GEORGE GILFILLIN of Dundee was one of the most graphic, strong, and classical writers of the nineteenth century. He might be styled a critic of classics.
When he was once passing through a place of notoriety, he was asked to inscribe, in a book, the greatest words he knew, in writing. He dipped his pen in ink, and wrote down the following from Isaiah 1:18: —
“Come now, and let its reason together, saith the Lord: Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”
When he had penned them, he wrote beneath them, “THESE ARE THE GREATEST WORDS I KNOW.”
A friend, when passing through the same place, was asked to write something in the same book. Observing what Gilfillan had written, he wrote beneath it: —
“Gilfillan! noble soul, thou did’st not deem it right
To pen some words from thine own pen of might;
Thou would’st rather borrow from the prophet old,
And pen God’s words, more precious far than gold.”
We might divide the text into two sections: —
A present invitation, and
The object of the invitation.
1. A PRESENT INVITATION.
“Come now” does not mean tomorrow. It does not mean any time but the present. The present only is ours. Tomorrow is with God, who holds our breath in His hands. He might withdraw it today.
“Today thou livest yet,
Today turn thee to God;
For ere tomorrow comes
Thou may’st be with the dead.”
A gentleman from Dundee took a voyage to Odessa on a trading vessel, through the Mediterranean, for the recovery of his health. When the vessel was about to leave Odessa he wrote to his wife to expect him home at a certain date, saying how much his health was improved. In the Mediterranean the vessel encountered a fearful storm, which shifted the grain cargo, with the result that she capsized and was lost. In his endeavor to get into the lifeboat in the boiling sea he was drowned.
Another gentleman wired to his wife, “Home tomorrow.” He stepped into the train with a gay heart and found his thoughts all centered in home, sweet home, and all that it suggests to our human hearts. The train collided with another, and he was killed, and suddenly dashed into eternity.
A young man, who was full of life, said once to a godly clergyman, “How long should a man be prepared for death before he meets it?”
“Five minutes,” was the reply.
“That will suit me exactly,” said the fast young man.
“Hold,” said the clergyman, “what if you should die now?” Those words went like a spiritual arrow to his heart, and were used to his conversion. Five minutes too late would mean to be lost forever, beyond the reach of hope.
Many regrets there are in this world because of missed opportunities, but sometimes these may be recovered. But, in eternity, there is no hope. All is fixed and final there. Regret and remorse will fill up the cup of the pleasure-lover and Christ-rejector forever and forever.
While mercy’s door is wide open we urge and entreat you to come now. Yes. “COME NOW.”
2. THE OBJECT OF THE INVITATION.
Think of God, who is infinite in wisdom and almighty in power, offering to reason with miserable outlaws! In the height of His power and with the thunderbolts of His wrath He might easily have hurled us rebel men into everlasting chains of darkness, as He once did the rebel angels.
Man is as much entitled to be thus dealt with as the angels that sinned. Rebellion is rebellion, and it is the overthrow of God’s authority and governmental throne. No government could possibly stand in the face of continual rebellion. If not put down with a strong hand it must work ruin.
Why did God put it down in everlasting chains of darkness in the one case and not in the other? That we are not told, and that is not our business. That God has been long-suffering to us we know. That mercy rejoices against or glories over) judgment we know. “I will have mercy and not sacrifice” is His sure and certain word. Also “He delighteth in mercy.” That is, He finds His good pleasure in dispensing mercy to meet our misery—the misery sin has brought man into. Sin and rebellion have brought misery, and misery has given Him the occasion to display in the fullest way His heart of boundless love, which He has shown in bowels of compassion and mercy.
England’s greatest poet has said, “Mercy is twice blessed. It blesses him that gives and him that takes.”
We learn the loving, compassionate heart of God in thus inviting rebels, whom He could easily crush with the breath of His power, to reason with Him. Come now, then, and do it. Do not let the past hinder you. Your sins of disregard of His righteous claims may rise up before you, like mountains, to terrify you, but heed them not. Why not heed them? Listen! “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” Such is God’s way of entreaty.
No earthly king dare do thus to rebels. The rebellions in Russia, Mexico, and in France meant seas of trouble and rivers of blood to have them put down. If the British Government proclaimed such terms to all inside our prisons, who are suffering for their breach of the laws of the kingdom, the whole country would be turned into the vilest hell upon earth. Such a thing is unthinkable to the human mind, and it would be utterly impracticable and unworkable. Yet this is how God can and does act to subdue rebels. “There is forgiveness with Thee that Thou mayest be feared.”
“Law and terror do but harden
If allowed to work alone;
But the sense of blood-bought pardon
Can dissolve a heart of stone.”
When a common soldier had been convicted of his forty-third offense the colonel said to the sergeant, “What shall we do with him?” “Forgive him,” said the sergeant. The colonel forgave him. “You will never see me here again,” said the culprit. The grace of complete forgiveness cured him. He never offended again. “The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth us from all sin.”
Some time ago when a woman was in great distress about her soul, she dreamed she saw all her sins on a white sheet of paper. Then she thought she saw a person come and sprinkle blood all over the paper. Then she thought she saw the person wipe all out, and her sins were all gone from the paper. When she woke out of her dream she saw for the first time that “the precious blood of Christ” had cleansed her and that she was white as snow.
The song of the redeemed forever will be, “Thou art worthy.” Why worthy? Hear the answer that shall make heaven’s courts vibrate with praise and glad hallelujahs forever, “Thou hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation” (Rev. 5:99And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; (Revelation 5:9)).
The ground of God’s universal invitation to all men is the blood, or death, of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. The sprinkled blood of the slain lamb, put on the door-posts of the houses of the Israelites in Egypt, when death marched throughout the whole land doing its terrible work on the first-born son of the Egyptian, gave a righteous God a title, or reason, to pass over them. So Christ, our passover, has been slain for us.
What could be grander than to hear John Wesley, that old indefatigable evangelist, great soul-winner, saintly poet and scholar of the highest order, with his dying breath say: ―
“I the chief of sinners am,
But Jesus died for me.”
P. W.