Prevailing Pleas, or the Hope and Saviour of Israel 2
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II. But I pass on to consider the Admonition of the remnant which Jeremiah here personates– "Why should you be as a stranger in the land, and as a wayfaring manthat turns aside to tarry for a night?" You will observe that this admonition follows upon his address to the Lord as the "hope of Israel and the Savior thereof in time of trouble." It is therefore as if he would engage the Lord upon his behalf, win him over, as it were, to his side by appealing to him under those titles; and not only so, but by the strengthening of his own faith to gain some larger measure of confidence in his own soul, and thus obtain stronger and firmer ground on which he could plant a praying foot and utter praying breath– for these two things are necessary to the power and prevalence of prayer. Having thus then appealed to the Lord, and got, so to speak, a firmer foothold for his own faith, he ventures onward in the language of admonition.
There is much wisdom and grace in this. He does not rush hastily and presumptuously into the presence of God as if he would take heaven by storm, but by appealing to him under those gracious titles by which the Lord had made himself known, he engages the ear of God to listen to his cry, furnishes his own soul with some ground on which he can stand, and having obtained that, he goes on with all reverence and tenderness to expostulate with the sovereign Majesty of heaven.
A. But what is the first admonition which he lays before his gracious Majesty? "Why should you be as a STRANGER in the land?"What a tender appeal to "the hope of Israel, and the Savior thereof in the time of trouble." What a precious inquiry! How he would as if ask of the Lord to reveal to him the mystery which had so deeply exercised his mind; that he would condescend to unfold to him the reason of a matter which had so much tried his soul. "Why should you be as a stranger in the land?" If you are, as you are, the hope of Israel; if you are, as you are, the Savior thereof in time of trouble, why, O why should matters be at this pass, that at this moment of perplexity, in this season of difficulty, in this very time of trouble, you should be "as a stranger in the land?"
Let me open up the figure. A stranger is one who does not speak our language or understand our customs. We know a foreigner at once by his appearance, his ignorance of our language and customs, and his strange bearing. He has little interest in us or we in him. There is therefore a mutual distance between us. Adopting this figure, and yet using it with all due reverence and humility, the prophet expostulates with the Lord, "Why should you be as a stranger in the land? We see, we all see, that you are not as you once were, at home with us, one with us, interested in us, making our affairs your own. A change has come over you. You pass through our land as a stranger would, scarcely speaking to us, and keeping yourself at a distance from us."
Now is not this the very description of a "stranger in the land?" A stranger is one who keeps himself very much to himself. He does not speak our language, and if he can speak it, it is not with the fluency of a native. There is little or no communion between us. He does not visit our houses, nor is he upon terms of friendliness or amity with us; for being a stranger, this cuts off friendly and familiar communion. Now the prophet asks the Lord why he should be with his people as a stranger in the land; in other words, should hold so little communion with them, keep them so much at a distance, carry himself in so isolated a way, discover himself so rarely, and manifest so little friendliness to them.
Now apply this to our own case. I hope we are not altogether strangers to God and godliness, and that God is not altogether a stranger to us; that we know what it is to speak to God and sometimes for God to speak to us; and that the language in which we speak to God is not a language unknown to him, and the language in which God speaks to us is not a language unknown to us. And yet with all this, there may have sprung up a strangeness, a distance, an alienation between God and us, that makes him carry himself towards us as if he were a stranger in the land; so that we rarely speak to him and he still more rarely speaks to us. From whatever cause it has arisen, it is painfully evident that there is that coldness, that distance, that lack of friendly communion and spiritual intimacy which seems to be intimated by the figure of his being "a stranger in the land."
Have you ever known anything of spiritual intimacy with God, sacred fellowship and holy communion with the Lord as sitting upon the mercy-seat? Then you know what it is when he is as a stranger in the land, keeps you at a great distance from him, rarely or never allows you to come into his company, and scarcely ever speaks a word to you from the throne of his grace. This is for God to be as a stranger in the land. And sad it is for any people, sad it is for any church, sad it is for any congregation; and sadder still for any individual soul when "the hope of Israel" is as a stranger in the land. If God is a stranger here, a stranger to the church, and a stranger to the congregation, it must be mourned and lamented by those who know anything of intimacy and fellowship with him; and if it is not known, lamented, or mourned over, the worse case it is.
