Divine Mercy to Mourning Penitents

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"I have surely heard Ephraim's moaning: 'You disciplined me like an unruly calf, and I have been disciplined. Restore me, and I will return, because you are the LORD my God. After I strayed, I repented; after I came to understand, I struck my thigh in grief! I was ashamed and humiliated because I bore the disgrace of my youth.'

Is not Ephraim my dear son, the child in whom I delight? Though I often speak against him, I still remember him. Therefore my heart yearns for him! I will surely have mercy upon him!" declares the LORD. Jeremiah 31:18-20

In these words, we have the mourning language of a penitent child—sensible of ingratitude, and at once desirous and ashamed to return. Sweetly blended with these words—we have the tender language of a compassionate father—at once chastising, pitying, and pardoning. The images are so lively and moving, that if they were regarded only as poetical descriptions founded upon fiction, they would be irresistibly striking. But when we consider them as the most important realities, as descriptive of that sincere repentance which we must all feel, and of that gracious acceptance we must all obtain from God before we can be happy—what great effect should they have upon us! how may our hearts dissolve within us at the sound of such pathetic complaints, and such gracious encouragements! Hard indeed is that heart, that can hear these penitential strains without being melted into the like tender relentings; and inveterate is that melancholy, incurable is that despondency, that can listen to such expressions of fatherly compassion and love, without being cheered and animated.

This whole chapter had a primary reference to the Jews, and such of the Israelites as might mingle with them in their return from the Babylonian captivity. As they were enslaved to foreigners, and removed from their native land for their sins—so they could not be restored, but upon their repentance. Upon this condition only, was a restoration promised to them. Lev. 26:40-43; Deuteronomy 30:1-16.

In this chapter we have a prediction of their repentance under the heavy chastisement of seventy years' captivity, and of their return thereupon, to their own land. In the text the whole body of penitents among them is called by the name of a single person,Ephraim. In the prophetic writings, the northern kingdom of the ten tribes, as distinguished from the southern kingdom of Judah, is frequently denominated by this name, because the Ephraimites were a principal family among them. And sometimes, as here, the name is given to the Jews, probably on account of the great number of Ephraimites mingled with them, especially on their return from captivity. All the penitent Jews are included under this single name, to intimate their unanimity in their repentance. Their hearts consented, like the heart of one man, to turn to the Lord, from whom with horrid unanimity they had previously revolted.

This single name Ephraim also renders this passage more easily applicable to particular penitents in all ages. Every one of such may insert his own name, instead of that of Ephraim, and claim the encouragement originally given to them. And indeed this whole passage is applicable to all true penitents.

Repenting Ephraim did but speak the language of every one of you, my brethren, who is made sensible of the plague of his own heart, and turned to the Lord. And the tender language of forgiving grace to mourning Ephraim—is addressed to each of you; and it is with a view to you that I intend to consider this Scripture. The text naturally resolves itself into three parts, as it consists of three verses.

In verse 18, we find the careless, resolute impenitent, reduced by chastisement to a sense of his danger, and the necessity of turning to God; and yet sensible of his utter inability, and therefore crying for the attractive influence of divine grace. You hear Ephraim bemoaning his wretched case, and pouring out importunate groans for relief, thus: You have chastised me, and I was chastised, like a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke, which struggles and wearies himself in vain to get free from it, and must be broken and tamed with severe usage. Thus stubborn and unmanageable, have I been. And now, when I am convinced of the necessity of a return to you, I feel my obstinate heart—stubborn, like a wild ox, and I cannot come. I therefore cry to you for the attractive influence of your grace! "Restore me, and I will return; draw me, and I shall run after you! To whom but to you should I return; and to whom but to you should I apply for strength to return? For you only are the Lord my God, who can help me, and whom I am under infinite obligations to serve."

Thus the awakened sinner prayed; and mercy listened to his cries. The attractive influences of divine grace are granted, and he is enabled to return.

This introduces the second branch of the text in the 19th verse, in which the new convert is represented as reflecting upon the efficacy of converting grace, and the glorious change wrought in him by it: "After I strayed, I repented; after I came to understand, I struck my thigh in grief! I was ashamed and humiliated because I bore the disgrace of my youth." While the returning prodigal is venting himself in these plaintive strains in some solitary corner, his heavenly Father's affections are moving over him.

