Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2036
Delivered on Lord’s Day Morning, July 29, 1888
“Yes, I will rejoice over them to do them good and I will plant them in this land assuredly with My whole heart and with My whole soul.” Jeremiah 32:41.
WE cannot help looking for the restoration of the scattered Israelites to the land which God has given to them by a covenant of salt—we also look for the time when they shall believe in the Messiah whom they have rejected, and shall rejoice in Jesus of Nazareth whom today they despise. There is great encouragement in prophecy to those who work among the seed of Israel. And it is greatly needed, for of all mission fields it has been commonly represented to be one of the most barren and upon the work the utmost ridicule has been poured.
God has, therefore, supplied our faith with encouragements larger than we have in almost any other direction of service. Let those who believe work on! Those who believe not may give it up. They shall not have the honor of having helped to gather together the ancient nation to which our Lord Himself belonged. For be it never forgotten that Jesus was a Jew. If we, who are branches of the wild olive, have been engrafted into the good olive, how much more easy shall it be, when God wills it, that the natural branches, which for a while were cut off because of unbelief, should be again grafted into their own native stock?
God send it speedily! Oh, that it were so even now! May the house of Israel look on Him whom they have pierced and turn unto Him with all their hearts. At present we have to say and sing—
“You chosen seed of Israel’s race, A remnant weak and small; Hail Him who sa ves you by His Grace, And crown Him Lord of all.”
It is a rule, in interpreting the Word of God, that the promises made to the natural Israel, so far as they are spiritual, belong to the spiritual Israel.
Believers in Christ are the true seed of Abraham. “Though Abraham is ignorant of us and Sara acknowledge us not,” after the flesh, yet Abraham is the father of the faithful. And they that are faithful justly claim him to be their father. They that are of faith are of the spiritual seed of Abraham, who believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. The covenant made with Abraham is a covenant made with all who are in Abraham, with all the seed born according to promise, as was Isaac. And we may lay hold, without doubt or hesitancy, upon all the spiritual promises made to the seed of Israel as being made to all who, like Israel, know what it is to wrestle with God and to prevail.
I have, therefore, no doubt whatever in taking such a promise as this and using it with reference to the whole company of God’s elect—those peculiar people, whom God has created for Himself, who shall show forth His praise. Viewed in that light, we have before us a text of exceeding glory, one of those great Scriptures that make me fear and tremble for all the goodness which the Lord causes to pass before me. I have presumed to handle it, but I do not presume to say that I can take you into its innermost meaning. I shall pick up a nugget here and there which I find upon the surface. But I am painfully conscious that the great gold-mines underneath are not, as yet, within my reach.
Oh, that we had Divine Grace to dig deeper! Oh, that we had greater capacity for comprehending the heights, depths, lengths and breadths of the love of God to His people! I am forced to say to each one of you, “Silver and gold have I none. But such as I have I give you.” I can only present to my hearers such as I am able to grasp with my own mind. May the Lord bless it!
I shall say to you, first, consider this text for instruction. Secondly, consider it with evidence. And thirdly, consider the inferences which naturally flow from it, Oh, that the Holy Spirit may take of these deep things of God and show them unto you!
I. First, CONSIDER OUR TEXT FOR INSTRUCTION. When you do so, the first thought is, God blesses His people heartily. “I will rejoice over them to do them good and I will plant them in this land assuredly with My whole heart.” Notice, in passing, that word “assuredly.” For it confirms the word as full of truth and certainty. There must be no doubt here—assuredly banishes it utterly. When the Lord looks upon His chosen and opens His liberal hand towards them, assuredly His heart goes with His hand. There are some works of God in which His heart does not go. He smites the guilty with His left hand. But He says, “As I live, says the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of him that dies but that he turn unto Me and live.”
But when He is dealing with His right hand of loving kindness, His heart goes out with His hand. O Beloved, you that receive His Grace may know assuredly that besides the blessings which you receive, you also have God’s whole heart. He blesses you with His whole soul or life. He concentrates His nature upon you that He may bless you to the full. He is slow to wrath but He is swift to mercy, for He delights in it. When He deals out His Grace to His people, then you see the loving God, for “God is love.” And you see the living God, for He blesses you with His whole soul. His Godhead is displayed in the deeds of His love.