Jeremiah 31:1 At the same time, said the LORD, will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people. I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people. Day by day we pray, "Thy kingdom come," and what that means the next sentence of the prayer tells us. It is that God's will should be done on earth as it is done in heaven. All blessedness for man is contained in the fulfilment of this prayer, even as all man's misery is due to its non-fulfilment. But how do we expect the kingdom of God to come? By what means will the blessed condition of God's will being perfectly done on earth be brought about? The answer which is commonly given is that, by means of the preaching of the gospel and the consequent conversion of the ungodly world, the kingdom of God shall come. Hence the prayer is perpetually put up that God would send his Spirit, and make his Word powerful in men's conversion. Now, God forbid that any should disparage such work, or do aught other than desire most earnestly that the preaching of God's Word may be far, far more successful to this end than it commonly is. Would that the Church might win from the world far more numerous converts than have yet been given to her! God speed the work of conversion! But it is not by this means alone that the coming of God's kingdom is to be brought about. There is another, a more ancient, and we may also say a more scriptural and therefore more successful way, and that is by the increase of godly families. When God is the God of all the families in Israel, then the nation shall be his people. The family, the Church, the kingdom of God, - these are the successive steps by which, according to the Scriptures, it is the Divine intent to bring in the kingdom. I. THE FAMILY. God has not taken means to secure the perpetuation of any special political, ecclesiastical, or social institutions, but he has determined that, whilst these may come and go, the institution of the family shall abide. Therefore from the beginning "God made man in his own image, male and female created he them." The Divine ideal contained this twofold element. And he has also ordered it that the one should be in all respects the complement of the other, and as such should mutually seek and delight in the companionship of the other. And to their union he gave the blessed gift of children and the love that accompanies them, and so amid all the vicissitudes of nations and governments, the institution of the family has been perpetuated; that has not perished, whatever else may have. And there results from all this the formation of a certain spirit and type of character. There are family likenesses, not in feature and form only, but in mental, moral, and physical characteristics as well. And these enlarge and become characteristics of whole tribes, races, nations. It is evident, therefore, that, in the institution of the family, there is present a propagating power for whatever moral and spiritual forces the heads of such family may be themselves possessed with. Abraham, God knew, would be sure to "order his household" after him. And to this day the characteristics of the Jewish race are discernible everywhere. Moral and spiritual forces travel along this road rather than any other. It is God's great highway for those principles which, when fully embraced by men's hearts, shall bring in the kingdom of God itself. And it is by the natural increase of the family that God designs his truth should spread and his way come to be known upon earth, and his saving health amongst all nations. But ere this he accomplished the family will have developed into - II. THE CHURCH. This will be the further step in the coming of the kingdom of God. When one and another household are possessed of a common spirit, share common faith and hope, and render obedience to one Divine law, it is in accordance with all spiritual instincts that these should meet together for their mutual comfort, edification, and support. "Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another." And so strong has been in all ages the force of this spiritual instinct, that no fear of persecution, no terror that their enemies could inflict, has been able to deter those who believed in God from thus meeting together. There need have been no martyrs, or scarce any, if the faithful would but have individually kept their opinions to themselves. But spiritual force cannot be dammed in and held back. It will be sure ere long to burst through all restraints and barriers and go its own way. But this irrepressible instinct has been the cause and creator of the Church. And such holy convocations have reacted on the family, and deepening the hold of those sacred principles which first drew the members of the Church together have made more firm the faith and hope which already existed. Thus by the Church the spirit of the family is not only preserved, but strengthened, and its perpetuation and reproduction made more certain in the future. And the process goes on. Divine principles, faith in God, fear and love of his Name, established in the family, expand and develop into the Church, and there slowly, with ever accelerating force, surely and irresistibly, they make their way until at length it will be seen that the godly seed has the start of the seed of the wicked one, and is ever pushing it out of the way, driving it forth from its long held but usurped dominion. In illustration of this see how the Christian races do even now inherit the earth. The Puritans of America, the colonies that are ever being founded by our own people. See, too, how the Jews have ever held their own - what tenacity of life, what spiritual force, are inherent in them. These are but illustrations, and but feeble ones, of how spiritual force, if it take possession of the family, will live and spread and grow until the mustard shall become the goodly tree. And thus - rather than by occasional conversions from the ranks of the worldly - does it seem God's mind and will that the coming of - III. THE KINGDOM OF GOD should be brought about. "There is an established hereditary moral connection between parents and their offspring, and every known principle of reason, of justice, and of holiness suggests that this connection exists for purposes of good, and not exclusively for purposes of evil." "The character of the family lies at the very foundation of all permanent moral improvement in the human race generally, and in Christian Churches in particular; and until it be intelligently, and, under the influence of right principles, practically attended to, all the preaching and all the religious machinery with which we are furnished will fail, as they have hitherto failed, to improve materially the moral condition of the world." As Baxter says, "The preaching of the Word by public ministers is not the first ordinary means of grace to any but those that were graceless till they came to hear such preaching; that is, to those on whom the first appointed means - godly nurture in the family - hath been neglected or proved vain. I doubt not to affirm that a godly education is God's first and ordinary appointed means for the begetting of actual faith and other graces in the children of believers. Public preaching is appointed for the conversion of those only that have missed the blessing of the first appointed means." Yes; let God be the God of our families, and he will soon become the God of our nation, the God of the whole human race, and his kingdom will have come, and his will be done on earth as it is done in heaven. - C. Parallel Verses KJV: At the same time, saith the LORD, will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people. |
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