The drawings of Love - C.H Spurgeon
THE DRAWINGS OF LOVE AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON
“The Lord has appeared of old unto me, saying, Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore, with loving-kindness have I drawn you.” Jeremiah 31:3.
Introduction
From the context, it is clear that this passage primarily refers to God’s ancient people, the natural descendants of Abraham. He chose them from of old and separated them from the nations of the world. Their election fills a large chapter in history and shines with resplendent luster in prophecy. There is an interval during which they have experienced strange vicissitudes, been visited with heavy chastisements, and acquired an evil reputation for the perverseness of their mind and the obstinacy of their heart. Yet a future glory awaits them when they shall turn unto the Lord their God again, be restored to their land, and acknowledge Jesus of Nazareth as the King of the Jews, their own anointed King. Without abating, however, a jot or tittle from the literal significance of these words as they were addressed by the Hebrew prophet to the Hebrew race, we may accept them as an oracle of God referring to the entire church of His redeemed family and pertaining to every distinct member of that sacred community. Every Christian, therefore, whose faith can grasp the testimony, may appropriate it to himself. As many a believer has heard, so every believer may hear the voice of the Holy Spirit sounding in his ears these words, “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore, with loving-kindness have I drawn you.”
I. The Inestimable Blessing: “I Have Loved You”
How exceedingly great and precious this assurance! How priceless this blessing to be embraced with the love, the everlasting love of God! Our God is a God of infinite benevolence. Towards all His creatures, He shows His goodwill. His tender mercies are over all His works. He wishes well to all mankind. With what force and with what feeling He asserts it! “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” (Ezekiel 33:11). And whoever of the whole human race, penitent for past sin, will turn to Jesus, the Savior of sinners, he shall find in Him pardon for the past and grace for the future!
This general truth of God, which we have always steadfastly maintained, which we never saw any reason to doubt, and which we have proclaimed as widely as our ministry could reach, is not at all inconsistent with the fact that God has a chosen people among the children of men who were beloved of Him, foreknown to Him, and ordained by Him to inherit all spiritual blessings before the foundation of the world! As an elect people, they are the special objects of His love. On their behalf, the covenant of grace was made. For them, the blood of Christ was shed on Calvary. In them, the Spirit of God works effectually to their salvation. Of them and to them it is that such words as these are spoken, “I have loved you with an everlasting love”—a love far superior to mere benevolence—towering above it as the mountain above the sea! A kinder love, deeper, far sweeter than that bounty of providence which gilds the earth with sunshine, or scatters the drops of morning dew—a love that reveals its preciousness in the drops of blood distilled from the Savior’s heart and manifests its personal, immutable favor to souls beloved in the gift of the Holy Spirit, which is the seal of their redemption and the sign of their adoption. So the Spirit, Himself, bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God! Now think for a little while of this inestimable blessing.
II. The Unmistakable Manifestation: “Therefore, with Loving-Kindness Have I Drawn You”
Good people often get puzzled with the doctrine of election. In their simplicity, they sometimes ask, “How can we know whether we are the Lord’s chosen, or ascertain if our names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life?” You cannot scan that mystic roll or pry between those folded leaves. Had you an angel’s wing and a seraph’s eye, you could not read what God has written in His book! The Lord knows them that are His. No man shall know by any revelation save that which the Holy Spirit gives according to my text. There is a way of knowing and it is this—“Therefore, with loving-kindness have I drawn you.” Were you ever drawn? Have you been drawn with loving-kindness? If so, then there is evidence that the Lord loved you with an everlasting love!
Be ready, therefore, to judge yourselves. You are challenged with this pointed question—were you ever divinely drawn? Say now, beloved, have you experienced this sacred attraction that made you willing in the day of His power? Were you ever drawn from sin to holiness? You loved sin once—in it, you found much pleasure. There were some forms and fashions of vice and folly which were very dear to your heart. Have your tastes been changed and your track been turned by the sovereign charm of this divine loving-kindness? Can you say, “The things I once loved, I now hate. And what gave me pleasure now causes me a pang”? Is it so?
