Filial reminiscences of God.
We are here brought from the view of God as a Husband to that of him as a Father, for only when we consider his various relations with us can we measure the depth of our sin or the motives we have for returning to him.
I. GOD'S PEOPLE CAN CALL TO MIND OLD MEMORIES OF HIS FATHERLY GOODNESS.
1. In our own experience of his grace he has revealed himself as a Father. He is the Source and Origin of life. In him we continue to exist (Acts 17:28). He is constantly protecting us and enriching us with his gifts.
2. God may be discerned as the Companion of his people's early days.
II. OLD MEMORIES OF GOD'S FATHERLY GOODNESS MAY BE ABUSED. It would seem that the Jews often fell into this mistake.
1. We may assume that the past blessing of God is all that we need. Because we once enjoyed his presence we may be too ready to rest satisfied as though all must be well with us henceforth forever. But we cannot live in the past. It is vain to waste our time in idle self-congratulations on our early devotion if later years have found us wandering far from God. We must not say that all is done that our souls need if we can point to an early time when we were introduced to filial relations with God. It is nothing to us that God was the Friend of our youth if he has been rejected in our later days. Indeed, this early memory will be our accuser for subsequent unfaithfulness.
2. We may assume that if God was once our Father and Friend he will always stand in those relations to us. But if we lose our first love we lose the blessings which are connected with it. The past is no security for the present. The momentous questions is, Do we now stand in a true filial relation with God? Is he still our Friend? If he was valued as a Companion in the freshness of youth, is he not wanted in the toils and battles of manhood? will he not be needed in the Weariness of age? in the darkness and mystery of the lonely passage of death?
III. OLD MEMORIES OF GOD'S FATHERLY GOODNESS MAY BE CONSIDERED WITH PROFIT.
1. They may reveal our subsequent unfaithfulness. We compare ourselves with ourselves and see how we have fallen.
2. They may lead us to see the blessedness of an earlier estate, to be awakened to the loss we have suffered, and to be roused to the desire for a return to it.
3. They may help us to trust God. He was our Father and our Friend in early days. He is changeless. If, then, we repent and return to him, will he not permit us still to cry, "My Father;" and again to enter into the blessed influences of friendly fellowship with him? So the prodigal remembers his early days, and is induced by old memories to say, "I will arise and go to my father" (Luke 15:18).