Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2795
“Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.” James 4:8.
As soon as man had disobeyed God, he ran away from Him. Our first parents hid themselves among the trees of the Garden when they heard the voice of the Lord God calling them. They did not come to Him at once, confess the wrong which they had committed and ask for mercy. The natural effect of their sin was to harden their hearts and not to lead them penitently to the great Father—and it led them impertinently to run away from Him. So, when the Lord came walking in the Garden, in the cool of the day, Adam did not seek Him, to plead for mercy from Him, but the first words had to come from God—“the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where are you?” It was God’s voice speaking in mercy to His wandering child.
Our blessed Savior has set forth the result of sin in His parable of the lost sheep which has strayed from the fold and which, if left to itself, continues to go further and yet further away. We have, all of us, gone astray, as Dr. Watts says—
“EEach wandering in a different way, But all the downward road”
Our Lord Jesus has set forth this same Truth in that other parable in which He describes the prodigal son as gathering all together and taking his journey into a far country, away from his father. He could not live as he wished in his father’s house. He could not, there, waste his substance with riotous living. His father’s eyes would have been a check upon him at home, so, the only way for him to obtain that foolish and ruinous liberty for which he sought was to get as far off as he could from his father. Alas, this is the condition of every unregenerate sinner—he has gone away from God and he tries continually to get further and further away from God. Why do men neglect to keep holy the Sabbath, unless it is that they do not want to think of God? Why do they put religious books on one side? Why do they leave their Bibles unread but because God’s name, God’s Person, God’s Law, God’s Gospel—all about God—has become distasteful to them? Like the fool of whom David tells us, they say in their hearts, “No God!” They do not want Him and if there could be an official announcement made that there is no God, they would welcome it! God is not in all their thoughts, or if He is there at all, it is as an enemy, or as One for whom they have no care, One whom they are not willing to have to reign over them. O heart of man, you have, indeed, gone astray from your God when the distance at which you are from Him is loved by you and you even wish, in your unkindness and your folly, to make that distance greater! If you wish to return, you are already halfway back, but, alas, you do not wish to return! That thought comes not to you and, if you could, you would take the wings of the morning and fly to the uttermost parts of the earth in the hope that there you could be hidden from the eyes and the Presence of God!
Knowing this to be true, I am glad to be able to give the message of my text to those who are far off from God because the only cure for such sinful wandering is for the sinner to come back to God. While the prodigal was in the far country, he could not be set right. The first step towards getting back into his right position was his resolve, “I will arise and go to my father.” If he could have filled his belly with husks or anything else—if he could have had his rags exchanged for robes—if he could have been made a nobleman in that far-off land, it would have been a mischief rather than a benefit to him, for the radical cure, in his case, must lie in his saying, “Father, I have sinned,” and in receiving his fa-
ther’s kiss of forgiveness and all the tokens of restoration to his father’s favor. It must be the same with any of you who are far off from God—if you would be right with Him, you must come back to Him.
Poor creatures, how can you be right till you love your Creator? Poor sheep, how can you be right till you are back under the care of the Good Shepherd? O poor immortal, how can you hope for an eternity of blessedness till the Immortal God is reconciled to you and you are reconciled to Him? A creature remaining at enmity against God must expect to dwell forever with the devils in Hell! Where can it dwell but where other rebels are confined in chains? You must come back to your God, Man, if you would have eternal bliss, for if you could have one of the harps of Heaven, it would yield no music to you till you had yielded yourself into submission to the God of Heaven! If you would have the street of gold, it would not enrich you until you had the God of Heaven to be your Friend! So I say again that the only remedy for sin— the only radical efficient cure for the great evil of iniquity—is for the sinner to come back to God! I want to impress this one point upon you and I pray that God, the Holy Spirit, will work effectually upon some who are here and draw them back to God while, in His name, I deliver this gracious message to them, “Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.”