WHAT is it that alone can melt the heart of man?
It was, I think, that well-known servant of Christ, Dr Thomas Chalmers, who spoke of the omnipotence of loving-kindness. How good! Other forces may be strong―this is the strongest. We all admit that “law and terror only harden.” So they do; and yet God is holy. He cannot look on sin. His angels veil their faces before Him. Holiness is the habitation of His throne.
But neither can holiness, nor law, nor terror, nor miracle melt the proud heart of man! Oh! that heart! The more truly known, the more essentially wicked!
What can melt that heart and make it right with God?
“I have learned one lesson,” said the dying Hewitson, “by reading the Word in my illness, I see that when I preached with what I felt to be some measure of tenderness I scarcely knew what Christ’s tenderness was. The Bible gives not only God’s mind but His heart. It is the latter, exhibited to man, which draws and wins. Mere hard demonstrations do not win; they only steel the heart. If I could preach now I think I would be far more tender.”
But his preaching days were over. He learned more fully, when too late, the true secret of successful heart-winning. He learned, when within sight of Love’s fair mansions, that tenderness―the tenderness of Christ―is the secret, and that it is the only power to win.
It is necessary for the preacher to denounce Bin, just as it becomes the hearer―all of us―to feel its malignancy; but though sin is so damning, and the heart so hard, yet the tidings carried by the gospel are those of grace, and love, and mercy; and it is these tidings that win their way, by God’s Spirit, into the hard and stony heart, change its thoughts, lead it to self-abhorrence, cause it to loathe itself in repentance, and make known to it the value of the blood of the Son of God, which cleanses from all sin and fits for His presence.
This is no hard demonstration, it is no cold philosophy, nor metaphysical abstraction to puzzle the brain or confound the intellect. Quite true, there is abundant demonstration, there is that which appeals to the very highest powers of the very highest intelligence, but it is not hard, nor cold, nor perplexing. It is all plain to him that understandeth. “Come, now, let us reason together, saith the Lord”―the matter is therefore rational and intelligible “though your sins be as scarlet”―that is deep enough surely― “they shall be as white as snow.” Could aught be whiter? And this is the kind of reasoning! Oh! how simple and easy if only ye be willing!
Reasoning? Yes—read the Epistle to the Romans—never was there such a demonstration of the truth so closely argued and carefully explained, but it is that epistle which says, “He that spared not his own Son, but gave him up for us all”; and also, “God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.”
Is there anything hard in that? Nay, it is the ground of salvation.
The whole ministry of our blessed Lord on earth was a demonstration of the truth, but He came to save. “How often,” he cried to Jerusalem, “would I have gathered thee... but ye would not!”
How tenderly He said, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”
His ministry was marked by the most tender compassion. He was the embodiment of loving-kindness. Love was His mighty charm.
And yet He was rejected, and His ministry of love refused! If men were not blessed thereby, the fault lay with themselves. It lies there still.
I can conceive no greater crime, more diabolic or more suicidal, than to close the heart against the overtures of love.
Divine love rejected is divine wrath incurred. “Wrath without mercy” followed the law-breaker. How much surer, yes, surer than death without mercy, must be the doom of the man who treads under foot the Son of God!
And there is tenderness in the very warning, mercy in the premonition!
Thank God, that “much surer punishment” has not yet come for the reader. His day still shines, that day of grace and golden opportunity. Let, oh! let the love of Christ burst into your heart in all its living brightness.
“In tenderness He sought me,
Weary and sick with sin.”
So sang another servant of God, now gone to be with his Lord. He had proved the exceeding tenderness of Christ; he proclaimed it to thousands, and passed away with the joy of it filling his heart.
Believe me, the love of a Saviour-God known and enjoyed in the power of the Spirit is the one secret of peace and joy in time and eternity.
Make sure, dear reader, that whatever else you may cherish, you value this wonderful love above everything.
J. W. S.