Aggravations of the Guilt of Backsliding
“And he said unto them, I am an Hebrew; and I fear Jehovah, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land. Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him, Why hast thou done this? For the men knew that he had fled from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them.” — Jonah i. 9, 10. ‘•^ Hast thou not procured this unto thyself, in that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God, when He led thee by the icay.” — Jer. ii. 17.
THE answer ingenuously given by Jonah to the hasty series of questions which the excited sailors poured upon him, is a sufficient proof that the grace of God was now bringing him to repentance, as the providence of God was bringing him to punishment. “I am an Hebrew, and I fear Jehovah, the God of heaven, which made the sea and the dry land.” Combine this bold confession of his faith with the full acknowledgment of his fault — “for the men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them,” — and we have abundant materials whereby to judge of the frame of mind to which the prophet was now brought. The elements of a true repentance are distinctly before us, as true repentance appears in a believer.
For it is as a child of God that Jonah here repents; and there are elements of sad remorse and contrition in a believer’s repentance, which have no place in that first exercise of godly sorrow in which the sinner returns to the Lord. The believer sins against all the grace and favour which, as a believer, he has enjoyed; and this goes to deepen the grief and shame which he feels when brought to repentance.
Are you, as Jonah, a true worshipper and servant of God? And are you, like Jonah, overtaken by Divine displeasure in a course of disobedience in respect of some known point of duty? And are you at last humbled to own your guilt? You will acknowledge these three things in the exceeding sinfulness of your sin. You have sinned: First, against the knowledge of o
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what God is in Himself; secondly, against the experience of what God has been to you; and, thirdly, against the consideration of what yon have been to God.
These three elements all appear in the guilt of Jonah, and are expressly owned by himself. (I.) Against what God is in Himself, Jonah owns that he has sinned; against “Jehovah, the God of Heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land.” (2.) Against what God has been to him, Jonah confesses that he has sinned; “I am an Hebrew:” a member of the people whose God Jehovah is; for whom Jehovah hath done great things: to whom He hath given “the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose are the Fathers; and of whom as concerning the flesh, the Christ should come, who is God over all, blessed for ever.” (3.) And, thirdly, against what he himself has been to God, Jonah owns that he has sinned: “I fear Jehovah;” I am one of His true worshippers, His children, His servants; I have been enrolled among the true Israel — a true child of the covenant — a messenger of it also, standing in the counsel and in the secret of the Most High; for “the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him.” Yet against this also have I sinned.
By all these three considerations ought Jonah to have been restrained from sinning, and retained in his loyalty to God. The glory of God — the God of heaven, of the sea, and of the dry land — ought to have restrained him. The graciousness of God towards himself ought to have restrained him. And the grace of God in himself ought to have restrained him. And when, in the face of all these three considerations, his disobedience breaks forth and carries him impetuously away, do they not all go to aggravate the guilt which he contracts?
When tempted to sin — to distrust and disobey the Lord — do you, O Christian, keep these three things in view? Do you give these three things due weight? Do you remember the glory of God, as He is in Himself? Do 3’ou remember His great graciousness to you? Do you give heed, do you give scope, do you give fair play, to the instincts and dictates of His grace in you?
L Take your stand under the bright canopy of heaven; look above you and look around. The “heaven “above,” the sea and
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the dry land “below; creation’s all; lo! it came from the hand of Him whom now you propose to disobey, from whose pre’^ence you propose to flee. How infatuated; How insulting, how provoking to God! His hand, “that made the heaven, and the sea, and the dry land,” — can it not find you, even though you “take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea?” He that formed all, and continually preserveth all, shall He not continually behold all? — and whither shall you flee from His presence, or how shall you be justified, excused in forgetting it? Are you relapsed so far into that deep ungodliness, that utter death towards God, from which His saving grace aroused you? Are you so far fallen from the sweet enjoyment you once had in looking upward and around on all the wondrous fabric of heaven and earth, and feeding your secret reverence for God your Father by recognising the traces of His goodness, power, and wisdom in the things that are made; by listening — as we delight to listen to the praises of one we love — listening to the heavens as they declare His glory, to the firmament as it showeth forth His handiwork? Ah! consider “the invisible things of God” as they are revealed “by the things that are made.” When thou considerest the heavens, the work of His fingers, the moon and the stars, which He has ordained, see that thou not only say, “What is man, that God should be mindful of him?” but. What must I be if I be forgetful of God? This is the primary element in your sin. Against the God of glory — against the glory of God — is sin directed. And the consciousness, the conviction, the confession of this, is the primary element in repentance.
