An Urgent Necessity
(No. 3557)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 29, 1917.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
JULY31, 1870.
"It is time to seek the Lord till He comes and rains righteousness upon
you." Hosea 10:12.
HOSEA uses a great many figures taken from farming. He describe the
seeking of the Lord in the former part of this verse as plowing, and
sowing, and breaking up fallow ground. I suppose he intends by this to
describe conviction of sin, humiliation of soul as the work that plows,
the reception of the Truth of the Gospel by faith in Jesus Christ as
sowing, for this introduces the Living Seed into the soul. And he here
gives two reasons why this matter of seeking the Lord should be
attended to at once. His first reason is the season. "It is time to
seek the Lord." The second is a very gracious expectation that God will
rain righteousness upon us. First, then, the Prophet reasons that we
should seek after the Lord because it is–
I. THE TIME TO SEEK GOD.
"It is time to seek the Lord." I wish you to reflect, first, that we
yet have time. It might have been otherwise. We might have been cut
down in our sins. Many of our neighbors and acquaintances have died.
Some of them, we have reason to fear, died in their iniquities and were
taken away with a stroke. We, too, have passed through dangers. Some
have escaped in shipwreck. Some have been in imminent peril in
accidents–some of us have come into the very jaws of death in serious
sickness. We might almost sing, or quite sing–
"Lord, and am I yet alive? Not in torment, not in Hell? Still does Your
good Spirit strive With the chief of sinners dwell?" We yet have time.
Let no person living say he has not time, for while life lasts, hope
lasts. The sentence, "Depart, you cursed," is not yet pronounced by
Christ's lips on you. Pronounce it not on yourselves! Do not conclude
your case to be hopeless and make it hopeless, but rather believe that
being in the assembly of God's people, listening to the testimony of
His Grace, you are still on praying ground and pleading terms with
God–and you yet have time given you to seek the Lord! The most aged
need not despair! The most guilty need not conclude that their day of
Grace is over! Until that iron bar shall fasten the door and you are
shut in the pit of Hell forever, let not Satan persuade you that you
are beyond all hope! While the Gospel note rings from the silver
trumpet of gracious invitation, "He that has ears to hear let him
hear," you yet have time–time to seek the Lord!
This time is given you for this very purpose. You think, perhaps, that
your prolonged life is given you that you may mature your plans, that
you may rectify mistakes of business, that you may accumulate more
money, or perhaps you are gross enough to think that the best way of
using time is to get earthly pleasure out of it–and indulge animal
passions and appetites! Ah, Sirs, it is not so! To whatever use you put
this talent of time, God's long-suffering has been your salvation. By
it God teaches you to repent while He permits you to live! His
long-suffering is not that you may provoke Him further, but that you
may cease to provoke Him! He cuts not down the tree that it may spread
its useless branches and cumber the ground yet worse, but if, perhaps,
being dug about a little longer, it may bring forth fruit! It is the
very motive why the Intercessor pleads, "Spare it yet another year." He
spares you that you may not depart hence till you are ready to depart.
He gives you space, not for sin, but for repenting opportunity! Not for
perpetrating worse offenses, but for turning from your evil ways! Your
time has this mark on it, if you would but see it, "Repent! I give you
space. Repent! Take heed you waste it not." There is encouragement to
every unconverted person in this thought! If this time is given you to
repent in, then rest assured that, repenting and believing in Jesus,
you will be accepted! If the judge stands at the criminal's door and
waits, and says he waits there until he is willing to receive the
pardon he grants, and if the criminal is anxious to receive the pardon,
there can be no difficulty in the way! The very waiting of the judge at
the door proves that he does not want to execute the sentence–only
desires to see some symptom of contrition, some tokens of turning from
the evil way and gives space if, perhaps, these token may become
apparent. Hear you, then, oh, unconverted ones! Hear you, then, and
trifle not with the space allowed you!
It is time to seek the Lord, says the text. Surely it is high time! Not
only the time, but high time. It is high time, you young ones, that you
seek the Lord, for Satan is on the watch for you if, perhaps, your
unwary footsteps may be decoyed into the paths of evil–evil which, if
you are not delivered from, you will have to regret ever having trodden
to life's latest hour! Oh, if you would be kept from the snare of the
fowler, you young ones, it is time you seek the Lord–high time! Now
when you are leaving your mother's roof–going away from a father's
gentle guidance, it is time to seek the Lord. I would press this on any
young man here just launching into life, or that marriage, or that
business he entered upon–it is time to seek the Lord! Set up God's
altar when you set up a house, and before you trade for yourself,
consecrate yourself and your substance to God, who can bless you and
will!
