Post by Lee on Jul 22, 2014 16:36:25 GMT
Jer 12:1 Righteous art thou, O LORD, when I plead with thee: yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments: Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously?
As much as to say, “I wish to have some explanation of a matter which is apparently inconsistent with what I know of Thy righteousness.” “Wherefore, doth the way of the wicked prosper? Wherefore, are all they happy that deal very treacherously? Thou hast planted them; yea, they have taken root. They grow; yea, they bring forth fruit.” This is the very picture we see around us—a picture liable to depress and even stagger, apart from the explanation of the case—a picture of men established in wealth, health, influence and authority, who neither fear God nor regard man; a picture in which the meek among men go to the wall, their righteousness a cause of poverty and contempt, and in which God appears to take no notice, and to make no interference on behalf of His dishonoured name.
...
We often may be distressed with the same situation of things. It is a comfort to know that we have such company in our distress as David, Jeremiah, Habakkuk, and the Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief, of whose experience the Psalms are an inspired reflex. But it is a great comfort to know that there is an explanation to this distressing state of things. Let us look at the explanation this morning, and let us indulge in the delicious prospect in connection with it, that that state of things will as assuredly pass away as night vanishes before the morning, and that, in due time, righteousness and praise will spring forth before all nations.
Let us first look at the answer that Jeremiah receives. It is not, at the first sight, comforting: “If thou hast run with the footmen and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? And if in the land of peace, wherein thou trustedst, they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of the Jordan?” This was as much as to say that worse was coming. Jeremiah was distressed to see the wicked and the treacherous in prosperity among Jehovah’s own people in Jehovah’s own land; but this was but as the running of footmen to the race of horses. A more terrible triumphing of the wicked was coming, foreshadowed in the intimation, “I have forsaken mine house; I have given the dearly-beloved of my soul into the hands of her enemies.” That more terrible triumph came in due course. The enemies of Israel poured into the land like a flood and banished the very form of all divine institutions from the earth. The times of the Gentiles set in with all the terrible vigour implied in the question addressed to Jeremiah. They have prevailed during a long succession of dark ages; and the night still broods over all the earth. The horse-running and Jordan-swelling age is not yet over, and the panting Jeremiahs are sore pressed with the triumph of the wicked. But there is good hope in the situation. The morning is at hand. The kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. The time for prosperous wickedness has nearly run its course. The war of the great day of God Almighty will break in pieces the power of all nations. In these, the days of the voice of the seventh angel, the mystery of God shall be finished, as He hath declared to His servants the prophets. This we know by the later information vouchsafed to John in Patmos. Then shall we see the joyful mustering from all directions of the many of different ages past, whose part it will be to sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of God. Jeremiah will then no longer have to reason with God as to the meaning of His ways with man. “The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance; he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked. so that a man shall say, Verily, there is a reward for the righteous; verily, he is a God that judgeth in the earth.”
In view of this consummation, the direct answer to Jeremiah’s lamentation about the wicked being apparently planted and rooted in the earth, is to be found in the words written in Isaiah 40.: “Yea, they shall not be planted, yea, they shall not he sown; yea, their stock shall not take root in the earth, Jehovah shall blow upon them and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble.” Their being planted and sown is only an appearance. They are planted and sown and established for the time being, but only as the vegetation of a season. When the season is over they will be sought for in vain. This has been the comfort of the saints in all ages (Robert Roberts)
1877 Christadelphian: Volume 14. 2001 (electronic ed.) (441–442). Birmingham: Christadelphian Magazine & Publishing Association.
As much as to say, “I wish to have some explanation of a matter which is apparently inconsistent with what I know of Thy righteousness.” “Wherefore, doth the way of the wicked prosper? Wherefore, are all they happy that deal very treacherously? Thou hast planted them; yea, they have taken root. They grow; yea, they bring forth fruit.” This is the very picture we see around us—a picture liable to depress and even stagger, apart from the explanation of the case—a picture of men established in wealth, health, influence and authority, who neither fear God nor regard man; a picture in which the meek among men go to the wall, their righteousness a cause of poverty and contempt, and in which God appears to take no notice, and to make no interference on behalf of His dishonoured name.
...
We often may be distressed with the same situation of things. It is a comfort to know that we have such company in our distress as David, Jeremiah, Habakkuk, and the Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief, of whose experience the Psalms are an inspired reflex. But it is a great comfort to know that there is an explanation to this distressing state of things. Let us look at the explanation this morning, and let us indulge in the delicious prospect in connection with it, that that state of things will as assuredly pass away as night vanishes before the morning, and that, in due time, righteousness and praise will spring forth before all nations.
Let us first look at the answer that Jeremiah receives. It is not, at the first sight, comforting: “If thou hast run with the footmen and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? And if in the land of peace, wherein thou trustedst, they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of the Jordan?” This was as much as to say that worse was coming. Jeremiah was distressed to see the wicked and the treacherous in prosperity among Jehovah’s own people in Jehovah’s own land; but this was but as the running of footmen to the race of horses. A more terrible triumphing of the wicked was coming, foreshadowed in the intimation, “I have forsaken mine house; I have given the dearly-beloved of my soul into the hands of her enemies.” That more terrible triumph came in due course. The enemies of Israel poured into the land like a flood and banished the very form of all divine institutions from the earth. The times of the Gentiles set in with all the terrible vigour implied in the question addressed to Jeremiah. They have prevailed during a long succession of dark ages; and the night still broods over all the earth. The horse-running and Jordan-swelling age is not yet over, and the panting Jeremiahs are sore pressed with the triumph of the wicked. But there is good hope in the situation. The morning is at hand. The kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. The time for prosperous wickedness has nearly run its course. The war of the great day of God Almighty will break in pieces the power of all nations. In these, the days of the voice of the seventh angel, the mystery of God shall be finished, as He hath declared to His servants the prophets. This we know by the later information vouchsafed to John in Patmos. Then shall we see the joyful mustering from all directions of the many of different ages past, whose part it will be to sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of God. Jeremiah will then no longer have to reason with God as to the meaning of His ways with man. “The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance; he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked. so that a man shall say, Verily, there is a reward for the righteous; verily, he is a God that judgeth in the earth.”
In view of this consummation, the direct answer to Jeremiah’s lamentation about the wicked being apparently planted and rooted in the earth, is to be found in the words written in Isaiah 40.: “Yea, they shall not be planted, yea, they shall not he sown; yea, their stock shall not take root in the earth, Jehovah shall blow upon them and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble.” Their being planted and sown is only an appearance. They are planted and sown and established for the time being, but only as the vegetation of a season. When the season is over they will be sought for in vain. This has been the comfort of the saints in all ages (Robert Roberts)
1877 Christadelphian: Volume 14. 2001 (electronic ed.) (441–442). Birmingham: Christadelphian Magazine & Publishing Association.