II. But, secondly, see what God hath been to you! See His graciousness to you-ward! You are “an Hebrew.” Or, which is the same thing, you are a Gentile brought nigh; for the middle wall of partition has been broken down, and you have been adopted into Israel’s privileges — engrafted into Israel’s privileges — engrafted into Israel’s goodly olive; and how great are your advantao-es thence accruing! The revelation of God in the visible Church is unspeakably more tender, and unspeakably more full, than that which the visible creation aflbrds. His glory is seen as in a glass in that divine word which He hath given in the Church, that testimony which He hath deposited in Israel. They are but dim and shadowy traces of the majesty of God, which the framework of the world bears. The word, as in a mirror, brings the full glory of the Highest to view. There He explains Himself, and speaks familiarly. There He tells the principles on which He rules the world and saves the lost. There He reveals His Son, righteously bearing the condemnation of the guilty, lovingly redeeming them with the price of His life. There He tells of the adoption, and the covenants, the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the Fathers, and the coming of the Christ as concerning the flesh. And to you — to you, as substantially an Hebrew, an Israelite, a member of the favoured nation, added to that nation by the taking away of the middle wall of partition — to you He testifies that all these gifts of His grace; the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the oracles of God, the Fathers, and the glorious ancestry, the Christ and the great salvation; — to you all these things belong — belong as by birthright, insomuch that your living without them can result alone from your rejecting them. Is not this the Lord being gracious to you? And when, in the face of this, you sin against Him, is not your sin highly aggravated? By birth, by baptism, jou are an Israelite. You may sell your birthright. You may make void your baptism. But it is by your own act that you make void the one; it is by positive deed of sale that you disparage and alienate and put away from you the other. Humbly and believingly improved, your birthright, and baptism, would have been seals of grace and pledges of glory. Though they be rejected and abused, you are responsible for them still; and they constitute a grievous aggravation of your sin.
Yes! I believe we have much to learn of the responsibilities that lie upon us simply from belonging by birth to the visible Church; from being, by the removal of the middle wall of partition, exactly in the position of having to say with Jonah, in all the spiritual and substantial import of the confession, “I am an Hebrew.” Nor is our repentance pervaded so fully as it ought to be with the sense of overwhelming, inexcusable, aggravated guiltiness, unless we feel that we have sinned against the great graciousness of God to us-ward in His Church, which is His own house upon the earth.
III. But thirdly; if you are a believer, your disobedience is aggravated by the fact that you fear God — that God’s grace is within you. His glory in Himself ought to secure your reverence. His graciousness towards you might have been expected to retain you in His love and service. But surely His very grace operating in you; His own Son formed within you; His Holy Spirit dwelling in you; the new creation, the new heart, the new man which the exceeding greatness of His power has in-framed in you; ought to restrain you from knowingly disobeying j’our Father’s will. Surely, when you actually, by grace, do fear the Lord; when the Lord actually “worketh in you to will and to do of His good pleasure;” you may be called upon with special good reason to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” And if against the power of Divine grace even in your own soul; against the instincts of a new nature; against the claims and promptings of an indwelling Christ — of “Christ in you, the hope of glory;” against the loving movements of the Holy Spirit resting on and abiding in you; you suffer your indwelling sin to break forth and carry the day; oh! surely this consideration may well touch and soften your heart, abasing you in the very dust, and filling you with bitter grief and shame. Let the heathen sin against the glory of God as inscribed on the heavens and the earth. Let false-hearted Israelites sin against God’s great graciousness towards them in His word, and house, and ordinances, — His message of grace. His treaty of peace, His offer of eternal salvation. But for you to sin against the glory of God as exhibited to all, and the graciousness of God as testified in the Church, and also against the grace of God dwelling in your very self as in its chosen shrine and temple; oh! this is sin that is “as scarlet, and red like crimson.”
