Chapter 8: The Drought.
Chapter 8: The Drought.
(JEREMIAH 14-15)
"If, in the paths of the world,
Stones might have wounded thy feet,
Toil or dejection have tried
Thy spirit—of that we saw
Nothing; to us thou wast still
Cheerful, and helpful, and firm;
Therefore to thee it was given
Many to save with thyself;
And at the end of thy day,
O faithful shepherd! to come,
Bringing thy sheep in thy hand."
ARNOLD.
THE REIGN OF Jehoiakim was still young. Necho was back in Egypt; Nineveh was tottering to her fall; Babylon was slowly growing upon the horizon as the rival of each great empire, and as the future desolator of Judah. Meanwhile, the chosen people, like a tree whose heart is eaten away with insects, was corrupted by innumerable evils. As a premonition of coming destruction, and as though the Almighty would make one last effort to arouse them to the awfulness and imminence of their peril, a terrible drought cast its sere mantle over the land. It had often been predicted amongst the other results of disobedience, but probably never before had it fallen with such desolating effect (Lev. 26:20; Deut. 11:17; 28:23).
The whole land was filled with mourning. In the places of public concourse, where the people gathered in the burning sunshine, they sat in black garments upon the hard ground. Accustomed to rely upon the natural resources of the country, nourished by the rivers and streams that gushed from valley and hill, they were reduced to the dire extremities of famine. The vines on the terraced hills were withered, the cornfields were covered with stubble, and the pasture on the wolds was yellow and scorched. The very dew seemed to have forsaken the land; where the river had poured its full tide, there were only a few trickling drops. The beds of the watercourses were filled with stones. And the bitter cry of Jerusalem ascended, made up of the mingled anguish of men, and women, and children, whose parched lips might not be moistened.
The description given by the prophet is very striking. Want is felt in the great houses of the nobles, who send their servants for water without avail. The ploughmen sit in their barns with covered heads; it is useless to think of driving their ploughs through the chapped soil. The hind, whose maternal love has passed into a proverb, is represented as forsaking her young, that she may seek for grass. The wild asses stand on the bare heights and eagerly snuff up what breeze may pass over the land in the evening, to relieve the agony of the fever of their thirst. All the land bakes like an oven; and the sun, as he passes daily through a leaden sky, looks down on scenes of unutterable horror.
What a picture is this of the desolation that sometimes overtakes a Christian community! Every faithful worker could tell of periods when it has seemed as though the cloud and dew of Divine blessing had forsaken the plot on which he was engaged. There are no tears of penitence, no sighs of contrition, no blessed visitations of the dew of the Holy Ghost, no fresh young shoots of piety, no joy in the Lord, no fruits of the Spirit. Ah! then work is hard and difficult, and the soul of the worker faints and is discouraged. Blessed is that church which has not known this time of drought, and which has not experienced in the spiritual sphere the counterpart of the utter failure of moisture in the natural.
It is at such times that the lover of his fellows gathers himself together to deal with the Almighty. You can see him entering the secret place of the Most High, prepared to speak with God, and, if possible, secure a mitigation of the reign of the brazen sky, and a return of those times of blessing that can only come from the presence of the Lord. His face is set with a resolute purpose. Through the weary eyes the fire of a mighty resolution is burning. With his two hands he is prepared to come to close dealings with God, as Jacob when he made supplication with the angel. Let us draw near, and overhear the colloquy between Jeremiah and the Almighty. It may be that we shall discover arguments that we may take upon our own lips when days of drought are visiting the Church at large, or that sphere of work in which we are called specially to labour. It is thus that the soul discourses with God.
I. THE PLEADINGS OF THE INTERCEDING SOUL.—"My God, I come into thy presence to acknowledge my own sin, and especially the sins of my people. I stand before Thee as their priest, to confess the sins which have separated between Thee and them, incurring thy Divine displeasure, and closing the avenues of communion. Our iniquities testify against us, and our backslidings are many. Once Thou seemedst to abide in our midst; thy smile a perpetual summer; thy presence one long stream of benediction; thy grace like a river making glad thy city. But of late thy visits have been few and far between. Thou hast tarried for a night, and been away again at dawn, and we sorely miss Thee. Once Thou wert as a mighty man, our Samson, whose arm sufficed to keep our enemies at bay; but for long Thou hast seemed overcome by an unnatural stupor, by a paralysis that holds Thee like a vice. And yet Thou hast not really changed; Thou art our Saviour; Thou art in the midst of us. We bear thy name. Thine honour is implicated in our lot. What Thou couldst not do for any merit of ours, do for the credit of thy name; do for the sake of thy Son; do for the maintenance of thy cause upon earth. Leave us not, nor let that foreboding prediction of Ezekiel be realized, when he saw the glory of the Lord recede by stages from the holy place, until it stood outside the city walls" (14:7-9).
