May it please God to bless us
together this evening as we meditate in his word. Let's turn to the
prophecy of Jeremiah in the third chapter, and we'll read verse
14. The third chapter in the prophecy
of Jeremiah, and reading verse 14. Turn, O backsliding children,
saith the Lord, for I am married unto you. and I will take you
one of a city and two of a family and I will bring you to Zion. Jeremiah lived in the time before
and when Israel were taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar and carried
away down to Babylon, there to spend a very sad 70 years. And all because they had not
listened and obeyed the gracious words of the Lord through his
prophets. And now today, after many years,
we have the word of God which records some of those things
which were spoken in those days by Jeremiah, and we should not
think that they only were appointed for such an occasion, because
clearly the Word of God is for all generations. And so, in this
chapter, it speaks very much about the need for a true repentance. And how Israel and Judah did
not heed the gracious words spoken to them. And how today people
are in the same way. They do not take heed. It does not touch their hearts.
They carry on in their own way, expecting God to go along with
the things that they think and do and say. assuming that what
they are doing is adequate to satisfy God and adequate to get
them to heaven at last and do not possess really that tender
fear of the Lord which is the gift of God and is so wonderful
because it brings us into that right relationship with Almighty
God. And so Jeremiah tells us And
what the Lord spoke to him. And in verse six of this chapter,
the Lord said, also unto me, in the days of Josiah the king,
and Josiah, you may remember, was a good king, hast thou seen
that which backsliding Israel hath done? She has gone up upon
every high mountain and under every green tree and there hath
played the harlot. And I said after, she had done
all these things Turn thou unto me.' But she returned not." You
see that was a very gracious and very wonderful word from
God. Here they'd walked in opposite
direction, contrary to the Lord. The Lord had spoken to them in
this wonderful way. Turn thou unto me. But she returned
not. And her treacherous sister Judah
saw it. And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding
Israel committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a
bill of divorce, yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but
went and played the harlot also. And it came to pass through the
likeness of her whoredoms that she defiled the land and committed
adultery with stones and with stocks, and yet For all this
her treacherous sister Judah hath not turned unto me with
her whole heart, but faintedly, saith the Lord." And that's a
very telling word, isn't it? Faintedly. What that really means
is they did it pretending. Pretending to turn back. Pretending
to turn their whole heart unto the Lord, but it wasn't done.
with their whole heart. It was just a hypocritical position
which they found themselves in, and surely that's true today.
There are many people who, we might say, act religion, pretend
what they're not. They speak the words which may
seem to be right, but their heart is not moved by the blessed spirit
of God. And so here we have this statement,
that they but faintingly saith the Lord. You see, the Lord looks
at our hearts. He knows whether we're pretending or whether it's
real. People may not realize, but God
knows. And so we're told, and the Lord
said unto me, the backsliding Israel hath justified herself
more than treacherous Judah. And again, that's a word of A
kind word of rebuke, isn't it? Because naturally, if we're wrong,
unless the Spirit gives us confession and repentance, what do we do?
We try and justify ourselves. We try and justify what we've
said, justify what we've gone. More concerned about what people
think of us than what God thinks of us. And so here was this statement
with regards to Israel and Judah in the days of Jeremiah. But he was told, notwithstanding
that, what was Jeremiah told? Go and proclaim these words toward
the north 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.' We see surely there
great compassion, do we not? Wonderful mercy from Almighty
God to speak in such a way as this. Well, did it have an effect
upon Israel and Judah? It did not. It did not. And then he comes and says, only
acknowledge thine iniquity that thou hast transgressed against
the Lord thy God. Now, that is a very important
statement. Only acknowledge thine iniquity. What does it mean? It means that
we should come, indeed we must come, and confess our sins, confess
our iniquity, acknowledge when we've been wrong, only acknowledge thy iniquity
that thou has transgressed against the Lord thy God and has scattered
thy ways to the strangers under every green tree and you have
not obeyed my voice saith the Lord'. It's a very straight words
that Jeremiah was instructed by the Lord to speak and there
was no room for manoeuvre really and yet you see what occurred.