It hath pleased God to reveal Himself by the works that He hath made, — patent to all. And it hath pleased God to reveal His love and kindness towards man in the Scriptures He hath given; and these are patent to all in the Church — manifest wherever the Church extends. But it hath “pleased God to reveal His Son in you; “to” shine in your heart and give you the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ;” to “write His law also on your heart and put His fear within you; “and is there any one that can sin under deeper aggravations than you? — just because you truly fear the Ood of heaven, the God of the Hebrews, the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ — your God and Father in Him. Let the consideration of these aggravating elements enter into your repentance, as they entered into Jonah’s. Alas! against whom have you sinned? Against the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy, and whose glory is above the heavens. Against what a world of forbearance and grace on His part towards you have you sinned! And, thou that truly fearest the Lord! against His own Spirit and work in thy very soul is thy sin committed. Oh, surely into “tjour repentance there may well enter an element of special grief and mournfulness. “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”
But how important to be able, in believing confidence, to add, “I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Is it not the infinite, free, unchanging love of God in Christ, which forms the only covert under which you can repent in peace? Is it not a fresh view of the bleeding Lamb of God, in the infinite glory of His Person, and the all-sufficiency of His sacrifice, and the immovable sureness of His covenant of peace, wdiich enables you to hold fast your integrity amidst the deep consciousness of great and grievous transgression; which enables you still to say, and to say with truth, “I fear the God of Heaven?” For there is in that slain Lamb, that eternal Son of God, giving Himself in mortal woe a sacrifice for sin — “there is forgiveness with the Lord, in Him, that He may be feared.” Believing this, you are set free from the sad snare — the strong temptation which labours to make void and prevent your repentance — the temptation to justify yourself, to seek excuses and extenuations, to make out that, considering the circumstances, your guilt is not so very great. Unbelief, despairing of forgiveness, and the carnal mind which is enmity to God, abhorring the deep obligation to God which such forgiveness would infer, are shut up to deceitful and disingenuous attempts at palliation and self-defence. But faith — realising the truth and sure gift of a free and full forgiveness, embracing “the blessedness of him to whom the Lord imputeth not his sin” — guilelessly takes home the guilt to self, and prompts that ingenuous, free, and frank, and open-hearted, and broken-Guilt of Baclzsliding. 141
hearted penitence in which “there is no guile” (Ps. xxxii. 1-5). Such was Jonah’s penitence.
While the prophet’s repentance is thus in progress, and before we come to the great catastrophe of the narrative, there are three incidents that transpire in the meantime, to which successively our attention may be directed.
1. In the first place, we are told that on the back of Jonah’s answer to their questions, “the men were exceedingly afraid.” They were afraid, not now at the storm merely, but at the power and righteousness of the true God, and the distinctness and extent in which He was now manifesting His anger. And this was, doubtless, one of the effects which God’s righteous prosecution of Jonah in his disobedience was designed to produce. “When the judgments of God are abroad, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.” The bringing of iniquity to light, and to judgment, and to punishment, is an eminent work of God; indicating an all-seeing and righteous Supreme Judge — showing “that His great name is near” — fitted and designed also to cause men to fear and do no more wickedly. The judgment of God upon the shamelessness and profligacy of the sons of Eli was intended to produce this eflect. “And the Lord said unto Samuel, Behold, I wnll do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of him that heareth it shall tingle” (1 Sam. iii. 11). And when the case is not a shameless profligate, but a holy prophet, in whom God will not suffer sin to go unpunished, how much more emphatic is the lesson? When He who hath embraced His people into a covenant of pardon and of peace, is seen pursuing their sins — their expiated sins — with evidences of His abhorrence, how solemnising is it! When He “pardons their iniquity, yet takes vengeance on their inventions” (Ps. xcix. 8), and that vengeance is enough to strike awe into the minds of onlookers, how much more terrible must be His vengeance on unpardoned, unbelieving, ungodly men! If judgment begin at the house of God, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel? The very fear which these heathen men felt, may well rebuke the careless and insensible. For there are those who see and hear of the judgments of God on the ungodly, and yet are never moved to reverence, and fear and tremblincr. The same thinsfs that would strike reverence into a heathen will not move a man that is hardened under means of grace. He is hardening himself “as in the provocation;” and all methods of rousing and arresting those that are at ease in Zion, come, in process of time, to be powerless and in vain. “Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell; for if the mighty works which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day” (Matt. xi. 21-23).
