Jehovah's Challenge
(No. 2675)
INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, MAY 20, 1900.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
DECEMBER 31, 1882.
"Is there anything too hard for Me?" Jeremiah 32:27.
A Truth of God may be sincerely believed by us and yet it may do us
good to have it put in the form of a question. As I read the chapter, I
called your attention to Jeremiah's confident declaration to God,
"There is nothing too hard for You." Yet in our text, which is only a
few verses further on in the chapter, the Lord says to this same
Prophet, "Is there anything too hard for Me?" I think the explanation
of this mystery is that we do not always thoroughly believe even all
that we do truly believe. We may believe it so as to have no doubt
about it, but not so believe it as to be prepared to put it into
practice. Jeremiah might say to the Lord, "There is nothing too hard
for You," and he might be confident of the truth of his words, yet
there might be, in the background, so much mistrust, possibly
imperceptible to himself, that it might be necessary for God to put the
matter to him in the form of a question and to say, even to believing
Jeremiah, "Is there anything too hard for Me?" Ah, we little know what
unbelievers we really are! The most of us are scarcely aware of what an
awful amount of skepticism still lies lurking within our breasts, only
waiting for the opportunity to show itself.
Besides, dear Friends, you must always remember that it is one thing to
believe a general doctrine, but it is quite another thing to make a
particular and personal application of it. Jeremiah believes that God
can drive away the Chaldeans and leave the land free for the use of its
owners–but can he believe that the little plot of ground at Anathoth,
for which he has just paid 17 shekels of silver, will ever be worth the
money it has cost him? I expect the devil began to inject doubts into
his mind concerning that transaction by saying to him, "Can you trust
God about that purchase of land?" So the Lord does not, at once, accept
Jeremiah's declaration when the Prophet says, "There is nothing too
hard for You," but He puts to him a direct question relating to that
very point, "Is there anything too hard for Me?" Some of you think you
could believe concerning the conversion of a nation, but do you never
have doubts concerning the conversion of a perverse child? You believe
in the peacefulness that is to reign during the millennium, but have
you never had a doubt about the peace of your own domestic circle? You
could trust God, you say, in a storm at sea, but can you trust Him
about that bad debt on your books? You could depend upon Him, you say,
in death and throughout eternity, but can you depend upon Him about
that trifling matter which is just now bothering you and giving you so
much vexation? Is there anything, great or small, that is too hard for
God? That is the question I am going to try to answer. I throw down the
challenge, in the name of the glorious God who said to Jeremiah, "Is
there anything too hard for Me?" Now is your opportunity to bring up
your hard things, your difficult things, your apparently impossible
things and to see how they are affected by this challenge of the Most
High–"Is there anything too hard for Me?"
In calling attention to this challenge of Jehovah, I ask you to
remember, first, that the hardest conceivable things have already been
done by God. Next, I will mention some of the hard things which remain
to be done. And, lastly, since nothing is too hard for the Lord, I will
try to answer the short and simple question, "What then?"
I. First, then, I want you to remember that THE HARDEST CONCEIVABLE
THINGS HAVE ALREADY BEEN DONE BY GOD.
Let us begin at the beginning, with God's work of creation, as Jeremiah
does in this very chapter, and we shall then say, with him, that
Jehovah "made the Heaven and the earth." There was a time when there
was nothing that had been
created and God dwelt alone. There was no raw material out of which to
construct the universe, yet, when it pleased Him to do so, everything
was formed and fashioned by God out of nothing. What, then, can He not
do after having done that? I ask you to also think what God did
afterwards. At first, when He made the world, He left it for ages in an
unfinished state, for "in the beginning God created the Heaven and the
earth. And the earth was without form and void." But, long afterwards,
when He came to put it in order, and make it fit for man's abode–and
then to create man to have dominion over all the earth–who was with
Him to help Him? "With whom took He counsel and who instructed Him?"
