Frances Ridley Havergal :: Come Away

NINETEENTH DAY - COME AWAY.

"My beloved spake, and said unto me,
Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away."

What a loving call! What astonishing condescension, that the Heavenly Bridegroom should use such words to-whom? Would you not like to be able to fill up that blank, and say, 'My Beloved spake, and said unto me!'

Perhaps you think this is too much for you. You feel too sinful and unworthy to be so loved,-too defiled to be called 'my fair one.' (Eze 16:5, 14) If so, will you turn to a wonderful picture of those upon whom He sets His love, and of what His love does for them, asking the Holy Spirit to open your eyes while you read it, that you may behold wondrous things out of it. (Psa 119:18)

I will not quote it here, because I want you to go to His own Book for it. See in it how the Lord Jesus goes down to the very depths, (Psa 40:2) and begins at the very beginning. Your case is not deeper than those depths; for it is even when we are dead in sins that the great love wherewith God loved us reaches and raises us. (Eph 2:4-5) He says, 'Awake thou that sleepest, and rise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.' You cannot be worse than 'dead;' and the very sense of sin and death working in you is a proof that He has said unto you, 'Live!' (Eze 16:6)

The call to arise and come away is a proof that He is passing by. And when Jesus passes by, He looks upon you, though you are not yet able to see Him. And He says that when He does this, it is 'the time of love.' (Eze 16:8) And oh, what that implies! What will He not do, when the bright, warm, powerful rays of the love which passeth knowledge (Eph 3:19) are focused upon you, and He says even to you, 'My love!' giving you the glorious right to respond, 'My Beloved!'

Read on, and see what He will do 'then!' 'Then' the 'thoroughly' (Psa 51:2) washing and the anointing which prepares you for the delight of the King. 'Then' the clothing, the girding and the covering, each with their treasures of significance. (Psa 45:13) Then 'also' the decking and the crowning, and the being made 'exceeding beautiful' and 'perfect through My comeliness which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord God! (Eze 16:14) When He puts the beauty of the Lord our God upon us, then He can indeed say, 'My fair one!' 'Fair only with His comeliness; otherwise the fairest natural character that was ever seen is 'black as the tents of Kedar,'-those miserable goats' hair tents, which are to this day the very type of the filthiest blackness. Yet with it, whatever your natural character, and whatever your added deformity through having been 'accustomed to do evil,' (Jer 13:23) you will be 'comely as the curtains of Solomon,'-the type of all that is costly and beautiful in colors and workmanship.

Let Him do all this for you! (Phl 2:13) Rise up and come away from all that pollutes and separates you from Him. 'Shake thyself from the dust, and arise!' 'Arise, shine, for thy Light is come!' 'Though ye have lien among the pots, (Psa 68:13) yet' (when you come to the Light that is come so close to you), 'yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold,' shining and gleaming as you rise and come away, resplendent in the beams of the Sun of righteousness. 'Rise, He calleth thee!' (Mar 10:49) 'Come away!'