When people begin to feel the misery of God being a stranger to them and they being strangers to God, and long for reconciliation, intimacy, fellowship, and communion, then we have some marks of the hand of God being at work. But when they are satisfied day after day that God should be a stranger to them and they strangers to God, matters indeed must wear a very sad and gloomy aspect. If God be as much a stranger to you as any foreigner whom you may meet in a railway carriage, who cannot speak your language or you speak his, and therefore no communion whatever can take place between you, and you are content it should be so, sad indeed must be your case, and sadder still because you know and feel it not.
B. But the prophet adds– "And as a WAYFARING Man that turns aside to tarry for a night." In the East, especially in ancient times, there were not usually inns or other public buildings to entertain travelers as in our more civilized country; and it was therefore the habit of hospitable people to take strangers in whom they might see in the street, and evidently travelers unacquainted with the place. We see this very clearly in the case of Lot; he would not allow the two angels who came to Sodom to tarry all night in the street. Similarly the old man at Gibeah, when no one would entertain the Levite, who was traveling to the side of Mount Ephraim, would not allow him to lodge in the street all night, but took him into his own house. (Judges 19.) Thus the wayfaring man in the text represents a traveler who turned aside from the road and took advantage of the hospitality of a friendly host, who kindly offered to receive him into his house and give him a night's lodging.
Now there would be some measure of friendly communion between these two people, the host and his guest, but the latter would tarry only for the night. He would not live permanently with his host. Their intimacy could not therefore be very strong or of long duration; sufficient it might be to produce a degree of mutual interest and affection, but not sufficiently long or intimate to take a very deep and permanent hold on the heart.
Under this expressive figure the prophet complains, or rather expostulates with the Lord, why he should be as this wayfaring man who turns aside to tarry for a night? who only speaks a few words now and then, gives a faint smile, and yet, being only a wayfaring man, does not use greater intimacy, as not being on the same footing as a wife, or mother, or child– but keeps up a 'distance' between host and guest, and remembers that he is only there for a night.
Thus the Lord sometimes is as a wayfaring man to his people, pays a short visit, and condescends to tarry for a time with them, accepting the entertainment at which he is received. This corresponds to those words– "I stand at the door, and knock– if any man hears my voice, and opens the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." (Rev. 3:20.) There is, so to speak, a friendly meal, and a few friendly words between the Lord and his entertainer. But it is soon over; the morning comes and the wayfaring man takes his departure, and it may be weeks or months before he comes again. We often long for him and wonder when we shall see our guest again. "When will the wayfaring man come," we ask, "and turn aside again and tarry with us for another night? How sweet was his company; his words were not many, but they were weighty and powerful. We did not see much of his features, but what we saw was very beautiful and engaging; his voice melodious, and his language friendly, though in a measure distant. O when shall we see our wayfaring guest again? He has left such an impression, such a recollection of his visit behind, that we long once more to see his face and hear his voice."
Have not you sometimes entertained a guest, some favored servant of God perhaps, whose words and conversation left upon your mind an indelible impression, making you long to see him again? Now this accurately describes the language and feelings of the soul that knows something of the visits of the Lord, of his words dropping like honey and the honeycomb, of the gracious discoveries of his presence, and the drawing near of his word and promise, making it long for his return. But it may be weeks or months before the wayfaring man turns aside again for another night.
C. But there is something more expressive even than this; for our text seems to rise and its admonition to increase on us. "Why should you be as a MAN ASTONISHED?"Observe the word– "astonished." It seems to be the old form of the modern word "stunned." We have in our present English two words– the word "astonished" and the word "stunned." Now "stunned" is a stronger expression than "astonished," for it implies such a degree of astonishment as benumbs a man's faculties. You might be astonished by seeing some accident in the street. But suppose it was your own wife or child upon whom the blow had fallen, you would be more than astonished– you would be stunned. So the Lord is not merely astonished, but stunned.
But we may well ask, what could embolden the prophet to use language like this? Jeremiah was sometimes led to use stronger, we might almost say more daring language, than any of the other prophets; as for instance, in that remarkable expression, "Why should you be to me as a liar, and as waters that fail?" Scarcely any of the prophets use language of so bold, so daring a character, and yet in his mouth it had a certain characteristic feature– it was pressed out of him by the weight of circumstances. Thus though the language, as of Job's, deserved reproof, yet not being a willful word against the Lord, but pressed out of his heart by the force of circumstances, it is not to be condemned as it would be in the case of a man who spoke the same words deliberately, and as it were in cold blood. But what spiritual meaning can be gathered up from the expression here made use of, "Why should you be as a man astonished?" Take the word in two senses, first "astonished," then "stunned."