With His own hands He piled up the mountains and dug the foundations of
the great deep. His unaided power achieved it all! Everything was in
darkness even after He had made it, but He spoke, and said, "Light,
be," "and there was light." Everything was in confusion and chaos. The
earth and the waters were mingled together, but again He spoke, and
divided the land from the sea, and the clouds rose up to paint the sky,
the rivers sought their bed and old Ocean was girt about with his belt
of sand!
God did it all, but, even then, the world was dead. No life was
anywhere to be seen. But again God spoke and, straightway, the earth
was green with grass, herbs and trees! The waters teemed with fish, all
kinds of birds began to fly in the open firmament of Heaven and
multitudes of beasts ranged the plain. Then, last of all, God said,
"Let Us make man in Our image, after our likeness: and let them have
dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and
over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing
that creeps upon the earth. So God created man in His own image, in the
image of God created He him; male and female created He them." Now,
whenever we doubt the power of God to do anything, let us read again
the first chapter of the Book of Genesis and then say, with Jeremiah,
"Ah, Lord God, behold, You have made the Heaven and the earth by Your
great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for
You!" There is nothing which the Lord did not make and He made it all
unaided. He did it all alone, by His own unguided wisdom and skill.
Therefore, one of the hardest things that ever could be done, was done
by God when He accomplished His great work of Creation!
Now let us think of His work under a different aspect, that is, His
work of destruction. And let any who doubt the power of God tremble as
they hear or read how He has displayed it. Again and again has the Lord
shown how easily He can rid Himself of His adversaries and shake them
off, as Paul shook off the viper into the fire. Go far back in the
history of the world and note how all mankind had become corrupt–they
who ought to have been holy and separate from sinners, had mixed
themselves with the ungodly–and on a certain day, when God's patience
had at last reached its limit, He spoke and down came torrents of rain,
descending with tremendous power and, at the same time, the sluices of
the great deep were unlocked and up leaped the fountains that, till
then, had been sealed! And, very soon, over the whole earth, there was
one great sheet of water, for God had determined that He would destroy
all flesh from off the face of the earth, save a "few, that is, eight
souls," whom He had housed within the ark. Terrible as the work of
destruction must have been, it was done as God determined and, after
that, let none ever think that God cannot overcome His enemies! Let no
one ever imagine that a warfare can be successfully waged against Him!
When He bares His arm for battle, His foes shall all flee before Him
like chaff before the wind, or they shall fall before Him like the
wheat falls before the reaper. He can create and He can destroy! In
looking back upon what He has already done, we can see that He has
accomplished inconceivably great and difficult things both in making
and in unmaking. "Ah," you say, "perhaps these are sublime things on an
enormous scale." Yes, but God is great on anyscale, and almighty
wherever you perceive the signs and tokens of His working!
Think, next, of His work for the defense and deliverance of His chosen
people. Read the Book of Exodus–you cannot too often read the wondrous
story of how, when the children of Israel were few in Egypt, God
nevertheless preserved them. And how, when they multiplied and the
cruel Pharaoh arose and tried, first, to curb and then to crush them,
God remembered His people and determined to bring them out of the land
of bondage. Moses and Aaron said to Pharaoh, "Thus says the Lord God of
Israel, Let My people go." How that proud monarch bridled up when he
heard those words! "Who is the Lord," he said, "that I should obey His
voice to let Israel go?" He soon knew who Jehovah was, for plague
followed plague till everything that Egypt had was destroyed and, last
of all, God "smote all the first-born in Egypt; the chief of their
strength in the tabernacles of Ham." Then the oppressors opened wide
their gates and Egypt was glad when Israel departed. With a high hand
and an outstretched arm, the Lord brought forth His people! And when
they came to the Red Sea and the Egyptians pursued them–and the tyrant
thought that he would surely destroy them, for the wilder-
ness had shut them in–then the Lord divided the sea and led His people
through the depths in safety! "But the sea overwhelmed their enemies,"
and on the farther shore, Miriam and the women joined in the jubilant
refrain to the triumphant song of Moses and the Israelite host, "Sing
you to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his
rider has He thrown into the sea."
