For the LORD has ransomed Jacob and redeemed him from the hand that had overpowered him. Sermons
I. THE STRONG. Was not Israel so? Regarding Israel as including Judah and Jerusalem, how strong, even materially, was Israel! In her numbers, wealth, fortresses - especially Jerusalem, which was one of the most impregnable of all the cities of the world! in her privileges, memories, promised help of God! in her past prestige and influence! in her long traditions of freedom and greatness! and in much beside! But Israel may Be taken as a type of all humanity. Looking upon our first parents, the head of our race, surely we should have thought their position of happiness, holiness, and Divine favour, impregnable. What safeguard did they lack? what motive to withstand the tempter was wanting? And how many there are now who say of themselves, and others think it, that they shall never be moved? Their mountain seems to stand so strong. Lands where pure gospel ministry exists; children of godly homes; men who have long walked in God's ways. But facts all too often show that, "strong" as these may be, there is - II. THE STRONGER one who overcomes them. The Chaldean armies were too strong for Israel. "The hand of Babylon "was stronger than he." And the facts of human life all reveal how humanity has come under the cruel dominance of one who is stronger than man. Behold the body, a prey to feebleness, disease, pain, and death; the mind, to corrupt imagination, to delusion, and deceit; the affections clinging to things evil, debased, perverted; the will enslaved, made to do that which it would not; the soul earth bound, unable to rise up to God and heaven, as it was made to do. Yes; the evidence is abundant and everywhere that a stronger than man has overcome him to his harm. But this verse tells of deliverance from the hand of this stronger one, by one who is - III. THE STRONGEST of all. It came true of Israel, and shall come true again. It is true in regard to humanity and the individual soul. It may be thought, considering the comparatively small number of the exiles who returned to Jerusalem, that this prediction was scarcely verified. But in the increase of the Jewish race in the lands of their exile, in their preservation from the hatred of their enemies (cf. Book of Esther), in the deliverance of them from the snare of idolatry, in the implantation in their hearts of a deeper love and understanding of God's Word, - in all these and in other respects Israel was delivered. And humanity is redeemed, ransomed. When Christ said, "It is finished," then was virtually accomplished that deliverance for which, in its full realization, the world yet groans. But in every triumph of Divine grace, every conversion, every breaking away from evil, every tightening of the blessed bends which bind us to Christ, every advance the gospel makes, every missionary triumph, every act of self-consecration, there is present proof of what by and by shall be perfectly proved. And the means by which all this is accomplished are suggested to us by the word "ransomed;" it sends our thoughts to him who said of himself that he came to give his life a "ransom for many." Therefore: 1. Let us each look on beyond that mighty one, the prince of this world, who is stronger than we, to him, the Saviour of us all, the Mightiest, who is stronger than he. 2. And ask ourselves the question - Under whose rule and service do we ourselves live? That is the all-important question. God help us to give it the right answer. - C.
Hear the Word of the Lord, O ye nations. I. THE WORD OF THE LORD.1. The sublimity and mystery of the doctrine it reveals. 2. The purity and spirituality of its doctrines. 3. The harmony of its different authors. 4. The fulfilment of its predictions and promises. 5. The enmity that is in the carnal mind against it. 6. The power that it has upon the human heart. II. THE PREACHER'S WORD. 1. To be preached wholly. Doctrine, experience, and practice. 2. To be preached freely. 3. To be preached affectionately and warmly. 4. To be preached constantly. III. THE DUTY OF THE HEARER — TO HEAR. 1. To prepare in the closet for hearing. 2. To believe what is heard. 3. To reduce what is heard to practice. (G. J. Till.) He that scattered Israel will gather him. This is an entirely reassuring message for a nation passing through an ecclesiastical crisis. It tells us that vast upheavals of thought and life have their place in the plan of God, advance under His sovereign leadership, and are compelled to contribute to the carrying-out of His purpose to redeem, remake, and reunite with Himself, the whole race of man. It is a rigid truth, "God scatters Israel"; the Israel He Himself called and created; and his an infinite solace to know that the "scattering" is His and not another's. It is an equally indisputable fact that the God who scatters Israel gathers him again and keeps him as a shepherd his flock. He gathered before He scattered, and He will gather again after He has scattered. Israel will not perish. Never! The social and ecclesiastical moulds in which her life is cast may be broken again and again; but the life endures. God is the God of salvation. He is always mindful of His own. Hope in Him, and hope for evermore! That swift upleap of faith and hope to the summits of clearest vision is vindicated by the whole story of the Exile. The joy that was set before the strong soul of the seer in these days of crushing disaster was realised in the experiences of the succeeding centuries. The prophecy was fulfilled. The crisis was educational, purifying, expanding, uplifting, and unifying; divisive for the day and the hour, but uniting on purer principles and for broader and higher ideals for evermore. As men are educated by their mistakes, and even their sins become as staves in a ladder by which they climb to God, so the Israelites "rose on stepping stones of their dead selves to higher things." The sevenfold blessing of the Exile stands written in the unimpeachable Chronicles of Israel, and the world. But, a greater than Jeremiah, describing the facts of His own day and ministry, says, "The wolf scattereth the sheep." For again, nearly six hundred years after the time of the prophet, mere was another "crisis in the Church" of Israel, and