June 27

For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found. - Psalms 32:6.

HERE is an encouragement to hope. It assails despair by an assurance that “the Lord may be found.” “We are saved by hope.” We fell originally by the loss of confidence in God, and we can only rise by the renewal of that confidence in him. The very first step in the return of a sinner to God, conscious of his guilt and desert, must be a persuasion that “with the Lord there is mercy;” that “with him there is plenteous redemption.”

And what a foundation is laid for this hope in the “word of the truth of the gospel,” the word of salvation, the design of which is, that, “through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, we might have hope.” What a foundation is laid in the character given of God himself-“A God hearing prayer;” “The Father of mercies and the God of all grace;” “The God of all comfort;” “The God of peace.” What a foundation is laid in the provision which he has made. He has “devised means that his banished ones may not be expelled from him,” and harmonized the exercise of mercy with the claims of justice. He has delivered his own Son “for our offences, and raised him again for our justification.” “He has raised him from the dead, and given him glory, that our faith and hope might be in God.” Thus every hindrance to our return is removed. Thus the law is fulfilled and made honourable. Thus the truth of God remains inviolate; thus he is the “just God and a Saviour;” thus he is just in “justifying the ungodly;” thus “he is faithful and just in forgiving our sins, and in cleansing us from all unrighteousness.”

And what can the blessed God consistently withhold now, after what he has conferred upon us. “He that spared not his own Son, but freely gave him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things.” What a foundation is laid in his invitations-“Look unto me and be ye saved;” “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters;” “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest;” “and him that cometh I will in nowise cast out.” What a foundation is laid in the promises-“Ask, and it shall be given; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you;” “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 to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.” What a foundation is laid in his performances-“ He has not said to the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain;” and he has never repulsed any returning sinner, however vile and wretched, because of the number and heinousness of his offences. “Look,” says he, “at Manasseh, an idolator, a necromancer, and a murderer, who made the streets of Jerusalem to run down with blood,” he sought the Lord, and he was heard, and knew the Lord; and Saul of Tarsus, whose blasphemy and ferocity against the church of God was such, that he seemed beyond the possibility of being reclaimed. Yet, says he, “I obtained mercy,” “that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all long suffering, for a pattern to them who should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.” As much as to say, “Let any one despair now, if he can.” How encouraging is all this.

Impossibility will sometimes move people, and if probability will commonly move them, how much more will actual certainty influence them, when the prize is nothing less than the possession of God-the God of all grace and glory. It is thus we are encouraged to “seek the Lord while he may he found, and to call upon him while he is near.”