Brothers and Sisters, after this mighty act of Jehovah, you need never
imagine that He cannot deliver His people! You need not suppose that a
little Church, or a little island, or a little nation shall be
domineered over by the proud ones of the earth! If God shall but repeat
that ancient command, "Touch not My anointed, and do My Prophets no
harm," it will be a case of, "Hands off," for the oppressors, however
mighty they may be–and they will have to learn that they must not
touch the elect of the Most High to do them harm!
If you need another instance of God's wonderful working, I remind you
that harder things than we need to have done for us by God have been
done by Him in the work of His Providence. Think how He led His people
through the wilderness and fed them for 40 years, though all that time
they never stirred a plow in the furrow, or gathered fruit from fig
trees or from olive trees. A pathless desert was the highway of the
millions who were His people! Heaven dropped with daily manna for them
and the smitten Rock yielded a perennial stream to quench their thirst.
When they craved flesh to eat, the Lord sent them innumerable feathered
fowl. Their garments waxed not old upon them, neither did their feet
swell for 40 years in that great and terrible wilderness. When you
think of all this, my poor Brother, you may well say, "If God could do
that great work, surely He can provide for mylittle family." Of course
He can! The God who could, for 40 years, feed three millions of people
who marched or stopped with nothing but bare sand beneath them, can
much more feed you, O you of little faith!
All these are great things that God has done, but I am going to take
you into much greater depths than we have traversed yet, for all this
is as nothing compared with what God has done in His great work of
Redemption. Creation is shorn of its glory. The terrors of God at the
deluge may almost be forgotten. The deliverance of Israel at the Red
Sea may take quite a secondary place and the leading of the people
through the wilderness may be put quite in the background when I begin
to tell the story of our redemption! This is the hardest thing, the
most amazing thing God has ever done! His Son came down to live among
men! He took on Him a human form and was born of the Virgin Mary,
sheltered in a stable, cradled in a manger! This is such a miracle that
all the other miracles I ever heard of seem commonplace affairs
compared with this wonder of wonders–that God should take upon Himself
the nature of man and then– still more marvelous– take upon Himself
the sin of His people and bear the awful load of their transgression,
all the burden of their punishment and endure it even to the last pang,
drinking up the cup of Infinite Justice to its dregs! Never was God so
Godlike as when Jesus died upon the Cross! Never was Omnipotence so
potent as when He died that men might live, crushing the old dragon as
He bled, leading captivity captive while He was, Himself, bound to the
accursed tree, casting death into an eternal grave when He, Himself,
was laid in the sepulcher! I cannot adequately tell you the story of
all these marvels! The very angels in Heaven have been set a-wondering
ever since that day–and they have been continually telling to one
another, over and over again, the story of the God that loved and died
and, by His love, death and living again, defeated Satan, conquered
death and led captivity captive for all His people! I feel more
inclined to burst out with, "Hallelujah! Hallelujah!" than to say even
a single syllable more concerning this greatest of all God's works!
Certainly, in what I have said, I have fully proved that the hardest
conceivable things have already been done by God and, therefore, He may
well ring out the challenge of our text, "Is there anything too hard
for Me?"
II. Now, secondly, I am going to mention SOME OF THE THINGS WHICH
REMAIN TO BE DONE.
The hardest things have been done by God–what remains to be done? Look
within you, look around you. Find all the difficult things that you
need to have done for you and then see how easy it is for the Lord to
meet your every need! Some of the hard things relate to temporal
matters. ' 'It would be a great thing for God to deliver me out of all
my troubles," says one, "for I am sorely afflicted and tried." But,
really, my dear Friend, after all that God has done, will you, canyou,
dareyou think to yourself that He cannot deliver you? Are you His
child? Do you love Him? Do you trust Him? Then, surely, you will not
say that He will leave you–that He will forsake you–or that He cannot
help you! I am certain that you would be ashamed to lead anybody to
think that God could not deliver you, yet you have, perhaps, allowed
the thought to creep into your own mind. Then drive it out at once! Do
not let it remain there a moment longer. God can help you and in very
simple ways, too.
