Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2547
“Return now every one from his evil way.” Jeremiah 18:11.
As I read the Scripture in your hearing, a few minutes ago, [See the Exposition at the end of the sermon. The verse referred to is Luke
13:3—eod.] I was greatly startled by one word in the first part of the chapter—“Except you repent, you shall all likewise perish.” How did those Galileans perish? I am solemnly afraid that some of you will perish just as they did. Christ says, “likewise,” that is to say, in the same way as they perished, so will you, unless you repent. Well, how did they perish? Their blood was mingled with their sacrifices. Will it be, can it be—shall it be—that some of you will keep on coming to the House of Prayer—that you will continue to join in all the exercises of our public service and yet that you will not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, so that you will perish—and your blood will be mingled with your sacrifices? Think of it, dear Friends! Your blood on your Chapel attendance, your blood on your Church attendance—your blood on your hymn singing and on your prayers—because you have not yielded yourselves up to God, or obeyed the Word of His Gospel! If my blood must be spilt through an act of Divine vengeance, let it fall anywhere but on my religion, for that would seem a doubly dreadful thing—to die at the altar and to let one’s blood be mingled with his sacrifice! Yet I do really fear that this must and will, in the necessary order of things, be the lot of some here who never forsake the gatherings of God’s people and yet, at the same time, who have never yielded their hearts to God.
Then, think of those on whom the tower in Siloam fell—how did they die? Christ says, “Except you repent, you shall all likewise perish.” Why, they were destroyed by their own defenses—the tower was built to defend the place—yet it fell upon 18 of the inhabitants and slew them! It is an awful thing when a man’s self-righteousness damns him, when that which is his confidence becomes his condemnation, when the very thing in which he trusted shall totter to its fall and bury him beneath its ruins! That is the dread I have upon me, lest this calamity should happen to some of you, that your supposed tower of defense should prove to be your grave—and that you should find a sepulcher beneath your own confidences! Christ says it shallbe so, “except you repent.”
My text is all about repentance. It is an exhortation from God, very brief and sententious, but very earnest and plain—“Return now every one from his evil way.” I want you all to notice that this is the call of mercy. God might have let you die to mingle your blood with your sacrifices. He might have let your tower fall upon you, to destroy you. Instead of that, the voice of Mercy still sounds in your ears—“As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn, turn from your evil ways; for why will you die?” And in the words of our text he says, “Return now every one from his evil way.” God help you to listen to the call and to obey it! It is a message of mercy and it means that God would have you saved and, therefore, He cries to you, “Return,” because He is willing to receive you and to blot out all your sin!
But remember that it is equally the call of a holyGod, the God who knows that you cannot be saved unless you turn from your evil ways. A holy God will give no salvation to the man who continues in his unrighteousness. There is no Heaven for the man who will not leave his sin. You must quit your sin, or renounce all hope of salvation. You must turn or burn! You must repent or perish. God’s unsullied holiness will never alter this Law—you must be driven from His face in the day of His wrath unless you turn from your evil way in the day of His mercy! Hope not that there shall be any exception made for you to this rule, for there shall not be. Within the gate of pearl, none who are defiled, or who would defile the holy place, shall ever enter. If you would be a partaker in the glories of Heaven, you must be washed, cleansed, sanctified. You must be made to hate your sin, or else you can never enter where God is. Listen, then, to this urgent but gracious message which I trust that God, in His mercy, has sent for many of you—“Return now every one from his evil way.”
I. I want you to join me in looking at the words of my text as I try to press them home by the guidance of the Holy Spirit. And, first, I will answer this question, WHAT DOES THE TEXT SAY? It says, “Return”
The picture is that of a man who is going the wrong way. He is trespassing, he is on forbidden ground, he is advancing in a dangerous road. And if he shall continue to go in that direction, he will, by-and-by, come to a dreadful precipice over which he will fall and there he will be ruined. A voice cries to him, “Return!” What does that word mean? It is very simple and that I may make it even more plain, perhaps, for practical purposes, let me say that the first thing such a man would do would be to stop. If I were out in the country, on a road which I did not know, and I heard a voice crying out to me, “Return,” I would certainly stop and listen. And if I heard the cry repeated with great eagerness and earnestness, “Return! Return!” I would pause, look around and try to see who it was that had called to me. I would look in front to see whether there was any particular reason for bidding me return, but I would look all around about me to try and discover for what motive the man had bid me go back. I wish that all of you who are wandering away from God would stop and consider where you are going. The trouble with some of you is that you will not think—you go blundering on, like some wild beast that cannot keep still. I beg you, just now, to stop a little while and think of what you have been doing, and to what your present course must lead, and in what woe it must end. Stop! In God’s name, I would arrest you! As God’s officer, I would put my hand on your shoulder and say to you, “You must stop! Pause and consider your ways. I cannot let you go on carelessly to your ruin, like a sheep into the slaughterhouse, or a bull going to be killed.” Stop, I pray you!