2. We may notice the question which the men put to Jonah. “Why hast thou done this?” Oh! what a rebuke! Fleeing from the presence of the gracious and holy Jehovah, Jonah finds himself impanneled and cross-questioned at the bar of heathen sailors. Could anything he might have dreaded in the path of commanded duty have been half so humiliating as this? Doubtless, in the path of duty a man must take up his cross: and oftentimes it may be painful and humbling. It is well for the Christian to remember, when more generous motives are not likely to prevail, that in fleeing from that path, he lies open to incidents that may be more humbling still: and under them, sustained by no lofty sense of loyalty to God, but with spirit embittered by self-displeasure, he must be destitute of the consolation and dignity involved in bearing the cross. For the cross always carries honour and comfort with it. Always it is true, that he that humbleth himself shall be exalted, while he that exalteth himself shall be abased. Look at Jonah, for instance. How deeply is he abased! A man whose intellect has been irradiated by the light of God’s word and Spirit — who has been exalted to the lofty rank of God’s messenger and friend, standing in His counsel, and entrusted with His secret — whose character has been framed of the Spirit for communion with God, and refined and sanctified by His fellowship and service; — for such an one to have his duty pointed out and his offence rebuked by ignorant, unrefined, rude, yea, idolatrous and heathen men; how painful is the retribution; and how just!
Listen to the question. Suppose yourself in Jonah’s place, and hear the question put to you — put to you, a man of God, by heathen men, “Why hast thou done this?” Did your God pi-ovoke you to flee from Him? Did He deal so hardly and unkindly with you that you had no alternative but flight? Were you tired of your God? Had you found Him out — as no more worthy of your trust and obedience? Had you got to the end of all the duty that you owed to Him — or of all the protection or support that He could afford to you?
“Why hast thou done this?” If the mission on which He sent you was difficult, and the warfare heavy, did He send you on your own charges, so that, being unable to defray them, you have not dared to face the undertaking? Did He demand your self-denying labour, and give you no encouragement, no countenance, no support? Is this the character of your God? Is the God whom your fear, O Jonah, so hard a taskmaster — so unfeeling and severe?
Ah! it is well, in your sins and backslidings, to have this question pressed upon you.
“Why hast thou done this?” When your heart, that once found its sweet and chosen pleasure in the Scriptures, in meditation, in prayer, now follows so keenly the things that perish in the using, and allows itself to be moulded by the fashion of the world that passeth away; — why is this? When you have forsaken your first love, abated the zeal and contracted the extent of your first works; — why is this? Let it not content you to regard the question as a mere vague rebuke — as a mere remembrancer that what you have done is indefensible. Press the question. Accept it as a question under which you may not only well be expected to wince and feel sore — but as a question to be deliberately faced and kept in view, till thorough restoration, and confirmed revival, and zealous return to first love and first works, are again secured.
“Why hast thou done this?” Produce your strong reasons. Has God been a wilderness to you? Have you found a better friend? Have you found a worthier portion? Have you found a sweeter employment than meditation in His word and calling on His name?
“Why hast thou done this?” Have you found Him unfaithful to His promise? Have you discovered that He discourages His people? Will you say that the more you have known Hira, the less you have thought of Him? It looks like it, O backslider. It looks like it, if you can remember days when you loved Him more, and served Him better than now.