The Answer of the Divine Spirit—There are times when God seems to speak thus to the soul—if we may dare put our impression of his words in our own phrase: "It is useless, my servant, to pray. My grace is infinite; my mercy endureth for ever; my fulness waits to pour forth its tides, to make the wilderness rejoice and blossom as the rose. I have no pleasure in the parched wilderness; I would that it were springs of water. I have no liking for the glowing sand; I would that it might become a pool. But so long as men cling to their sins, so long as they perpetrate abominations like those which Ezekiel saw when in the chambers of imagery he beheld the elders of Israel offering incense to creeping things and abominable beasts, it is impossible for Me to cause rain or give showers. Beneath the appearance of religious worship and decorum, evils are breeding that separate between my people and Myself, and hide my face from them. These must be dealt with. You must begin to search the chambers of their hearts with candles; to show my people their transgressions, and the house of Israel their sins. Your work just now is not that of the intercessor, but of the reformer; not yet to plead with Elijah upon the brow of Carmel, but, like Elijah, to extirpate the lurking evil of the people, as when he dyed the waters of Kishon with the blood of Ahab's priests" (14:10-12).
II. THE LAMENT OF THE TREE SHEPHERD.-" Ah, Lord God! True, too true, sadly too true, are thy words. Thy people deserve all that Thou hast said. Their iniquities are alone accountable for their sorrows. But remember how falsely they have been taught. The land is full of those who hide thy truth under a cloud of words. They say that the outward ritual sufficeth, howsoever far the heart is from Thee. There is grievous fault; but surely it lieth at the door of those who mislead the fickle, changeful crowd. Their mouths are lined with wool; they cry Peace! peace! when there is none. The very remonstrances of conscience are drowned by their delusive assurances. Spare thy people! they are scattered because the shepherds have failed in their high commission" (14:13).
The Answer of the Divine Spirit—There are days in the history of the Christian when he is called to walk upon the mountains of vision, and overhears the attendant shepherds, of whom Bunyan speaks, talking to each other and saying, "Shall we show these pilgrims some wonders?" Beneath their guidance he climbs to the top of the hill called Error, which is very steep on the further side. At the bottom lie several men all dashed to pieces by a fall from the top. "What meaneth this?" is the obvious inquiry. "Have you not heard of Hymenus and Philetus," Is the reply, "who erred concerning the faith of the resurrection of the body? These are they." So in our pleadings for men, we sometimes obtain a glimpse of the inevitableness of the Divine judgments and the irreparableness of the injury that false teachers may do to their fellows. There is no fate so terrible as of those who have not only erred themselves, but have caused men to err; who have been a stumbling-block in the way of one of God's little ones. Better be dumb and not able to speak, than say words that may destroy the faith of childhood, or start questionings that may shatter by one fell blow the construction of years. It was in this strain that God replied to the prophet.
"The doom of the false prophets will be terrible. Their fate will be the more awful, because they have run without being sent; and prophesied without having seen a vision. There has been no Divine impulse energizing their words. Position, bread, power, have been the incentives of their office; but the people have loved to have it so. Their corrupt morals have produced a corrupt priesthood, and a crop of false prophets. The men of whom you complain are the product of their times. My people, enervated with sloth, luxury, and conceit, would not endure the simple truth of the Divine word; and this evil band have been bred and nurtured in the stifling corruption of the age. Until, therefore, the people themselves have put away their sin, and returned to Me in penitence and consecration, they must be held guilty before my sight, and suffer the outworking of their sin. I will pour their wickedness upon them.'" (14:14-16).
III. THE INTERCEDING SOUL.-"Granted, Great God, that Thou art just, and right: yet Thou canst not utterly reject. Thy smiting cannot be unto death. Thou must heal. Thou mayest cast away those with whom Thou hast not entered into covenant relationship, or on whom thy name has not been named, or amongst whom the throne of thy glory has not been set up; but Thou canst not deal with us as with them. There is a tie between Thee and us which our sin cannot break. There are claims which we have on Thee as our Father, which the far-country wanderings of the prodigal cannot annul. There are interweavings of thy character and prestige with our history which no stroke of thy pen can dissolve. Remember the covenant; remember thy promise to thy Son; remember thy Bride, whom Thou canst not put away; remember that we have no help but in Thee; remember the word on which Thou hast caused us to hope—therefore we will still wait upon Thee. We are not worthy to be called thine; but we claim the kiss, the robe, the fatted calf" (14:17-22).
