Second, it is a moving of the mind towards him, from a sound sense of the absolute want that a man has of him for his justification and salvation. Indeed, without this sense of a lost condition, there will be no moving of the mind towards him. “With their mouths, they show much love” (Eze 33:31). Such a people as this will come as the true people cometh; that is, in the show and outward appearance. And they will sit before God’s ministers, as his people sit before them; and they will hear his words too, but they will not do them; that is, they will not come inwardly with their minds.
“For with their mouth they shed much love, but their heart,” or mind, “goes after their covetousness.” Now, all this is because they want an effectual sense of the misery of their state by nature; for not till they have that will they, in their mind, move after him. Therefore, it is said concerning the true comers, “That day the great trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship the Lord in the holy mount at Jerusalem” (Isa 27:13). They are then, as you see, the outcasts, and those that are ready to perish, who, indeed, have their minds effectively moved to come to Jesus Christ. This sense of things was that which made the three thousand come, that made Saul come, that made the jailer come, and that, indeed, makes all others come, that come effectually (Acts 2:8,18).
Of the true coming to Christ, the four lepers were a famous semblance, of whom you read, (2 Kings 7:3), &c. The famine in those days was sore in the land, there was no bread for the people; and as for that sustenance that was, which was asses’ flesh and doves’ dung, that was only in Samaria, and of these the lepers had no share, for they were thrust without the city. Well, now they sat in the gate of the city, and hunger was, as I may say, making his last meal of them; and being, therefore, half dead already, what do they think of doing? Why, first they display the dismal colors of death before each other’s faces, and then resolve what to do, saying, “If we say we will enter into the city, then the famine is in the city, and we shall die there: if we sit still here, we die also.
Now, therefore, come, let us fall unto the host of the Syrians: if they save us alive, we shall live; if they kill us, we shall but die.” Here, now, was a necessity at work, and this necessity drove them to go thither for life, whither else they would never have gone for it. Thus it is with them that in truth come to Jesus Christ. Death is before them, they see it and feel it; he is feeding upon them, and will eat them quite up if they come not to Jesus Christ; and therefore they come, even of necessity, being forced thereto by that sense they have of their being utterly and everlastingly undone, if they find not safety in him. These are those that will come. Indeed, these are those that are invited to come. “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavily laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt 11:28).
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