We know sadly they did not listen and they went their own way. Gracious words of instruction
only acknowledge thine iniquity. What a blessing is when the Holy
Spirit comes upon us and we need it to come like this and to acknowledge
our sin. To acknowledge all our sin and
not to try and justify ourselves and think well I think I was
right there and therefore it's not sin. Only acknowledge thy
iniquity that thou has transgressed against the Lord thy God. Remember
always that it is before the Lord our God that you and I stand. That's the ultimate position
that we're in. We may of course be before people
and rightly so, but it's before God we stand and we should desire
and pray that we may be able to come and freely acknowledge
our iniquity against Almighty God. It won't be easy because
our nature doesn't like to admit we're wrong. We don't like to
confess we made a mistake. We don't like to think that we
walk contrary to God. But here the word is so simple
and so wonderful. Simple like this, only acknowledge
thine iniquity. That means to come and to Confess
our sins unto our God The Word of God is gloriously true as
we mentioned in prayer if we confess our sins if we confess
our sins He is faithful and just To forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness That's a wonderful gospel word,
isn't it? May we lay hold of it because
there is great benefit and great comfort and great blessing in
coming to God and to confess our sins, all our sins, small
as we may think, large as we may think. They're all sins against
Almighty God, whatever that may be. And may the Spirit of God
show to us what is sin. may not always appreciate what
is sin. Bless God when the Holy Spirit
convicts us of our sin and brings us to this position. And the
position of course is really a blessed place of repentance. Repentance before God. It's a
wonderful gift to be brought there, to repent. Well, naturally, we don't like
to do it. But this is the blessed effect
of the power of God in our hearts, enabling us to come and to repent. And we must all be amongst those
who do repent. There is no unrepentant sinner
in heaven. Be quite clear about that. And therefore what a blessing
if the Holy Spirit gives us that grace to come, to fall down,
to bow down before a holy, righteous God and acknowledge what we are,
how we've sinned, how we've fallen short, how we've disobeyed the
word of the Lord. We turned our back upon God. how true it is. So the word is,
that ye have not obeyed, my voice saith the Lord. Now, tonight,
can you honestly before God say, well, I'm thankful to say I've
obeyed all the word of God? Well, if you say that, I'm sure
you're a hypocrite. But if you come in and have to
confess that you have not obeyed my voice, saith the Lord." Then
you see the word which follows is appropriate to us, where the
Prophet under the influence of the blessed Spirit of God said,
turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord. That means to
turn from our disobedient path. Turn, O backsliding children. And the Word of God is very searching
because it tells us this. And it was so set forth in the
life of Israel of old. If we turn our back upon God,
if we walk contrary to him, if ye walk contrary to me, I will
walk contrary to you. And God doesn't tell lies. And
don't think that you and I can somehow escape such condemnation. It's very searching, isn't it?
If you and I are walking contrary to God in anything, don't think,
well, I can forget about that. No, you can't. No, you can't. Perhaps we find the Lord withdraws
his presence from us. And what does that mean? The
rebellious dwell in a dry land. Who are those who are rebellious?
Those who do not obey the word of God. You may look into your
heart and you may look into your spiritual experience and you
may think, well, I haven't received any word from the Lord recently,
I haven't been instructed, I haven't been blessed. Is there a reason? There is. There is. What a blessing, therefore, if
the Holy Spirit shows to us the reason that we have been rebellious
against the Word of the Lord. And therefore we dwelt in a dry
land. It's been a time of famine. We
may not like to confess it. We may not like to admit it.
We may just like to think, well, it's one of those things. No,
it's not. It's if we walk contrary to God. He's walked contrary
to us. And what a blessing it is if
the Holy Spirit comes and gives us much grace to carefully examine
ourselves. To examine ourselves. We can
be thankful that we have such a word as this. Turn, O backsliding
children. Turn back to God. Turn to follow
Him. Turn to obey His voice. Turn,
O backsliding children. You see, by nature left to ourself,
we do backslide. And we backslide when we fail
to hear if we fail to obey the blessed voice of the Lord. And
let us remember, let us realize that all the words of God are
good. All his commands are good. The
Lord doesn't have any bad commands. They're all good. They're all
for our eternal good. They're all for our spiritual
good. And they're all for the honor
and glory of our God. You trace back the life of Israel
and Judah, and how they rebelled against God and they didn't follow
his gracious words, his gracious commands. No, they listened to
who? The devil. My friends, the devil
is very sharp and he's at our elbow all the time. trying to
push us this way and that way, every way which is contrary,
every way which is against obeying the voice of the Lord. And yet
there is such great and glorious consolation in obeying God's
voice. There is a wonderful peace, you
see, when we come to do this, to hear God's word and perhaps
The cost of obeying God's voice may appear to our flesh to be
just too hard a price to pay. We think, well, I just can't
do that. No, I'm not going to do that.
