Chapter 2
Chapter 2
The story of “The Lost Chord” has been told in exquisite verse and stately music. We have all heard about the lady who laid her fingers on the open keys of a glorious organ as the autumn twilight softly filled the room. She didn’t know what she was playing, or what she was dreaming then, but she struck one chord of music, like the sound of a great amen.
It flooded the crimson twilight,
Like the close of an angel’s psalm,
And it lay on my fevered spirit
With the touch of infinite calm:
It quieted pain and sorrow,
Like love overcoming strife;
It seemed the harmonious echo
From our discordant life.
It linked all perplexed meanings
Into one perfect peace,
And trembled away into silence,
As if it were loth to cease.
Something called her away, and when she returned to the organ, she had lost that divine chord. Though she longed for it, and sought it, it was all in vain. It was a lost chord.
Whenever I hear that story, it reminds me of the lost joy, the lost peace, the lost power so many complain about. At the beginning of their Christian life, or recently, or further in the past, it seemed as if they had struck the chord of a blessed and glorious life. As long as those notes lingered in their lives, they were like days of heaven on earth; but sadly, those notes soon died away into silence, and all their life is now filled with regret for the grace of days that are dead.
Where is the blessedness I knew
When first I sought the Lord?
Where is the soul-refreshing view
Of Jesus and His Word?
What peaceful hours I then enjoyed!
How sweet their memory still!
But they have left an aching void
The world can never fill.
These words are written to help all such people and to give them the sweet lost chord again. Take heart! You can have it all again and more than all you ever lost. You have flung your precious stones into the deep; for a moment they created a splash, followed by a tiny ripple, and then the stones sunk down, apparently beyond hope of recovery. Yet the hand of Christ will again place them on your palm. Only in the future, be wise enough to let Him keep them for you.
These are the steps back you can take at once:
God’s portrait is drawn by One who couldn’t mislead us, who compares Him to the Father of a loved prodigal son, always watching the road from His windows, and eagerly longing for his return. If He should see him a great way off, He is ready to run to meet him, and embrace him to His yearning heart – rags, filth, and all.
That is your God, my friend. Listen to His words, broken by laments: How must I leave thee, Ephraim? how shall I give thee up, Israel? how could I make thee as Admah? nor set thee as Zeboim? my heart churns within me; all my compassion is inflamed (Hosea 11:8). Read the last chapter of the book of Hosea. This chapter may well be called the backsliders’ gospel.
Read the third chapter of Jeremiah, and let the sorrowful pleadings return to soak into your spirit. Read the story of Peter’s fall and restoration, and let your tears fall thick and fast on John 21 as you learn how gracefully the Lord forgave, and how generously He entrusted the backslider with His sheep and His lambs. Be certain that even though your repeated failures and sins have worn out everyone else, they have not exhausted the infinite love of God. He tells us to forgive our offending brother to four hundred and ninety times. Won’t He forgive us much more often? As high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His mercy. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon (Isaiah 55:7). If you go back to God, you are sure of a hearty welcome.
You may have lost the light of God’s face, not because He has arbitrarily withdrawn it, but because your sins have come between you and your God. Like a cloud before the sun, your sins may have hidden His face from you. As God if this is so, and be honest with yourself if you already know this to be true. Don’t spend time looking at them as a whole. Deal with them one by one. The Boer is a formidable foe to the British soldier because he is trained from boyhood to take definite aim and bring down his mark, while our soldiers fire in volleys. In dealing with sin, we should imitate the Boer in the certainty and accuracy of his aim.
Ask God to search you and show you what wicked way is in you. Put all your life in order before Him – in the same way Joshua sorted through Israel – and sift through it, tribe by tribe, family by family, household by household, man by man, until you finally find the Achan who has robbed you of the blessed smile of God. Don’t say, “Lord, I’m a great sinner, I’ve done what I shouldn’t, and I haven’t done what I should.” Instead, say, “Lord, I have sinned in this, and this, and that, and the other.” Be specific. Call up each sin by its right name to receive the sentence of death. Your heart is choked with sins; empty it out like you would a box, by first dealing with the articles that lie on the surface. When you have removed them, you will see more underneath; deal with them also. When these are removed, you will probably see some more. Never rest until all are gone. This is the process of confession − this process of telling God the unvarnished story − the sad, sad story of each accursed sin: how it began, how you sinfully permitted it to grow, how you have loved and followed it to your bitter cost.
How long does it take you to forgive your child when you are sure they are really sorry and repentant? Not a moment. Time isn’t considered in forgiveness. The estrangement of a lifetime, the wrongdoing of years, can be forgiven in the twinkling of an eye − in the time it takes for a tear to form and fall. That is how it is with God. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us (1 John 1:9).
Sometimes He keeps us waiting for an answer to other prayers, but He never keeps us waiting one single second for an answer to our prayer for forgiveness. It is hardly possible for the prodigal to stammer out the words, “Father, I have sinned,” before the answer flashes upon him: “I have put away thy sin; thou shalt not die” (2 Samuel 12:13). There isn’t a moment’s interlude between the humble and sad telling of the story of sin and God’s forgiveness. As soon as a repentant person appears in the doorway of God’s throne room, the golden scepter of His royal forgiveness is stretched out for him to touch. You might not feel forgiven, and you may have no joyful ecstasy, but in God’s thinking, you are forgiven. The angels hear Him say, “Child, your sins, which are many, are all forgiven. Go in peace.” Therefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much; but to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little (Luke 7:47).
