I will not execute the fierceness of my anger. I will not return to destroy Ephraim: For I am God, and not man; the Holy One in the midst of you; And I will not come in wrath.
"Well," says one, "suppose I could entirely forgive everything that has been done against me, is anything more required of me?" Could you do something else? Could you love the one who slandered you, who tried to take away your good name, who sought to injure your business, and offended you in every way that he could? Could you take him into your family, and make him your son, or make him heir of all that you have? Could you provide for him for life? Could you be content to make him your friend and companion? Could you trust him, do you think, actually trust him with the most precious things that you have? Could you do all that? "Well, Mr. Spurgeon," says one, "it is an unreasonable thing that you are asking; you are talking quite unreasonably." I know that I am, but that is because you are a man that it seems unreasonable to you. Yet our God goes beyond all reason, for this is exactly what he does. He takes the wretched sinner just as he is, blots out his sin, and gives him to believe in Christ; and to as many as believe in him, to them he gives power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. More than that, he says, through his apostle, that, if children, then are they heirs, "heirs of God, and joint heirs with Jesus Christ." These poor miserable sinners become the objects of his daily care as they are the objects of his eternal choice. He engraves their names upon the palms of his hands. They lie on his heart, and in his heart. "They shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels." Yea, more, Christ is married to them; oh, what condescension it is for him to be married to those who were black as Ethiopians! There is nothing that he will not do for a pardoned sinner; there is nothing that he will withhold from a soul that, believing in Christ, has sin forgiven. You shall be with him where he is, you shall sit on his throne with him, you shall reign with him for ever and ever, as surely as you come and accept of his infinite grace.  XII. The last point is, that MEN WOULD NOT LOVE TRUST ONE WHO HAD FORMERLY WRONGED THEM. 