The providences of God towards his people are most remarkable, and fraught with the most weighty instructions: they are no doubt intended for the benefit of all generations, and preserved in the Scriptures for that purpose. The history of Abraham, the friend of God, and father of the faithful, is most remarkable and interesting. That part of his life and that severe trial of his faith to which the text refers, we have an account from the beginning of this chapter, and in the text, a remembrance is kept of it.
The Christian life is represented as pleasantness and peace, productive of present enjoyment, and leading to future and eternal blessedness. In every condition of life, the pious Christian has consolations and sources of happiness which the world knows not of, and of which it cannot deprive him; and in the depths of affliction, he has the cheering hope of a glorious immortality. Yet ought it not to be forgotten, that the Scripture exhibits the Christian to our view, as a soldier engaged in an arduous conflict, which needs steady perseverance, and which requires all the excitements to courage and fidelity which the Gospel supplies.
Improve the comforts of religion for promoting holiness. The religion of Jesus is highly comfortable—it exhibits to a sinful creature a redeeming God—as the God of all consolation—the Saviour, as the consolation of Israel—the Spirit, as the spirit of gladness—the blessings of grace, as wells of salvation, from which we may draw water with joy. Realizing these truths by that divine principle which makes future things present, and unseen things visible, and taking them home to ourselves, we are filled with joy and peace, and the joy of the Lord is our strength.
Men hear so much regarding pardon that, by a strange fallacy, they are prone to conclude that they are pardoned. They hear so much of a Saviour that they hasten to the soothing conclusion that they are saved. It is as if a dying man were to conclude that he is not dying, merely because he hears of life, or a beggar that he is not starving, merely because he hears of bread. And so in regard to faith.
After we have emerged from non-existence, when, by and by, the dawnings of reason begin to appear in the breast, Satan is at hand; and his first secret whispers in the ears of the soul are to this amount, “All is well; thou art an excellent and happy creature. All is fair and friendly around thee. See how thy parents and friends caress and admire thee. Fear not; thou art come into a good world—a world richly furnished to make thee happy.” Such as these are the early sentiments suggested to the unwary soul by the artificer of destruction.
1. That such as will live godly in the world must and will suffer persecution, for the trial and exercise of their faith and patience, purging away of their dross, and for weaning their hearts from a present world, and for confirmation of the truth, 2 Tim. 3:12; 1 Pet. 4:12; John 15:3.
In the opening verses of the chapter, God had pronounced a woe on unfaithful pastors—referring probably to rulers, both civil and ecclesiastical—who had destroyed and scattered the sheep of his pasture. He had promised to gather his flock in due time together, and set up faithful shepherds over them. Then he passes, at the fifth verse, by a natural and beautiful transition, to that prediction of Messiah, the great Shepherd of the sheep—King and Priest of his church both—of which the text forms a part: “Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely; and this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD”—(Jehovah)—“OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.”
The soul is priceless. “What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Mark 8:37). One need only consider the rich man’s words while in hell, “I am tormented in this flame” (Luke 16:24), to realize how highly we should esteem our soul’s salvation. Yet, however highly we ought to concern ourselves about our soul, God’s Word is clear in indicating that many will be deceived regarding their salvation until the final day: “And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity” (Matt. 7:23). What help is available to the one wanting to know whether he is deceived regarding his own soul and salvation?
In the original transaction of the new covenant, all the promises bear a special and particular direction to the elect,—all their names being, as it were, severally recorded therein; so that the promises, as there laid, are an expression of God’s gracious purpose concerning each of them particularly, and them only: But the matter is far otherwise, in the administration of that Covenant by the Gospel. For the Gospel, as it were, brings forth an extract from that glorious original,—in which extract, the promises bear only an indefinite direction; a blank being left, where the names of the elect are recorded in the original; So that these promises, as laid out to men in the Gospel, do abstract from all regard to any as elect,—to any, more than others; or they have a respect to them only as sinners, mankind sinners.
I do not think that enough of stress has been laid by theologians or Christian ministers on the various particular terms in which the overtures of the gospel are couched for presentation to the world. Each man would understand the import of a special message to himself, but he may not see how the Bible can be understood, as being adequately and fully such a message. An express letter from the upper sanctuary, with his name and designation, might satisfy him; but in the general record of Scripture, that name and that designation are nowhere to be found.