I have known Him deliver His people in very extraordinary and
unexpected ways. There was a poor man, not long ago, who had no bread
for his family and they were almost starving. One of his children said
to him, "Father, God sent bread to Elijah by ravens." "Ah, yes," he
replied, "but God does not use birds in that way now." He was a cobbler
and a short time after he spoke those words, there flew into his
workshop a bird, which he saw was a rare one, so he caught it and put
it in a cage. A little later, a servant came in and said to him, "Have
you seen such-and-such a bird?" "Yes," he answered, "it flew into my
shop, so I caught it and put it into a cage." "It belongs to my
mistress," said the maid. "Well, then, take it," he replied, and away
she went. Perhaps you think that there was not anything very remarkable
in that incident, but when the girl took the bird to her mistress, the
lady sent her back to thank the cobbler for his care of her pet–and to
give him half a sovereign! So, if the bird did not actually bring the
bread and meat in its mouth, it was made the medium of feeding the
hungry family although the father had doubted whether such a thing
could happen! God has blessed ways of delivering His people if they
will but trust Him. I do not doubt, if this were the time for such
testimony to be given, that every Christian here could tell some story
of the way in which God has delivered in time past. "Oh, yes," says
one, "I could, I know." What, you? Yet you are the very one who doubts
God's power to deliver you! Cover your face for shame and cry, "Lord,
have mercy upon me! Forgive my unbelief and help Your poor child to
trust Your fatherly care and to know that You will provide for me."
But, next, some of the hard things relate to spiritual matters. I fancy
that I hear someone say, "I have a trouble which causes me more anxiety
than the things you have just mentioned. I know that God can provide
for me in temporal matters, but I have a very hard fight of it,
spiritually. I am tempted, first in one way, and then in another, till
I sometimes fear that I shall not be able to hold out. Satan appears to
know just where I am weakest. He shoots at the joints of my harness and
all his fiery darts seem to sorely wound me. I shall one day fall by
the hand of the enemy." David said something very much like that, yet
he did not perish by the hand of his enemy, King Saul. He died in his
bed, rejoicing in his God! And very likely it will be the same with
you. At any rate, if you are trusting in Christ, you shall not be
overcome, for greater is He that is for you than all that can be
against you! Do you believe that you, a child of God, cannot be so
helped by Him that you shall be able to overcome any kind of sin?
Surely you cannot believe anything so dishonoring to your Heavenly
Father?
If you do, I do not. I cannot tell how God's mind comes into contact
with man's mind, but I know that it does–that His Spirit comes into
most intimate connection with our spirit and so influences our spirit
that the sin, which once seemed to fascinate and charm us, loses all
its attractions and delights. And the doubts and fears, which for a
while depress us, have, by-and-by, no depressing power whatever! You
remember how Eliphaz said to Job, "At destruction and famine you shall
laugh," and God often helps His servants to laugh at those very things
which before seemed great burdens to them. There is nothing in your
spiritual case that is too hard for the Lord–so bring it before Him in
faith and prayer this very hour!
I fancy that I can hear someone else saying, "But I am not God's child!
Oh, how I wish that I could be! Alas, I am a great sinner." What has
been your sin, my Friend? I do not want you to tell me–I only ask you
what it was that you may tell it to yourself, and then answer the
Lord's question, "Is there anything too hard for Me?" If Christ had not
died, it would have been useless to ask you that question, but since
Jesus died, "the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God."
And since it is written, "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us
from all sin," can there be anything conceivable that is too hard for
the Lord? There is no sin which you have committed which the blood of
Christ cannot wash out if you believe in Him! Though you were even red
with murder, black with blasphemy and covered from head to foot with
the filthiness of lust, yet, on your believing in Jesus, you will be
made, then and there, as white as snow! Free pardon for every kind of
sin is proclaimed to every soul that will believe in Jesus Christ. "All
manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men," if they will
only trust in Christ. So, in this sense, there is nothing too hard for
the Lord. There is no sinner too guilty for the Lord to forgive when he
trusts the Savior's Sacrifice on Calvary.
