GOSPEL ADDRESS
[p. 130] GOSPEL ADDRESS
This prophet expresses the love of Jehovah for His people with greater pains and point than any other prophet; faithfully reminding them of His unwearied care, expressed in a variety of ways, to the end that they should turn to Him, as having deeply revolted. The goodness of God leads to repentance. He has opened a door of repentance, as we read in the New Testament, not only to His ancient people Israel, but to all — to the nations. Indeed, He has commanded repentance. In a way, nothing reminds us more of His goodness than that He should fall back on His creatorial rights over man, and assert them by commanding them to repent. So here we have the appeal, “Return unto the Lord thy God; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity”. Here is a clear requirement on the part of God, which addresses itself not only to His ancient people, but to all. And what I have specially before me is to point out that, in this call to return, God requires that you should “take with you words”. Words are the expression of one’s thoughts in detail. So that from you, as a repentant sinner, God looks for an expression in detail of your guilt.
There is to be an accounting, beloved friends; and in order to impress upon us the detail into which He goes as dealing with men in their guilt, we have the fingers writing upon the wall of the banquet hall of king Belshazzar. It is the fingers of a man’s hand; fingers being, among other things, an indication of detail. God enters into all detail connected with every man and woman in the whole race, from Adam onwards. It is a small matter with Him, beloved friends. It may seem to us incomprehensible, but it [p. 131] is a small matter with God to count, not only the members of the race, but all their deeds, good and bad; and, further, to have all put down in writing.
God keeps books. One cannot undertake to indicate what the population of the antediluvian world may have been, nor what the population of the subsequent world, nor indeed of our own world, from century to century; but it is a small thing with God to take account of every member of the race; and not only take account of them, as I have said, but of their deeds. So that, as we read in the Revelation, the books were opened. We are not told how many. Who can undertake to say how many? They are divine books, and no one can speak of their dimensions and the number of their pages; but books, we are told, were opened, and the dead were judged “according to their works”. Think of the billions wrapped up in that one word, ‘dead’! “The dead were judged according to their works”, Revelation 20:12. What about that solemn fact, friend, tonight?
It says, further, that another book was opened, which is the book of life — only one book. It is the book of God’s sovereignty. It says, “Whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire”, Revelation 20:15. How about that, sinner? Have these thoughts ever come home to you? If not, the Lord intends them to come home to your soul tonight. That is one of the designs of this meeting — that the conviction of sin should come home to your conscience. There is no hope otherwise. There is no hope of your ever finding your name in the book of life apart from repentance. But repentance is granted to you.
And so the requirement here is to “take words”; and I appeal to you to turn to God, according to this passage, and “take with you words”. You may ask, what words? The passage gives them. As the [p. 132] prodigal thought of returning, words came into his mind that would be suitable to his meeting with his outraged father. I have no doubt that he had become well acquainted with the cant and slang of the country into which he had gone. He was acquainted, doubtless, with the words of the theatre, of the card-table, of the saloon, of the drunkards, the words of the profligate; but now his heart turns towards his father, and a new set of words comes into his mind.
He leaves behind forever all the cant and slang of the world. He says, “I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father”. Luke 15:18. How beautiful! How beautiful that the thought of his father should come into his mind. And then the words following; “I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son”. Luke 15:21. That was enough.
In Luke 18:13, a publican — a publicly-reputed sinner — turned to God. He smote upon his breast, and said, “God be merciful to me a sinner”. He spoke as if there were not another. It is not, God be merciful to us. No, friend; repentance is an individual matter. It is “the house of David apart, and their wives apart” Zechariah 12:12. Repentance is individual, so he says, “God be merciful to me a sinner”; and the Lord Jesus Christ, commenting upon that man’s speech and attitude, says, “This Man went down to his house justified rather than the other” — the Pharisee. So here he says “Say unto him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously; so will we render (unto thee) the calves of our lips”. “Take away all iniquity”. The light of God is now breaking into the soul. The petition is not made with doubt or uncertainty, for God is now becoming apprehended as a Saviour God.
Take away all iniquity. Yes, friends, all. “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow”, Isaiah 1:18. God knows them all. He loves [p. 133] to hear you admit them — confess them, for sins are forgiven as confessed. Known forgiveness is on the ground of confession. God proclaims repentance and remission of sins. But consciously remitted sins are confessed sins. Hence, if you are exercised as to your soul, take with you words; make your confession to God; hide nothing; keep back nothing; have it all out with God; and you shall find the precious sense of forgiveness coming into your soul.
