GOD’S ancient people sadly provoked him with their idolatries from age to age. He was longsuffering to them to the last degree, but at length he grew weary of them, and according to his own words “he abhorred his own inheritance.” He caused them to be carried away into captivity, and their land became a desert, or the heritage of strangers, Israel became a people scattered and peeled, and on the brink of national extinction, for their iniquities had hidden the face of the Lord from them. Yet the Lord, even Jehovah, had entered into a covenant concerning them with Abraham his friend, which covenant he had afterwards, renewed with his servant David. This latter covenant the Lord is said, by the prophet Jeremiah to remember even when Jerusalem is desolate. We read in the twentieth verse and onward these words: “Thus saith the Lord; If ye can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season; then may also my covenant be broken with David my servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne.” Even in Israel’s worst, days, when her representative man was the weeping prophet Jeremiah, and when her sorrows were greater than even he could express, yet the Lord revealed his love, and promised that blessed days should dawn for the seed of Abraham. These days have not yet come, but they shall surely arrive, for God hath not cast away his people whom he did foreknow. There is yet a history for Israel; her sun is clouded, but it has not set. As surely as stands the covenant with day and night, so surely shall the chosen people return from their captivity and possess the land which the Lord has given unto them. In those days the Lord will build them as at the first, and cleanse them from all their iniquities. Then they shall not be proud or arrogant, for his goodness shall startle and astound them and they shall be amazed even unto trembling when they see what great things Jehovah has done for them. The memory of their great national offences, and especially of their long rejection of the Messiah, shall cause them to wear their high dignity without pride; they shall be subdued by love to a childlike fear of again offending, they shall tremble as they see the Lord God of their fathers glorifying all his grace in them.
Thus much for the strict connection of the text. At this time we shall loosen the verse from its stall and bring it forth to our own pastures. Its primary signification is not its only teaching, for the words of the Lord are full of eyes, and look in many ways. We may use this promise in reference to all the Lord’s people, for the promise is sure to all the seed. That which is true of the Jew one way is true of all the chosen seed in the same sense or in another. No privilege of the covenant is absolutely private either to Jew or Gentile; but in its highest form, if not in its lowest, it is the common property of all the heirs of salvation. We are joint heirs with Christ Jesus, and as he inherits all blessing, so also do we. Paul, in his epistle to the Galatians, has well said, “If ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Let me, then, read the text again, and let us appropriate it to ourselves: “They shall fear and tremble for all the goodness and for all the prosperity that I procure unto it.” Such honour and blessing have all the saints.
Our text suggests at the outset the remark that all the good things which make up prosperity are to be traced unto the Lord. Woe unto us if we receive good and perfect gifts, and yet forget the Father of lights from whom they come. These benefits are not from beneath, but from above; let them not be passed by in ungrateful silence, but let us send upward humble and warm acknowledgments. He who forgets mercy deserves that mercy should forget him. God grant we may never be such practical atheists as to receive daily bounties from God, and not return a daily song. As each gleaming wave of the sea reflects the light of the sun, so let each ripple of our life flash with gratitude for the benediction of heaven. All good comes from the Altogether Good, who is of good the essence, the Creator, and the Giver. Especially is this true of all spiritual blessing,— of such goodness as comes not so much from benevolence to creatures as from mercy to sinners. As a being, I am grateful that my Creator is kind to me; but as a sinner, if my Judge smiles upon me, I admire his exceeding grace. His justice had left me unblessed to perish through my sin, if his mercy had not found a way to spare and to cleanse. You who know not only your insignificance, but also your unworthiness, are held under special bonds to lift up your hearts in fervent gratitude to the Lord.
Remark next, that temporal mercies, are always best when they come in their proper order. I have no doubt our text includes both temporal and spiritual good; but certainly the temporals are arranged in the second rank, for the eighth verse runs: “I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, whereby they have sinned against me; and I will pardon all their iniquities, whereby they have sinned, and whereby they have transgressed against me”; and after this we have mention of goodness and prosperity. After pardon, peace and plenty are golden blessings; without it they might prove a curse. To an unforgiven sinner the richest enjoyments of this life are as the food which fattens the bullock for the slaughter, but when sin is pardoned, common mercies become tokens of a Father’s love, and ripen beneath the sun of divine love into an inexpressible sweetness. The children of God bless God for bread and water, because God has made these things matters of promise, and they come as covenant provisions. Cheered by grace, the child of poverty finds contentment in that which else might seem but prison fare. Much or little must depend upon the way in which you look upon it, and what to the believer is enough, might be to the worldling a mere pittance, because grace has not trained his mind to rejoice in the will of the Lord. Blessed be God if he has given to us first the fruits of the sun of grace, and then the fruits put forth by the moon of providence. The main thing is to be able to sing, “Bless the Lord, who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases,” and after that it is most pleasant to add, “who satisfieth thy mouth with good things.”
What shall I say of the happiness of those persons who have spiritual and temporal blessings united, to whom God has given both the upper and the nether springs, so that they possess all things needful for this life in fair proportion, and then, far above all, enjoy the blessings of the life to come? Such are first blessed in their spirits and then blessed in their basket and in their store. In their case double favour calls for double praise, double service, double delight in God. Let them take for their example the Psalmist in the seventy-first psalm, who found himself increased in greatness, and comforted on every side, and then exclaimed, “I will also praise thee with the psaltery, even thy truth, O my God: unto thee will I sing with the harp, O thou Holy One of Israel. My lips shall greatly rejoice when I sing unto thee; and my soul, which thou hast redeemed.”
And yet, and yet, and yet, if we are very happy to-day, and though that happiness be lawful and proper, because it arises both out of spiritual and temporal things in due order, yet in all human happiness there lurks a danger. There is a wealth which hath a sorrow necessarily connected with it, and I ween that even when God maketh rich and addeth no sorrow therewith, yet he makes provision against an ill which else would surely come. Let me remind you of that memorable passage, “There the glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams.” The Lord is all that to his believing people. But then broad rivers and streams have a danger appertaining to them, for these are waterways by which the pirates of the sea approach a city and plunder it; and hence for Zion’s protection it is added, “Wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby.” Thus the Lord gives the benefit without the danger naturally attendant upon it; he gives peace, but prevents carnal security, and he gives happiness but prevents the pride and presumption which are too apt to grow out of it. The text speaks of goodness and prosperity procured for us, and then tells us that all danger which might arise out of it is averted by a gracious work upon the heart. The Lord sends a chastened joy,— “they shall fear and tremble.” Instead of unduly exulting in their possessions, and becoming high-minded and vainglorious, the Lord’s people are kept lowly and self-distrustful, and thus their happiness brings glory to God, and the Lord’s word is fulfilled, “It shall be to me a name of joy, a praise and an honour before all the nations of the earth, which shall hear all the good that I do unto them.” This then is our subject, the sanctifying and mellowing of our joy. We shall try to see the Lord’s loving wisdom in this matter, that we may the more wisely love him, and the more intelligently estimate his prudent conduct towards us. We shall first notice this toning down of our joy; and then in the second place we shall observe the feelings by which this chastened effect is produced; and thirdly, we shall look to the measure in which most of us can enter into this experience of a joy, toned and tinted by fear and trembling.