"Yes," says another friend, "I can understand that I can have
forgiveness, but this is a greater difficulty to me–I have been so
long a transgressor of God's Law that I do not think I ever could
conquer my sin." No, I know that you could not and I want you to be
fully persuaded that you could not! And then, when you are perfectly
convinced upon that point, let me ask you this question, "Is even this
thing–this power of overcoming sin–too hard for the Lord?Your
successful resistance is out of the question–you cannot accomplish
anything in this great conflict, for you are nobody
and nothing–but is the struggle too hard for the Lord?" It often
happens that a man says, "Well, I know that I have been a great
drunkard. Drinking has been my besetting sin, but I can leave it off
when I like, and become a sober man at once." So he does and he signs
the pledge and wears his blue ribbon. But, by-and-by, the color of that
ribbon ought to be ruby rather than blue, for the man has given way to
strong drink again! The reason of his fall is that he cured himself and
so the disease came back. But the drunkard who says, "I am afraid to
trust myself, for this intemperance has got such a hold on me that I
never can get out of its clutches by my own power. O God, deliver me! I
trust You to save me! I look to Jesus Christ to save me!" He is the man
who shallfe helped and he shall be more than a conqueror through the
might of God! Let me assure you, my dear Friend, that there is no form
of sin from which you cannot be delivered by the Grace of God. After
many years of vice–prolonged, continued, inveterate, horrible
vice–men have not only been reformed and reclaimed, but they have been
renewed, sanctified and made pure and holy!
I wonder how you would have felt, if you had been visiting in certain
of the South Sea Islands, and you had been sitting at the Lord's Table
with some good old deacon, and then, after you had been eating and
drinking with him at the Communion and had heard him pray and preach,
somebody had whispered in your ear, "That man used to be a cannibal. He
has murdered many." "Oh," you would say, "and has the Grace of God
changed such a lion as that into a lamb?" It would have struck you as a
very remarkable illustration of the power of Divine Grace, yet there
are, even in this Tabernacle tonight, cases that are quite as striking
as that! If you could know all about them, you would agree with me that
it is so. God's Grace can do marvelous things! It can change lions into
lambs, ravens into doves and sinners into saints! In fact, the proof of
Christianity is the moral change which it is continually working in the
minds and lives of men and women. Above all other miracles stands this
one–the miracle by which the dishonest are made just, the impure are
made clean and the disobedient are brought to the obedience of faith.
Truly, there is no case that is too hard for the Lord. I suppose a good
many of you never heard that "Satan" came into this place, one Sabbath,
and was converted. [The remarkable story of this man's conversion is
related at greater length in C H Spurgeon's Autobiography, Volume IV,
with other similar narratives. Visit Pilgrim Publications for
availability and pricing at
http://www.pilgrimpublications.com/spurgeon.htm# biographies.] "No,"
you say, "surely that has never happened." Yes, it has! I can vouch for
the truth of the story. There was a sailor who lived at Wivenhoe, in
Essex, a man who was such a vile blasphemer and who lived altogether
such a disgraceful life, that the people called him, "Old Satan." When
the ship in which "Satan" sailed, came to London, a godly seaman, who
was on the same vessel, persuaded the man to come to hear me. He was
the more willing to do so because I once lived at Colchester, which is
not far from Wivenhoe. As he heard the Word, the Lord touched "Old
Satan's" heart and there was never before such a stir in Wivenhoe as
when he went home, a converted man, to tell other sinners the power of
the Grace of God! If there is anybody here who might be called a very
devil, let him come and trust Christ, and he shall be saved
straightway. Come along with you, poor slave of Satan! Leave your old
master this very minute! Do not give him even a moment's notice, but
speed away to the great Father's house and He will receive you, for He
is expecting you! No, more–it is He who is drawingyou, by His gracious
Spirit! And it is His Son who has said, "All that the Father gives Me
shall come to Me; and him that comes to Me I will in no wise cast out."
