3308. Gathering in the Chosen

A Sermon Published On Thursday, June 27, 1912.

Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the ends of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her who travails with child together; a great company shall return there. They shall come with weeping, and I will lead them with supplications: I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way, where they shall not stumble: for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn. {Jer 31:8,9}

For other sermons on this text:

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3139, “Promise for the Blind, A” 3140}

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3308, “Gathering in the Chosen” 3310}

   Exposition on Jer 31:1-26 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2726, “Fourfold Satisfaction” 2727 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on Jer 31:1-37 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3261, “Covenant, The” 3263 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on Jer 31:1-37 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3308, “Gathering in the Chosen” 3310 @@ "Exposition"}

1. There is a wonderful variety in the acts of God, and yet as well there is a most exceptional uniformity. So complete is this uniformity that any one deliverance which God works for his people will be found to be, in its main features, just like any other of his deliverances.

2. Starting — for it is a convenient starting point, — with the deliverance of God’s people out of Egypt, there are many points of similarity between that marvel of mercy and the bringing back of the banished tribes from Babylon to their own land; there was a display of the same gracious consideration, of the same omnipotent power, of the same efficient purpose worked out in all points according to God’s eternal covenant. Then, taking another great leap, that return from Babylon is, no doubt, a very fair picture and a very excellent type of the gathering together in their own land of the Jews in the days that are yet to come when they shall say to each other, “Let us go up to the house of our God.” Everyone will admit that it will be as great a wonder to see the Jews, who are now a nation scattered abroad throughout the whole world, once more dwelling together in Palestine, as it was for them to have been brought out of Egypt or delivered out of Babylon in days long past. But, taking an even greater leap, this again is a type of the greatest of all deliverances, — the deliverance neither of the Jews alone nor of the Gentiles alone, but of the whole chosen company who shall be brought out from all the lands of sin and error into which they have been driven by their first parents’ fall and their own actual transgressions. They shall be brought out by the same almighty power, only on a far greater scale, and they shall meet, as in a common focus, in that Jerusalem above which is the home of all the chosen. I want to turn your thoughts towards that glorious future when the vast assembly of the redeemed will “sing the song of Moses” the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, “Great and marvellous are your works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are your ways, you King of saints.”

3. I. And, first, I am going to show you that we have, in the text, DEITY REVEALED.

4. There is a divine ring about the text as there was in that ancient fiat which startled the darkness, and caused it to flee away: “Let there be light, and there was light.” So here the Lord says, “I will bring them and gather them, … and they shall come. … I will lead them; I will cause them to walk; … they shall not stumble.” It is “I will” and “they shall” all the way through. There is no admission of doubt or of the possibility of failure. Jehovah speaks in the sovereignty of his power, and says, “I will do this, and I will do that,” and there is not an “if” or a “perhaps” or a “peradventure” to mar the certainty of the divine declarations, “I will” and “they shall.”

5. Remember, beloved, that it was so in Egypt. “Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord God of Israel, "Let my people go, so that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness."’ And Pharaoh said, ‘Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, neither will I let Israel go.’” Yet, when the Lord struck his firstborn with all the firstborn throughout the land of Egypt, “He called for Moses and Aaron by night, and said, ‘Rise up, and get out from among my people, both you and the children of Israel; and go, serve the Lord as you have said.’” And when the time came for captive Israel to return from Babylon, God only had to speak, and the iron bars snapped asunder and the gates of bronze flew open. So it shall also be in the latter days when the Jews are restored to their own land. By some mysterious influence which probably many of them will not be able to understand, they will be irresistibly drawn from all parts of the earth to Emmanuel’s land; and, meanwhile, that same divine energy is gathering together the chosen to the great Shiloh, for “to him shall the gathering of the people be.” Invisible bands of love are continually drawing to Christ those for whom he died. The mighty magnet of his atoning sacrifice is constantly attracting to him the members of his redeemed family; more in one age than in another, yet always according to the eternal purpose and decree of God; for, although he acts mysteriously and silently, yet he always “works all things after the counsel of his own will.”