The third part of the text represents the blessed God listening to the cries of his mourning child. And while Ephraim is going on in his passionate complaints, God, as it were, interrupts him, and surprises him with the soothing voice of mercy. "Is not Ephraim my dear son, the child in whom I delight?" Surely he is. Or we may understand the words thus, as if God should say, "Whose mourning voice is this that I hear? Is this Ephraim, my dear son? Is this my pleasant child that bemoans himself as a helpless orphan, or one abandoned by his father? And can I bear to hear his complaints without mingling divine consolations with them, and assuring him of pardon? No! For since I spoke against him in my threatenings, I do earnestly remember him still! Therefore my heart yearns for him; I have great compassion for him!" says the Lord.

I shall endeavor to illustrate each of these parts of the text;
and thus shall be led to describe the preparative exercise, the nature and concomitants of true repentance;
and lastly, the tender compassions of God towards mourning penitents.

1. Let us view the returning sinner under his first spiritual concern, which is generally preparatory to evangelical repentance.

And where shall we find him? And what is he doing?

We shall not find him as usual, in a thoughtless hurry about earthly things, confining all his attention to these trifles, and unmindful of the important concerns of eternity. We shall not find him merry and vain, in a circle of jovial, careless companions; much less shall we find him intrepid and secure in a course of sin, gratifying his flesh, and indulging his lusts.

In this enchanted road, the crowd of hardy impenitents pass secure and cheerful down to the chambers of eternal death—but the awakened sinner flies from it with horror; or, if his depraved heart would tempt him to walk in it, he cannot take many steps before he is shocked with the horrid apparition of impending danger! He finds the flattering paths of sin haunted with the terrible specters of guilt; and the sword of divine vengeance gleams bright and dreadful before him, and seems lifted to give the fatal blow!

You will, therefore, find the awakened sinner solitary and solemn in some retired corner, not deceiving himself with vain hopes of safety in his present state—but alarmed with apprehensions of danger. He is not planning schemes for his temporal advantage; nor asking, with sordid anxiety, "Who will show me any worldly good?" but solicitous about his perishing soul, and anxiously inquiring, "What shall I do to be saved?" He is not congratulating himself upon the imaginary goodness of his heart or life, or priding himself with secret wonder in a rich conceit of his excellencies; but you will hear him, in his sorrowful retirement,bemoaning, or (as the original signifies) condoling himself. He sees his case to be really dreadful and sad, and he, as it were, takes up a lamentation over himself. He is no more senseless, hard-hearted, and self-applauding, as he was accustomed to be: but, like a mourning dove, he bewails himself in such pathetic strains as these:

"Unhappy creature that I am! into what a deplorable state have I brought myself! and how long have I continued in it, with the insensibility of a rock and the stupidity of a brute! Now I may mourn over my past neglected and unimproved days, as so many deceased friends, sent indeed from heaven to do me good—but cruelly killed by my ungrateful neglect and continued delays as to return to God and holiness. Fly back, you abused months and years; arise from the dead; restore me your precious moments again, that I may unravel the web of life, and form it anew; and that I may improve the opportunities I have squandered away! Vain and desperate wish! the wheels of time will not return—and what shall I do? Here I am, a guilty, obnoxious creature, uncertain of life and unfit to die; alienated from God, and incapable (alas! I may add unwilling to return) a slave to sin, and too feeble to break the fetters of my inveterate habits; liable to the arrest of divine justice, and unable to deliver myself; exposed to the vengeance of heaven—yet can make no atonement; destitute of a saving interest in Christ; and uncertain, awfully uncertain, whether I shall ever obtain it!

"And if these guilty lips may dare to pronounce your injured name, O God of grace, have pity upon me! But, alas! I deserve no pity, for how long have I denied it to myself! Ah, infatuated wretch! why did not I sooner begin to secure my unhappy soul, which has lain all this time neglected, and unpitied, upon the brink of ruin! Why did I not sooner lay my condition to heart? Alas! I should have gone on thoughtless still, had I not been awakened by the kind severity, the gracious chastisements of my dishonored Father!"

