Part 9

"For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth. And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the Lord thy God." ¶

* Zech. xii. 10. † Zeph. iii. 14, 15. ‡ Zeph. iii.20 § Mal. iii. 12. ¶ Amos ix. 9, 15.

"And the heathen shall know that I the Lord do sanctify Israel, when My sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore." *

"At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it." †

"He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root: Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit." ‡

* Ezek. xxxvii. 28. † Jer. iii. 17. ‡ Isa. xxvii. 6.

St. Paul, himself a Hebrew of the Hebrews, looked with faith and hope on this deed, and thus subscribed himself as a witness: "Blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: for this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins." §

Yes, the time is coming, and now may be near, when it shall be said, "Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all ye that love her: rejoice for joy with her, all ye that mourn for her"; ¶ when the gathering of her people shall be "as life from the dead." ║

§ Rom. xi. 25-27. ¶ Isa. lxvi. 10. ║ Rom. xi. 15.

Christian brethren, is this nothing to us? Shall we be cold and indifferent, nor strive to hasten the time of Israel's restoration by our prayers, and by such efforts as God may enable us to make? Oh! "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem, they shall prosper that love thee." The word of the Lord to Israel still standeth firm, "blessed is he that blesseth thee!"

XXXI.

Jehoiakim's Knife.

IF the shadow of a curse could ever be said to lie on the inanimate instrument employed by man to work his evil will, surely it lies upon this, the first, as far as we know, ever used in the attempt to destroy a portion of God's holy Word.

On the dethronement of his brother by the King of Egypt, Jehoiakim had mounted the throne of his father Josiah, and for eleven years he reigned in Jerusalem. The sins of this wicked monarch drew down upon himself and his people the wrath of the Lord. For many years had the Prophet Jeremiah uttered the voice of solemn warning; sadly had he foretold the coming desolation. "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved. Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of my people! This whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment, and these nations shall serve the King of Babylon seventy years."

At the command of the Lord the prophet dictated to Baruch the scribe all the words of his prophecies against Israel and Judah, and they were written down upon a roll. The prophet confided the roll to Baruch, and bade him read it aloud in the ears of the people in the house of the Lord.

"It may be," said Jeremiah, "they will present their supplication before the Lord, and will return every one from his evil way: for great is the anger and the fury that the Lord hath pronounced against this people."

The solemn announcement of coming ruin, though it led not, as in the case of Nineveh, to national repentance, yet excited interest and alarm. The princes of Judah sent for Baruch, and at their desire, he again, in their presence, read aloud the prophecies of Jeremiah. Fear fell on the nobles; "we will surely tell the king of all these words," said they unto Baruch. But aware of the storm of anger which might be roused in the monarch's breast, the princes counselled that both the prophet and the scribe should conceal themselves, and let no man know their hiding-place.

Then was Jehoiakim informed of the prophecies written against himself and his guilty land; and he sent Jehudi to fetch the roll, and read it in his presence where he sat in his winter palace, with all his princes assembled around.

Striking and solemn must that scene have been! There would be deep stillness in the royal chamber, broken only by the voice of the reader, uttering words of living power, which would fall on the ears of such of the silent listeners as had faith in prophecy, much as the voice of the judge pronouncing sentence of death falls on the ear of the criminal.

The nobles would watch the effect of the reading on the countenance of their king; would he, like Ahab, rend his clothes and put sackcloth on his flesh, and by humbling himself before God avert the threatened judgments at least for a time? Would he, like Josiah his father, go up into the house of God, call around him the priests and the people, both small and great, and read to them the Word of the Lord, honouring it, and mourning because of the curses written in the Book?

To Josiah a message had been sent, "Because thine heart was tender, and thou didst humble thyself before God, when thou heardest His words against this place . . . behold, I will gather thee to thy fathers, and thou shalt be gathered to thy grave in peace, neither shall thine eyes see all the evil that I will bring upon this place."