God grant that many who have been hard sinners, may come to Christ and
find in Him eternal life!
Once more, Jehovah's challenge, "Is there anything too hard for Me?"
contains a lesson for you who are trying to serve the Lord. I want you
also to catch the meaning and the message of my text–there is nothing
too hard for God, so He can save the children in your Sunday school
class! He can bless the people of the district where you visit. He can
help you to talk to that dying person whom you went to see yesterday.
There is nothing too hard for the Lord, so He can bless you, city
missionary, to that dark slum which gives you so much anxiety. He can
bless you, dear Friend, at that street corner where you scarcely get
through a dozen sentences before you are interrupted! This question of
Jehovah, "Is there anything too hard for Me?" seems to be like a
rallying cry from God to urge all His followers to press on, like
heroes, without a doubt about the victory! "Courage, my comrades," said
Mohammed to his troops, one day, when the battle was going against
them–"I can hear the angels coming to our rescue." There were no
angels flying to help him, but they are always coming to aid uswhen we
need them, for, "are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to
minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?" If we are truly
trusting in the living God, He will surely send the heavenly
principalities and powers to help us, so that, in our weakness, His
strength shall be glorified and sinners shall be saved!
I can believe in the conversion of the Jews when I hear Jehovah's
challenge, "Is there anything too hard for Me?" I can believe in the
spread of His Gospel over the whole world when I hear Him ask, "Is
there anything too hard for Me?" I can believe in my Master setting up
a Kingdom that shall have no bounds and no end, when I hear His royal
enquiry, "Is there anything too hard for Me?" Very often, when we get
among men and women, we seem to be surrounded by a lot of children
playing with toys, for they bother, hinder, hamper and only increase
our own helplessness. But when we get clear of them and just look to
God, alone, then we seem to have elbowroom for our work. A thoroughly
consecrated man can do something, by God's Grace, when he has got rid
of the intolerable nuisance of having too many human helpers who are
often only hindrances–and who has not any other helper but his God.
Oh, it is a blessed thing to be flung back upon the bare arm of
Omnipotence–to be gloriously compelled to rest on God and on God
alone! May many of us know, by happy, personal experience, how blessed
it is!
III. I have done, dear Friends, when I have, in the last place, very
briefly answered a short and simple question. Since nothing is too hard
for the Lord, WHAT THEN?
I want that we, as a people, should be true to the very core to our
blessed God and, to that end, as there is nothing that is too hard for
Him, let us trust Him, all of us, whatever our trials or our
difficulties may be. Let us have no sham faith, no pretended
confidence, but real trust in a real God!
Then, next, I want that we should act as if we trusted God. Do not let
us waver, "for he that wavers is like a wave of the sea driven with the
wind and tossed."
And, then, believing in God, let us always do what is right Let us
believe that to do the right is always right–that policy–that
"hedging" a little, and doing what we call a "slight wrong," can never
be justified in the sight of God.
Finally, let us live a life of love, a life of forgiveness and
kindness, trusting that God will cause love to overcome human hate and
kindness to conquer all misrepresentation. Live in all respects so as
to glorify God.
Beloved in the Lord, who are one with us in Christ Jesus, do be
out-and-out Believers and let your faith be as evident as the color on
a healthy cheek, that all men may see that the very life-blood of your
spiritual being is your faith in God and in His Christ! What made brave
Oliver Cromwell, in the days gone by, so terrible an enemy to all who
loved not liberty and right? It was his faith! And he had gathered
about him a band of men who also believed and so, when the Ironsides
marched to the fight, you might as well have hoped to stop the stars in
their courses as to keep those men back from victory! And today, what
England needs is men of faith whose watchword is, "The Lord of Hosts!"
and whose confidence it is that "with God all things are possible," and
also that "all things are possible to him that believes." May all of us
be such Believers, for our Lord Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JEREMIAH32:1-27.