1. It seems as if the prophet would represent God as astonished at the desperate case and state in which he finds his people. Not that God is ever astonished. The prophet does not say so, for there is the qualifying word, "as" "why should you be as a man astonished?" It is as if graphically he would represent God as himself struck with astonishment at the dreadful case and state in which he finds his people. Sometimes we are so astonished ourselves at what we are, at what we have been, or at what we are capable of, that we may well think that God must be astonished too. We stand sometimes and look at our heart, and see what a seething, boiling, and bubbling is there; and we look at it, if I may use the expression, with indignant astonishment, as we would look into a pool of filthy black mud, all swarming and alive with every hideous creature. We stand and look at such a sight naturally with a sort of astonishment, at the same time of loathing. So when a man takes a view of his own heart, its dreadful hypocrisy, its vile rebellion, its alarming deceitfulness, and its desperate wickedness, of what his heart is capable of plotting and contriving if unrestrained by grace, what it can conceive and imagine, it is as if he stood looking down into a filthy pit and saw with astonishment, mingled with self-abhorrence, what his heart is, as the fountain of all iniquity.
When he sees also who God is, his holiness and purity, and especially what he is as the God of all grace, of all truth, and of all love, what he has done for him and been to him, and then sees what his heart is capable of against a God so pure, a God so good, it is as if he seems horror-struck with double astonishment; stunned it may be, not knowing what to do, what to think, or what to say.
Have you not sometimes had such a view as I have just described of what you are as a sinner before God? Then you transfer your feelings to God as if he felt as you feel. "Why should you be as a man astonished?" As if viewing the Lord from yourself, and measuring him by your own feelings, the Lord was so astonished at the horrid wickedness of man, it seemed as if he himself did not know what to do. You will bear in mind that this is the language of strong and intense feeling. But a man must have some knowledge of his own heart to read it in this looking-glass, and to understand such language as this. You that are so exceedingly pious and so extra good, and from whose heart the veil has never been taken away to show you what you are, will perhaps think that I am drawing a caricature of human nature, and painting it as it is in the back slums of St. Giles's, or some court or alley in Whitechapel, the haunt of thieves and prostitutes. And yet could you have the veil taken off your heart, you would see that you were capable– mark my words, capable, God forbid that you or I should do the things of which we feel the workings– but that you are capable of doing all that wickedness that human nature has done, or can do.
If you think that human nature is not so bad as I have described it, let me ask you this one question. Why does there surge up every year, month, week, and day, crime after crime of most dreadful description? Unless crime were deeply seated in human nature, why would men poison their wives, mothers strangle their children, London contain a whole army of despicable characters, and that we should hear constantly of the vilest abominations, unless human nature were a seed bed of all these horrid crimes? And how does our nature differ from the nature of men justly gibbeted by public fame, or hurled out of life by public execution? It is when we see what we are ourselves that we come to know what human nature is.
2. It was this also which made the prophet say, "Why should you be as a man stunned"– that is, at a loss what to do to remedy such a desperate case, or heal a disease so thoroughly inveterate? You must bear strictly in mind, that the prophet does not ascribe to God this deficiency of wisdom, but in the strong feelings of his soul asks him why he should stand aloof just as if he were baffled by the difficulty of the case. We must carefully guard this point lest we tread with unhallowed shoes upon holy ground; and we must carefully bear in mind not only the extremity of the case, but the strong feelings of the prophet himself.
D. But he adds another expression almost as strong, if not stronger– "As a mighty man that cannot save?" He views God as a mighty man, armed with all the strength of a giant, full of power and might, so that nothing could stand in the way of the execution of his purpose; but still the case with which he had to grapple was so deep and so desperate, that it was as if he stood in the midst of his people as a mighty man armed with all power, and yet their peculiar case was beyond the reach of his arm. He thus represents in the strongest possible way that matters had come to that degree, that not only the wisdom of God seemed to have failed, but even that his power was insufficient to save the people whom he had designed to save. I grant that this language is very strong, but I do not think stronger than our own experience warrants.
Have you not felt sometimes there was that in your case and in your state so peculiar, that you were the subject of such temptations, had committed such sins inwardly or outwardly, and that your heart was such a compound of villainy and hypocrisy that it seemed to put you out of the reach of 'ordinary cases'; that yours was a case in itself so peculiar and so strange, that it seemed as if it would baffle all the wisdom of God, and defeat all the power of God? – That if you did not know by some sweet experience that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin, your case had in it that peculiarity that it seemed to put you out of the pale of God's salvation? Now this seems to be just the spot where the prophet was when he speaks of God as a mighty man that cannot save. A man must get into these spots before he can know them, and be exercised by these feelings and this experience before he can justify the language of the prophet, or in any way adopt it for his own.