But, oh, you that have passed now into middle life, have you spent
forty years in sin? It is high time you sought the Lord! Your best days
have been given to provoking Him. Will you not give the rest, such as
they are, to His service? Oh, that His Spirit might compel you to do
so. And you that lean upon the staff, you who have come to the verge of
human life, is it not high time to seek the Lord? I see your sun going
down–the sky is scarcely bright, the red rays betoken that the sun is
hiding itself. Oh, before the dark, dark, endless night comes on, seek
the Lord while yet He may be found! Be grateful for having been spared
so long. Oh, be not so ungrateful as to use so long a life all for sin,
for remember, it will be then all used for your own destruction! You
have been a fool long enough! Gray hairs and foolery are not well
matched. You have long enough sported on the brink of Hell–will you
not start back from it? By God's long-suffering and patience, I beseech
you remember it is high time for you to seek the Lord.
And you in whom I mark that treacherous spot upon the cheek that marks
the worm beneath, and you with the pre-ternaturally bright eyes that
indicates the fire of consumption within, it is time you sought the
Lord! And you whose crumbling frames, or aching bones or relaxed
sinews, or trembling nerves, all betoken how weak your body is and how
readily it may be crumbled back into the dust–these tokens from the
Lord are upon you–it is time you sought Him! He knocks gently as yet,
and gives you warning. Take heed, He will soon come and remove the
house of the wicked, and the tabernacle of the ungodly, and your souls
must appear before His Judgment Seat! It is high time you sought the
Lord. And, oh, all of you ungodly ones who listen to my voice, and have
listened to it so long, I have asked the Lord to teach me how to preach
that I may somehow get at your hearts. I seem not to have learned the
art as yet. May His Spirit come and give the right word with a barbed
shaft that shall plow its way right through your armor and pierce its
way through all the hardness of your heart until it breaks the
conscience and wounds you–and compels you to cry for mercy! What? All
the years at Park Street, Exeter Hall and the time at the Surrey
Gardens–and ever since this Tabernacle has been built–and yet
unsaved? It is time to seek the Lord! The very seats you sit on cry out
against you, some of you, and I, unwilling as I am to speak it, I must
be a swift witness against some of you, for to the best of my ability I
have pointed you to Christ, I have warned you of danger, I have told
you of your great peril, I have warned you of the terrible punishment
of sin, I have entreated you to fly to Jesus! It is time, you
Gospel-hardened ones, that you sought the Lord! If your lusts are gods,
serve them! But decide and choose this day–and may God choose for you
whom you will serve! It is high time as well as time to seek the Lord!
Remember, too–and here is something solemn, but something sweet as
well–it is God's time, for these are God's words put into the
Prophet's mouth–it is time to seek the Lord! God says, "It is time."
When God says it is time, why, then, when I come, I cannot be denied!
God says, "It is time." Then if I do not come, I provoke Him! Hear you
these words, you that are dull of hearing, and you whose hearts have a
thick crust! Hear you, for Jehovah speaks to you this day. "Today, if
you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts as in the provocation."
"Today"–He limits the time– "Today, if you will hear His voice,
harden not your hearts, for if you do so, the day will come when He
will deal with you as He did with His people, Israel, who, having long
provoked Him, received this as His answer to their face, "He swore in
His wrath that they should not enter into His rest." Not yet has He
spoken, but He may, and that awful voice which comes from Solomon's
Proverbs may come to you. "Because I have called and you refused, I
stretched out My hand and no man regarded it, I also will mock at your
calamity; I will laugh when your fear comes." "Today is the accepted
time; today is the day of salvation."
Once more only. It is time to seek the Lord, and it is but time. It is
but a time. You have not given to you eternity in which to seek the
Lord. It is the time, and the time is limited. It is still time, but it
is limited. To some of you it is most limited. It is time to seek the
Lord. The vessel lies in the harbor and the favorable wind would take
her out to sea and bear her on to her port, but the sailor sleeps–the
captain observes not the wind. The sails are furled. Tomorrow the wind
has changed. Now he may do as he will, but he is land-locked, and there
must he remain. He cannot put out to sea, for he cannot command the
gale. So is it with you–there is a time which God appoints you. Tis
now! Slight it and it may never come again! It is but a time. Oh, take
this mercy at the flood–miss it not, I pray you. While God waits, come
you, lest there should come an hour when you shall knock at His door
and the voice shall be heard, "Too late, too late! You cannot enter
now." Ah, I would I had but power to put this as I should, and so that
you would feel it, but, perhaps, you will feel it when I would wish you
had no need to do so–I mean on your dying bed.
