Jeremiah 7:13

I spake unto you, rising up early.

God’s call to sinners

I. A gracious call. We are utterly undeserving of it. Though we are transgressors, guilty, corrupt, depraved,--yet God calls upon us--to escape--to live--to be saved--to turn unto Him, and be forever blest and happy.

II. An affectionate call. The call of a merciful Creator who hath no pleasure in the death and destruction of His fallen creatures: and would rather they should repent and live; the call of a tender Father, who looks with compassion upon the prodigal wanderer, invites and urges him to abandon his wretchedness and want, and come back to his home of plenty, and his Father’s bosom again, and assures him of a joyous welcome if he will; the call of a Friend--that Friend that sticketh closer than a brother--even of Jesus our best friend, our elder brother.

III. A varied call. From every part of the outspread volume of creation, there issues a voice calling upon us, to know, fear, adore, worship, the great Creator. And as well as by His works, we are called upon by His ways--by His dealings with the children of men. The misfortunes and calamities that occur to others; and the bereavements, afflictions, and trials that happen to ourselves--the constant experience we have of the uncertainty of our present existence, and of the instability of all earthly good, by these and many similar things we are addressed and admonished to seek a more enduring substance, a more incorruptible and unfading inheritance. From every page, also, of the book of God there proceedeth a call, exhorting us to depart from iniquity, and follow after holiness,--to supplicate for pardoning mercy and for assisting grace.

IV. An oft-repeated--a reiterated call. We are not appealed to once or twice, and then abandoned to our folly. Forbearance is exercised towards us from year to year; “line is given upon line, and precept upon precept,”--here a little and there a little; so that we may have the last possible opportunity of being saved, and may not be left in despair until the last moment of the day of grace hath expired, and our souls be beyond the region of impression and awakening.

V. An earnest call. Men may be light and trifling. God is always serious--always in earnest. He is in earnest in what He does, and in what He speaks. All the appeals and persuasions by which the Almighty follows you, as children hastening madly on to destruction, are embodied in the very terms, and wear the very air of the utmost earnestness; yea, so serious and earnest are they, that, when it is considered from whom they come, and to what they relate, the wonder is, that men are not at once startled by them, and arrested in their downward course, and constrained to hasten to the only safe Refuge from the gathering and impending storm.

VI. An urgent call. Its reference is to the present: it demands immediate attention and instant compliance. (C. Cook.)