What Shall I Do Unto Thee?
God speaks as one in perplexity, as if he were at a loss what to do. He condescends to consult man as to his own case. He had wrought great deliverances for them, he had conferred the greatest favors upon them, he had sought to win them to himself, but all in vain, and now he asks, “What shall I do?” Sinner! God has given you his word, his ordinances, his day. He has presented to you his son, and offered you his Spirit. He has warned you solemnly, he has exhorted you earnestly, he has invited you lovingly. He has set life and death, heaven and hell before you, and has advised you to choose the former and escape the latter. He has spoken to you by his providences, he has alarmed your conscience, and he has supplied you with the most powerful motives to turn unto him and live. And yet you remain as you were,—far from God, averse to God, refusing to submit to God. Now, then, hear him ask you, “What shall I do unto thee?” Shall I break your proud spirit by a succession of terrible visitations? Shall I force you to heaven against your will? Shall I do violence to your judgment, your affections, or your will? Or, shall I give you up, and henceforth leave you entirely to yourself? God speaks to you in kindness, in love, in earnest love: what would you have him do? Must he punish you? Will you lay him under the necessity,—is the just God, is the insulted moral Governor to punish thee? If so, hear him clear himself: “As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways, for why will ye die?” If you perish now, your destruction will be entirely of yourself. You will die a suicide. You will be the author of your own condemnation. “What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it?” Isaiah v, 4.