6. I do not know any theme on which one might expound with greater joy than that of the omnipotent energy of God as displayed in the salvation of sinners, yet it must always be understood that we proclaim this truth in complete harmony with the responsibility of man and his absolute free agency. I have always taught you that the omnipotence of God over the human heart is never exercised in such a way as to violate the free will of man. It would be a clumsy kind of omnipotence that would do as it pleased with men whether they were willing or not; but it is divine omnipotence that moulds the will, enlightens the judgment, and shapes the heart and mind and character of man according to the Lord’s eternal purpose. Yet, on the other hand, let me beseech you never to let your ideas of the free agency of man prevent you from adoring the omnipotent sovereignty of God. We are not to have man’s free will sitting on the throne, its place is that of a humble servant waiting at Jehovah’s feet. Let the glorious truth that “the Lord reigns” be proclaimed in its fullest sense, and let the man who dares to limit the sovereignty of God answer for it before him who, with a rod of iron, would dash in pieces the potter’s vessel that presumed to say, “Why have you made me like this?” We believe that, when the great drama of human history is complete, it will conform in every jot and tittle to the eternal plan that was in the mind of God long before he spoke the great creative word which called the heaven and the earth into existence.

7. In the bringing up of Israel out of Babylon there were a great many questions to be considered. Would the king be willing to let them go? Would they themselves be willing to go? By what process could they be assembled under one leader? How could they be provided for and provisioned for such a long journey? By what means could they be safely conducted through the perils of the wilderness? How could they again be settled in a land which had become barren through the curse of God resting on it? Yet, when the set time came, all these difficulties vanished. Just as God was in that plan of bringing his people back from Babylon, so the king’s heart was turned as the gardener turns the channel of irrigation in the midst of the garden. Just as God was in it, so the Jews sighed and longed to return to Jerusalem. Just as God was in it, so they went back, not like trembling doves flying from a pursuing hawk, but like a bannered host returning from the conquest loaded with spoil.

8. It is just so with the sinner and the salvation of his soul; there are many questions that he may want to ask. How can prejudice be subdued? How can ignorance be overcome? How can the stubborn will be controlled? How is it possible for the Ethiopian to change his skin, and the leopard his spots? But, when God comes out to save, it is as though a man walked through cobwebs, and brushed them away from him on either side, or as though a giant stalked through a host of pygmies, and made them flee in all directions.

   When he makes bare his arm,

   What shall his work withstand?

When he exerts the fulness of his strength to accomplish his divine purpose, who shall say to him, “What are you doing?” Therefore, you ministers of God, be bold, for you serve the Lord God omnipotent. You servants of Christ in every sphere, be brave, for you have not espoused a losing cause. Every one of you, though you may be only little in the army of the Lord, yet be —

   Strong in the Lord of hosts,

   And in his mighty power; —

for his kingdom cannot be overthrown, it must spread until it fills the whole earth; and God, even our own God, must be exalted, and the praises of his holy name and of his glorious work must go on ringing down through the ages for ever and ever.

9. II. Now turning to the second point, we see in the text DIFFICULTIES REMOVED.

10. Difficulties would naturally be suggested by unbelieving minds. It would be said, in the first place, that the people had gone too far away to ever be gathered. Yet the Lord says, “I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the ends of the earth.” There may be, at the present time, some of the Lord’s chosen far away in Greenland, Labrador, and other lands of ice and snow; there were some, in the olden times, when the Moravian Brethren went out, at God’s command, to bring to Christ those who belonged to him in “the north country.” There were others also in the far-away islands of the south, cannibals, given up to the wildest passions; but Christ had bought them with his precious blood, and a sacred instinct constrained John Williams and many other martyrs and missionaries to go out to the apostolic task of turning savages into saints. It may be that God has many of his chosen ones, at the present moment, in the centre of Africa; and if it is so, they shall not die before the gospel has been made known to them, and they have been brought to trust in him who loved them, and gave himself for them. Distance is no distance in the sight of God. He sees all the inhabitants of the globe at a single glance, and his gaze is fixed on the blood-bought sons and daughters of men wherever they may be dwelling, and he will gather them from all the ends of the earth where their lot has been cast.