another exile was at the doors. Once more the holy city was to be trodden under foot of men, and the holy people were already seized by the "wolf," and about to be "scattered" to the ends of the earth! The significance of the first exile was forgotten. The lessons of experience were unheeded by the leaders of the Jewish people. Priest, and scribe, and Pharisee had corrupted religion again; taught that the outward rites of worship were of more importance than keeping the commandments of God; substituted ceremonialism for obedience, and the use of the sacraments for loving service of man. And so the sheep were scattered. But this is exactly the same spirit which broke the heart of the prophet Jeremiah until he saw it overtaken by the Divine punishment; and then, passing by the iniquity of the leaders of the people, and looking at the penalty which, because it was inflicted by God, had in it an element of recuperation and of hope, he said, God scatters; but "He that scattered Israel will gather him." These are, then, two ways of regarding two similar crises, and both are necessary to a just and full interpretation of their meaning. Jesus, speaking to the authoritative religious leaders of Israel, who have, sincerely enough, it may be, but mistakenly, made themselves the foes of God and men, seeks to lay bare their guilt, and therefore fixes upon and exposes the wolf-like ravages wrought on the religious life of the people by their absolute want of the veriest shreds of real religion. His aim is to convict these leaders of the wrong they are doing to their God and to their country. Not so Jeremiah: he is anticipating the great word, "Comfort ye My people; speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned; that she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins." But the richest draught of consolation in Jeremiah's Gospel is in the assertion of the principle on which these national and institutional changes proceed. God's goal, he says, is always constructive, not destructive; the gathering together in one the children of God that are scattered abroad, and not the driving them away from home and fatherland. He shatters the social form of Israel's life for the sake of the more perfect and adequate rebuilding of the nobler Israel on the basis of His original redemptive idea. This law is older than all Churches, more fundamental than all States, and as wide and deep as our human life. It is the vital condition of progress. God is at war with the obsolete. He is the living God, and seeks life, and promotes life. The Churches are secondary to the kingdom. They exist for religion, and not religion for them. As words are to ideas, tools to service, so are Churches to the kingdom of God and the service of man, and therefore "the crisis in the Church" is not likely to be inimical to religion in the end. It will promote real religion, expand it, clear it of the accretions of the past, set it free of the false alliances into which it has entered, convert it from its paganisms, and restore it to its original purity and vigour. And now, what is to be our attitude to these crises in the religious life of our country? Surely, not merely one of silent acquiescence in and gratitude for the work of God, but rather of intelligent, prayerful, large-hearted, and wise co-operation. We are called to be co-workers with Him, to fall in with His laws, to take part in the furtherance of His beneficent work of scattering and gathering His Israel. Our first business is to get on the side of His laws, of His justice and righteousness, at all costs; not to seek the pleasant paths of neutrality and indifference, but to accept boldly the responsibilities placed upon us by our subjection to Christ, and by the exposition and application of His Gospel to the manifold needs of our time. We must begin with ourselves. He who would free others must himself be free.(J. Clifford, D. D.) 1. Redeemed them (ver. 11). 2. Remembered them (ver. 20). 3. Loved them (ver. 3). 4. Drew them (ver. 3). II. GOD'S PROMISE TO THEM IN THE FUTURE. He will forgive them (ver. 34). He will forget their sin (ver. 34). He will gather them out (ver. 8). He will keep them near (ver. 10). He will lead them on (ver. 9). He will prosper them in the way (ver. 12). He will satisfy them fully (ver. 14). He will watch over them continually (ver. 28), (C. Inglis.) People Gareb, Jacob, Jeremiah, Rachel, RahelPlaces Corner Gate, Egypt, Gareb, Goah, Horse Gate, Kidron, Ramah, Samaria, Tower of Hananel, ZionTopics Free, Hands, Jacob, Price, Ransomed, Redeem, Redeemed, Redeemeth, Strong, StrongerOutline 1. The restoration of Israel.10. The publication thereof. 15. Rahel mourning is comforted. 18. Ephraim repenting is brought home again. 22. Christ is promised. 27. His care over the church. 31. His new covenant. 35. The stability, 38. and amplitude of the church. Dictionary of Bible Themes Jeremiah 31:11 1315 God, as redeemer Library What the Stable Creation Teaches'If those ordinances depart from before Me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before Me for ever.'--JER. xxxi. 36. This is the seal of the new covenant, which is to be made in days future to the prophet and his contemporaries, with the house of Israel and of Judah. That new covenant is referred to in Hebrews as the fundamental law of Christ's kingdom. Therefore we have the right to take to ourselves the promises which it contains, and to think of 'the house … Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture What the Immense Creation Teaches August the Twenty-First Satisfaction God in the Covenant The Two Covenants: their Relation The New Covenant Conversion of all that Come. Old Things are Passed Away. Whether the Active Life Remains after this Life? Waiting Faith Rewarded and Strengthened by New Revelations A vision of Judgement and Cleansing Perseverance in Holiness Appendix xiv. The Law in Messianic Times. Conversion --Varied Phenomena or Experience. The Girdle of the City. Nehemiah 3 The King in Exile "We have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous. " The Quotation in Matt. Ii. 6. Exposition of Chap. Iii. (ii. 28-32. ) The Lord's Supper Instituted. The First Covenant Sanctification. 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