Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1636
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, December. 25, 1881
“They shall fear and tremble for all the goodness and for all the prosperity that I procure unto it.” Jeremiah 33:9.
GOD’S ancient people sadly provoked Him with their idolatries from age to age. He was longsuffering to them to the last degree, but at length He grew weary of them and, according to His own words, “He abhorred His own inheritance.” He caused them to be carried away into captivity and their land became a desert, or the heritage of strangers. Israel became a scattered people on the brink of national extinction, for their iniquities had hidden the face of the Lord from them. Yet the Lord, even Jehovah, had entered into a Covenant concerning them with Abraham, His friend, which Covenant He had afterwards renewed with His servant David.
This latter Covenant the Lord is said, by the Prophet Jeremiah, to remember even when Jerusalem is desolate. We read in the 20th verse and onward these words—“Thus says the Lord: If you can break My Covenant of the day, and My Covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season; then may also My Covenant be broken with David, My servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne.” Even in Israel’s worst days, when her representative man was the weeping Prophet Jeremiah, and when her sorrows were greater than even he could express, yet the Lord revealed His love and promised that blessed days should dawn for the seed of Abraham!
These days have not yet come, but they shall surely arrive, for God has not cast away His people whom He did foreknow. There is yet a history for Israel—her sun is clouded, but it has not set. As surely as stands the Covenant with day and night, so surely shall the chosen people return from their captivity and possess the land which the Lord has given them. In those days the Lord will build them as at the first and cleanse them from all their iniquities. Then they shall not be proud or arrogant, for His goodness shall startle and astound them and they shall be amazed, even, unto trembling when they see what great things Jehovah has done for them! The memory of their great national offenses and especially of their long rejection of the Messiah shall cause them to wear their high dignity without pride—they shall be subdued by love to a child-like fear of again offending—they shall tremble as they see the Lord God of their fathers glorifying all His Grace in them. Thus much for the strict context of the text.
Let me, then, read the text, again, and let us appropriate it to ourselves—“They shall fear and tremble for all the goodness and for all the prosperity that I procure unto it.” Such honor and blessing have all the saints! Our text suggests, at the outset, the remark that all the good things which make up prosperity are to be traced unto the Lord. Woe unto us if we receive good and perfect gifts and yet forget the Father of Lights from whom they come! These benefits are not from beneath, but from above—let them not be passed by in ungrateful silence—but let us send, upward, humble and warm acknowledgments. He who forgets mercy deserves that mercy should forget him. God grant we may never be such practical atheists as to receive daily bounties from God and not return a daily song.
As each gleaming wave of the sea reflects the light of the sun, so let each ripple of our life flash with gratitude for the benediction of Heaven. All good comes from the Altogether Good, who is of good the essence, the Creator and the Giver. Especially is this true of all spiritual blessings—of such goodness as comes not so much from benevolence to creatures as from mercy to sinners. As a being, I am grateful that my Creator is kind to me. But as a sinner, if my Judge smiles upon me, I admire His exceeding Grace! His justice had left me unblessed to perish through my sin if His mercy had not found a way to spare and to cleanse. You who know not only your insignificance, but also your unworthiness, are held under special bonds to lift up your hearts in fervent gratitude to the Lord.
I remark, next, that temporal mercies are always best when they come in their proper order. I have no doubt our text includes both temporal and spiritual good, but certainly the temporals are arranged in the second rank, for the eighth verse runs—“I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, whereby they have sinned against Me; and I will pardon all their
iniquities, whereby they have sinned, and whereby they have transgressed against Me.” And after this we have mention of goodness and prosperity. After pardon, peace and plenty are golden blessings—without which they might prove a curse. To an unforgiven sinner the richest enjoyments of this life are as the food which fattens the bullock for the slaughter. But when sin is pardoned, common mercies become tokens of a Father’s love and ripen beneath the sun of Divine Love into an inexpressible sweetness!