WHAT HAVE YOU TO SAY?

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 18, 1860

WHAT HAVE YOU TO SAY?

“O GENERATION, see ye the word of the Lord. Have I been a wilderness to Israel? a land of darkness?” Jer. ii, 31.

There is pertinence in this appeal coming to his people in the word of the Lord by Jeremiah. They had promised to walk in covenant with him, but they had drawn back. Practically this amounted to a declaration that they could not live with him.

Such a manifesto put forth by the actual life of his people was a reproach upon their God. It became proper for him to inquire for the reason of it. Hence the words above quoted: “Have I been a wilderness to Israel? a land of darkness?” When they came near to dwell with me, was my presence only a wilderness of desolation? Was it only as sitting down in some sunless clime, some region of the frozen zone where no sunlight returns? Whereas I had promised them green pastures and still, lovely waters, did they find only barren sands—plains and broad sweeps of view, naked of verdure, wherein is no water? How is this? God calls on his people to bear witness if such has been their reception, such their surroundings and supplies in his pastures, and in the fields of his love.

Professed Christian, if thou art a wanderer from God into ways of sinful enjoyment, he asks of thee the reason. Is it that you could find nothing cheerful and satisfying in the life of loving obedience and trust? Has God been a wilderness to your soul? Has the love of your heart to your Lord met no responsive love in return? Has your confiding trust put you to shame with disappointment? What have you to say? If you have any charge to make, the form of this appeal is such that you may properly bring it forward. Bring it out, not too confidently, lest it should be found far other than you think. Subject it to a careful revision, lest it should not bear the light of the searching scrutiny it must have when it comes to the great canvass before Jehovah. Yet bring it forward. Let it be diligently sought out. Cast it into the balances of the sanctuary. Let it be searched under the light of the Saviour's countenance. Wherein has the Lord dealt ill with thee that thou shouldst have dealt so ungratefully and so falsely towards him?

It was in the covenant that thou shouldst give him thy heart. Hast thou done it? And if so can it be truly charged that your Lord was still to you as darkness, and shed no light of his love on your soul? It was promised on your part that you would “have Christ's commandments and keep them;” and then responsively on his—“I will love him and will manifest myself unto him.” Do you propose to show that on your part these covenants have been kept, but not on Christ's part? This is the precise point to which the word of the Lord by Jeremiah brings you.

Especially it was the genius of that covenant as divinely expressed—“I will put my laws into their mind and write them in their hearts; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people; and they shall not [need to] teach every man his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.” The spirit of this new covenant is well set forth by Ezekiel's words: “Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean.” “A new heart will I give you and a new spirit put within you.” “I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes.”

Have you taken hold of the promises of this new covenant? If so have they failed you utterly in their fulfillment? Is it not rather you that has failed, in that you have not welcomed these promises to your soul, and sought with all your heart the blessings they pledge to the faith of God's people? Say, is the failure on the part of the God of this covenant? Has he been a wilderness to you? Wherefore is it that this promised cleansing from sin has so sadly failed of ample and joyous fulfillment?—Ob. Evan.