It delights God as Creator and Governor of the universe, to lavish His bounties upon men, spite of their unworthiness and ingratitude. “Jehovah is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works” (Psa. 145:9). The Lord Jesus, when bidding His disciples to love their enemies, said, “that ye may be the sons of your Father which is in heaven: for He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust”(Matt. 5:45). When the foolish pagans of Lystra desired to offer sacrifices to Barnabas and Paul as gods come down to earth in the likeness of men, these faithful men ran in amongst them, and bore testimony to the one true God. Of Him they said, “He left not Himself without witness, in that He did good, and gave you rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling your hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14:17). The regularity of the seasons, as they come and go, are the abiding evidences of God’s gracious interest in His creatures. Faith, perceiving this, cries out: “O Jehovah, how manifold are Thy works! in wisdom hast Thou made them all: the earth is full of Thy riches” (Psa. 105:24). What then does it mean when He forbids showers to fall, or the sun to shine?
It was doubtless with a heavy heart that Elijah turned away from the King’s palace after the delivery of his heavy message, and went into retirement. He certainly did not desire the ruin of the nation. Had there been prompt repentance, so that the threatened stroke might be averted, his heart would have danced for joy. In this he was unlike Jonah, to whom the repentance of a threatened people was a real annoyance! (Jonah 4:1). It touched his dignity that he should have uttered a sentence which a merciful God did not execute!
What a God is ours! Oh, the grace that He has revealed to us in the Gospel of His Son! The heart of God is filled with joy, and all heaven shares His joy, when even an individual sinner humbles himself in true repentance before Him. Surely we have all tasted the grace that pardons, cleanses, and reconciles—all in virtue of the precious blood of Christ!
Before the children of Israel moved away from Mount Sinai. Jehovah had a plain talk with them about their future. Leviticus 26 should be read. “If ye walk in My statutes, and keep My commandments, and do them; then I will give you rain in due season and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely (vv. 3-5). This would be prosperity indeed! “But if ye will not hearken unto Me, and will not do all these commandments; and if ye shall despise My statutes....I will do this unto you....I will break the pride of your power: and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass: and your strength shall be spent in vain; for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits” (vv. 14, 16, 19, 20). Nearly forty years later, Jehovah addressed the new generation in similar terms but even more solemnly, and at greater length. Read Deuteronomy 28. Every blessing should be theirs in the land to which they were going, and they would be the envy of the surrounding nations, if they would hearken diligently unto the voice of Jehovah their God, to observe and to do all His commandments (v. 1). “But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of Jehovah thy God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes... thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron” (vv. 15-24). No words could be plainer. With these words ringing in their ears, as it were, Israel’s tribes entered the good land. It is a blessed thing to be in relationship with God, but it is also very solemn. “You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities” (Amos 3:2). The nearer to God the more severe the discipline. In Elijah’s day Jehovah still recognized the people as His own, although they (the ten tribes) no longer recognized Him as their God. Hence the judgment of the great drought, while other nations as idolatrous and vile as Israel, were not smitten thus. So now, “the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God” (1 Peter 4:17). Those who profess to own the lordship of Christ are therefore amenable, to special divine discipline. There were doubtless many liars in Jerusalem in the days of Ananias and Sapphira, but none were specially singled out for the judgment of God, but these who knew His will (Acts 5). Many ill-behaved Corinthians were made sick, and some even died, while there were almost certainly persons in the same city (as men would judge) guilty of more and graver transgressions, yet they were suffered to live! Solemn thoughts these for us all! But the Apostle adds: “If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world” (1 Cor. 11:30-32). The world’s judgment is sure; every sin will be remembered; even the secrets of men’s hearts will be laid bare; but from all that the grace of God has exempted those who believe. Our judgment under His governing hand, is here and now. (Compare 1 Pet. 1:17).