"You have chastised me!" This, as spoken by Ephraim, had a particular reference to the Babylonish captivity; but we may naturally take occasion from it to speak of those afflictions in general, whether outward or inward, that are made the means of alarming the secure sinner. There are many ways which our heavenly Father takes to correct his undutiful children until they return to him.

Sometimes he kindly takes away their health—the abused occasion of their wantonness and security, and restrains them from their lusts with fetters of affliction. This is beautifully described by Elihu. "God disciplines people with sickness and pain, with ceaseless aching in their bones. They lose their appetite and do not care for even the most delicious food. They waste away to skin and bones. They are at death's door; the angels of death wait for them." Job 33:19-22

Sometimes God awakens the sinner to bethink himself, by stripping him of his earthly supports and comforts: his estate or his relatives—which drew away his heart from eternal things, and thus brings him to see the necessity of turning to God, the fountainof bliss—upon the failure of the creature streams. Thus he dealt with profligate Manasseh. 2 Chron. 33:11, 12. He was taken in "thorns, and bound in fetters, and carried to Babylon; and when he was in affliction he sought the Lord, and humbled himself greatly before him, and prayed unto him," etc. Thus also God promises to do with his chosen: "I will cause you to pass under therod, and I will bring you into the bond of my covenant." Ezekiel 20:37; Psalm 89:32; Proverbs 22:15, 29:15.

But the principal means of correction which God uses in conversion, is that of conscience; and indeed without this, all the rest are in vain. Outward afflictions are of service—only as they tend to awaken the conscience from its lethargy to a faithful discharge of its trust. It is conscience which makes the sinner sensible of his misery and scourges him—until he returns to his duty. This is a chastisement the most severe that human nature can endure. The lashes of a guilty conscience are intolerable; and some under them have chosen strangling and suicide rather than life. The spirit of a man may bear him up under outward infirmities; but when the spirit itself is wounded—who can bear it? Proverbs 18:14. "They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them." Romans 2:15

Conscience is a serpent in his breast, which bites and gnaws his heart; and he can no more avoid it, than he can fly from himself! Its force is so great and universal, that even the heathen poet Juvenal, not famous for the delicacy of his morals, taught by experience, could speak feelingly of its secret blows, and of agonizing sweats under its tortures. Let not such of you as have never been tortured with its remorse, congratulate yourselves upon your happiness, for you are not innocents! Your conscience will not always sleep; it will not always lie torpid and inactive, like a snake benumbed with cold, in your breast! It will awaken you either to your conversion—or condemnation! Either the fire of God's wrath flaming from his law will enliven it in this world to sting you with medicinal anguish; or the unquenchable fire of his vengeance in the lake of fire and brimstone will thaw it into life—and then it will horribly rage in your breast, and diffuse its tormenting poison through your whole frame! And then it will become a never-dying worm, and prey upon your hearts forever!

But if you now allow it to pain you with beneficial remorse, and awaken you to a tender sensibility of your danger—then this internal enemy will in the end become your bosom friend, will support you under every calamity, and be your faithful companion and guardian through the most dangerous paths of life.

Therefore now submit to its wholesome severities, now yield to its chastisements!

Such of you as have submitted to its authority, and obeyed its faithful admonitions, find it your best friend. And you may bless the day in which you complied with its demands, though before divine grace renewed your heart, your wills were stubborn and reluctant; and you might say with Ephraim: "You disciplined me like an unruly calf!"

That is, "As a wild young ox, unbroken from the herd, is unmanageable, refuses the yoke, becomes outraged at the whip or goad, and wearies himself in struggles to throw off the burden put upon him, and regain his savage liberty, and never will submit until wearied out, and unable to resist any longer; so has my stubborn heart, unaccustomed to obey, refused the yoke of your law, O my God, and struggled with sullen obstinacy under your chastisements! Instead of calmly submitting to your rod, and immediately reforming under correction, instead of turning to you, and flying to your arms to avoid the falling blow—I was unyielding and outraged, like a wild bull in a net! Isaiah 51:20. I wearied myself in desperate struggles to free myself from your chastising hand; or vainly tried to harden myself to bear it with obdurate insensibility. I tried to break the rod of conscience that I might no more groan under its lashes, and my heart forcefully resisted and rebelled against the gracious design of your correction, which was to bring me back to you my heavenly Father. But now I am wearied out, now I am sensible I must submit, or perish, and that my conscience is too strong for me, and must prevail."