The Puritans tell a story of a woman convinced of sin on her deathbed,
who lived near Cambridge, who was visited by several ministers, all of
whom had great skill in comforting seeking souls. When five or six of
them had spoken gently and comfortingly to her, she opened her eyes
upon them with a glare, and all she said was this, "Call back the time,
call back the time, for otherwise I am damned!" And so she died. And
there are many, I hear, who might say that. "The time is gone! The time
is gone! I cannot call it back!" Oh, take it on the wing while yet it
is time to seek the Lord. You know, perhaps, the story of the traveler
on the prairie, when a fire in the distance could be seen. The prairie
was on a blaze, and he knew that his only hope for life was to fight
fire with fire. He searched for his matches. If he could make a ring
around him and burn the grass so that when the fire came up, it would
have nothing to feed upon, then he might escape. He found but three
matches in his box. He took one and struck it with some degree of care,
but, alas, before he could light the train which he had laid, the match
had gone out. He took another, and this time, very tremblingly, with
much of tremulous anxiety about him, struck it. There was a light–he
thought he was safe, but a gust of wind blew it out. And now all
depended on the last match! He would be burnt to ashes, with no help,
no pity from a friend, if that match failed him. Down he falls and
breathes the prayer–"God help me, God help me! Grant this may
succeed." He struck it! You may guess with what care he had laid all
the grass around it, and then he struck it as though he were loath to
run the terrible risk, but he praised God when he saw its success and
that his life was saved!
You have but one match left, O Sinner! Use it well–one light, one
time–the time to seek the Lord. Oh, seek Him now–tonight! This moment
in the pew say, "God be merciful to me a sinner!" Is that your prayer?
'Tis well. God hear and answer it! But now I must, by your patience,
speak for a little while upon the second part of the text. There is
another reason given for seeking the Lord–and that is–
II. THE BLESSED EXPECTATION.
It is that in due time He will rain righteousness upon us! I understand
by this that the plowing and the sowing are ours, but these are nothing
without the heavenly rain of Grace. But God will be sure to send that
in due time. In fact, our plowing and sowing are results and tokens of
His Grace, and the Grace of comfort will come where the Grace of
humiliation has already come. When it says, "righteousness," I think it
means to assure us that God can, in a way of righteousness, be gracious
to us. Through His dear Son, who bore the punishment of our sins, God
can righteously rain upon sinners. Now just a moment or two. You say
you have not Grace. You say you are not what you should be. 'Tis even
so. But seek the Lord and He will rain righteousness upon you! Observe
all Divine Grace must come from Him. Rain comes from God. He rains it.
Every drop of Grace comes from Heaven. You, Sinner, can never get any
Grace unless He gives it you! Remember this, and wait upon Him for it
now. It must be heavenly Grace, or it will be no Grace at all. It can
come to you. There are some parts on earth that never could be watered
if it did not rain. Nobody would ever think of watering the hilltops.
But He waters His hills from His chambers. We cannot give Grace to
you–you are in such a desolate, lonely, mountainous place, but He can
get to you and He will! See how it is He will rain righteousness upon
you. Then, as there is a straight way for rain even to the wilderness,
so is there a straight way for God's Grace to drop into your
desertheart. Rain comes Sovereignly as God wills it, where He wills it,
when He wills it. And in degree and duration according to His will. So
does Grace. Lift up your soul, then, to Him for it, and bow your head,
feeling that you deserve it not!
But in the metaphor of rain there is the idea of plenteousness. He will
rain righteousness upon you. If you have no Grace, He will give you
much Grace if you have great needs. He will give you great supplies. He
will rain it upon you. God is not stinting in His love–He will not
give you a drop or two, but He will give you a sea of mercy. "I will
pour water upon him who is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground." Now
is not this good reason for seeking the Lord? You cannot get Grace
anywhere but from the Lord. God can give it to you very abundantly. It
is in His hands to give or not as He wills. Oh, seek it. He holds the
stars! He guides the clouds! He wing the tempest! Seek Him for His
Grace–He will give it to you. It can come from none besides. But it
will come. There is the mercy of it. And you are told in the text to
seek it until it does come. Seek Him until the Grace comes! I have
known a sinner cry to God once, and mercy has come immediately, but
there have been many cases where souls have cried again and again, and
only after a long while have they had success. I saw as I came here
tonight–it all happened in a moment–I saw a little child just come
home from school, I suppose. A very little child and she tapped at her
mother's door, and the mother did not come, and she did what was the
best thing to do under the circumstances–cried as loud as ever she
could–and her mother came to her! If you have knocked at Mercy's door
and Mercy has not come, cry for it! Oh, a groan, a tear, a cry, a sigh
will quicken the steps of Mercy! God cannot linger when a sinner cries.