11. And just as distance of space is no obstacle to the bestowal of God’s mercy, so neither is the distance that is caused by the greatness of sin. “Now in Christ Jesus you who sometimes were far off are made near by the blood of Christ.” There may be one, among those whom I am now addressing, who has gone to the cold “north country” of infidelity, where he stands shivering in the biting winds of doubt and scepticism. Ah but, my friend, God is able to bring you to himself even from that dreary region. There may be some who have gone to the uttermost limits of sin until they have become masters in iniquity, trafficking on the broad sea of transgression, and doing business in the deep waters of infamy and perhaps of blasphemy. Ah but, if you are among those who were given to Christ, God will gather you sooner or later; even if you have sold yourself to the devil, “your covenant with death shall be annulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand.” If you are indeed “bought with a price,” Christ will surely gather you with the rest of his redeemed. By might and main he will make a conquest of you, for, when the Lord determines to bring his people to himself, neither material distance nor moral distance can prevent him from doing so.

12. There was also another difficulty; not only were these people in Babylon far away from Jerusalem, but some of them were blind. What did it matter to them where they lived? No landscape, even though it was as grand as what Moses saw from the top of Pisgah, could have any attraction for them. Even if others go back, shall not the blind be left behind? Of what use are the blind? How shall they behold the beauty of the Lord? But the Lord said that he would bring back the blind with the others from the north country, and from the ends of the earth, and we may apply this promise to those who are spiritually blind. How can you reach a man who will not see his own sin, and who will not or cannot see the beauty of God’s plan of salvation? How are you to reach those whose eyes are covered with the scales of prejudice? How can you reach the Romanist whose eyes are plastered up with ceremonies and superstitions? How can you convince the workmonger that his own good deeds, of which he thinks so much, are blinding him to the beauties of Christ? How can these blind ones be saved? Ah, beloved! no eye is too blind for God to pour light into it, and some of us can bear our personal testimony on this matter. We should never have known the grace of God in truth if that grace had not come to us in our blind ignorance, and enlightened us. May it be so with some who are here tonight! Is there a very ignorant person here? Well, my dear friend, do you know that you are a sinner, that you are guilty in the sight of God? Then do you know that Christ Jesus came into the world to save such guilty sinners as you are? If so, and you put your trust in him, you are already wise to salvation however little you may know about other matters. Learn the great truth that Christ died in the place of all who believe in him, and you will no longer be numbered among the spiritually blind.

13. With those blind people in Babylon there seem to have been some lame folk, and an objector might have said, “Surely, if the caravan is to pass through the desert, it would be better to leave these poor limping ones at home; how can they ever be brought to Jerusalem?” But the Lord said, “The blind shall be led, and the lame shall be carried, but they must not be left behind.” Now, there are some who are morally lame. If they ever enter into life, it will be among the halt and the maimed. They seem as if they could not walk uprightly, there is a limp in their gait; their knees are weak, they cannot pray as they wish. Lame sinners, are you here tonight? Do you feel as if you cannot get to Christ, and cannot pray, and cannot do anything properly? Well, only cry to him, “God be merciful to me a sinner”; turn your eye to Christ, think of him as he hung on the cross, and trust him to save you, and you shall find that, lame as you are, you shall be brought safely home. Mr. Ready-to-Halt shall get to heaven as surely as Mr. Great-Heart himself.

14. Then there were some others of whom it was said that they could not possibly join the caravan: “the woman with child and her who travails with child.” These were certainly unfit to go, they were in such a weak state that they could not take that long journey from Babylon to Jerusalem, yet the Lord said, “I will gather them and bring them,” and so he did. Well, there are some like them in our midst tonight, burdened ones who have a load of sin pressing on them, fainting ones whose souls are in a sacred travail. They would gladly run, but they cannot even stand, and they are all too apt to fall. But, oh you who are soul-distressed like this, the blessing is that Jesus Christ will not leave you behind; you shall be brought with the rest of the chosen seed to the heavenly Jerusalem to praise and magnify your great Deliverer for ever and ever!

15. III. Now, in the third place, we have in the text not only Deity revealed, and difficulties removed, but we also have DESCRIPTIONS GIVEN.