You see, my brethren, the obstinate reluctance of an awakened sinner to return to God. Like a wild young bullock, he would roam at large, and is impatient of the yoke of the law, and the restraints of conscience. He loves his sin—and cannot bear to part with it. He has no relish for the exercises of devotion and self-denial; and therefore will not submit to them. The way of holiness is disagreeable to his depraved heart, and he will not turn his feet to it. He loves to be stupidly comfortable, and serene in mind, and cannot bear to be checked in his pursuit of business or pleasure, by anxieties of heart! And therefore he is impatient of the honest warnings of his conscience, and uses a variety of wretched expedients to silence its clamorous remonstrances.

In short, he will do anything, he will turn to anything—rather than turn to God. If his conscience will be but satisfied, he will forsake many of his sins. He will, like Herod, Mark 6:20, do many things, and walk in the whole round of external religious duties. All this he will do, if his conscience will be but bribed by it. But if conscience enlarges its demands, and, after he has reformed his life, requires him to have a new heart, requires him to turn not only from the outward practice of gross vices—but from the love of all sins; not only to turn to the observance of religious duties—but to turn to the Lord with all his heart, and surrender himself entirely to him, and make it the main business of life to serve him; if conscience, I say, carries its demands thus far—he cannot bear it, he struggles to throw off the yoke!

And some are cursed with horrid success in the attempt! They are permitted to rest content in a partial reformation, or externalreligion, as sufficient; and so go down to the grave with a lie in their right hand! But the happy soul, on whom divine grace is determined to finish its work, in spite of all opposition, is allowed to weary itself out in a vain resistance of the chastisements of conscience, until it is obliged to yield, and submit to the yoke. And then with Ephraim it will cry: "Restore me—and I will return!" This is the mourning sinner's language, when convinced that he must submit and turn to God, and in the meantime finds himself utterly unable to turn.

He makes many attempts to give himself to the Lord; but oh! his heart starts back and shrinks away, as though he were rushing into flames—when he is but flying to the gracious embraces of his Father! He strives, and strives to drag himself along—but all in vain. And what shall he do in this extremity—but cry, "Lord, Restore me—and I will return! Draw me—and I shall run after you.Work in me to will and to do—and then I shall work out my own salvation.

"Lord, though I am sensible of the necessity of turning to you, though I exert my feeble strength in many a languid effort to come—yet I cannot so much as creep towards you, though I should die on the spot! Not only your Word—but my own experience now convinces me that I cannot come unto you—unless you draw me. John 6:44.

"Others vainly boast of their imaginary power, as though, when they set themselves about it, they could perform some great achievements. Thus I once flattered myself—but now, when I am most capable of judging, that is, when I come to the trial, all my boasts are humbled! Here I lie, a helpless creature, unable to go to the physician, unable to accept of pardon and life on the easy terms of the gospel, and unable to free myself from the bondage of sin! And thus I must lie forever, unless that God, from whom I have revolted, draws me back to himself. Turn me, oh you who have the hearts of all men in your hands, and can turn them wherever you please! Turn me—and then as weak and reluctant as I am—I shall be turned. This backward heart will yield to the almighty attraction of your grace! Here am I—as passive clay in the hand of the potter; incapable to fashion myself into a vessel fit for your house; but you can form me as you please. This hard and stubborn heart will be malleable and pliable to your irresistible power."

Thus you see the awakened sinner is driven to earnest prayer in his exigency. Never did a drowning man call for help, or acondemned malefactor plead for pardon—with more sincerity and ardor! If the sinner had neglected prayer all his life before now—he flies to it as the only expedient left! Or if he formerly ran it over in a careless, unthinking manner, as an insignificant form—now he exerts all the importunity of his soul! Now he prays as for his life, and cannot rest until his desires are answered!

The sinner ventures to enforce his petition by pleading his relation to God, "Restore me, and I will return, because you are the LORD my God." There is a sense in which a sinner in his unregenerate state cannot call God, his God; that is, he cannot claim a special interest in him as his portion, nor cry "Abba, Father," with the spirit of adoption, as reconciled to God. But even an unregenerate sinner may call him my God in other senses:

He is his God by right, that is, though he has idolatrously yielded himself to other gods—yet by right he should have acknowledged the LORD only.