When a sinner weeps, Christ will soon have pity on him. But, anyhow,
keep on till He comes. Seek till He rains righteousness upon you.
Elijah got the fire in prayer very soon, but he did not get the rain
very soon. He had to say to his servant, "Go and look towards the sea."
There was Elijah, with his head between his knees, in mighty prayer,
but not a drop of rain or sign of a cloud. "Go again, go again," he
repeated till he had commanded his servant seven times–and then there
is a cloud the size of a man's hand! Sinner, have you prayed? Pray
again. Have you prayed twice? Pray again! Has it come to three times?
Pray again! Has it come to four times? Pray again! Does it amount to
six times? Pray again! Let there be no stint in prayer. You have kept
God waiting long enough. You must not marvel if He should now tarry
awhile. Pray again! Pray again! Say, "I am resolved that I will not
give it up until You shall rain Your comfort, Your righteousness, Your
Grace, upon me." He will surely do it and you do not know how soon–you
do not know how soon–you will get comfort. And when it comes it will
make up for all delays. You know the woman, when the child is born,
remembers no more the travail, for joy that a man is born into the
world–and, oh, when Christ is yours, you will forget your travail in
your joy and your rejoicing!
I am thinking just now of Columbus and his crew. They had sailed long
across the Atlantic, and had not found the golden land, the El Dorado,
and so the sailors talked of going back, and many a scheme he had, by
which he tempted them a little further on to that unknown shore! At
last it came to this, they mutinied–they would go no further! They
would not seek the land again–why should they drift away and be lost
forever? He said, "Give me but three days, and if between now and the
third day we see not the shore, then we will reverse the helm." Within
those three days there stood the fair shores of the New World before
the mariners' eyes! Suppose they had turned back the second day, and
had gone home and never found it? Well, I don't know that it would have
mattered much to those sailors. Somebody else would have found it, but
you are, perhaps, within three days now of being accepted in the
Beloved–perhaps within three hours! Pray God that it may be within
three minutes! And will you not go on little farther? Will you not
still cry and will you not take the Gospel step, the grand step of
believing on the Lord Jesus Christ? Do, and you shall be saved! That
brings you to the El Dorado, to the land of gold, to the land of mercy,
to the bosom of Christ, to the safety of the blessed, to the security
of the Glory that shall be revealed hereafter! Oh, Sinner, be not
discouraged, but seek the Lord, for you have His promise He will be
found of you!
Some even of God's servants have been a good while seeking and they
have not found Him. When that dear martyr of Christ, Mr. Glover, lay in
prison, he was in a very sad state of heart, and he said, "I love Him,
and I will burn for Him, but, oh, that I had some glimpses of His
face!" And his fellow sufferer who lay in prison with him used to tell
him, "He will appear to you–you shall have joy." But day after day all
through that weary time spent in prison, he would constantly be saying,
"Am I His? Has He forgotten to be gracious? Has He shut up the heart of
His compassion?" "But," said Glover, "if He never speak comfortably to
me again, I know His Truth and I know His Gospel, and I will burn for
Him. By His Grace, I will never turn away!" And the morning came on
which he was to be burned–and he awoke withsome heaviness of his
spirit. There seemed to be no comfort in any promise to which he
turned, and prayer brought no relief. And they came and put the chains
on him, and they led him out. He came to where the stake was and where
the firewood was and he was about to strip and put on his shirt for the
burning–and suddenly he leapt up and said, "He is come! He is come! He
is come! Glory be unto His name!" His friends had asked him to give
some sign that his spirit had revived–and he stood and burned as
though he scarcely felt the fire, singing Psalms and praying!
And so it will be with every earnest seeker. If the looks of love have
never come to you for years, you will have them yet, for never soul
believed but what was safe! Some have believed, but not been
comfortable, but they are safe–the comfort will come. Only seek
Sinner, for He will rain righteousness on you–
"So I must maintain my hold,
'Tis the goodness makes me bold;
I can no denial take,
For I plead for Jesus' sake."