Verses 1-5. The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth
year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of
Nebuchadnezzar For then the king of Babylon's army besieged Jerusalem:
and Jeremiah the Prophet was shut up in the court of theprison, which
was in the king of Judah's house. For Zedekiah, king of Judah, had shut
him up, saying. Therefore do you prophesy, and say, Thus says the Lord,
Behold, I will give this city into the hands of the king of Babylon,
and he shall take it; and Zedekiah king of Judah shall not escape out
of the hand of the Chaldeans, but shall surely be delivered into the
hands of the king of Babylon, and shall speak with him mouth to mouth,
and his eyes shall behold his eyes; and he shall lead Zedekiah to
Babylon, and there shall he be until I visit him, says the Lord: though
you fight with the Chaldeans, you shall not prosper So you see that
Jeremiah was shut up in prison at the time here mentioned. Zedekiah,
the king of Judah, had treated him very harshly because of his faithful
utterance of the Word of the Lord. He was a true servant of Jehovah,
yet he suffered much at the king's hands. One very remarkable event,
which happened at that time, is here recorded.
6-8. And Jeremiah said, The word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Behold, Hanameel, the son of Shallum, your uncle, shall come unto you,
saying, Buy you my field that is in Anathoth: for the right of
redemption is yours to buy it. So Hanameel, my uncle's son, came to me
in the court of the prison according to the word of the LORD, and said
unto me, Buy my field, I pray you, that is in Anathoth, which is in the
country of Benjamin: for the right of inheritance is
yours and the redemption is yours; buy it for yourself. Then I knew
that this was the word of the LORD. The Lord had told him beforehand
that it would be so and, therefore, in due time, his cousin came to him
with the offer of this plot of land in the country of Benjamin.
9, 10. Andlbought the field ofHanameel, my uncle's son, that was in
Anathoth, and weighedhim the money, even seventeen shekels of silver.
And I subscribed the evidence, and sealed it, and took witnesses, and
weighed him the money in the balances. This was, in every respect, a
very extraordinary transaction! Remember that the Chaldeans were
already besieging Jerusalem and they were all over the land, carrying
fire and sword into every part of it. Jerusalem was shut up, so that
none of the inhabitants could get out of the city–yet here is
Jeremiah, himself a prisoner, buying land which was virtually worth
nothing whatever! But he believed so firmly that the Chaldeans would
yet permit the Jews to live unmolested in that land that he paid down
the purchase money for the field and saw to the legal execution of the
deed of transfer, just as you or I might have done if we were
purchasing a plot of land in our own country. This is a notable
instance of the triumph of faith over unfavorable surroundings and,
also, of the Prophet's obedienceto the Word of the Lord.
11, 12. So I took the evidence of the purchase, both that which was
sealed according to the law and custom, and that which was open: and I
gave the evidence of the purchase to Baruch, the son of Neriah, the son
of Maaseiah, in the sight of Hanameel, my uncle's son, and in the
presence of the witnesses that subscribed the book of the purchase,
before all the Jews that sat in the court of the prison. Jeremiah did
all this openly. What they may have thought to be an absurd action, he
did not do in private, but in the presence of them all! True faith in
God does not go in for hole-and-corner transactions. Faith can do its
business in the light of the sun! Faith believes God under all
circumstances and believes that the truest common sense is to obey His
Word. Therefore she is not ashamed of what she does–neither shall she
ever have cause to be ashamed or confounded, world without end! There
is a living God and if we do what He bids us, good must come of it. No
harm shall happen to the man who confidently rests in the Most High.
13-17. And 1 charged Baruch before them, saying, Thus says the LORD
ofHosts, the God ofIsrael; Take these evidences, this evidence of the
purchase, both which is sealed, and this evidence which is open; and
put them in an earthen vessel, that they may continue many days. For
thus says the LORD ofHosts, the God ofIsrael; Houses and fields and
vineyards shall be possessed again in this land. Now when I had
delivered the evidence of the purchase unto Baruch, the son of Neriah,
I prayed unto the LORD, saying, Ah Lord GOD!Faith cannot live without
prayer. When she has performed her most heroic deeds, she turns to God
and humbly asks for renewed strength, for oh, my Brothers and Sisters,
the best of men are but men at the best–and those who have the most
faith never have any to spare. Jeremiah says, "I prayed unto the Lord,
saying, Ah Lord God!" It looked, at first sight, as if the Prophet was
going to utter some mournful complaint, or to express some doubt or
misgiving concerning the purchase of the land, but it was not so.