I do not ask you whether you are perfect and upright. Alas, who of us could answer this question otherwise than with blushes of shame? But I do ask if you hate sin in every shape and desire holiness in every form? Would you be perfect if you could be? If you could live as you like, how would you like to live? Is your answer, “I would live as though it were possible for me to serve God day and night in His temple, without a wandering thought or a rebellious wish”? Ah, then, if you have been thus drawn from sin to holiness by the way of the cross, no doubt He loved you with an everlasting love and you need not discredit it!
Listen again. Have you ever been drawn from self to Jesus? There was a time when you thought yourself as good as other men. Had the bottom of your heart been searched, there would have been found written there, “I do not see that I am so great an offender as the most of my neighbors. I am respectable, upright, and moral. I should hope it would go well with me at the last, for if I am not all that I should be, I shall try to be good and by earnest endeavors, joined with fervent prayers and repentance, I hope to fit myself for heaven.” Oh, that you may be drawn away from all such empty conceit and led to rest your hope solely on that blessed Man who sits at the right hand of God, crowned with glory, though He was once fastened to the cross, despised and rejected of men and made to suffer as a scapegoat for our sins! This, beloved, would be a sure sign that you had renounced yourself and closed in with Christ. You must have been loved with an everlasting love. It is as impossible for any of the elect of God to come to Christ and lay hold on Him without divine drawing, as it would be for devils to feel tenderness of heart and repentance towards God! If you can say from your heart—“Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to Your cross I cling!”—then His drawing may suffice as the proof that He loved you with an everlasting love!
Have you ever been drawn from sight to faith, from consulting your creature faculties to confidence in God? You used to depend only on what you called your common sense. You walked by the judgment of your own mind. Do you now trust in Him who truly is, though He is invisible—who speaks to you, though His voice is inaudible? Have you a sense, day by day, of the presence of one supreme whom you cannot hear nor see? Does the unseen presence of God affect you in your actions? Do motives drawn from the next world influence you? Do you, in the day of trouble, lean upon an arm of flesh, or cry and pray, and make supplication to the Almighty? Have you learned to walk in dependence upon the living God, even if His providence seems to fail you and gives a lie to His promises?
Know, then, that a life of faith is a special gift of God—it is the fruit of divine protection so you are enabled to walk with God—and He deigns to befriend you so you may humbly but safely conclude that your name stands inscribed in the records of the chosen! To be drawn into a life of faith is a blessed evidence of Christ’s love.
III. Conclusion: The Loving-Kindness of the Lord
Some of the old-fashioned servants were so attached to their masters that they were reckoned on and regarded as members of the family. Those are the true servants of Christ who love Him and render Him their services, not menially for the pay they count upon, but loyally because their hearts are faithful and true to Him! They love Him so that they could not turn aside from Him, or seek another Lord.
Say now, are you thus drawn with loving-kindness? What a lovely word this “loving-kindness” is! “Kindness,” seems to be like some huge opal or some sparkling diamond, a Koh-I-Noor, and love seems to be like fine gold to encircle it! I think I could stand and look at that word, “loving-kindness,” till with sacred enchantment I burst into a song! There is such a charming sweetness and yet such an immutable stability in the grace of God which it reveals that our rapture is kindled as often as we review it! Of that loving-kindness, I have tasted here below, and of that loving-kindness, I hope to sing in yonder skies in worthier notes than this weak voice can now compass!
The loving-kindness of the Lord, as it beams from His eyes, as it is communicated by His helping hands, as it is expressed by His gentle, tender voice, quickens the soul in the path of duty and restrains it from falling into sin! How can I do this great wickedness, how can I sin against so almighty a friend whose kindness to me is so gratuitous, so constant, and so exceedingly generous?
If you are drawn with such loving-kindness, then you are His, and His love to you is everlasting. Come to Him now, as He draws you with cords of love! Amen.