"Yet return again to Me, says the Lord."--Jer. 3:1
Could there be a more touching "Thus says the Lord"
than this? The voice of Jesus, as it echoed over the mountains and along
the valleys of our unregenerate distance from God, seeking and finding and
bringing us home, was inexpressibly sweet and irresistibly gracious. But, to
hear that same voice, after our many wanderings, our repeated
relapses, our sad backslidings, still seeking, still inviting, still
imploring us to return, though we had "played the harlot with many lovers,"
oh, there is music in that voice such as the heavenly minstrelsy must bend
their ear to catch.
My soul, you are "bent upon backsliding, even as a
backsliding heifer." Your heart is as a broken bow, treacherous to the arrow
fixed upon the string, and ready for its flight. Your purposes of good
formed, but thwarted; resolutions of amendment made, but broken; plans of
usefulness laid, but frustrated; prayers for grace offered, but forgotten;
desires and aspirations after God sent up, but, through a deceitful and
wicked heart, dissolving into air. Oh! how many and aggravated have your
backslidings from God been--backslidings in heart, backslidings in
deed--secret wanderings, open wanderings. You have "left your first love,"
have "forgotten your resting-place;" and, straying from the cross, have gone
back to walk no more with Jesus. Truly, your "heart is like a deceitful
bow."
But, has the Lord, by some gentle movement of His grace,
or by some solemn event of His providence, aroused, overtaken, arrested you?
Has He set a hedge around your path, that you could not find your lovers,
bringing you to reflection, to penitence, to prayer? Then, listen, O my
soul, to the gracious words of your "first husband;" "Yet return again to
Me, says the Lord."
Spiritual restoration implies a spiritual
re-conversion. In this sense we are to interpret our Lord's words to His
fallen apostle Peter--"When you are converted, strengthen your
brethren,"--that is, when you are restored, recovered, turned back
again, employ your restored grace, the experience you have derived, and the
lessons you have learned by your fall and recovery, in strengthening your
weak brethren--in warning and exhorting, in restoring and comforting those
who have been alike tempted, and have alike fallen.
There is something very expressive, tender, and touching
in the word--"Again." "Yet return again." It sounds like the
"forgiveness of seventy times seven." Lord! I have wandered from You times
without number--"Yet return again." Lord! I have so often sinned and
repented--"Yet return again." Lord! You have received and forgiven me
more than seventy times seven--"Yet return again." Lord! I come
confessing the same sins, deploring the same backslidings, acknowledging the
same self-will and base ingratitude--"Yet return again to me, says the
Lord." Then, Lord! I come with weeping, and mourning, and confession, since
Your tenderness, grace, and changeless love, and outstretched hand bid me.
"Return to Me." My soul, rest not
until you rest in Jesus. Let nothing come between your returning heart and
your advancing, loving, forgiving Father. There is no true return of a
backsliding believer but that which takes him past his repentance, past his
tears, past his confessions, past his amendments, past his minister, and
brings him at once close to Christ. There is no healing of the hurt, no
binding up of the wound, no cleansing, no peace, no comfort, no joy, but as
the soul comes to the blood, and nestles once more within the very heart of
Jesus. "Return unto ME."