Evening
Time: 10:45 PM PST
"I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud,
thy sins: return unto Me; for I have redeemed thee." --Isaiah 44:22
Attentively observe THE INSTRUCTIVE SIMILITUDE: our sins are like a
cloud. As clouds are of many shapes and shades, so are our
transgressions. As clouds obscure the light of the sun, and darken the landscape
beneath, so do our sins hide from us the light of Jehovah's face, and cause us
to sit in the shadow of death. They are earth-born things, and rise from the
miry places of our nature; and when so collected that their measure is full,
they threaten us with storm and tempest. Alas! that, unlike clouds, our sins
yield us no genial showers, but rather threaten to deluge us with a fiery flood
of destruction. O ye black clouds of sin, how can it be fair weather with our
souls while ye remain?
Let our joyful eye dwell upon THE NOTABLE ACT of divine mercy--"blotting
out." God Himself appears upon the scene, and in divine benignity, instead of
manifesting His anger, reveals His grace: He at once and for ever effectually
removes the mischief, not by blowing away the cloud, but by blotting it out from
existence once for all. Against the justified man no sin remains, the great
transaction of the cross has eternally removed His transgressions from him. On
Calvary's summit the great deed, by which the sin of all the chosen was for ever
put away, was completely and effectually performed.
Practically let us obey THE GRACIOUS COMMAND, "return unto me."Why
should pardoned sinners live at a distance from their God? If we have been
forgiven all our sins, let no legal fear withhold us from the boldest access to
our Lord. Let backslidings be bemoaned, but let us not persevere in them. To the
greatest possible nearness of communion with the Lord, let us, in the power of
the Holy Spirit, strive mightily to return. O Lord, this night restore us!