Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2926
“Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, Thus says the Lord: I remember you, the kindness of your youth, the love of your espousals, when you went after Me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown.” Jeremiah 2:2.
BRETHREN, we may forget the past, but God does not. He says, “I remember you, the kindness of your youth.” God’s mercies come to us in such a constant stream—they are so many and so varied that we are very apt to have a feeble memory towards them. But the Lord remembers what He has done for us and He expects a return. He remembers the kindness which He showed to us in our youth—for so some interpreters read this passage—and He remembers the love which He manifested towards us in the days of our espousals. As the husbandman remembers how he plowed the land— how he dug about the tree and fed it and, therefore, looks for a better harvest, or a larger crop of fruit, so does God remember what He did for us in our youth—how some of us were trained in godly households—sent to schools where the main part of our education was the fear of God—tenderly kept out of the way of temptation—fostered and nurtured in every good word and work. God remembers this.
If some now present are making no worthy return—when the Lord looks upon them for fruit He sees that they are bringing forth but wild grapes, though they may forget their indebtedness and their responsibility—let them remember that God remembers all of it and expects some response from them. Think, too, that there shall come a day when the Divine memory will touch our sleeping memory into activity—God will say to us, as Abraham said to Dives, “Son, remember”—and that remembrance may be the worm that never dies within the conscience and fuel for the fire that never shall be quenched! If men and women would but remember now what God did for them in years gone by, and remember what manner of people they ought to be in consequence of the mercy which has been lavished upon them, it would save them many regrets. It might, indeed, save them endless remorse!
I do not, however, think that that is exactly the meaning of the passage in the Hebrew. Our translators have, I believe, hit upon its real meaning which is that God remembers what we have done towards Him. He remembers our kindness and love to Him in the days of our espousals. He here alluded to the early history of the nation of Israel, when, under the leadership of Moses and Aaron, they came out of Egypt, passed through the Red Sea and traveled the great and howling wilderness wherein were pits and all manner of dangers. Led by the fiery cloudy pillar, they faithfully traversed the roads which God marked out for them until they came to be settled in the land which He had given them by a Covenant of salt.
Those first days of the Israelite nation were heroic times. Most nations have a grandeur about their early history. Indeed, it is often so grand that our modern doubters consign the whole of it to the region of myth and suppose that it is a mass of exaggeration! The early history of Switzerland and its William Tell, for instance, has been disputed, though I no more doubt the existence of William Tell than I do my own. Even the early history of England has come under many clouds and questions—and all because there was something heroic about it.
The early history of every Christian denomination is also exceedingly bright. If you take up, for instance, one of modern times, the Methodists, there is no page of Methodist history that can compare with the first, when they suffered and yet as boldly proclaimed the Gospel everywhere with a self-denying zeal worthy of Apostolic times! I think I might say that it is generally so with almost every church. “You did run well: who did hinder you?” Under the leadership of some one man whom the Lord clothes with power, as He did the Judges, one after the other, in the history of Israel, great
things are done and marvels are worked. But soon there comes lukewarmness—a gradual slipping back into the ordinary and the commonplace—alas, I might almost say into declension and backsliding!
Now, as it has been with nations, that they have a great and heroic history at first and as it has generally been with churches that the primitive glory is the brightest, so is it often with individual Christians. “They begin—oh, with what zeal!—with what energy!—with what prayerfulness!—with what consecration! If they do not begin so, the more is the pity, for they do not often improve upon their beginnings. But many do begin so and, after a while, the runner runs into a wall and the walker sits down, at last, in the Arbor of Ease and no longer runs with diligence the race that is set before him.
The point I want to call your attention to is this—that the Lord sees His people when they are in that good state, notes it down and remembers it, makes a record of it and says, “I remember you as you were years ago. I remember you, young man, when you were young. I remember you, woman, when you were yet a girl. I remember you—the kindness of your youth, the love of your espousals—when you went after Me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown.” God remembers those zealous times, those happy seasons, those enthusiastic hours! And if we have come to an ebb, if we are now cold and almost dead and have forgotten the better days—God has not forgotten them! He keeps a record of them for divers uses, some of which us we will try to think of now as God may help us.