But if he knows these things as personal matters, and they have been wrought, I might say, 'burnt' into his very heart by a living experience of their truth and reality, then, though the language is strong, it will be found not one whit too strong for him to make use of.
But are no PROFITABLE LESSONS ever learned in this painful school, for it is a painful school when once our eyes are opened to see the solemn realities of eternity, and how we stand as affected toward them? Yes; there are two profitable lessons which we are taught in this school.
First, we obtain thereby some experimental knowledge of the depth of the fall, of the nature of sin, and of our own sad case as so deeply involved in actual and original transgression. It may seem at times as if our case were desperate; that look where we may, or consider whatever scriptural characters may present themselves to our view, still there is something in our own case different from, and worse, than any one. But we are thus cut off from all creature help or hope, and at times it may be almost from the very power of grace itself.
But secondly, we learn what a wonderful God we have to deal with. We are led to admire his forbearance and patience to us; while every now and then a sense of his goodness softens and melts the heart into repentance and to lie at his feet, bewailing and lamenting our sad state, confessing our sins with all their aggravations, and made truly willing to do anything, bear anything, or be anything if he will but make our heart right and keep it right– and above all things manifest to us a sense of his love and mercy. Surely none so highly prize the grace of God as those who are most led into a knowledge of the fall, and the havoc and ruin which it has made in every one of Adam's race, and the guilt and misery which it has brought into our own hearts.
III. But to pass on to our third point. Now comes the PLEA
A. "Yet you, O Lord, are in the midst of us." What a strange intermixture there is in a believing heart of everything to cast down and yet of everything to encourage. How there is everything on the one side to perplex, to confuse, and put the soul to its wits' end, and yet how on the other there is everything to hold up its head, strengthen its faith, support its hope, and encourage it to hold on to the last gasp. Now this is that very trial of faith which is more precious than of gold that perishes, for faith is not a dead, sluggish grace, and is never more active than when it is being tried as with fire. In what a tumult is the gold when it is in the crucible; and yet in that tumult what a separation from it of the dross and tin. Thus even in the sharp exercises which I have been describing, wherein the soul was almost brought to say that God himself could scarcely save it, and in the very power of his might looked on as if astonished at the depth and extremity of the case, yet, with all that, faith maintained its own, and, relying upon his word, could still say to him, "Yet you, O Lord, are in the midst of us." O what a blessing it would be for this place if we could say, in the same assurance of faith, "Yet you, O Lord, are in the midst of us."
If God is in the midst of us this morning, your case and state, though you may feel it almost desperate, is not beyond the reach of his favorable eye, his healing hand, and his outstretched arm. The grand thing to be decided is this, Is God in the midst of us? But how shall we know this? He is in one sense in the midst of us by the preaching of his gospel, by virtue of his ordinances, by our meeting together in his name according to his revealed will, by the solemnity of his manifested presence, by the gathering together of a praying people, members of the church and congregation, and by the promise of his being among his assembled worshipers.
But he may be all this in our assembly, and yet not be all this to you personally and individually. How then, in the best sense, shall you know this? I will ask you one question, Is God in the midst of your heart? Has he ever come down in power and authority into your soul to take possession of you, so that though you are what you are, yet this you know, or at least in times past have known– that you are his? O what a strange intermixture, that a man should be in his feelings such a desperate wretch, such a vile sinner, and yet retain so firm a hold of God, should not let the Almighty get out of the grasp of his arm, but still hang on, and that to the very end upon God as having done something for his soul.
Satan, though the father of lies, spoke truth when he said, "All that a man has will he give for his life." (Job. 2:4.) You cannot give up from what you have felt and experienced, for that is the grand evidence, that you have the life of God in your soul, and compared with that how worthless and valueless all other things seem to be in your eyes, because to give that up is to give up all your hope. Here, then, is the grand mystery– to hang and hold on, to hold out, and not allow oneself to be cast away, but the more the Lord would seem to put us away, the more to cling to him. Was not this the faith of the Syro-Phoenician woman, who, so to speak, would not take "No" for an answer? or, like the faith of Ruth, "Entreat me not to leave you?" or, like the faith of Hannah when "she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the Lord, and wept sore?" Does not this faith resemble that of Heman's, when he cried out, "Will you show wonders to the dead? Shall the dead arise and praise you?" and that of Asaph, when his feet were almost gone and his steps had well-near slipped?