16. How shall this great company be brought to the Jerusalem which is above? Listen; there is a mighty host on the march, but I hear no sound of trumpet, no voice of mirth, no song of joy; what do I hear? Weeping, mourning, lamentation: “They shall come with weeping.” That is the music to which sinners usually set out for the heavenly Canaan; seldom if ever is that journey started without tears. It is not the shriek of despair, it is not the groan of disappointment, it is not the yell of rage and hate; it is the plaintive wail of a soul that says to God, “I have sinned against heaven, and before you, and are no more worthy to be called your son.” From those who compose that throng you may every now and then catch such sorrowful sentences as these, “I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me”; “My sorrow is continually before me. For I will declare my iniquity; I will be sorry for my sin.” This is the kind of music that we hear from those who are setting out for heaven; have you, my friend, ever practised it? You will never sing in glory if you have never wept over your sin; I do not merely mean such tears as men and women shed, though these will probably not be absent; but I mean that you will experience that spiritual sorrow which is often too deep for tears. May God the Holy Spirit teach us to weep at the memory of our sin, to weep at the foot of the cross as we look at him whom our sins have pierced, and mourn for him as one mourns for his only son, and be in bitterness for him as one who is in bitterness for his firstborn!

17. Listen again; now I hear another note rising from the great caravan, the note of supplication. It is the hour of prayer; they have gone beyond weeping into anxiety, desire, petition, request, and I hear many voices crying, “Save your people who trust in you. Be merciful to us, and bless us, and cause your face to shine on us.” In our day, the supplication takes some such form as this, “Reveal yourself to us, oh Christ, for we put our trust in you! In your name we have set up our banners, come out, oh Lord, as our Helper and Deliverer!” The march is with weeping and supplication, and I believe these two things will attend that caravan right up to the brink of Jordan. The last tear will be dropped in Jordan’s flowing stream, for we shall sorrow no more and repent no more when we stand before the eternal throne; and the last prayer — at any rate, the last prayer that has any sense of sin in it — shall be breathed just on the edge of the river which we cross to enter into glory.

18. I must next direct your attention to something in our text about the road the caravan has to traverse: “I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters.” They had to pass through a wilderness in going from Egypt to Canaan, and also in returning from Babylon, and we also have to traverse the wilderness of this world in journeying to the better Promised Land above; but just as they had water in abundance on their long marches, so we also have “the rivers of waters” of divine grace and almighty love. When we first began to seek the Lord, we found that one of the channels in which the precious rivers were flowing was this precious Bible from which we still quench our spiritual thirst. Then, when we trusted in Jesus, and confessed our faith in him, we found the two ordinances that he instituted — believers’ baptism and the Lord’s supper — to be as refreshing to our spirit as cold water is to the thirsty. I trust that you, beloved, while sitting under the sound of the Word, have often been able to drink from the brook by the way; and, certainly, private prayer and intimate fellowship with God, and, above all, the secret and mysterious indwelling of the Holy Spirit, have caused you “to walk by the rivers of waters”; so that, although the earth is in itself arid, “a dry and thirsty land, where no water is,” you have found that from the foot of the cross there flows a living stream from which all the chosen may continue to drink until they come to that “pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.”

19. In the description of the caravan route we are next told that it is “a straight way.” The path to heaven is not at all difficult to find. It would be very difficult to find the way to heaven by the rites and ceremonies about which some are so particular, but to those who trust in Jesus the way of salvation is a very simple one, so simple that the wayfaring man, though a fool in other things, need not err in it. If any of you are trying to find your way to heaven by the road of your own good works, you may well be puzzled, for you are off the right track altogether; but the believer’s path is straight and plain. He trusts, and he is saved; he looks, and he lives; he believes God’s Word, and he proves that it is true. You know that the way of policy, such as ungodly men often follow in this world, is a very crooked way, and Christians are sometimes tempted to tread that treacherous path; but that is the slimy way into which the devil led our first parents, and nothing but evil can come to those who walk in it. The giving up of the whole heart and soul to Christ is the simple way of being saved, and then yielding complete obedience to Christ is the simple way of living. “The Lord’s promise is, ‘I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way,’” — not in a crooked, twisting, winding, in-and-out way, but in a straight way, the way of faith in Christ, and of unquestioning obedience to his commands.