It is a never-to-be-forgotten moment when the sense of divine forgiveness enters into the soul. There is forgiveness with Him. It is available to you as you draw near, humbly confessing your guilt. God has taken account of it all, as I said. The Lord Jesus took it all upon Him on the cross. He did not take our sins upon Him simply in a wholesale way; He took them upon Him in detail. He knew the number of the sins He had to bear. He says, “They are more than the hairs of my head”, Psalm 40:12. Hear His word, sinner: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Matthew 27:46. The Lord of glory was hanging upon Calvary’s cross, knowing divinely every sin that was laid upon Him, for He bore the sins of many. And He bore the full weight of divine wrath on account of them, for He says, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Hence you may come to God with these words, “Take away all iniquity”. He has already dealt with your iniquity, but it has to be taken away from your conscience, and so “the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin”, 1 John 1:7.
And then he says, “Receive us graciously”. Oh, sinner, if you could but know the gracious reception that awaits you, you would come. Most of us here tonight have been received. Think of the reception of the prodigal! His father, we are told, ran to meet him. We all invite you to come tonight. Yea, a chorus of voices from heaven, I may say, is inviting you to come, for “there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth”, Luke 15:10. Let us therefore urge you to come, knowing, as we do, what a gracious reception awaits you. Let us urge you to come tonight. It is a well-accepted time. As I speak to you, God is looking into your heart, and would produce there a sense of guilt, and at the same time a sense of grace: “for the grace of God which carries with it salvation for all men has appeared”, Titus 2:11. God waits to be gracious, and, as you draw near, He receives you graciously.
And now they go on to say in this wonderful formula of repentance, “Asshur shall not save us”. Have you found this out? The Assyrian is alluded to — Asshur. With all his worldly power, could he save one soul? Not one. Take all the power in the world today — political, commercial, social, and all other forms of world power, and combine them, and the combination would fail to save a soul. There is no salvation outside of Christ; He alone can save.
Then again, “We will not ride upon horses”. You see how the humble spirit makes confession of guilt before God. We all know what horse-riding indicates. It is the reliance on the arm of flesh; it is pride of flesh. We know how men and women in large cities are seen stalking about on horses. How noble they seem to be; but how little there is in it! The humble penitent before God abandons all that.
Well now, it goes on to say, “Neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, Ye are our gods”. You see what a house-cleaning is involved in this confession; how much has been cast, as I may say, on the dung-heap. And I ask you, believer, here tonight, to look into your affairs and see whether you have reserved any of those features; whether any of those things still remain as part of your equipment. What about the motives of your heart? “Neither will we say ... to the work of our hands,
Ye are our gods”. Has the Lord Jesus His place with you, brother and sister? Has He His undisputed place in your heart and in your circumstances? Have you come to the definite conclusion that in the light of the love of Christ — of His redemption rights over you — you will cast all these worldly things away?
Then further, “For in thee the fatherless findeth mercy”. As you, one by one, in the light of the gospel, give up these things, you may seem to be faced with the possibility of disaster, it may be commercially or socially. So the word immediately follows, “In thee the fatherless findeth mercy”. You may be assured that God will rescue you from all such predicaments, for the believer has nothing to fear. “Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord ... and I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty”, 2 Corinthians 6:17,18. You need not fear the result of casting all these things aside. In everything God has become your Father, and you have become His son or daughter. Have you found this out — what it is as a believer of the gospel to come under the wing of the Almighty God? For this is what He says, “I will be a Father unto you ... saith the Lord Almighty”. Who can do more for you than the Almighty?
Then in the next verse, “I will heal their back-sliding, I will love them freely”. God is speaking now. He loves to listen to your speech, and it would be the joy of my heart if one soul tonight took up this speech, and turned to God with it. And as you finish, you shall hear what He has to say, as it was with the prodigal’s father. Think of the magnificence of the prodigal’s reception, and of the after joys, for there was far more with his father than he had ever dreamt of. Jehovah says here, “I will heal their backsliding”. Your soul, may be, is lacerated, but He says, ‘I will heal your backsliding’. What wounds [p. 136] you have received! What reminiscences remain with you — all those awful scenes and places! God says, I will heal all that. And moreover, He says, “I will love them freely”. He is waiting, indeed, to open up His heart to you. Think of all that He has in His heart for you! “I will love them freely”.
