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GOD’S COMPLAINT AGAINST THE REBELLIOUS
I AM perfectly astonished. I can scarcely believe my own eyes. Who is it that thus addresses us; and vindicates his own character against the accusations which, by our lives at least, we bring against him? It is none other than Jehovah himself, calling upon us to prove, if we can, that he merits at our hands the treatment he has received from us. Often does he call on heaven and earth to judge betwixt him and his people [Note: Mic_6:2-3.] — — — But in the chapter before us, he supposes himself to be charged with having acted unkindly, not to say injuriously, towards them: “Hear ye the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel: thus saith the Lord; What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and have become vain [Note: ver. 4, 5.]?” And again in the text, “Have I been a wilderness unto Israel? a land of darkness?” Behold, Brethren, I am now to you in God’s stead: and I call upon you, in God’s name, to answer to the challenge given you, and to the charge that is brought against you. Hear at my mouth,
I. His appeal, in answer to your charges against him—
Was he to the Jews a wilderness or a land of darkness?”
[The Jews, from their own history, could not but know what a terrible wilderness, and what a land of darkness, their ancestors had been brought into, when they came out of the land of Egypt: it was “a land of deserts and of pits, a land of drought and of the shadow of death, a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt [Note: ver. 6.].” In a word, it was a land where they could find no sustenance, and where, but for the Divine interposition, they must all have perished. And had God been to them in any respect like that? Had he left them to perish? Had he not, on the contrary, administered to their every want, going before them in a pillar of fire, and supplying them with food, and miraculously preserving their very clothes from wearing out for the space of forty years; and, at last, putting them into a full and peaceful possession of the promised land [Note: Cite Deu_32:10-14 and Neh_9:21-25.]? — — —]
Has he, in his conduct to us, deserved any such humiliating imputation?
[We, also, have been passing through a dreary wilderness, in our way to the promised land: and has he been inattentive to our wants? Has he not given us his only dear Son to be our Saviour? — — — Has he not also given his Holy Spirit, to guide, preserve, and sanctify us, and to make us meet for our destined inheritance? — — — Tell me so much as one thing which you have ever lacked, provided you sought it humbly at his hands? — — — I hesitate not to affirm, that if there be any one thing that you have ever lacked, it has been, not from want of care in him, but from your own negligence in asking it: for “he never said at any time to any human being, Seek ye my face in vain.” I say, then, that your charges against him, as defective in kindness or care or liberality, are altogether false; and that there is no one thing that you could reasonably hope to be done for you, which he has not freely and effectually done [Note: Isa_5:3-4.].]
But not satisfied with vindicating God, I call you to hear,
II. His charge against you—
He complains, and justly too, of two things;
1. The flagrancy of your rebellion—
[His people of old said, “We are lords: we will come no more unto thee.” And such has been the language both of your hearts and lives. You have affected independence. Satan’s temptation to our first parents was, “Ye shall be as gods:” and ye have affected to be as gods, even from that very hour; and have felt no disposition to come to Jehovah for any thing. In truth, independence is the very essence of the Fall: it is that which characterizes every living man. Every man trusts in his own wisdom and righteousness and strength; and follows his own will, and “walks after the imaginations of his own heart.” Let any one ask himself, Whether, during his whole life, this have not been his state? Can any of us say with truth, that we have been from the beginning so deeply sensible of our own utter destitution of all good, that we have cried day and night to God for every thing which our souls needed, and have cleaved to Christ alone as our wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption? Have we, even this very day, come to God for these blessings, as persons who felt their need of them, and their entire dependence on him for a supply of them? Have we not rather imagined that we were “rich, and increased in goods, and in need of nothing; instead of feeling ourselves wretched and miserable, and poor and blind and naked?” Then you must confess that God’s charge against you is true; and that, in refusing to come to him as the only source of all good, you have shewn yourselves proud, daring, impious, self-sufficient rebels, and have deserved to be visited with his heaviest judgments.]
2. The contemptuousness of your neglect—
[One would have supposed that, after all the mercies which God had vouchsafed to his ancient people, they could not but have borne him in constant and most affectionate remembrance. Yet had they in reality “forgotten him.” Of this he complains, with just indignation: “Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire?” No, worthless and contemptible as such vanities are, the minds of young people, and of females especially, are so set upon them, as scarcely, for any length of time, to have them absent from their minds. But, though God had given himself as “a crown of glory and a diadem of beauty to his people [Note: Isa_28:5.],” and his relation to them elevated them above all the people of the world, “yet did they forget him, days without number.” And has he given to us less occasion to remember him, than to them? Yet have we forgotten him, even as they did. We have forgotten our obligations to him; so that he receives few, if any, acknowledgments at our hands. We have forgotten our dependence on him; so that he hears but few and faint petitions for the blessings we stand in need of. We have forgotten the great account which we have to give to him; so that, to obtain an interest in Christ, is not the great labour of our lives; nor is it our daily serious endeavour to approve ourselves to God us his devoted servants. Let any one only look back for a single week, and see how much greater interest a young female takes in the adorning of her person, than we have done in providing the ornaments of divine grace for our souls, to “prepare us for our union with our heavenly Bridegroom [Note: Rev_21:2.].” Say, then, whether God is not justly incensed against us, and whether we have not need to humble ourselves before him, for “provoking him thus to jealousy?” Behold then, whilst on God’s part I repel with indignation the charges which you bring against him, I call your very consciences to witness against you, that the charges, which I have in his name exhibited against you, are not only true, but heinous in the extreme.]
Application—
1. Are there now any of you disposed to vindicate yourselves?
[Yes: the Jews denied their criminality, whilst yet “their iniquities testified against them to their face [Note: Hos_5:5.].” And thus it is with you. “You have even wearied God by your transgression; and yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied him [Note: Mal_2:17.]?” But in this you only aggravate your guilt, and augment your eternal condemnation. For thus saith the Lord: “Thou sayest, Because I am innocent, surely his anger shall turn away from me. Behold, I will plead with thee, because thou sayest I have not sinned [Note: ver. 35.].” Know ye this, every one of you, ere it be too late, that, “he who covereth his sins, shall not prosper; and that he only who confesseth and forsaketh them, shall find mercy [Note: Pro_28:13.]” — — —]
2. Are any of you humbled under a sense of your guilt?
[To you then I say, that He who “chose Israel, not for any goodness that was in them, but purely because he would choose them [Note: Deu_7:7-8.],” is ready to exercise his sovereign love and mercy towards you. See how, after taking them from the most helpless and degraded state, he beautified and adorned that people for himself [Note: Cite at length Eze_16:8-14.]! — — — Thus will he also cleanse you from your iniquities, and transform you into his own most blessed image, and render you meet for an everlasting union with himself. This I am commissioned by him to declare: “Go, and proclaim these words unto them; and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord; and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, saith the Lord, and I will not keep anger for ever. Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God [Note: Jer_3:12-13.].” Yes, in the sacred name of Him whom you have offended, I declare, that “though your iniquities have been red like crimson, they shall be as wool; and though they have been as scarlet, they shall be white as snow [Note: Isa_1:18.].”]