And in actual fact, I don't think I really need to. Well, the truth
is you do need to. Because the Lord says so. And
the Lord has laid it before us in his word. And therefore, let
us not, like Israel of old, rebel. Because we know what the outcome
was. They had to go into those 70 years of captivity. They weren't
70 years of freedom. They weren't 70 years of wonderful
living. It was 70 years of captivity. They didn't have freedom. They
didn't have the temple to worship in. They were all taken from
them, all their spiritual blessings. 70 years. Because they did not
Obey the word of the Lord. Turn, O backsliding children,
saith the Lord. Well, what a mercy it is. And
of course, there are so many words in the word of God which
direct us to the need for this situation. And Ezekiel, in his
prophecy, also has a words to encourage us And in the 33rd
chapter, 10th verse, Ezekiel prophesies these words from God. Therefore, O son of man, speak
unto the house of Israel. Thus she speak, saying, if our
transgressions and our sins be upon us, and we pine away in
them, how shall we then live? Say unto them, as I live, saith
the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked. but
that a wicked turn from his way and live. Turn ye, turn ye from
your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel? And it may be quite hard for
you and me to recognize that an evil way is not obeying the
word of God. That is an evil way. And that's a very searching consideration,
isn't it? A very searching consideration. And whereas the word here is
turn, oh backsliding children. And we may think, well, that
seems just so simple. Surely there's something much
greater that I need to consider and have to do. Well, we should
be reminded in the Word of God we have a wonderful illustration
in the life of Naaman. Naaman you may remember was a
Syrian and he had leprosy and he was told by a little maid
to go to the prophet in Israel who would be able to heal him. Well, Naaman came to Elisha and
he came to his door, came with his horses and his chariot and
stood at the door of the house of Elisha. And what did Elisha
do? He sent a messenger. Now Naaman
thought, well surely he will come, he will look upon me. He
expected some great and wonderful occurrence, some great and wonderful
blessing. And we can sometimes think that
we need some amazing revelation. The Lord hasn't promised it.
The Lord didn't hear with Naaman. And he sent a messenger and told
him what to do. Go and wash in Jordan seven times
and thy flesh shall come again to thee and thou shalt be clean.
It was a very simple thing, wasn't it? Was Naaman happy with that? No, he was wroth. He went away
and said, Behold, I thought he would surely come out to me and
stand and call upon the name of the Lord his God and strike
his hand over the place and recover the leper. Are not Abana and
Phapa, rivers of Damascus, better than all these waters of Israel?
May I not wash in them and be clean? So he turned away and
went away in a rage. And the blessing was that this
man Naomi, he had some good servants. And the servants came to him
and they just reasoned with him. And it was good words that they
said. My father, if the prophet bid
thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? How much
rather then, when he saith to thee, wash and be clean? Naaman was given grace to receive
that wisdom and that instruction. And he went down and dipped himself
those seven times and he was clean. Well we realized there
was a very simple thing to do, but he had to obey the word of
the Lord, obey the words through Elisha in that simple way. And here We have tonight these
words, turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord. Now you and I
know what that speaks to us, speaks to you and me tonight.
And we should not think, well, I'm not in that place. I'm not
backsliding. I'm walking very well. Well,
you need to look very carefully into your heart to see whether
there is anything you've omitted to do, anything you've omitted
to obey before God, and you found yourself walking in what you
think may be a right way, and yet there's been that which has
not been right, and you've been found in a backsliding way. Well, the gracious word is, and
isn't it lovely, turn. Turn to the Lord, confess your
sins, acknowledge your transgressions, He will have mercy upon you.
He tells us the reason. Turn, O backsliding children,
saith the Lord, for I am married unto you. Yes, we have The beautiful description, don't
we, in the Song of Solomon, of the married state between the
Lord Jesus Christ as the heavenly bridegroom and the Church of
God as the bride. And to think therefore that this
is true, for I am married unto you. The Lord is joined to us.