When Solomon led Israel in prayer at the dedication of the temple, he thought of every kind of trouble which might come upon the people in the future, including the stoppage of the rain. “When heaven is shut up, and there is no rain, because they have sinned against thee; if they pray toward this place, and confess Thy name, and turn from their sin because Thou afflictest them: then hear Thou in heaven, and forgive the sin of Thy servants, and of Thy people Israel, when Thou teachest them the good way in which they should walk, and give rain upon Thy land, which Thou Nast given to Thy people for an inheritance” (1 Kings 8:35-36). Mark the words, “if they pray towards this place.” Israel did nothing of the kind in Elijah’s day. Their hearts were stubborn; there was, no sense of guilt; and they were in no mood for humiliations before God. As for His loved center, they had definitely turned their backs upon it. Bethel and Dan with their golden calves, were more to the taste of Ahab’s followers than Zion where Jehovah dwelt in the midst of His people, with the atoning blood ever upon the mercy seat under His holy eye.
What a contrast between the happy condition of the people in the early days of Solomon’s reign and in the reign of Ahab and Jezebel! In Solomon’s day “Judah and Israel were many, as the sand is by the sea in multitude, eating and drinking, and making merry” (1 Kings 4:20). In Ahab’s day, a consuming drought for three years and six months! Who can imagine the conditions of the country, and the privations of the people? It gives God no pleasure to smite the children of men, whoever they may be, nor does it please Him to blight the landscape. The Son of God, when upon earth, said, “Consider the lilies, how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these” (Luke 12:27). In His gracious condescension, He could take notice of one of the humblest of flowers, and draw attention to its simple beauty, which, being divine handiwork, was more lovely in His sight than the man-made robes of Israel’s wealthiest king. As we write, vast areas in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere are in an appalling condition of devastation as the result of men’s sin and folly. If men in their hardness of heart do not feel the grievousness of all this, God does.
Blessed be His name, He will change everything at the appointed hour. The public manifestation of Christ, accompanied by the “many sons,” will introduce earth’s jubilee. (Rom. 8:19). Then “the wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose; it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing....in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert” (Isa. 35:1, 2, 6). “There shall be abundance of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon; and they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth” (Psa. 72:16).
Lord, Lord, Thy fair creation groans;
The earth, the air, the sea,
In unison with all our hearts,
And calls aloud for Thee.
(Sir Edward Denny).
Until He comes, and men with one accord, humbly acknowledge Him all schemes of reconstruction are in vain. The diligent builders of today will be the mad destroyers of tomorrow! There is a driving force behind men of which they are but little conscious. They speak and write of the futility of war, yet spend time, energy, and wealth in preparation for, and in the prosecution of it! Surely Satan, the malign and astute deceiver and destroyer, laughs at his dupes! Yet the multitudes prefer him to the Christ of God! When our blessed Lord was here, and cast a legion of demons out of a desperate man who was the terror of the district, “the whole multitude of the country of the Gadarenes round about besought Him to depart from them” (Luke 8:37). Apparently not a single voice was raised in gratitude to Him for the immense benefit He had conferred upon the neighborhood, and none desired Him to remain! This is still the attitude of benighted man no God, no Christ! Thus slaughter and devastation continue, becoming ever more serious.
Not many years after the apostate ten tribes had been carried away into captivity (for they learned no permanent lesson from the heavy divine visitations of Elijah’s day) the Southern Kingdom also was smitten with the dearth. How long it continued, we know not. But “Judah mourneth, and the gates thereof languish; they are black unto the ground; and the cry of Jerusalem is gone up. Their nobles have sent their servants to the waters: they came to the pits, and found no water; they returned with their vessels empty” (Jer. 14). The prophet goes on to describe the sufferings of both man and beast. The solemn feature of this infliction is that Jeremiah was forbidden to pray for the people. “Thus saith Jehovah unto this people, they have loved to wander, they have not refrained their feet, therefore Jehovah doth not accept them; He will now remember their iniquity, and visit their sins. Then said Jehovah unto me, ‘Pray not for this people for their good. When they fast, I will not hear their cry.’” Jeremiah pleaded on their behalf that their prophets had misled them; but Judah had been as willing to listen to false prophets as their Northern brethren in the days of Ahab. “Then said Jehovah unto me, though Moses and Samuel stood before Me, My mind could not be towards this people: cast them out of My sight, and let them go forth” (Jer. 15:1). Accordingly, all the tribes have been expelled from the good land which Jehovah in grace promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to give them. It is a serious thing to turn away from the voice of God, and to refuse to learn the lessons of His chastening hand is the time near when it will be too late to pray for unfaithful Britain—when not even the intercessions of a Moses or a Samuel will avail to avert ruin?