Then it goes on, “I will be as the dew unto Israel; he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon”. We have now come, on the principle of confession — on the principle of faith through the light of the gospel — into the sunshine of God’s love. God loves actively. How attractive it is! Let me endeavour to call attention to the active love of God. The third chapter of John, verse 16, speaks of past love — “God so loved ... that he gave”. John 3:16. But I wish, while not in the least degree beclouding that, to dwell on the active love of God. “I will love them freely”. Now He says, “I will be as the dew unto Israel”, that precious dew that comes down on our souls, inducing freshness, vigour, and life. So that it goes on to say, “he shall grow as the lily”.
I sometimes look at an old lady. She is haggard; there are grey hairs and wrinkles; and I compare her with a young lady in the freshness and vigour of youth and beauty. The old lady is a Christian, and the young one is not. The old lady, as a follower of Jesus, has grown as the lily. I think of the Lord Jesus looking down on that old lady in the vigour of spiritual growth, although wrinkled and grey-headed; and I think of Him looking down on the young woman without a spark of faith, and yet she is full of the energy of physical life and beauty. Which is the more beautiful in the Lord’s eyes? The old lady. There is no beauty in the young one. The old lady has grown like the lily; she has come on day by day, week by week, month by month and year by year. She has come in for the dew, the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion. She has developed [p. 137] wonderful beauty for the eyes of Christ; she has grown as the lily.
Let not young people rest in the mere freshness and beauty of youth; it is vain. God sees not as man sees. What the Lord is looking for is the lilies. He has “gone down into his garden, to the beds of spices, to feed in the gardens, and to gather lilies”, Song of Songs 6:2. Who are they? Those who have grown up from repentance; who have grown up in the light of the gospel and the knowledge of the love of God; who have been loved freely for years. God has loved them freely. They are the lilies of Christ. They have grown as such, as He says, “Consider the lilies, how they grow”. Luke 12:27. He considers us.
And then it says, “he shall cast forth his roots as Lebanon”. He is not to be carried away by every wind of doctrine. It is most humbling to see how Christians are carried hither and thither by this wind and that wind. The secret of this is that there are no roots. Where are your roots, friend? “Rooted”, we are told, “and grounded in love”, Ephesians 3:17. The roots go deep into love. You are no longer carried about by every wind of doctrine. Christendom is full of it — adverse currents; that “cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive”, Ephesians 4:14. Christendom is full of lies, all designed to carry away the unstable. Hence we are enjoined to be no longer babes, but to be full-grown; to be rooted and grounded in love.
Well, it goes on, “His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive tree”. We have the lily that is so beautiful to the eye, but the beauty of the olive goes beyond that. It suggests what is more developed, what is more mature; it honours God and man. So, as the believer develops in the light, he develops another feature of beauty — “His beauty shall be as the olive”.
Further. “And his smell as Lebanon”. And again, in verse 7, “The scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon”. You see the idea of smell. When Jacob came to Isaac for his blessing, Isaac says, “The smell of my son is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed”, Genesis 27:27. What a smell that is! What potentiality there is in a field which the Lord has blessed! What crops He will have! So I look at the young brother and the young sister as thus beautified, as I have been saying; and now there is the sense of the presence and fruitfulness of the Holy Spirit. In the society of this world the atmosphere is stifling to the Christian; you cannot live in it. Whereas the believer brings in an atmosphere of purity and health — “his smell is as Lebanon”. Think of the odour of the wonderful trees of Lebanon; how exhilarating; how health giving and refreshing! All is found spiritually among the people of God as marked by what I have been saying. You can expand your lungs among the people of God; whereas the atmosphere of the world is death — “Her guests are in the depths of hell”, Proverbs 9:18.
But I do not proceed further. I hope you have all followed. The passage is replete with details of the believer’s blessing, leading on to that remarkable statement at the end, that we have already dwelt upon at these meetings. Ephraim says, “What have I to do any more with idols?” What a wonderful time in one’s history! And then God says (as I understand), “I have observed him”. And Ephraim says, “I am like a green fir tree”. And God answers, “From me is thy fruit found”.
Turn to the Lord, and take with you words. — Amen.
Pages 139 - 301 — “The Administration of Divine Bounty”. Christchurch and Nelson, N.Z., 1925 (Volume 69).