IV. This last word should induce sinners to return to God, and then we shall see before our eyes THE COMING BY THIS HELP. You that are great, and good, and full, and inwardly strong, you will not return to God. You that are nothing, and less than nothing, you that are fallen in your own sight, you that cannot help yourselves, you are likely to come: I pray that you may come at once. I have set before you an open door that no man can shut: will you not enter? Come to my Lord this day. Come now and say, “Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously.” May God help us to be doing this, rather than talking and hearing about it!
Let us come to God, for he will help us to come. You see he helps us by giving us words; but as he never helps men to be hypocrites, he will also help us to feel the words. He who gives us words to speak, will give us grace to speak them sincerely. Are not these words the true desires of your hearts? On your knees, when you get home, pour them out before God. In your pews while you are here, present these petitions in silence. Say, “Take away all iniquity, receive me graciously: so will I render the calves of my lips.” The Lord’s help will suffice, not only to teach us the manner of praying, but to give us the desire, the faith, the love, the resolve which make up this prayer.
Let your coming to the Lord now be decisive and actual. You have meant it for years, and yet nothing has been done. Some of you have been hearing me preach now for a quarter of a century. Think of that! I met, the other day, with one who heard me at New Park Street, and at last he has come out to confess his Lord after more than thirty years. Slow work this! Better late than never. Come, my friends, are you going to stick in the mud for ever? Will you lie outside the wickot-gate throughout another year? God grant you may cry now, “Take away all iniquity: receive us graciously”!
Oh, that this might be the universal Cry of all my audience at this hour! The text is not written as for one, but for many. “Take with you words.” The first verse is in the singular, and speaks of “thou”; but the second is in the plural, and speaks of “us.” It is not, “Take away all iniquity; receive me graciously”; but, “receive us graciously: so will we render the calves of our lips. Asshur shall not save us.” Come along with you, then, the whole company of you who desire salvation. I call upon you who are sitting in this first gallery all around me! I call upon the dense mass in the area below! I call upon you who sit in the upper gallery! Oh, that we might all join in one common return unto the Lord! Let us call this day “The day of the joyous return.” “Come, and let us return unto the Lord: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up.” Who says “No”? What? Will you choose your own destruction, and persevere in the way of sin? I hope you will all say, “Ay,” and that the Holy Spirit will lead you to carry out the resolve.
The special call is to the fallen: “Return; for thou hast fallen.” Come, ye fallen ones, come and welcome. It is to the wandering for to such is the command appropriate which saith, “Return.”
“Return, O wanderer, to thy home
Thy Father calls for thee;
No longer now an exile roam
In guilt and misery;
Return! Return.
The call is to the forlorn and destitute: “In thee the fatherless findeth mercy.” You that are fallen, far off, fatherless, and forlorn, come at once to God in Jesus Christ. Come now! Come! Come! Come! See how the Lord meets you! Read the fourth verse; I could almost kiss the lines as I gaze on them: “I will heal their backsliding”: come, sick one, here is healing for you. “I will love them freely”: come, unlovely one, here is love for you. “Mine anger is turned away from him”: though you have felt his wrath burning in your souls, it is gone for ever. “I will be as the dew unto Israel”: before this service is quite over, some drops of dew shall have fallen upon your parched spirits, and shall sparkle in your bosonis like diamonds glittering in the sun.
These later verses speak as if the gracious work were done: they describe a scene most bright, full of color, and rich with perfume, as a fact accomplished. The chapter begins with an exhortation, but it runs into description, as if the people really had come, and God had met them, and had blessed them exceedingly. Lord, make it so at this very moment! May it not be merely that I have preached, and that these people have listened most encouragingly, but may men be really saved through grace! The Lord’s people have been praying all the while, “God bless thy servant”; and now I shall look for fruit from this first of March. The Lord grant that this March may come in like a lamb to many of you! May the lion go out of you! May a heavenly wind spring up and blow across this city, and bring soulhealing with it! In this hope, I bid you again “Come to Jesus.” Jesus says, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.” “The Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely.” The Lord gather you all into the arms of his grace, for his Son’s sake! Amen.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