What reason then there is to have the evidence of it in the
willingness of our heart? to turn unto the Lord, whatever
the cost may be. And as I said before, it is costly
to our own heart, to our own nature to come and to confess
our sins and to acknowledge that we have not listened to the Lord
and we've disobeyed Him and therefore we found ourselves walking contrary
to God and in measure we found God walking contrary to us and
it may not be perhaps in the same way that Israel had to face
when they went down for 70 years in the Babylon because the Lord
is very compassionate and merciful. But if the Lord has touched our
hearts, if the Lord has shown us something of His wonderful
love then should we not return our love? And the most blessed
way of showing our love to the Saviour is to hear and to listen
and to obey His glorious voice, the voice of our Beloved. My friends, tonight is Jesus
speaking to you Is He speaking to me? Words of love toward us,
pointing out to us our transgressions, our iniquity, which we perhaps
try to hide, try to ignore, try to think it didn't exist. But blessed be God, when He comes
and puts His finger upon our sin, so that we cannot escape,
and we're just like David was in his time. He thought he'd
hidden his sin. He was going on as he thought
quite smoothly, but Nathan was sent to him to convict him of
his sin, and the Lord put his finger through Nathan the prophet
when he spoke those simple words, thou art the man. Don't look
elsewhere. Thou art the man. Conviction. And it was in David's heart. What a blessed thing it would
be if the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, whatever that may
be, so that we come and do confess our sins. David came, didn't
he? And he confessed his sins. He
made a very clean breast of them. He didn't pretend then that he
was good and he was righteous. No, he came with an open heart,
confessing his sins. And what a good position it was. And he commences the 51st Psalm
by saying, Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness,
according to the multitude of thy tender mercies. Blot out
my transgressions. He was under no disillusionment
that there were transgressions, that he had sinned, and therefore
he desired they would be blotted out. Wash me throughly from my
iniquities and cleanse me from my sin. This was confession wasn't
it? It's blessed to come and be favoured
with confession and therefore he says I acknowledge my transgressions
and my sin is ever before me. Perhaps our sins are before us
and we don't like to think they're before us. Perhaps our mind day
by day is being reminded of our sins and we don't like to have
it there. And we think, well I'm alright,
I can just continue. The problem is that we haven't
that tender conscience. And therefore we're not enjoying
the union and communion with the Saviour. We're like Peter
was, we're walking afar off. And so David says, against thee
the only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. Thou
mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou
judgest." And he tells us what the Lord desires. Behold, thou
desirest truth in the inward parts. That's not to pretend
outwardly everything is good. It's in our heart. The Lord comes
and shoots the arrow of conviction into our heart So that we then
confess before God, yes, I am the man, I am the guilty one. And it will bring us to that
place where as David came, pleading for mercy, pleading for mercy,
pleading that he would be blessed with the right spirit. And he
asks then, he says, purge me of the hyssop and I shall be
clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. He knew he
couldn't cleanse himself. Wash me, create in me a clean
heart. Oh God, what a good prayer that
is. You know how black our heart is by nature, deceived above
all things and desperately wicked. Wonderful blessing to be favoured
with this prayer. Create in me a clean heart and
renew a right spirit. That wrong spirit that we've
had, that wrong spirit that we've tried to justify, that we've
tried to put on one side and think we're okay. A right spirit
within me. So this is submission to the
will of God. Confession and submission really
go together. And it's a wonderful blessing
if you and I are favoured like this. To be able to come and
acknowledge the goodness of the Lord, And he tells us, he comes
towards the end of this statement in the 51st Psalm, the sacrifices
of God. You see, we may perhaps think
that we do things and they're sacrifices. And we think that
we're justifying ourselves by doing such things. Well, the
Lord says, through this word, the sacrifices of God are a broken
spirit. a broken and a contrite heart,
O Lord, thou wilt not despise." When the Lord speaks, as he did
to David, the Lord speaks to you and me, what does it produce?
Humbleness, a broken and a contrite heart, O Lord, thou wilt not
despise. Turn, O backsliding children,
saith the Lord, for I am married unto you." Think of that, the
great God speaking such words as this, and then he comes and
tells us, he will come and visit, and he will come and do this,
And I will take you one of a city and two of a family and bring
you to Zion." Who are those who will come at last to Zion? And of course here he was speaking
of those returning to Jerusalem after those 70 years. But as
it speaks to us today, it speaks about bringing the Church of
God to eternal glory. just one here and two there,
just a few. But my friends, may you and I
be amongst the few, may be amongst those who have been blessed to
turn, turn to the Lord with that humble desire to obey his voice
and I will bring you to Zion, bring you to glory at last. And let us remember that if you
and I are to be brought to that place, it will be to be with
the one who has given us grace to come and to turn unto him. The one who has given us grace
to acknowledge our sins. The one who has given us grace
to view the cost of that payment made for our sins. And to bow
down then before this blessed Lord God, the Lord Jesus Christ,
and to acknowledge Him as our Lord and Master and Saviour.
