WHILE speaking on the subject of God’s wondrous grace the other night to a large and deeply interested company, the Editor of this magazine quoted part of a well-known hymn, as explanatory of his personal indebtedness to God’s grace―
“Why was I made to hear Thy voice,
To enter while there’s room,
While thousands make the wretched choice,
And rather starve than come?
“Twas the same love that spread the feast
That sweetly forced me in;
Else I had still refused to taste,
And perished in my sin.”
He added his own answer: “It was God’s absolute grace”!
My heart gladly responded to these sentiments.
They express a living truth, and they charm the heart that has learned its own desperate and incurable wickedness.
And, if the “I” (the person himself who is made to hear the voice of mercy) should loom before the mind as the guilty, God-hating, rebellious sinner, who has been taught truly his vileness and total moral ruin, it will only magnify the greatness of the grace that has saved him. Well, now, “why” was this brought about? Why was I made to hear, and taste, and enter? Why all this favor? Others “make the wretched choice.” They choose, and they choose deliberately, and that to their own eternal damnation. Have they that power? The Scripture says, “Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost” (Acts 7:5151Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye. (Acts 7:51)); and again, “Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life” (John 5:4040And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life. (John 5:40)); and once more, “There is none that seeketh after God” (Rom. 3:1111There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. (Romans 3:11)). The case is proved! There is neither the will liar the effort to turn to God. They seal their own doom. They starve, and perish in their sin.
What a fearful condition! And, mark, it relates to the whole race of man, apart from every question of election. The race is in hopeless alienation from God, and every member of it too.
“That is just my difficulty,” the reader may say; “I am troubled as to the question of election”! Well, it is as certain that election shuts in the believer as that it shuts out no one. It secures the feeblest believer; it does not exclude the greatest sinner.
That which damns him is his will. “Ye will not come to me.” Oh! that accursed and wicked will of man! What misery for time and eternity its allowance entails. But what about the power to believe? Ah! settle the question of will first, and then that of power becomes very simple. God knows we have no power, nor does He look for it; but He knows, and we know, that we have a will that loves sin, and that bates God, and that slew His Son on the cross, and that resists His Spirit, despises His grace, and shuts the ear to the call of the gospel.
Friend, your perverse will is the cause of all this mischief. Learn this foundation-fact foremost. Your myriad sins flow from your wicked will. They are the effects of an awful cause―a horrid stream from a poisoned source. Ami yet, bad as they are, and vile and filthy, their removal from the conscience is more readily apprehended than is that of their source. The one work mi Calvary―the death of the Son of God―meets all the evil, both the stream and its source, the sins and the sin, the fruit and the root. There the sins of the believer were atoned for, and the “flesh,” in its incurability, was condemned before God. What lessons are learned at Calvary, and what a deliverance the soul receives which by faith accepts those lessons. Now we can value the word, “Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely” (Rev. 22:1717And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. (Revelation 22:17)). That which breaks down my stubborn will is the surprising knowledge of God’s love to man. His will is one of mercy, and pardon, and grace, and that to all. Hence the word “Whosoever.”
Then, seeing that we lack power, and, indeed, every qualification, He adds, in richest grace, “Will”― “Whosoever will”―that is, whoever of all the fallen race desires or wishes the water of life―wonderful water―let him take it freely.
You will not be forced, nor compelled, nor driver’. If you love your sins, you must accept their judgment. This wretched choice is all your own. But the feast is spread, the table is richly covered; the guests, all unworthy, are welcome; the hand of love is gently, tenderly drawing. Father, Son, and Spirit are all bidding you welcome to the heavenly feast. Come, dear reader, baste and come.
“Though thy sins are red like crimson,
Deep in scarlet glow,
Jesus’ precious blood can make them
White as snow.”
J. W. S.