Such a faith is almost like the heart-broken wife, who, when her husband, after long endurance of her trying temper and thoughtless expenditure, says to her, "I cannot, I will not, live with you any more– your temper is so bad, your extravagance so great, that we must separate. I must leave you." But she will not let him go. O how she clings around him. "Don't send me away; do not leave me. I will not be so extravagant; I will be more mild. Don't put me away; I shall die, I shall die, if you send me away, and will not let me live with you any more." The more he pushes her away, the more she clings to him, and will not let him go until he relents.
Thus in grace; the more the Lord seems to send us away, the more we cling to him. The viler we are, the more we need his grace; and the very magnitude of our sins only makes us hang more upon his atoning blood and cling more closely to his word and promises as suitable to our case. Nor will anything induce us to give up our hope or relinquish our hold of his mercy.
If then the Lord has ever been in our soul to manifest there a sense of his goodness and mercy, we can then make use of this as our plea, "Yet you, O Lord, are in the midst of us."
But are there no other marks and tokens that he is in our midst? Yes, surely. If he has ever heard your prayer, he is with you; if he has ever given you a promise, he is with you; if he has ever touched your heart with his finger, he is with you; if he has ever favored you with a smile, he is with you. And though taking the general run of your experience, he may be 'a stranger in the land', and as 'a wayfaring man' that turns aside to tarry for a night, or though even, as it may seem, as if he were 'astonished at what you are'– a mighty man that cannot save, still every token for good encourages you to cling, to cleave, to hang upon him, to catch hold of his feet, as the Shunamite caught Elisha by the feet, and would not be thrust away; for you cannot but feel that, with all that you are and have been, you dearly love him, and have a good hope, if not a clear testimony, that he loves you.
Can you not sometimes look up to him, may I not say, almost look at him in the face and say, "Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you? And though my abominable sins have often made you a stranger to me, yet in my heart of hearts, in the very depths of my soul, you know that I love you." I know that I have had such feelings myself as these when my heart has been turned towards his glorious Person and finished work. Here then is the plea– "You are in the midst of us." And if you can look at the Lord in the face and appeal to his heart-searching eye that you do love him, depend upon it– he loves you, for the word of truth declares, "we love him because he first loved us."
B. "And we are called by your name." This is the second plea. Why am I called by my name? Because it was my father's name. We all bear the name of our father. So, if we are called by the name of God, it is because God is our Father. His name is called upon us, as the Hebrew expresses it, because, as in nature so in grace, as sons we bear the name of our Father. The tie of father and son is a tie which cannot be broken. No power in earth or heaven could make me not to be my father's son. Change of name would not do it; for the change of name is not the change of nature, nor could it alter a past fact. If then we are called by God's name, he having adopted us into his family, whatever we are, may be, or feel ourselves to be, God is still our Father. And surely, if ever we have felt any measure of the Spirit of adoption, so as to call him Father, he will never deny the title, never cut us off or disinherit us, but still be a Father and a friend in time and to all eternity!
IV. Now for the last point, the PETITION,"Leave us not."
How much is summed up in those three words; for what would it be for God to leave us? What would become of us? What would be our case, what our state, if he left us and that forever? We would fall at once into the hands of sin, of Satan, and of the world. We would be abandoned to our own evil hearts, abandoned, utterly abandoned to the unbelief, the infidelity, to all the filth and sensuality of our wicked nature, to fill up the measure of our iniquities, until we sank under his wrath to rise no more.
So was it with Saul when God left him, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him. He went from worse to worse, until at last he died in misery and despair. Indeed, I may say what and where would we be if God left us for a single hour? However therefore God may seem to bear himself coldly toward us, we cannot endure to think that he would leave us fully and finally, and abandon us to what we are and what we know we should be if left of him. "Leave us not therefore to the just desert of our sins; leave us not to reap the fruit of what we have sown," must ever be our cry. "Still let us cleave to you, and may you still cleave to us."
I think we have seen in our text real faith and hope and love at work, and yet its language is such as is only spoken out of the depths of an exercised soul. This subject I have therefore brought this morning before you, in the hope that it may meet some of your cases and reach some of your hearts, as it describes what has been often mine, and thus, by the blessing of God, the bread cast upon the waters may be found unto profit after few or many days.
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