James 4:8 - Homiletics

"Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you."

A truth to which all experience bears witness, and a most important one in teaching the doctrine of repentance. God not only tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, but he also makes the path easy to the returning sinner and meets him half-way. The prodigal arose and came to his father, but while he was yet a great way off the father saw him and ran to meet him. It is the first step in repentance which is the difficult one, and yet even this is not taken without Divine assistance. It is God who first supplies the impulse to draw nigh to him, and then himself comes to meet the sinner who yields to the impulse. His spirit stirs the sinner to cry to him, and then himself listens to the cry, according to the psalmist's saying, "Thou preparest their heart, and thine ear hearkeneth thereto."