Oh, Sinner, never let go! Cling close to Christ and He cannot cast you
away, for this is His promise, "Him that comes, I will in no wise cast
out." Come, then, and the Lord bless you! Amen and amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: DEUTERONOMY32:1-39.
A very marvelous Chapter it is–a song and a prophecy, in which the
poet-seer seems to behold the whole future spread before him as in a
map–and it is so vivid to him that he describes it rather as a matter
present or past, than as a thing which is yet to be. It is the story of
God's dealing His chosen and peculiar people, Israel, from the
beginning to the end. The commencement is exceedingly noble.
Verses 1-3. Give ear, O you heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O
earth, the words of my mouth. My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my
speech shall distill as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender
herb, and as the showers upon the grass because I will publish the name
of the LORD: ascribe you greatness unto our God. All through, the song
is for the glorification of God! Not a syllable, indeed, in which man
is held up to honor, but the Lord, alone, is exalted in His dealings
with His people. He is the Rock. All other things are the mere cloud
that hovers on the mountain's brow. But–
4. He is the RockImmutable, eternal.
4. His work is perfect. Sometimes very terrible and very mysterious,
but His work is perfect,
4. For all His ways are judgment; a God of truth and without iniquity,
just and right is He. But as for His people, what a contrast between
them and their God!
5. They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of His
children: they are a perverse and crooked genera-tion.What a stoop from
the God of Truth, without iniquity, to a people full of iniquity–a
perverse and crooked generation! We never know so much of our own
vileness as when we get a clear view of the excellency of God. What
said Job? "I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my
eyes see You, therefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes."
6. Do you thus requite the LORD, O foolish people and unwise? Is not He
your Father who has bought you? Has He not made you, and established
you?Who made the Jews to be a people? Who set Israel apart to be a
nation? Who, but God, who bought them with a price when they came out
of Egypt and, in his fatherly care, led them through the wilderness?
7. 8. Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations:
askyour father, and he will show you; your elders, and they will tell
you. When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when
He separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people
according to the number of the children of Israel God's first point in
the government of the world was His own people. Everything else was
mapped out after He had set apart a place for them–a place sufficient,
large, fruitful and in an admirable position, that there they might
multiply and enjoy all the good things which He so freely gave them.
And to this day dynasties rise and fall, kings reign or are scattered
by defeat, only with this one point in God's eye and purpose in His
mind–the upholding of the Church in the world–the spread of His
glorious
Truth!
9-12. For the LORD'S portion is Hispeople; Jacob is the lot ofHis
inheritance. He foundhim in a desert land, and in the waste howling
wilderness; He led him about, He instructed him, He kept him as the
apple ofHis eye. As an eagle stirs up her nest, flutters over her
young, spreads abroad her wrings, takes them, bears them on her wings:
So the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him.
This is the history of the tutoring of Israel in the wilderness. When
they came out of Egypt they were a mere mob of slaves, degenerate by
the debasing influence of long bondage. They had to be trained before
they were fit to be a nation. Now in all this, let us try to see
ourselves. What has God worked for those of us who are His people in
bringing us out from the bondage of sin? And how graciously does He
this day preserve us as a man guards the apple of ''his eye"? No sooner
does anything come near the eye than up goes the hand instinctively to
shield the eye. And let anything happen to the people of God–and the
power of God is ready at once for their defense. An eagle has to teach
her young eaglets to fly. She will take them on her wings, so they say,
and cast them off, and let them flutter, and then dash down and come
under them and bear them up again till she has taught them to use their
wings. And the Lord has been doing this with many here–apparently
casting them off, only that, when they fall, underneath them may be the
everlasting arms. We have to be trained to faith. It is a difficult
exercise for such poor creatures as we are. We are being trained for it
at this day. After they had thus been tutored, they were brought into
the promised land, which Moses never entered, but yet in his vision of
prophecy he sees it all.
13, 14. He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might
eat the increase of the fields: andHe made him to suck honey out of the
rock, and oil out of the flinty rock; curds from the cattle, milk of
the flock, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and
goats, with the choicest wheat: and you did drink the pure blood of the
grape. It was a very fruitful land, abounding not merely in
necessaries, but in luxuries. Palestine gave to its inhabitants all
that heart could wish, and for a long time, while they were faithful to
God, they lived in the midst of plenty.
