Jeremiah 32:41 Yes, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will plant them in this land assuredly with my whole heart and with my whole soul. I. CONSIDER OUR TEXT FOR INSTRUCTION. 1. God blesses His people heartily. "With My whole heart." Notice, in passing, that word "assuredly"; for it confirms the word as full of truth and certainty. He is slow to wrath, but He is swift to mercy, for He delighteth in it. When He deals out His grace to His people, then you see the loving God, for "God is love"; and you see the living God, for He blesses you with His whole soul. 2. He does this work of blessing His people thoughtfully, for it is added, "and with My whole soul." Not only the affections of God, speaking after the manner of man, but the great mind and life of God is thrown into the work of saving and blessing His people. His essence, His soul, is here at home. The design argument, when brought to bear upon nature, proves the existence of God. Much more when that argument is brought to bear upon the works of grace do we see the Lord; for in the transactions of grace them is design in everything. 3. We notice, next, that if that be so, then He employs all His resources to bless His elect. The Lord our God — I speak as a man, and with deep reverence — is absorbed in doing good to His people: there is nothing that He is, there is nothing that He has, but what He will bring it to bear upon the design upon which He has set His whole heart and His whole soul. Behold ye, what God hath done for His people! He has given them His all: all the wisdom of His providence shall be theirs while here, and all the glory of His heaven hereafter. God has His abode in heaven; behold, He makes it the abode of His chosen for ever. Angels are His courtiers — they shall be ministering spirits to His elect. The throne of His Son they shall sit upon with Him. The victories of God shall furnish them with palms, and the delight of God shall find them harps. But stop, there is something more than all! It was little for God to give earth and heaven, but He must needs give His Son, the express image of His glory, His other self. 4. The Lord subordinates all other works to that of His love. Everything, whether of creation or destruction, mercy or judgment, shall work, like the wheels of some vast machinery, to produce good to those who are the people of the living God. 5. The Lord gives to His people and for His people without stint. When He feeds His children, though once they would have been thankful to eat the crumbs from His table, He sets them among princes, and gives them to eat of the king's meat. He lays eternity under contribution to provide for the needs, nay, for the desires, for the joys of His people. 6. Another point sets forth most plainly that the Lord blesses His people with His whole heart and with His whole soul, for He perseveres in it. Are you not surprised with the variety of His favours towards you? An old writer says that "God's flowers bloom double," for He sends two blessings where there seems but one; but I would say they are like the light: they are sevenfold, even as in every ray from the sun we have seven colours blended in harmony. What sevens and sevens of infinite love are contained in every beam of mercy that comes to the redeemed! 7. As the Lord Perseveres in His work, so He succeeds in it. God is determined to make something of His People, and He will. 8. God delights in all that He does for His own. We are happy when God blesses us, but not so happy as God is. Our God has all the instincts of motherhood and fatherhood blended in one; and when He looks upon His Church He calls her "Hephzibah" — "My delight is in her." He does not rejoice in the works of His hands so much as in the works of His heart. II. CONSIDER THE TEXT WITH THE EVIDENCE. In order to prove that God doth thus bless us with His whole heart and with His whole soul, I would remind you that the whole Trinity is engaged in the blessing of the chosen. 1. First comes the Father. It was He that chose us — chose us, not because He must choose us or none, but freely with "His whole heart." Wisdom from her throne determined the way in which God would lead His People, and bless His people, and sanctify His people, and perfect His people. 2. In reference to the ever-blessed Son of God, whom we worship as most truly God, we have the same truth to state. He loved us ages before He came to earth am man. 3. I must not omit the Holy Spirit, "to whom be all honour and glory." When we were mad with sin, and ravenous after the pleasures of it, He followed us, to check us in our headlong career, to beckon us to better things, to draw us thither, and to help us when we began to incline to the right. He gave us life, and light, and liberty. III. CONSIDER THE INFERENCES WHICH FLOW FROM THE TEXT. 1. The first inference is one of consolation. Does God bless us with His whole heart and with His whole soul? Oh, then, how happy we ought to be! 2. Another inference, and I have done: it is one of exhortation. Let us love our God with our whole heart and with our whole soul. Trust Him for the past, the present, and the future; trust Him completely, implicitly, unhesitatingly. ( C. H. Spurgeon.) Parallel Verses KJV: Yea, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will plant them in this land assuredly with my whole heart and with my whole soul. |
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