20. The description of this straight way concludes like this, “Where they shall not stumble.” It is a good thing to have a straight road, but it is a better thing to also have a sure foot; and God, who teaches his people to do right, also gives them grace to do it. These blind ones, and lame ones, and weak ones, of whom I have been speaking, are upheld by sovereign grace in the narrow way in which the Lord is leading them. My eye seems to catch the glorious vision. I see the blind finding their way to the great centre of eternal blessedness. I see the lame come running as though they had wings on their feet to speed them onward to the pearly gates above. I see the vast blood-bought throng, from the North, and the South, and the East, and the West, casting away, by divine grace, all their burdens and their cares, and with the fetters of their sins snapped for ever, streaming in crowds to the one blessed centre, —

   Jerusalem the golden,

   With milk and honey blest, —

where we ourselves expect to be eventually. Angels and the redeemed from among men must be continually witnessing the arrival of those who, first chosen by the Father, then redeemed by the Son, then regenerated by the Holy Spirit, have repented of sin and trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ, and by grace have been preserved in their march through the wilderness, and brought home to that blest city from which they shall go out no more for ever. Well may we sing, —

   Oh Paradise eternal!

      What bliss to enter thee,

   And once within thy portals,

      Secure for ever be!

   In thee no sin nor sorrow,

      No pain nor death is known;

   But pure glad life, enduring

      As heaven’s benignant throne.

   There all around shall love us,

      And we return their love;

   One band of happy spirits,

      One family above.

21. IV. Now I must close when I have spoken for only a minute on the last point, which is, DIGNITY BESTOWED: “for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.”

22. Those who are brought out of the bondage of sin, as Israel was brought out of Egypt and Babylon, by the almighty power and grace of God, are acknowledged by him as his children. John writes concerning Jesus, “He came to his own, and his own did not receive him. But as many as received him, he gave power (the right, or privilege) to them to become the sons of God, even to those who believe in his name.” This relationship cannot be disputed, and cannot be disturbed, and this is the relationship which exists between God and every pardoned sinner. Happy soul! Though once in the family of Satan, and an heir of wrath, you are now a child and an heir of God, and a joint-heir with Jesus Christ.

23. I think there are some here whose mouths are watering for this same blessing, and who are longing to be found among the innumerable multitude who shall be gathered in the heavenly Jerusalem at the last. Well, if you truly desire to be the Lord’s, that is a sign and token that the Lord also desires to have you as his child. That is a true declaration in one of our hymns, —

   “No sinner can be beforehand with thee.”

If you really desire to have God as your God, and Christ as your Saviour, God desires it too, and Christ desires it. If you are willing to be saved, do not imagine that Christ is unwilling to save you. If you are coming to Christ, Christ is coming to you; no, he has come to you, or you would never want to come to him. “Only believe.” These are Christ’s words to you now; believe that he is able to save you through the merit of his atoning sacrifice, and through the prevalence of his intercession before his Father’s throne above. Trust him, trust him to save you now, and then you also shall be among the redeemed of the Lord who shall return, and come with singing to Zion; everlasting joy shall be on your head; you shall obtain gladness and joy; and sorrow and mourning shall flee away from you for ever.

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Jer 31:1-28} {a}

1. “At the same time,” says the LORD, “I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people.”

How divinely he speaks, — as only God can speak! These people had rejected him, yet he says, “They shall be my people”; not only some of them, but all of them: “I will be the God of all the families of Israel.” Behold the wonderful power of divine grace on the hearts of rebellious sinners. There are no “ifs” and no “buts” here; it is “I will” and “they shall.” God knows how to work out his own purposes of love and mercy.

2. Thus says the Lord, “The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness; even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest.”

If we ever do get true rest of soul, God must cause us to rest, as David said, “He makes me to lie down in green pastures.” The rest of the heart is a miracle of divine power.

3. The LORD has appeared of old to me, saying, “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you. {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1914, “Secret Drawings Graciously Explained” 1915} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2149, “Everlasting Love Revealed” 2150} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2880, “New Tokens of Ancient Love” 2881}

There is the source of everything that is good and gracious: “everlasting love.” When God has once set that love on his people, anything and everything that is for their good may come out of it; all temporal good and all eternal blessings will come out of everlasting love. Oh, that each one of us might have grace to appropriate these blessed words to himself: “I have loved you with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.” They were given to Israel of old, but the spiritual Israel possess all the privileges of the natural Israel, and much more.

