The one thing needful.
"Wilt thou not be made clean? When," etc.?
I. MEN ARE SPIRITUALLY UNCLEAN. Like as the Lord looked down upon the occupants of the porches at Bethesda, and saw but a multitude of impotent folk (John 5:1-47.); so now, as "his eyes behold the children of men," he sees a similar though a far more terrible sight—the mass of mankind spiritually diseased. This is manifestly true of the heathen world. The abominations and the cruelties that are practiced there show the virulence of the soul's malady amongst them. And if we look at the mass of those who profess and call themselves Christians, in how many of these is the profession only, a veneer of religious customs covering a corrupt and sin-loving heart. And if it be so with the professing Church, what must it be with those who reject all the means of grace which the Christian Church enjoys?
II. BUT GOD GREATLY DESIRES THAT MEN SHOULD BE DELIVERED FROM THIS UNCLEANNESS. "He will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." He desires this:
1. From his very nature. He himself is the most holy God. But all moral qualities ever strive to reproduce themselves in those around them. Let a man be characterized by orderliness, truthfulness, sobriety, purity, and in proportion as he is so the contact of those of opposite character will be painful to him, and he will endeavor to make them like himself. And so, because "good and upright is the Lord, therefore will he teach sinners in the way."
2. His righteousness also. The sense of outrage and wrong which sin must produce in the heart of God makes him angry with the wicked every day.
3. His compassion. Sin is sorrow. We wonder at the priests of Baal persisting in cutting and wounding themselves. But is not every sinner just such a one? And with this added sorrow—that their wounds are for eternity, and not for the short lira here alone. On the other hand, to be "made whole" spiritually is to be made blessed forever.
III. YET MEN WILL NOT. The tone of the question, the woe which precedes it, the comparison of the sinner with the Ethiopian and the leopard, etc. (Jeremiah 13:23), the half-despairing cry, "When shall it once be?" (Jeremiah 13:27),—all this shows the prophet's conviction of man's persistent clinging to his sin. Were the question concerning bodily disease, it would be unnecessary. Who would not be delivered from that? But when it is spiritual healing, men will not. From the consequences of their sin they are willing to be delivered—the punishment, the remorse, the shame, etc.—but not from the sin itself. True, at times, in the first keen pangs of remorse, and under the vivid sense of shame, they would be willing then to be rid of the sin itself. But their return to their sin shows how momentary and superficial this feeling was. And men would be willing, perhaps, if by some one act the whole cure could be effected; if the being made whole was not so slow, so difficult, so self-denying a process. And, in fact, they do hope that by some one act—a death-bed repentance—the whole process will be accomplished.
IV. BUT WITHOUT MAN'S OWN CONSENT HE CANNOT BE MADE WHOLE. God does not by a mere act of power make a man spiritually whole, as he makes one tree an oak, another an elm. The will must consent. We have this awful power of compelling Christ to "stand at the door and knock;" for the door of our hearts is opened from the inside. We must undo the bolts and remove the bars. No view of the Holy Sprat s influence which contradicts this can be a true view. We can, and alas! do, say "No" to God. But also we can, and he is ever pleading with us to, say "Yes" to his call.
V. BUT ONE DAY IT SHALL BE GIVEN. "My people shall be willing in the day of my power." Christ wept over Jerusalem, but yet he told them that when next he came they should say, "Blessed be he that cometh in the Name of the Lord; el. also the predicted repentance of the Jews, "They also which pierced him," etc. (Zechariah 14:1-21.). But oh, what "everlasting burnings," what awful scourgings, has Jerusalem had to go through before, like the prodigal, she came to herself! Let none abuse this doctrine. If we will say "Yes" to God now, and come to Christ in loving self-surrender, we shall find his yoke easy and his burden light; but if we will say "No," then we shall have to come to ourselves; and what may not that involve? Truly, "now is the accepted time," etc.—C.