It is well that you have brought this matter before the throne of grace, for none but the Lord can truly turn the heart of a man. The petition you lay before us touches upon the very essence of the gospel, that a soul must hear and submit to the voice of God. You ask that this owner might surrender his life and all his will to the Father. Consider, then, what that voice demands. The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty. When God speaks, he does not whisper suggestions that a man may trifle with or postpone. He commands a full, unconditional surrender. The proud heart will not yield to a mere request; it must be conquered by a majesty that cannot be withstood. So we pray, not for a mere inclination, but for a holy capitulation, where the stout-hearted sinner ceases to ask, “Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice?” and instead turns as one brought to his senses.
Yet let us be mindful of a glorious truth from the holy mount. God, in his mercy, now speaks through a Mediator. The voice out of the cloud that terrified the apostles is not the voice that wins the soul today. God now says, “This is my beloved Son; hear ye him.” It is a fearful thing to fall unshielded into the hands of the living God, and so he has appointed Jesus as the voice we must hear. Therefore, our prayer for this landlord is not that a thunderous, condemning voice from heaven would shatter him, but that the sweet, effectual voice of the Redeemer would gently arrest him. It is a voice behind him, saying, “This is the way; walk ye in it.” It is a voice of love that woos a wanderer who does not naturally seek after God. That voice comes through the conscience, through the written Word, and through the loving messengers of the gospel. We ask that he may hear Jesus, the Word of God, and find that his voice is full of peace.
Moreover, the relationship you bear to this man gives a peculiar force to the plea. He is but an earthly landlord, yet he himself is a tenant. Every second he holds his goods and his very breath upon the sole tenure of the divine will of the Great Landlord. God has but to say, “Return, you children of men,” and he returns to the dust. How he needs to know that the house of his body and all his earthly holdings are held by a lease which may expire at any moment. His sun may go down at noon. Will he wait for a more convenient season, thinking that in the cool of his old age he will surrender? Such a calculation is a fool’s wager. The gentle voice often precedes a sterner summons. If the still, small voice is not heard, God has other messengers he will send, rougher messengers of disease and death. We pray that he may not harden his heart, lest God swear in his wrath that he shall not enter his rest. It is a mercy when grace comes into a house, and it would never be expelled.
If the Spirit of God so moves upon his will, the work will be done indeed. Salvation hinges upon the will of God and not upon the will of man. Man’s proud boast, “I will” or “I will not,” is his ruin, for it is a defiance of omnipotence. Yet when God’s will works, man’s will is blessedly and sweetly made to yield. The unconquerable “I will not” is overcome, and the rebel is made a new creature, willing to walk in God’s statutes. This is the essence of your prayer, that this landlord’s will might no longer stand in resistance, but be merged into the Father’s will. You ask for a full surrender, and rightly so, for Christ will not permit a divided heart; we cannot serve God and mammon. As the Israelites took not a hoof with them out of Egypt, so a true conversion holds nothing back. Every power, every possession, every moment of life must be consecrated. This is the full redemption Christ has purchased for his people.
Therefore, continue in your intercession with this hope: the Lord is able to make this man gladly surrender the key to his heart, his very life, to the Great Landlord. Then, wherever God walks in all its rooms, he will find the remembrances of his own grace and the adornments of his own Spirit. It may be that you shall yet see in him the patience of the saints, willing to suffer loss rather than do a wrong thing in business, pining in poverty sooner than yielding a principle though a kingdom were at stake. The voice of mercy cries, “Why will you die?” It asks, “Is an angry God a trifle? Is sin a thing to be laughed at?” Our prayer is that this man will hear that voice, flee to the refuge, and find that God has not been disappointed of his purpose in him. When we cannot see the way, we trust the voice, believing that when God speaks in creation and grace, what he does shall be forever. The Lord give thee the desire of thine heart in this matter, and let the angels rejoice over a life fully yielded.