If we confess, and as soon as we confess, He is faithful and just to forgive. He never says, “Go your way and return tomorrow, and I will see whether I can forgive.” He hates the sin and is only too glad to sweep it away. He loves the sinner and is only too happy to receive him again in His embrace. And He is able to do all this so quickly and so completely because Jesus Christ our Lord bore our sins in His own body on the tree. He himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness (1 Peter 2:24).
True repentance shows itself eager not to offend again. This care prompts the sinner to go back to consider his past life to discover how he came to sin and to avoid that cause.
Is it a friendship? Then he will cut the tender cord even if it’s the thread of his life.
Is it an amusement? Then he will forever stay away from that place, those settings, and that companionship.
Is it a profitable means of making money? Then he would rather live on a crust of bread than follow it a moment longer.
Is it a study, a pursuit, a book? Then he would rather lose a hand, or a foot, or an eye, than miss the favor of God, which is life. And if thy right hand should bring thee occasion to stumble, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is better for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell (Matthew 5:30).
Is it something that the church permits? Nevertheless, to him it shall be sin.
If you can’t walk on ice without slipping or falling, it is better not to go on it at all. If you can’t digest certain food, it is better not to put it into your mouth. It might seem impossible to disentangle yourself from certain entanglements which have woven themselves around you; nevertheless, remember Him who said, Let my people go, that they may serve me again and again in the book of Exodus. He cut the knot of bondage for them, and if you trust Him, He will cut it for you. Or if He doesn’t cut it with a single blow, He will untie it by the patient workings of His foresight and wisdom.
It isn’t enough to confess to God; if you have sinned against another person, you must also confess to him. Leave thy gift there before the altar, and go; first restore friendship with thy brother (Matthew 5:24). If you have done him a wrong, go and tell him so. If you have defrauded him, whether he knows it or not, send him the amount you have taken or kept back and add to it something to compensate for his loss. Under the Levitical law, it was decreed that the delinquent person should restore what he took away violently or by falsehood, and should add one-fifth part to it, and only then might he come with his trespass offering to the priest and be forgiven. This principle still holds true today. You will never be happy until you have made restitution. Write the letter or make the call at once. And if the one whom you defrauded is no longer alive, then make the debt right with his heirs and representatives. You must roll away this stone from the grave, or the dead joy can never arise, however loudly you may call it to come forth. I don’t believe in a repentance that isn’t honorable enough to make amends for the past, in whatever manner is within your reach.
You may have given your heart to God before, but do it again. You may never have done it, and if that’s the case, then do it for the first time. Kneel down and give yourself, your life, your interests, your all, to God. Lay the sacrifice on the altar. If you can’t give, then ask God to come and take. Tell Him that you wish to be only, always, and totally for Him. We might well hesitate to give the glorious Lord such a handful of withered leaves if He hadn’t expressly asked us each to give Him our heart. My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways (Proverbs 23:26). It is very wonderful, but He wouldn’t make such a request if He didn’t really mean it. No doubt, He can make something out of our poor nature: a vessel for His use, a weapon for His hand, a receptacle for His glory, a crown for His brow.
The old version of the Bible used to tell us that He was able to keep us from falling. The new version, giving a closer rendering of the Greek, tells us that He is able to guard us from stumbling. He can and so He will. But we must trust Him. Moment by moment we must look into His face and say, Keep me as the apple of the eye; hide me with the shadow of thy wings (Psalm 17:8). He will never fail you. He will never fail you nor forsake you. He will give His angels charge to keep you in all your ways. He will cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you will have confidence (Psalm 91:4, 11).
But you say, “I fail to look into His face at the moment of temptation.” If that’s the case, then do this: ask the Holy Spirit, whose responsibility it is to bring all things to our remembrance, to remind you to look to Jesus when you are in danger. Each morning, entrust yourself into His hands. Look to Him to help keep you looking toward Him. Trust in Him to keep you trusting. Don’t look at your difficulties or weaknesses, and don’t keep thinking you will fall again someday. Go through life, whispering, saying, singing a thousand times a day, “Jesus saves me now.”
A friend once told me that she had been kept from backsliding in this way: in the presence of God, she took time each night to consider quietly where she had lost ground during the day, and if she felt she had done so, she never slept until she had asked to be forgiven and restored.
This practice is also good and beneficial for you and me, dear reader. So, let us repair the little crack within the lute, for fear that over time it might spread and make our music mute, and slowly widen to silence the music altogether.
If these directions are followed, the lost chord will no longer be lost, nor will we have to wait until God’s great angel sounds it, because it will ring again in our heart and make sweet music in our life.
“The Lost Chord,” by Adelaide A. Procter
William Cowper, “O For a Closer Walk with God,” Conyer’s Collection of Psalms and Hymns, 1772.
The term Boer is derived from the Afrikaans word for “farmer” and was used to describe the people in southern Africa who traced their ancestry to Dutch, German, and French Huguenot settlers. The South African Boer War between the British Empire and the Boers lasted from 1899-1902.
A. C. Downer, “Jesus Saves Me Now,” Christian Hymns No. 1 (1899), 179.