en left them and never wrote a word or sent any
memento of their affection; and God pleads over backsliders as a
parent over loved ones who have gone astray. He tries to woo them
back. He asks: "What have I done that you should have forsaken Me?"

The most tender and loving words to be found in the whole of the
Bible are from Jehovah to those who have left Him without a cause.
Jer. ii. 19.

Hear how He argues with such: (Jer. xi. 19.) "Thine own wickedness
shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee; know,
therefore, and see, that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou
hast forsaken the Lord thy God, and that My fear is not in thee,
saith the Lord God of hosts."

I do not exaggerate when I say that I have seen hundreds of
backsliders come back; and I have asked them if they have not found
it an evil and a bitter thing to leave the Lord. You cannot find a
real backslider, who has known the Lord, but will admit that it is an
evil and a bitter thing to turn away from Him; and I do not know of
any one verse more used to bring back wanderers than that very one.
May it bring you back if you have wandered into the far country.

Look at Lot. Did not he find it an evil and a bitter thing? He was
twenty years in Sodom, and never made a convert. He got on well in
the sight of the world. Men would have told you that he was one of
the most influential and worthy men in all Sodom. But alas! alas! he
ruined his family. And it is a pitiful sight to see that old
backslider going through the streets of Sodom at midnight, after he
has warned his children, and they have turned a deaf ear.

I have never known a man and his wife backslide, without its proving
utter ruin to their children. They will make a mockery of religion
and will deride their parents: "Thine own wickedness shall correct
thee; and thy backsliding shall reprove thee!" Did not David find it
so? Mark him, crying, "O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom!
would God I had died for thee; O Absalom, my son, my son!" I think it
was the ruin, rather than the death of his son that caused this
anguish.

I remember being engaged in conversation some years ago, till past
midnight, with an old man. He had been for years wandering on the
barren mountains of sin. That night he wanted to get back. We prayed,
and prayed, and prayed, till light broke in upon him; and he went
away rejoicing. The next night he sat in front of me when I was
preaching, and I think th