Two pictures of exceeding beauty, yet in striking contrast, are before us in these passages. The first shows the whole congregation of God's redeemed people Israel united in worship and thanksgiving, in the presence of the One who had wrought for their deliverance and blessing. In the absence of anything in which nature could find its joy they had gone after Jehovah, and they had found Him, but it was in the wilderness in a land which was not sown. The second presents a lonely man, in shame, reproach, and anguish of soul, turning to God who had called and separated him to Himself; as to his only resource and refuge. The Spirit of God had indicated the position, in each case by His own word and work; and both in their day respectively were acceptable to Jehovah. Let us briefly consider them in their order.
Jeremiah was called of God at a very early age, his scruples on this point satisfied, made conscious of the power and authority by which he was ordained a prophet unto the nations (significant enough of the impending change in the ways of God with His people), and was maintained in faithfulness and service for God, during the last eighteen years of the reign of Josiah, that son of David who had been prophesied of by name 300 years before his birth (1 Kings 13:2), and who had been filled with moral and spiritual energy for the cleansing of the city and temple, and restoring (at any rate outwardly) the worship of God, and the observance of His ordinances.
A great reformation had been brought about by kingly power; but it left the hearts of the people generally untouched. It was the last effort of the Spirit of God to restore the people in a national way; and it was followed by the dreadful relapse in the time of the sons of Josiah, culminating in the profanity and wickedness of Zedekiah, who broke the oath of Jehovah, so that God must needs cast them out of His sight. The testimony of our prophet went right on to the end, hence his sorrowful experience. But why could not God rest in the outwardly improved state of the kingdom of Judah in Josiah's day? He looked beneath the surface. He looked for reality, for tenderness of conscience, for subjection of heart to His word; and He found them not. “The kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals,” were wanting. God will never be satisfied with anything short of thoroughness.
The passover was a feast for all Israel; but the first king of the revolted ten tribes had substituted his own power and authority for that of Jehovah; so that when the godly Hezekiah (2 Chron. 30) sought to recall the people to a sense of their privileges and responsibilities as children of Abraham, “they laughed them to scorn.” Precisely the like has happened in the church. The power and will of man may subvert God's order, but it can never restore. Only God's Spirit can do this, enabling the soul to submit itself to the will and to the word of the Lord. The gracious power of the Spirit so wrought at that time that “divers... humbled themselves, and came” finding such blessing as they had never anticipated. But God in His retrospective survey of the people, passed that and many another comparatively bright spot in their history; until His eye rested upon the scene recorded in Ex. 15, and there for the moment all was perfection. He Himself and not the deliverance in the past, nor yet the prospect before them, satisfied their affections. “Thou wentest after Me.” The people were united in spirit, and bowed in heart before God, so that as with one voice they joined in worship, “I will sing unto Jehovah.” God was everything to them, and man shut out.
Again, in the early chapters of Acts, God was seen working by His Spirit, the same blessed results were produced: only we may say on a higher level spiritually—unity in worship, service, and testimony. God was gathering souls to Christ glorified. In Ex. 15 man proposed that which was never carried out in truth (I will prepare Him an habitation); but here the disciples that believed were together, and had all things common. The Lord was adding together daily, and saints were being “builded together for God's habitation through the Spirit.”
Such blessed manifestations of power and goodness on God's part, and delighted response on man's part pass away all too soon; the word to Israel was “I remember thee.” God invites them to return. He had not changed. The Lord Jesus looks upon His Church in much the same way in Rev. 2 and 3. “Thou hast left thy first love.” Works will not satisfy the One who is looking for love. He seeks their restoration: “Remember therefore;” “Hold fast and repent.” The Lord Jesus in His perfect love refuses to be satisfied with recollections; He will have a present response to His changeless love. Even amongst ourselves, love cannot live on the past, it must have its satisfaction in the present.
God was working in many distinct and separate ways in Jeremiah's day, for the moral recovery of the people. We cannot doubt that, in a very special and remarkable manner, the prophet was called and separated, and owned of God as His servant. The testimony was centered in him although not exclusively so; for was there not Zephaniah and the prophetess Huldah (significant indeed of the low moral state of the people)? to say nothing of the college from whence, it may be, religious instruction was disseminated. The fact of the book of the law having been lost spoke of the shameful neglect of the priests and Levites, with regard to their first and highest responsibility. “They shall teach Israel thy law” (Deut. 33:10). Yet God could and did work amongst the people in its absence; but when found, the divine operations were shown to be in full accord with all that was written therein. God was working in these various ways, recovering the lost testimony, making the heart of the king “tender,” giving one and another to tremble at His word, others to maintain a bold and faithful testimony. But He was not bringing the people together in what would have been a false show of unity. Nor did the king in his trouble send to Jeremiah: each followed the leading of the Spirit in his own sphere of service.
The king rightly enough took the lead in a public way, and God owned it. The prophet rejoiced in it (Lam. 4:20), and mourned greatly when a fatal divergence from the path of obedience and constant dependence upon God marred the outward testimony, and occasioned the downfall of the throne of David. His own position was one of isolation and sorrow. He was not to be drawn out of it by the fact that God was working in much power and blessing elsewhere: an excuse so often pleaded in our own day for unfaithfulness and inconsistency in regard to service and discipleship. “I sat alone,” “for I am called by thy name.” Yet he had his own heart's food and satisfaction in the very words which must have awakened and alarmed the guilty consciences of many. “They were unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart.” The answer of God (vers. 19-21) was full of encouragement, yet not without a warning word. Filled with indignation because of the base ingratitude of the nation and perpetual pain, like the apostle Paul in a later day, when the beloved people had still more guiltily committed themselves before God, and exposed themselves to still fiercer wrath (Rom. 9:1-3), he had even said, “I will not speak any more in His name.” Many crushed and broken-hearted servants since have felt the same (Matt. 11:2-6). But God comforts and strengthens against the weakness and unbelief of nature. “If thou return,” i.e. to the people giving up all, God would restore in grace. He would have His way: “Then will I bring thee again.”
Moreover, the prophet was commanded not to return unto them, but even as Jehovah Himself was waiting to be gracious, so “Let them return unto thee.” The power of spiritual discernment is seriously impaired if not entirely wanting in those who, having had light from God, deliberately and for the sake of relief and release from the constraint of holy subjection to the will of God, associate with the mass of corrupt profession, in which even the world can have its part. Precious things are there indeed, or there would be no snare to Christians. However unpopular it may be amongst Christians, the place of separation from evil, alone it may be, or with but few to stand by us, is the place in which we may “Take forth the precious from the vile.” The Lord appropriates and makes use of such; He sets His seal upon them. “They shall be mine.” “Thou shalt be as my mouth.” It is urged as an objection to this, that the love of souls and the gracious activities of the evangelist are more or less restrained in such a narrow path. But this is really to reflect upon the Lord's grace, for the nearer we are to “Him that is holy and true,” the nearer also to that fount of grace in the blessed heart of the Lord Jesus Christ. Moreover, real evangelism is a going forth with the gospel, which alone is the “power of God unto salvation.” There could be no such going forth in O.T. days, because there was no such blessed message to carry. G. S. B.