"They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy."
Jonah 2:8
How are they their own? Not ours in possession, for we are
forsaking them, but they are our own mercies that we have a right to - mercies
freely offered to us of God in Christ Jesus, in His blessed Gospel. It is thus
your own Christ that you neglect. He is in this sense your own in the free offer
of God; your own Saviour, the Christ whom God is holding forth and giving in His
Gospel to you. The blood on which you trample is the blood in which your own
mercies lie, for God hath set forth before every Gospel-hearer Christ as a
propitiation through faith in His blood; yes, the atonement, God is holding it
out equally to you and to me - redemption, remission of sins, all grace and all
glory, Jehovah Himself, the Lord of mercy. He says, "I will be a God unto thee!"
He says this unto every Gospel-hearer. The faith of God's chosen finds in the
Gospel offer the warrant by which they may lay hold of "their own mercy."
Now think, the lying vanity makes promises to you, and the faithful God
in Christ makes promises to you too: on the one hand the lying vanities, on the
other your own Jehovah, who is saying, "I will be a God unto you;" your own
Saviour, who is saying, "I am stretching out my hands all the day unto a
disobedient and gainsaying people." These are your own mercies, and will you
forsake them - your own mercies, your own? Oh, at last when you find that you
cannot enter into possession of them, when you find that you have lost them by
following lying vanities, what misery will it add, that they were your own! Oh,
this is sad, very sad! Very sad will it be if any of us perish. Sad to think of
our own Bibles which we once had on earth, of our own Sabbaths we once had in
Glasgow, of our own Church, of our own Gospel - our own Gospel with the name of
Christ in it, carried down in our remembrance, which contained our warrant to
lay hold of Christ. And now the door is shut! And there is our own heaven, which
we never can enter, the gate of which is shut against us. There is our own
Christ, who came and invited us, and would have taken us to heaven. It was once
all our own, but we forsook it all. Our God is lost, Christ lost, the Holy
Spirit lost; our happiness is lost, our grace lost, our glory lost, our heaven
lost, our souls lost, our bodies lost, our Sabbaths lost, our Bibles lost,
ourselves lost, all lost! No mercy for us; not a drop to cool our tongue. But
oh! plenty of mercy was ours once, but we put that mercy away, we forsook it,
would have none of it. O how affecting this thought! There the day of our
merciful visitation will be remembered as having been our own, not possessed but
given in free gift and offer by God. And had they been pursued! But we have
forsaken them. Profane persons! we have sold our birthright.
But blessed
be God, this is not yet our state, to none of us is that time yet come. And you,
observers of lying vanities, these mercies are yet your own. Oh, you have
nothing that you have half such a right to lay hold of as Christ. These mercies
are all your own, free to receive, lay hold of, possess, and enjoy. Oh, will you
not look after your own mercies? Your own God is preaching peace to you that are
far off by the blood of Christ, your own Saviour, whom God is setting forth
before you; your own Holy Spirit, that is to say, the Holy Spirit of which God
is saying to you that He will give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him: the
Gospel of your salvation. O compare the lying vanities and your own mercy, and
observe not the lying vanities any more! Turn to your own mercies. They are
yours yet. Thank God that they are not yet hid from your eyes. O may we all know
in this our day the things that belong to our peace. Our own mercies, despised,
forsaken, disregarded mercies. Mercies that might, when we forsook them, have
been taken out of our way. He might have retracted, cut us off, removed our
candlestick out of its place. Know whilst you live, and whilst the Gospel is
sounding in your ears, that they are your mercies still. How long we know not,
but they are our mercies yet. They may not be ours another moment, unless we
turn and receive them. 'Ah!' you will say, 'how! they are ours but in the offer,
and we cannot receive them.' Why, the Holy Ghost and all grace are in the
promises of God, also offered freely in mercy. You have an old heart, but you
have promise of a new heart, of the Holy Ghost, in God's Word.