Having allowed that exclamation to escape from him, his faith came to
the rescue and he continued–
17. Behold, You have made the Heaven and the earth by Your great power
and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for You. Is not
that a grand sentence? "There is nothing too hard for You." He that
could make the Heaven and the earth can do anything! Read, in the Book
of Genesis, the story of the creation, and see how, "He spoke, and it
was done; He commanded, and it stood fast." And then judge as to what
can ever be a difficulty for the Almighty. Surely you must say to Him,
as Jeremiah did, "There is nothing too hard for You."
18. You show loving kindness unto thousands, and recompense the
iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children after them;
the Great, the Mighty God, the LORD ofHosts, is His name. See how these
godly men, in their times of trouble, delighted in the great names and
glorious attributes of God. There are, nowadays, many namby-pamby,
fashionable religionists, wrapped in luxury, who have only a little
God–they never seem to know "the Great, the Mighty God"–but Jeremiah,
with the smell of the prison still clinging to him, talks grandly! "The
Great, the Mighty God, the Lord of Hosts, is His name."
19-21. Great in counsel, and mighty in work: for Your eyes are open
upon all the ways of the sons of men: to give everyone according to his
ways, and according to the fruit of his doings: who has set signs and
wonders in the land of Egypt, even unto this day, and in Israel, and
among other men; and have made You a name, as at this day; and have
brought forth Your people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs,
and with wonders, and with a strong hand, and with a stretched out arm,
and with great terror. Those ancient Jews, in the time of their
trouble, always looked gratefully back to the wonders worked by Jehovah
in Egypt. That great deed of God, when He smote the might of Pharaoh,
was always present to the Hebrew mind and the people, in every season
of tribulation, refreshed themselves with the remembrance of it. Well,
then, dear Friends, as they sang the song of Moses, shall not we sing
the song of the Lamb? Will not we go back in thought to the glorious
triumphs of our Redeemer and recount again and again, for the
encouragement of our faith, what Christ did for us upon the Cross, even
as the Jews thought often, for the strengthening of their confidence,
of their wondrous deliverance from Egypt by the high hand and the
stretched out arm of Jehovah?
22-24. And have given them this land, which You didswear to their
fathers to give them, a land flowing with milk and honey, and they came
in, and possessed it; but they obeyed not Your voice, neither walked in
Your Law; they have done nothing of all that You commanded them to do:
therefore You have caused all this evil to come upon them: behold the
mounts. The margin renders it, "the engines of shot," which we see, by
the next chapter, were powerful enough to throw down the houses in
Jerusalem.
24, 25. They are come unto the city to take it; and the city is given
into the hands of the Chaldeans, that fight against it, because of the
sword, and of the famine, and of the pestilence; and what You have
spoken is come to pass and, behold, You see it. And You have said unto
me, O LORD GOD, Buy you the field for money, and take witnesses; for
the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans. I suppose that,
although Jeremiah, with unquestioning faith, had done as God had
commanded him, yet afterwards, when he was alone in his prison cell, he
began to think the whole matter over. And though he may not have had
any actual doubts, yet he probably had some anxieties as to the issue
of the whole affair. He could not quite understand it, so he wisely put
it before the Lord. Some of you who have truly trusted God, may yet be
just now perplexed with anxiety of one kind or another. Well, then,
tell it to the Lord–go at once into His Presence and spread the case
before Him, as Jeremiah did.
26, 27. Then came the word of the Lord unto Jeremiah, saying, Behold, I
am the LORD, the God of all flesh: is there anything too hard
forMe?That question we will try to answer presently. [Remember, the
exposition was before the sermon.]