4. Again I will build you, and you shall be built,

Whatever God does is done effectively; there is never any failure in his work.

4. Oh virgin of Israel: you shall again be adorned with your tambourines, and shall go out in the dances of those who make merry.

They had wept and mourned, but they were to dance; they had been very sad and disconsolate, but they were to take down their harps from the willows, and even to have their tabrets or tambourines again.

5. You shall yet plant vines on the mountains of Samaria: the planters shall plant, and shall eat them as common things.

God makes the luxuries of grace to be common things to his people. Fare that once seemed so rare as to be enjoyed only on high days and holidays shall become everyday food for his people when their Lord reveals himself to them.

6. For there shall be a day, that the watchmen on the mount Ephraim shall cry, ‘Arise, and let us go up to Zion to the LORD our God.’”

For many a year Israel had gone to Bethel to worship the calves, or stayed at home to adore the shrine of Ashtaroth; now they were to go to Zion to serve Jehovah. See what the grace of God can do even for idolaters. If any of us have been bowing down to our idols, may we today turn to the living God; may the power of his grace lead us to go heartily and unanimously to worship the Lord our God.

7, 8. For thus says the LORD; “Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout among the chief of the nations: proclaim, praise, and say, ‘Oh LORD, save your people, the remnant of Israel.’ Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the ends of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her who travails with child together: a great company shall return there.

Whatever God does, he does thoroughly. When he shall restore his ancient people, he will not leave the weak ones behind; and if, today, we are enjoying his presence, the most afflicted and the most infirm among us shall know what the joy of the Lord means. May the Lord grant it, and we will praise his holy name.

9. They shall come with weeping, and I will lead them with supplications:

Weeping and prayer go well together. There is no prayer like a wet prayer saturated with the tears of repentance.

9. I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way, —

Hear this, you mourners. God will supply your need with rivers of waters, and he will make you to walk in a straight way. Sometimes we are perplexed because the road seems to wind in and out like a labyrinth, but God can lead us in a straight way: “I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way,” —

9. Where they shall not stumble: for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.

They had forgotten their relationship to Jehovah, but he still remembered that they were his children.

10, 11. Hear the word of the LORD, oh you nations, and declare it in the isles afar off and say, ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him and keep him as a shepherd does his flock.’ For the LORD has redeemed Jacob, and ransomed him from the hand of him who was stronger than he.

They were the Lord’s chosen people even when they were in captivity in Babylon. He had scattered them because of their sin, but he would gather them in his mercy.

12-14. Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the LORD, for wheat and for wine and for olive oil, and for the young of the flock and of the herd: and their soul shall be as a watered garden; and they shall not sorrow any more at all. Then the virgin shall rejoice in the dance, both young men and old together: for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow. And I will satiate the soul of the priests with abundance, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness,” says the LORD.

What a blessed change this was for those who had sorrowfully cried, “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” And we rejoice in an even greater change when the Lord brings us into spiritual liberty.

15-17. Thus say the LORD: “A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping; Rachel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not.” Thus says the LORD; “Refrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears: for your work shall be rewarded,” says the LORD; “and they shall come again from the land of the enemy. And there is hope in your end,” says the LORD, “that your children shall come again to their own border.

A mother’s sorrow over her lost babes is very great and long-enduring, but if she is a Christian, she shall meet them again in the land of the blessed, and shall be parted from them no more for ever.

18. I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself like this: {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 743, “Ephraim Bemoaning himself” 734} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2104, “The Inner Side of Conversion” 2105}

What a wonderfully expressive word that word “bemoaning” is!

18, 19. ‘You have chastised me and I was chastised, as a young bull unaccustomed to the yoke: turn me, and I shall be turned; for you are the LORD my God. Surely after I was turned I repented; and after that I was instructed, I struck myself on the thigh: I was ashamed, yes, even confounded because I bore the reproach of my youth.’

Hear what the Lord says about these bemoaning ones, these sin-loathing ones: —

20. Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a pleasant child?

Or we may render it, “Is this Ephraim my dear son? Is this my pleasant child?” He is all that now that he begins to hate his sin.

