of that plea! It is sure to prevail. "For Your name's sake." You
may thus plead the name of the Father, "My Father, glorify Your
fatherly heart by welcoming Your prodigal child with a kiss of
reconciliation and saying, 'Bring forth the best robe and put it on
him.'" You may next use it with the Holy Spirit and say–"O Divine
Spirit, glorify Your power over human hearts by cleansing and
regenerating even me, that men may see Your new creation and wonder at
it as You do work it in me."

A great point is to be able to lay hold upon a promise, a promise in
the Book. I remember, when seeking the Lord, the sweetness of that
saying to my heart–"Whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall
be saved." I found liberty when I could plead that! I said, "Lord, as
far as I know what it means, I do call upon Your name. I have no other
name to call upon and You have said that whoever calls upon Your name
shall be saved. Now, for Your Word's sake, do not draw back! I know You
cannot lie. Fulfill Your promise even to me."

Brothers and Sisters, we cannot say to a man, when we have made him a
promise, "I promised to do this for you, but you are such a bad
fellow." That would be no excuse for our breaking our promise. You must
honor your promise even if you feel ashamed of the person to whom it
was made. The Lord in mercy, having made a promise, never quotes our
character as a reason why He should break it! He knew all about you
when He made the promise and so He is not surprised. He knows more
about you, now, than you know about yourself! He knows that you are a
thousand times worse than you think you are! He has a much deeper sense
of your guilt than you have! Still, for all that, He is ready to
pardon! Plead His promise with Him and He will stand to His Word!

Do any of you doubt the possibility of your obtaining mercy of the Lord
because of the depths of your iniquity, or the ruinous consequences it
has already worked? Believe me, you are victims of a delusion of Satan!
The Lord God is merciful and gracious and passes by iniquity,
transgression and sin. There are some parts of the book of Jeremiah
that I should not like to read to you. I can hardly think that they
were meant to be read in public–they are intended, rather, for our
private meditations. There is, however, one picture of infamy which I
will merely hint at, though it has often excited my profound
astonishment. It runs something like this, "They say if a man puts away
his wife and she goes from him and is another man's and plays the
harlot, shall he take her to himself again? Shall not that land be
greatly polluted? Yet return unto Me, says the Lord."

Do you see the drift of this striking illustration? Here is a woman,
kindly treated in every way, who willfully leaves her husband. She has
not been led astray by a profligate, but she has wantonly left her
husband of her own wicked self. She has defiled her name and her
honor–and to crown her infamy, she has even left her paramour and has
gone on the streets and become utterly vile! Shall her first husband
take her back, again, after her multiplied and manifest impurities?
Would it not pollute the land? Everybody will say, "Why, this is an
offense against morality! She has dishonored herself!

She has dishonored her husband! She has dishonored her country! "Yet,"
says God, "return unto Me." Is not this beyond the manner of man? So
does the mercy of the Lord transcend even the statutes of the Law which
He gave to Israel!

You will see the force of this more clearly if you compare the third
chapter of Jeremiah with the 24th chapter of Deuteronomy. The parable
is startling! God is represented as dealing with an idolatrous nation
as it would be an abomination before His own eyes for any man to deal
with an unchaste wife. Such delight has Jehovah in mercy that He
dispenses it at the risk of public disgrace! He knew that the
self-righteous would find fault and that even elder brothers would be
angry, but He dared all that! Therefore let there be no objection on
your part! "Yet return again unto Me, says the Lord." If there is any
disgrace, it must rest on His name whose holiness cannot be sullied!

The elders in our Savior's day who sat in Moses' seat thought it an
open scandal that He received publicans and harlots. I am not surprised
that when He welcomed such fallen ones, they were glad to come–but I
am astonished beyond measure at those of you who put aside the only
Gospel that can do you good! Why argue against your own interests
instead of accepting the Lord's open invitation? Every evangelist who
preaches pardon and peace by the blood of the Lamb braves the ethics of
the age–the new teaching is that people must reap the consequences of
their actions–there is no hope of ever undoing anything that a man
does and, therefore, there can be no Gospel to the guilty.

Yes, I know that this is what the reign of Law seems to demand! But,
for all that, the Lord would sooner that men should accuse Him of
weakening the principles of morality than refuse a poor sinner who
comes to Him for mercy in Christ Jesus! I know that if we receive
certain persons into the Church, the mere moralists cry out, "How can
they associate with such people?" Yet, come along, come along, you
chief of sinners! The vilest are welcome to Christ! You that are worse
than the worst–you who have leaped over the hedge and have got upon
the wild commons of outrageous sin– you may come to Jesus!

Do you sing–

"Depths of mercy, can there be Mercy still reserved for me"?

It is reserved for you! You are the person for whom it is reserved!
This deep consciousness of sin; this guilt of yours which you feel and
admit points you out as the one to whom I am to say, "Return unto the
Lord, for He will have mercy upon you! He will blot out your
transgressions! He will change your nature! He will turn you from a
sinner to a saint and glorify His name in you! God grant that you may
each and all prove the exceeding riches of His Grace, for His dear
name's sake. Amen.
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The Indwelling and Outflowing of the Holy Spirit