“Why hast thou done this?” Has the world been better to you than God? Has it been more full, more steadfast, more satisfying, more true than God? Ah! must you not say that the more you have known it, the less cause you have had to be pleased with it? But, does it look like it — if you can turn again to its beggarly elements; and bind in your chiefest thoughts and anxieties with those things that are seen and temporal; while the things that are unseen and eternal are losing their hold over you, and not influencing, pleasing, profiting, sanctifying, animating you to love and duty, as before?
TJrge this matter, O backslider, to an issue — to an answer. Let the case go fairly and fully to trial. As to the men of the world, the world is their god. No wonder that they serve it. But why hast iliou done this? — thou who art an Israelite and fearest Jehovah — the God that made the heavens, and the sea, and the dry land.
3. Let us observe, in the third place, that all the frankness of Jonah’s confession, and all the truth and depth of his repentance, avail nothing to the removal of the Divine anger. For we are told that still “the sea wrought and was tempestuous.” Jonah’s detection, and humiliation, and rebuke, and repentance were not enough. For all this, the Lord’s hand was stretched out still. Confession before God will not always suffice; — no, nor even confession before man. God may still pursue His controversy. It is not in any case your repentance which pacifies His anger, and satisfies His justice. You never purchase His pardon by the price of your penitence. That is not in any sense, nor in any degree, the ground on which the Lord forgives you. Without repentance, indeed. He will not forgive. To forgive sin, while still by you cherished and retained — that is to say, to testify the removal of His anger, while you remove not that which has caused it — would be to declare Himself now reconciled to your iniquity, and no more displeased with the abominable thing. Repentance is required unto forgiveness; imperatively demanded. “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him, and unto our God, for He will abundantly pardon.” Still it is not on the ground of the merit of your godly sorrow that the Lord blots out the iniquity of your sin. And therefore, to deepen your repentance and confirm it; to inspire you with a holy terror of like iniquity in time to come; to grave painfully and burningly into your heart and memory experiences and recollections that shall rise swiftly to the aid of your integrity and virtue, if tempted to like offence again; God may see meet to prolong the storm that He has awakened, even after it may have been blessed to bring you to repentance.
Even so did He deal with Jonah. It would not have effected the intended discipline, correction, and improvement of his soul, to have now given commission to the waves to be still. Alas! there are more of God’s waves and billows to go over him. It is a fearful thing even for a believer to fall into the hands of the living God. For God, even the God of the believinp’ and redeemed, is a consuming fire. It is no mere matter of Divine sovereignty, but a certain and inevitable effect of the Divine holiness, that the storm cannot cease till you cast the offending thing overboard; that the ship can have no peace while the Jonah is in it; the camp no victory till Achan is stoned; and your soul no taste of the peace and love of God till its idols are abolished and abandoned. The whole character of God requires that He should refuse to speak peace to those who retain anything against which He has announced and directed His displeasure; or who neglect anything which He has enjoined as a means of grace, or demanded as a tribute of gratitude. You complain, perhaps, that you find little progress in your religious knowledge, and little joy in religious ordinances — that you cannot rise to that sweet peace, and sure hope, and lively zeal in duty, which you see by the Scripture believers are warranted to expect, and which perhaps in a measure you may have yourself formerly enjoyed. Have you examined yourself? Are you sure there is no Jonah in the ship; no Achan in the camp; no idol in the temple; no sin of commission or omission, which as a canker at the root of your religion is spoiling all? Be assured that till it is searched out and consigned to destruction, it is impossible the bright light can shine again on the pages of the word to you; — or the sweet and tender joy of sitting at the feet of Jesus visit you; — or the serene contentment with your lot on earth again compose and strengthen you; — or the full devoted gratitude which makes self-denying duty light, again carry you on ungrudgingly in all the work of the Lord. For the Lord our God is a jealous God. And many a believer has suffered bitterly from provoking God to act upon that declaration, — so honourable to His own holiness, and to His love of holiness in His people: — “I will go and return unto My place, till they acknowledge their offence, and seek My face: in their affliction they will seek me early” (Hos. v. 15).