He is his God—as that name denotes authority and power, to which he should be subject.

He is his God—as he would now choose him to be his God, his portion, and his all, which is implied in turning to him.

He is his God—by anticipation and hope, as upon his turning to him he will become his reconciled God in covenant.

He is his God—by outward profession and visible relation.

The force of this argument, to urge his petition for converting grace, may be viewed in various lights.

It may be understood thus: "Restore me—for you only who are the Lord of the universe, and have all the creation at your control. You alone, who are my God and ruler, and in whose hand my heart is—are able to turn so obstinate a creature as myself! In vain do I seek for help elsewhere. Not all the means upon earth, not all the persuasions, exhortations, invitations, and terrors that can be used with me—can turn my hard heart; it is a work befitting the Lord God Almighty, and it is you alone can effect it."

Or we may understand the plea thus: "Restore me—and I shall turn to you; to you who are the Lord my God, and to whom I am under the most sacred obligations to return. I would resign your own right to you; I would submit to you who alone has a just claim to me as your servant."

Or the words may be understood as an abjuration of all the idol-lusts to which the sinner was enslaved before: "I will turn to you; for to whom should I turn—but to the Lord my God! "What have I to do any more with idols?" Hosea 14:8: "Why should I any longer submit to other masters, who have no right to me? I would renounce them all; I would throw off all subjection to them, and avouch you alone for the Lord my God!" Thus have the Jews renounced their false gods upon their return from Babylon.

Or we may understand the words as an encouragement to hope for converting grace, since it is asked from a God of infinite power and goodness: "Though I have most grievously offended, and had I done the thousandth part so much against my fellow creatures, I could never expect a favorable admission into their presence; yet I dare ask so great a favor of you, for you are God—and not man: your power and your grace are all divine, such as befit a God. I therefore dare to hope for that from your hands, which I might despair of from all the universe of beings besides."

Or finally, the passage may be looked upon as a plea drawn from the sinner's external relation to God, as a member of his visible church, and as dedicated to him: "Restore me—and I will turn to you, whose name I bear, and to whom I have been early devoted. I would now of my own choice acknowledge the God of my fathers, and return to the guide of my youth. And, since you have honored me with a place in your visible church, I humbly hope you will not reject me now, when I would sincerely consecrate myself to you, and become your servant in reality, as well as in appearance."

In this sense the plea might be used with peculiar propriety by the Jews, who had been nationally adopted as the peculiar people of God.

In whatever sense we understand the words, they convey to us this important truth: that the awakened sinner is obliged to take all his encouragement from God, and not from himself. All his trust is in the divine mercy, and he is brought to a happy self-despair.

Having viewed Ephraim under the preparatory work of legal conviction, and the dawn of evangelical repentance; let us now view him,

2. As reflecting upon the surprising efficacy of grace he had sought, and which was bestowed upon him in answer to his prayer. We left him just now crying, "Restore me—and I shall be turned!" And here we find him actually turned: "After I strayed, I repented; after I came to understand, I struck my thigh in grief!" When the Lord exerts his power to subdue the stubbornness of the sinner, and sweetly to allure him to himself—then the sinner repents; then his heart dissolves in sincere, unselfish relentings. His sorrow and concern before conversion are forced and mercenary; they are occasioned only by a selfish fear of punishment, and he would willingly get rid of them! But now, his grief is free and spontaneous; it flows from his heart as freely as streams from a fountain! He now takes pleasure in tender relentings before the Lord for his sin; he delights to be humble, and to feel his heart dissolve within him. A heart of flesh, soft and susceptive of impression, is his choice; and a stony, insensible heart a great burden. The more penitent—the more happy; and the more senseless—the more miserable he finds himself.

Now also, his heart is actuated with a generous concern for the glory of God. Now also,he sees the horrid evil of sin as contrary to the holiness of God, and an ungrateful requital of his uninterrupted beneficence. We learn from this passage, that the true penitent is sensible of a mighty turn in his temper and inclinations. "Surely after I strayed, I repented." His whole soul is turned from what he formerly delighted in—and turned to what he had no relish for before. Particularly his thoughts, his will, andaffections are turned to God. There is a heavenly bias communicated to them—which draws them to holiness; like the law of gravitation in the material world.

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