Unless we walk in this way, are we not being hypocritical? Are
we not pretending what we're not? Do we desire to truly honour
the great and glorious Lord Jesus Christ? Or are we ashamed of
Him? Are we ashamed to be a true follower? Are we afraid to turn and do
His will, obey His voice? Do we want the Lord to turn His
back upon us when we stand at the gate of glory to be turned
away? with those terrible, terrible
words, I never knew you. And then to realise that we considered
the cost in our life just too great and we ignored the word
of God. And then the Lord speaks those terrible words, depart
from me, I never knew you. Well, may we be brought into
this realisation that if the Lord brings us to glory, brings
us to Zion, It will be because of what he's done for us and
the cost of our salvation. And may that cost really penetrate
into our minds so that we have an understanding of his great
love toward us. That love was so great that he
took such a wretch, such a sinner, an unworthy one, and drew them
to himself and made us willing in the day of his power to forsake
all and to follow him. Oh, what a blessed path that
is. And so then to believe these words, they are promised, aren't
they? Turn no back side in children, saith the Lord. And if we are
given grace to do that, and I will bring you to Zion. Now that surely
I trust is the desire of all of us. that we may come safely
to Zion, safely to our design haven, safely to glory. And the
Lord is therefore directing us in our life, in our journey,
what we need to hear and need to do. And the Lord has given
us a wonderful word, a wonderful word in his word to direct us
in the right way. because the right way is to hear
his voice. They that hear my voice and do
my bidding are those whom I have loved. And we will do this, you
know, not out of just a natural bidding, but you and I will do
this because of love to the Saviour. So may your heart and my heart
be touched by His love, His great love, His amazing love. He laid
down His life. There's no greater love than
that, is there? He laid down His life and laid
it down in such a manner to satisfy the holy demands of Almighty
God. And suffered all in kind that God could bear, with strength
enough and none to spare. Oh, such love! On such love! my soul still ponder, love so
great, so rich, so free, say whilst lost in holy wonder, why,
O Lord, such love to me? Is that the word of your heart
tonight? And if it is, O may your love
respond, and desire therefore be walking in accordance with
the blessed Word of God. The blessed Word of God. Isn't
it a wonderful favour that we have the Bible which instructs
us and directs us to do those things which are right, to turn
away from those things which are wrong, turn O backsliding
children. And you see it's very clear that
this Word is directed to God's people who have been brought
down to be like a little child. A little child obeys the voice
of their parents, they're instructed, they're very simple, and so may
you and I come down, down to the position of a child. The Lord says, doesn't he, except
you become as little children. We need to become as little children,
simple in our belief, simple in our faith. Little children
believe the words that their parents speak as being true.
You and I as children, children of God, believe the word of God
as being true and recognise the importance of it and not therefore
turn away from it and think well it's not very relevant because
it is relevant and it's very important and the Apostle when
he wrote to the Hebrews he wrote these words and they're very
wonderful words and he speaks about coming to Zion the heavenly
heaven at last he says but ye are come unto Mount Zion, and
unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to
an innumerable company of angels, the General Assembly and Church
of the Firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God, the judge
of all, and to the spirits of just men, made perfect, and to
Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of
sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel." Here
we have the picture of the blessings for the Church of God. Those
whom God does, as he speaks here with regard to Israel, and I
will bring you to Zion. What a prospect there is, isn't
there? To the Church of God. And what a wonderful favour it
is to be found coming in this way. Isaiah speaks in very similar
words as the Apostle Paul did. Of course, Isaiah spoke in Old
Testament terms, but nonetheless are the same and still very relevant
and important. And he speaks these words, and
the ransom the Lord in the 35th chapter of Isaiah, and the ransom
the Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs and everlasting
joy upon their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. What does that mean? Peace. And we might say, peace
by his cross has Jesus made. Think of that tonight. View the
suffering Saviour. View the cost of your salvation
and desire then to be able by His grace to take up our cross
daily, whatever that means in your life and my life, realising
that we are bought with a price, and that price, the price of
blood, the price, the death of the dear Redeemer. And so may
we hear such words tonight and recognise the truth of them and
be given grace to turn O backsliding children, saith the Lord, for
I am married unto you, and I will take you, one of a city, two
of a family, and I will bring you to Zion.