15. But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked. "The little holy nation"–for I
suppose that is the meaning of "Jeshurun." It is a diminutive
word–"the little religious nation waxed fat. It abounded in
prosperity. It grew stout and kicked."
15. You are waxen fat, you are grown thick, you are covered with
fatness: then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the
Rock of his salvation. Alas, alas! Alas! They set up calves in Bethel.
They turned aside to Ashtoreth, and worshipped the Queen of Heaven!
16. 17. They provoked Him to jealousy with strange gods, with
abomination provoked they Him to anger They sacrificed unto
devils,Demons–not to God.
17. Not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly
up, whom your fathers feared not There is nothing new in religion that
is true. The truth is always old. But only imagine a new God! And
verily we have had lately some new fashions brought up–some new styles
of worship. I think they call them mediaeval. They certainly are no
older than that–"new gods that newly came up, whom your fathers feared
not."
18. Of the Rock that begat you, you are unmindful, and have forgotten
God that formedyou. Israel was nothing apart from God–a little tribe
of people–nothing to be compared with the great nations of the earth.
Its only reason for existence was its God. He was its center, its
light, its glory, its power. They had got away from Him that formed
them.
19. 20. And when the LORD saw it, He abhorred them, because of the
provoking ofHis sons, and ofHis daughters. And He said, I will hide My
face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a very
forward generation, children in whom is no faith. There is the
mischief–lack of faith. Lack of faith leads to all manner of sin. Oh,
that we had a strong elastic faith to realize the unseen God and keep
to purely spiritual worship, not needing symbols, signs and outward
tokens–all of which are abominable in His sight, but worshipping the
unseen in spirit and in truth. But the Lord said–
21. They have moved Me to jealousy with that which is not God; they
have provoked Me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to
jealousy with those which are not a people; I will provoke them to
anger with a foolish na-tion.And so the idolatrous nations came and
conquered Judea. One after another they trampled down the holy city and
let them see that God could use the nations that they despised to be a
scourge upon them!
22-25. For a fire is kindled in My anger, and shall burn unto the
lowest Hell and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on
fire the foundations of the mountains. I will heap mischief upon them;
I will spend My arrows upon them–they shall be burnt with hunger, and
devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction. I will also
sendthe teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the
dust. The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the
young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs.
Now read the story of the destruction of Israel and Judea–the
overthrow of these two kingdoms–and you will see how, word for word,
all this came true!
26, 27. I said, I would scatter them into corners, I would make the
remembrance of them to cease from among men. Were it not that I feared
the wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should behave themselves
strangely, and lest they should say, Our hand is high, and the LORD has
not done all this. God always looks out for some reason for mercy when
He is dealing with His people–and He found it here–that the heathen
nations would not admit that God had thus been chastening His erring
people, but would begin to ascribe their victories to their own demon
gods! Therefore He said He would scatter them.
28-30. For they are a nation void of counsel, neither is there any
understanding in them. O that they were wise, that they understood
this, that they would consider their latter end! How should one chase a
thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had
sold them, and the LORD had shut them up?That little people would have
been victorious over all their enemies if God had still been with them,
but they were defeated and scattered because they had grieved the Lord.
Oh, what strength Believers might have if they would but believe! If we
could but cast ourselves upon God in simple, childlike faith, we might
play the Samson over again and smite our thousands! But we, too, have
little faith in God, even those who have most of it–and when the time
of trial comes, we also are a stiff-necked and unbelieving generation,
as our fathers were!
31-34. For their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves
beingjudges. For their wine is of the wine of Sodom, and of the fields
of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are
bitter: Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of
asps. Is not this laid up in store with Me, and sealed up among My
treasures?What an awful text! God lays man's sins by–seals them up
among their treasures, that they should not be forgotten–and He will
bring them to account.
35, 36. To Me belongs vengeance, and recompense; their foot shall slide
in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things
that shall come upon them make haste. For the LORD shall judge His
people. He will not always let His enemies triumph over them. He will
come back to His people whom He seemed to cast away. "The Lord shall
judge His people."
36. And have compassion on His servants, when He sees that their power
is gone, and there is none shut up, or left. He seemed very angry, but
how soon He comes back in love and tries His people over again.
37-39. AndHe shallsay, Where are their gods, theirrock in whom they
trusted? Which did eat the fat oftheir sacrifices, and drank the wine
oftheir drink offerings? Let them rise up and help you, and be
yourprotection. See now that I, even I, am He, and there is no god with
Me. I kill, and I make alive: I wound, and I heal; neither is there any
that can deliver out of My hand