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Backsliders are very many. Departing from the living God is no strange thing. Many Christians are one while hot, and another lukewarm, and even cold. They are diligent and fervent today, but idle and indifferent tomorrow. Even the best of believers are not always at their best. Who among us has not had cause to make confession that he has not kept up to his first love at all times; neither has his lamp been always clearly burning?

I. THE PROCLAMATION: "Go and proclaim these words towards the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith" the Lord."

1. It was to be a proclamation, for God is King; and if His subjects rebel He does not lose the rights of His sovereignty. He sends, therefore, to them a royal message with all the power which belongs to the word of a king. "Go and proclaim."

2. This proclamation is sent to the worst of sinners, to the very basest of backsliders. They broke their marriage bonds to the one living and true God, and made themselves loathsome in His sight by the most detestable idolatries. It is sad that there should have been such a race of backsliders; but it is glorious to think that to such as these the message of God's mercy was sent.

3. The Israelitish people were not only the worst kind of backsliders, but they had already reaped in a very large measure the result of their backslidings, for they had been carried away captive. They had suffered the loss of all things because they had departed from their God, and yet they had not learned the lesson which affliction was meant to teach It was still needful to call them to repentance, and God bade them return to Him: His proclamation was to them.

4. I see some mercy, and that of no little kind, in the messenger who was sent to deliver this message, for it was Jeremiah, that man of a broken spirit, who could say of himself, "I am the man that hath seen affliction."

II. A PRECEPT. It is a very simple one, and as short as it is clear. It is given in the proclamation, — "Return, thou backsliding Israel."

1. Return, — be as you were; come back: repent, and do your first works. Hearken this is the precept; return unto your Saviour; just as you are, come back to Him. Come back as you came at first, with your sin acknowledged, looking to His Cross for pardon. Did you grow too great, and think you could live without your Saviour? Return! Did you dream of being so perfect that you did not want His righteousness, for your own would suffice? Away with that glittering bauble, that idle notion of thy perfection, and come back, and beat upon thy breast, and say, "God be merciful to me a sinner." Repent of thy pride, and return again to thy Lord Jesus Christ.

2. Return at once. Delays are always dangerous, but never so dangerous as when they are proposed by backsliders.

3. And come thou back with all thy heart. Let there be no mimic repentance; no pretended returning. Thou shalt find the Lord if thou seek Him with all thy heart, and all thy soul.

4. And mind that thou return practically; that is, that thy life shall be changed, thy idols broken, thy omitted duties fulfilled with eagerness, neglected means of grace pursued with fervour; that done which thou hast left undone, and that evil forsaken into which thou hast gone with such headlong folly.

III. THE PROMISE. "I will not cause Mine anger to fall upon you." See that anger, like a black cloud, charged not with refreshing rain, but with fire flakes that shall bum as they fall: ay, burn their way into the very core of your being, as with the fires of hell. Not a flake of it shall burn you if you return unto your God. There is full, free, and immediate forgiveness to be had. "I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins. Return unto Me." This is a grand motive for coming back: the sin that separates is put away. He will wash you thoroughly from your iniquity, and cleanse you from your sin, and whatsoever you need He will give to you, and He will not upbraid you. I find that the passage might be read, "I will not cause My face to fall upon you," meaning this — that if the child of God comes back, God will not look angry at him any more. "I will not cause My anger to fall upon you. I will not even cause My face to fall at the sight of you; but I will receive you graciously; I will in tender mercy put away your transgressions, and reveal My love to you."

IV. THE ARGUMENT.

1. Here is, first, God's mercy. Nothing delights God more than to forgive sin: at this blessed work He is at home. He is happy at it; He finds pleasure in man's turning to Him, and finding life. Mercy as His last-born attribute. Until sin came there was no room for mercy — the mercy that forgives, and therefore mercy is God's Benjamin, the son of His right hand, and He delights to give to it ten times as much as to His other attributes when they feast together. It is the heaven of His heaven to receive a hell-black sinner to His heart, and put away his sin. "I am merciful," saith the Lord. Therefore come to Him, and believe in His mercy; and doubt no longer, but lovingly receive what He lovingly gives.

2. As for you who once knew Him, and loved Him, and rejoiced in Him, I want you just to dwell on that second argument, namely, marriage. "Return, for I am married unto you, saith the Lord." It is done, and though you do not stand to it He does, the great transaction still stands on His part: though you believe not, He abideth faithful. He has bought you with His blood, and the price will never return into His veins. Wherefore, come back to Him.

V. THE ADVICE that He here gives as to how we are to return. He says, "Only acknowledge thine iniquity." "Alas, I have so wandered!" Acknowledge it. "But I have done it so many times!" Acknowledge it. "But I have wandered against light and knowledge!" Acknowledge it. It is not a hard thing to do, to get thee to thy chamber, and before God confess thy faults. You have, first of all, to have a knowledge of it, and then to acknowledge it. Feel thy sin, and then confess it. Be convinced of it, and then plead guilty at the judgment seat. "What am I to acknowledge?"

1. Your breach of covenant — that you have transgressed against Jehovah your God.

2. Next acknowledge your greedy sin — that thou "hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree."

3. Confess also your hardness of heart. God has spoken, and you would not hear; He has entreated, and you would not regard Him; He has come very near to you, and you have turned your back upon Him.

4. Confess also your ingratitude. His voice, which is your Father's voice, you have not heard or obeyed. What unnaturalness!

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

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KJV: Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the LORD; and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, saith the LORD, and I will not keep anger for ever.

WEB: Go, and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, 'Return, you backsliding Israel,' says Yahweh; 'I will not look in anger on you; for I am merciful,' says Yahweh. 'I will not keep [anger] forever.