Jeremiah 50:4-5 In those days, and in that time, said the LORD, the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together… I. GOD, BEFORE HE SEES FIT TO LOOSE THE SPIRITUAL BONDS OF THOSE WHOM HE INTENDS TO DELIVER, IS FIRST PLEASED TO BRING THEM TO FEEL THEIR CHAINS, AND TO MOURN OVER THEIR DISTANCE FROM ZION. II. UNDER THIS PAINFUL CONCERN OF MIND, THEY SHALL ANXIOUSLY INQUIRE AFTER THE MEANS OF RECOVERY. "They shall go and seek the Lord their God." The poor captives are here represented — weeping. Though depressed with their perfect thraldom, though weeping, they go; they sit not down in despondency. They set their faces towards Zion; and let them but find the Lord their God, let them but perceive His gracious intentions towards them, and they can wait His time and way of a full and final deliverance, and commit everything else to Him. III. ANIMATED BY THIS HOPE, THEY SHALL VIGOROUSLY PRESS TOWARDS ZION; "they shall ask the way with their faces thitherward." In the ordinary affairs of life, when men have a particular object in view in which they are deeply interested, and that hope or object is merely probable, they exert every nerve; they toil by day and wake by night; they encounter dangers with resolution, and suffer hardships without complaint. And is it possible to believe that temporal considerations, which can fall under no certain calculation as to She certainty of acquiring them, should engage our affections, and employ all our active powers; and that considerations of infinitely greater moment confessedly, and certain as to their attainment and duration, should have less influence, or no influence at all, upon us? It is impossible; the idea is absurd. What mighty effects, then, it may be asked, will the Christian's hope produce? They are, no doubt, various in degrees, and correspond to that hope as it is more or less vigorous; but they are the same in kind; and they may in general fall under one view, — a change of the objects of his affections and pursuits. The bonds in which he was held formerly by his passions and sensual appetites, restrain him no longer; he is no longer under their tyranny and blind impulse. He feels himself overawed by a superior authority; and he perceives objects presented to him which he had formerly viewed with indifference, or had been wholly unnoticed by him, which by a new energy seize his soul, — captivate his affections, and fix his choice. Again, animated by this hope of salvation, the soul rises superior to the world; and feels a Divine elevation that cannot stoop to it, when courted by its most flattering forms, as its ultimate object. This hope of salvation inspires the soul with a Divine zeal, a holy impatience after further attainments. The higher this hope rises, the more it enlarges the heart. IV. IN ORDER TO CONFIRM AND STRENGTHEN THEIR RESOLUTIONS, THEY WILL BIND THEMSELVES BY A SOLEMN DEED AND COVENANT. "Come, let us join ourselves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant, that shall not be forgotten." A personal covenant with God is inseparable from genuine closet-devotion Every prayer, every pious purpose, every devout meditation, is virtually a covenant with the Lord. And there may be certain occasions wherein devout souls may see cause to be more explicit to express at large their sense of Divine things, their present feelings, their past experiences, and to commit to writing their solemn purposes and engagements, and, to impress the whole the stronger upon their minds, — to append their names. But this I only mention, the words leading me to speak, not of a personal or closet transaction, but of a public bond of union, the common act of a religions society. Single resolutions slip easily out of the mind, and lose their hold of us; but in a public transaction, where the great God is supposed to stand on the one part, and His poor dependent creatures on the other, there is something so awful and solemn, as must leave upon a mind, not wholly hardened and insensible, some suitable impressions; especially where the transaction is accompanied and confirmed by sensible and expressive symbols. (Thomas Gordon.) Parallel Verses KJV: In those days, and in that time, saith the LORD, the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together, going and weeping: they shall go, and seek the LORD their God. |
    |