Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2645
“It is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.” Jeremiah 30:7.
GOD here calls the Jews by the name of Jacob. These were His people in a very special sense, for He had chosen them from among all the nations of the earth and had brought them near Him that they might be His own portion, His inheritance. Yet upon these people He laid many stripes and visited them with sore chastisements. It is true that they were a sinful people, though they were, in many respects, better than other nations who were, for a long while, allowed to go unpunished. Year after year, the heathen prospered in war and had success in other ways—but as for God’s own people, waters of a full cup were wrung out to them. As soon as the Lord had a people, they began to suffer. We learn this very early in their history, for, after Isaac, the child of promise, was born, it was not very long before Ishmael—“he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit.”
And, as that persecution began early, it has continued late, for the Apostle adds, “Even so it is now.” There is still an enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman—and the seed of the woman is made to feel the serpent’s malice so that, what with a chastising God and a biting serpent, the children of God are pretty sure to be often in trouble! And when, by Grace, you see them in their glittering ranks above, and ask, “Who are these which are arrayed in white robes, and from where did they come?” This will be the summary of the answer concerning them all, “These are they which came out of great tribulation and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” “The sacramental host of God’s elect,” in its march through the world, may be tracked by its own blood! Read both ancient and modern history and what will you find but an account of the suffering and the triumphs of the people of God? Even to this day we have to cut a lane through the enemy and fight our way to Heaven in a stern hand-to-hand conflict. God has not yet prepared “flowery beds of ease” for any of us, nor shall we be “carried to the skies” in ambulances of luxury. We shall have to fight if we are to reign and we shall have to suffer if we are to ultimately reach the land of perfect blessedness!
This is “the time of Jacob’s trouble,” even this day, this present life! Thank God it is but a day and will come to an end. But this is not the time of Jacob’s joy. He does have some delights, even here, but his great joy is reserved for the hereafter. This is rather the time in which the sinner rejoices and fattens himself as for the slaughter. But God’s people must expect to find that this is “the time of Jacob’s trouble.”
But, dear Friends, the other Truth in our text is equally attested by history—“he shall be saved out of it.” How gloriously God’s people have been saved all along their line of march! Their campfires still show their trail and those camp-fires have been the burnings of the furnace that God has set up for the trying and purifying of His chosen people. But nowhere have they been destroyed, though everywhere they have been in affliction! They had a very narrow escape from destruction in Haman’s day—the enemy then thought that he would utterly cut off the people of God from the face of the earth. Haman thought that he had managed everything so well that his wicked scheme had to succeed. The king’s mandates had already gone out and on a certain day all the Jews would be put to death. But you know how Esther, at the peril of her life, went into the king’s presence to plead for her nation and, soon, new edicts were sent out and the chosen people put their enemies to death! And they, themselves, were not destroyed.
Haman was hanged on the gallows that he had fixed for Mordecai, for the hated Jew belonged to the seed which cannot be crushed, to the immortal race which can never die out! God’s people may be often trodden down, like the grass of the field, but, as the grass springs up again and even outlive the men who tread upon it, so will it be with God’s people even to the end! This is “the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.” Christ’s Church shall live and flourish when her persecutors lie in ignominious graves! Herod thought that he could crush the chosen seed, but he was eaten by worms—while the Church of God still lived on. The tyrant was soon swept away and so shall all be who lift their puny hands against the people of the Most High!
It would be a very profitable subject, if one had the time to work it out, to see how true this verse is in relation to the Jewish people and to God’s own elect ones. “It is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.” But I want at this time, to get at individuals. You know that God’s Truth, in Scripture, is like a crystal. You may take a great mass of it and if you break that crystal into fragments, every little piece will be of the same form, for every division of the crystal is crystallized after the same fashion! In like manner, you can split God’s Truth up so as to apply it to individuals, and then you can further divide it and apply it to each separate incident in the life of every man—and it will still hold good—for the Truth of God is always true and the faithful promise of God is applicable to every part of the Christian’s life.