The Answer of the Divine Spirit.—It is as though the Lord said, "I am wearied with repenting. I have tried every means of restraining them, and turning them to better things—now by winnowing out the chaff; and again by bereavement and sorrow; and again by the swift destruction of the sword. They have appeared to amend, but the improvement was only superficial. Now my mind is thoroughly made up. My methods must be more drastic, my discipline more searching and thorough. I will turn my hand upon my people, and thoroughly purge away their dross, and take away all their tin; and I will restore their judges as at the first, and their counsellors as at the beginning. Thus I will answer thy pleadings on their behalf. The destruction of the city, the decimation of the people by sword and famine, the awful sorrows of captivity shall act as purging fires, through which they shall pass to a new and blessed life. Nothing else can now avail. For my love of them I cannot spare them. The prayers of my holiest cannot alter my determination, since only thus can my eternal purpose of redemption he realized" (xv. 1-9).
IV. THE CRY OF THE INTERCESSOR.—Here the prophet falls into a muse, and as he foresees the misrepresentation of his motives, and the certain hate which his unfaltering prediction of coming doom must excite, he wishes that he had never been born. So does the heart of the man of God fail; and if, like Jeremiah's, it is highly strung and keenly sensitive, it becomes the prey of the deepest anguish: "Why, O God, didst Thou make me so gentle and sympathetic; so naturally weak and yielding; so incapable of looking calmly on pain? Would not some stronger, rougher nature have done thy bidding better? Even now, hast Thou not some man of ruder make to whom Thou canst entrust this mission? There are skins more impervious to the scorching heat than mine; may they not go into these flames? Why this stammering lip, this faltering heart, this thorn in my flesh?" (xv. 10).
The Answer of the Divine Spirit.— "I will strengthen thee for good." It is as if God said, "My grace is sufficient for thee. I have summoned thee, with all thy weaknesses, to perform my will, because my strength is only perfected thus. I need a low platform for the exhibition of my great power. To those that have no might I impart strength; in those that have no wisdom I unfold my deepest thoughts. The broken reed furnishes the pillar of my Temple; smoking flax gives light to my beacon fires. Be content to be a threshold, over which the river passes; be satisfied to be a rod in my hand which shall achieve the deliverance of my people. O frail, weak soul, thou art likeliest to be the channel and organ for the forth-putting of my energy. Only yield thyself to Me, and let Me have my way, through thee, with thee, in thee; then thou shalt be as the northern iron and brass which man cannot break" (xv. 11-14).
V. THE RESPONSE OF THE SOUL.-"O Lord, Thou knowest. Things that my dearest cannot guess, which I cannot utter, which I am slow to admit even to myself; the hope that trembles like the first flush of dawn, and the fear that paralyzes; the conflict; the broken ideals; the unfinished sentences; the songs without words. Thou knowest. Thou art my all. Thy smile strengthens me against reproach. Thy words bring rifts of joy and rejoicing in my saddest hours. Thy presence banishes loneliness when I sit alone. And yet sometimes a dark foreboding comes that Thou wilt be to me as a deceitful brook, whose intermittent waters fail, which is dry when most its flow is needed. I know it cannot be, since Thou art faithful; and yet what could I do if, after having made me what I am, Thou shouldest leave me to myself?" (xv. 15-18).
The Answer of the Divine Spirit.— "Renounce thy forebodings," God seems to say. "Come back from the far country of thy despondency. I would have thee stand face to face with Me without a shadow of a cloud. Wait before Me. Consider not thy frailty, but my might; not thy foes, but my deliverances. Put from thee that which is vile, expose thyself to my refining fires, that all thy dross may be expurgated. Divest thyself of all that is inconsistent with thy high calling. Then thou shalt be as my mouth; thou shalt stand amidst the surging crowd as a fenced brazen wall; thou shalt be impregnable against the assault of fear; in the darkest hours, when floods of ungodliness might make thee afraid, and the fury of hell be hurled against thee, I will be with thee to save and deliver. Thou mayest have neither wife nor child; but I will be to thee more than they. And I will deliver thee out of the hand of the wicked, and redeem thee out of the hand of the terrible." "This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of Me, saith the Lord" (xv. 19-24).