20. For since I spoke against him, I still earnestly remember him:

Think of this, you who forget your God, you backsliders, wanderers from your Father’s house.

20, 21. Therefore my heart is troubled for him; I will surely have mercy on him,” says the LORD. “Set up signposts, make high heaps:

Raise cairns along the road at various point to let other travellers know the way in which they should go.

21, 22. Set your heart towards the highway, even the way which you went: turn again, oh virgin of Israel, turn again to these cities of yours. How long will you gad about, oh you backsliding daughter? For the LORD has created a new thing in the earth, — A woman shall encompass a man.”

Whereas the enemy had encompassed Jerusalem all around, now Jerusalem was to be the besieger, and to encompass her enemies, and defeat them. Some interpreters think this is an allusion to the birth of the Saviour, that “new thing in the earth” — the incarnation of the Son of God.

23-25. Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; “As yet they shall use this speech in the land of Judah and in its cities, when I shall bring again their captives; ‘The LORD bless you, oh habitation of justice, and mountain of holiness.’ And there shall dwell is Judah itself, and in all its cities together, farmers, and those who go out with flocks. For I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul.”

This prophecy is to be fulfilled in the restoration of Israel to Palestine; until that happens, the promise bears a spiritual meaning to all the children of God. Oh weary soul, you shall be satiated, that is more than being satisfied; you shall have as much of holiness and joy as you can hold! Plead his promise now, oh sorrowful soul, and may God fulfil it for you!

26. After this I awoke, and beheld; and my sleep was sweet to me.

Well might it be. Poor Jeremiah, who so often wept over the woes of Israel, was the very man to be refreshed when he heard from God that he would visit his people in mercy, and bring them back to their own land. Happy dreamer, who dreams such a blessed dream as this, a dream that came true in due time.

27, 28. “Behold, the days come,” says the LORD, “that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man, and with the seed of beast. And it shall come to pass, that just as I have watched over them to pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to destroy, and to afflict; so I will watch over them, to build, and to plant,” says the LORD.

What a black list of words we first have here! God’s way of dealing with his people when they wander away from him is very stern. They must be brought back, but it will be over a very rough road. The Lord says that he “watched over them to pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to destroy, and to afflict”; and in the same measure he now declares that he will watch over them to do them good. Just as our tribulations abound, so also shall our consolations abound by Christ Jesus. If you have been bitterly convicted of sin, you shall be sweetly convinced of pardon. The deeper God digs the foundation, the higher he intends to build the house. Those who are brought to him in great affliction very often afterwards know more of Christ and more of the love of God than any others.

29, 30. “In these days they shall say no more, ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’ But everyone shall die for his own iniquity: every man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge.

God was going to deal with the Israelites individually, personally; and that is how he will deal with us.

31. Behold,

Here is something worth beholding; read this great promise with tears in your eyes: —

31-33. The days come,” says the LORD, “that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their forefathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; my covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” says the LORD: “but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel: After those days,” says the LORD, “I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1687, “The Law Written on the Heart” 1688} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2992, “God’s Writing On Man’s Heart” 2993}

It is all wills and shalls; it is all covenant life; — no longer the law engraved on the tables of stone, but the law written on the heart; — no more the Lord’s command without man’s power and will to obey it; but God will renew our nature, and change our disposition, so that we shall love to do what we once loathed, and shall loathe the sins that we once loved. What a wonderful mass of mercies is included in the covenant of grace!

34. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord’: for they shall all know me, —

“All your children shall be taught by the Lord.” All believers, whatever else they may not know, do know their Lord: “they shall all know me,” —

34. From the least of them to the greatest of them,” says the LORD:

How will they learn to know the Lord? Well, it will be in a very wonderful way; —

34. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2006, “Knowing the Lord Through Pardoned Sin” 2007}

Let me read that again, and may some poor wandering children of God hear the promise, and be glad that it applies to them: “I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

35-37. Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, who divides the sea when its waves roar; The LORD of hosts is his name: “If those ordinances depart from before me,” says the LORD, “then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever.” Thus says the LORD: “If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done,” says the LORD.

{a} This exposition for Jer 31:29-37 was originally published with sermon No. 3309 for lack of room to proclaim* it with this sermon to which it properly belongs. Editor.