But the spirit of Josiah was not in his son. Instead of repentance and humiliation, anger and stubborn resistance to the will of the Almighty might be read on the darkening countenance of the King of Judea. He would not even suffer Jehudi to read to the end of the roll; Jehoiakim grasped it, and cut it with his knife, and not satisfied with this open insult to the Word of God, this defiance of the terrors of the Almighty, the king flung the mutilated roll into the fire which was burning before him, as if with the blackening parchment he could destroy that Word which abideth for ever! In vain two of the nobles present endeavoured to stay the rash hand of the king, entreating him not to burn the prophetic roll; the rage of Jehoiakim was not satisfied by the crime which he had committed, he wished to wreak his fury on the living witnesses for God, as well as upon His inspired Word; he commanded the seizure of both Jeremiah and Baruch, but the Lord hid them from the anger of the king.

What availed it to the wretched Jehoiakim that he had consumed to ashes the writing of the prophet against him? The Word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying, "Take thee again another roll, and write in it all the former words that were in the first roll, which Jehoiakim the King of Judah hath burned, and thou shalt say to Jehoiakim, King of Judah, 'Thus saith the Lord; thou hast burned this roll . . . therefore thus saith the Lord of Jehoiakim, King of Judah, he shall have none to sit upon the throne of David; and his dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost.' Then took Jeremiah another roll, and gave it to Baruch, who wrote therein from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the Book which Jehoiakim had burned in the fire, and there were added unto them many like words."

Such was the result of this first attempt to mutilate the Scriptures, and stop the free course of the Word of God. It may have been the first, but it assuredly was not the last effort of that kind. Jehoiakim's knife and Jehoiakim's fire have but been precursors of other instruments used for the same unhallowed purpose, notwithstanding the awful warning which is found almost at the close of the Revelation. "If any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life."

Superstition has been actively employed from early ages in using the knife to mar and mutilate the Scriptures; she has tried to cut away the Second Commandment, to rend from the roll all the texts on which, as emblazoned in light, are written the doctrine of justification by faith. Nay, when she has found, like Jehoiakim, the knife insufficient for the work, she has literally cast the Bible into the flames, and not only the Book, but the bodies of many of those who counted its doctrines more precious than life! But superstition has had no power to destroy one inspired sentence, "The Word of the Lord endureth for ever."

Heresy, also, has diligently plied the knife on various parts of the sacred roll. Here one would cut away the testimony to the Divinity of Him "whose goings forth are from everlasting," here another would deprive us of the consolation to be derived from the truth that Christ "was in all points tempted as we are" though "without sin." But vain has been every wild attempt to destroy any part of the sacred Book, let man or Satan do what they may, "The Word of the Lord abideth for ever!"

In the present day many an eager hand is stretched out to grasp the knife. Now this part—now that part—of God's truth is fiercely assailed. Unbelief would cut away the record of miracles, would cast aside much of those sacred writings of which He who is the Truth itself said, "Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of Me." Sceptics and unbelievers may, like Jehoiakim, draw down on themselves a heavy doom; but they will find at last that the so-called wisdom of man is foolishness with God, and that they have no more power to destroy His Scriptures than passing clouds have to extinguish the sun which shineth in glory far far above them! "The Word of the Lord endureth for ever!"

Is there no danger of our falling into the sin of mutilating Scripture, though not, like Jehoiakim, with the knife? If we search the Bible in order to "confirm" our own views on religion instead of to "form" them, passing lightly over everything there which clashes with our notions, almost secretly wishing that some passages in sacred Writ were not to be found there, do we truly honour God's Word? There were parts of Jeremiah's roll which probably even Jehoiakim would have willingly preserved. All would gladly keep the promises, could they put out of sight the warnings and threats.

And so likewise in matters of doctrine: one treasures all the texts which proclaim free salvation through faith, another lets his mind only dwell upon such as enforce the necessity of a holy life and good works. I was once surprised at the dissatisfied feeling with which an excellent man regarded the Epistle written by St. James, who has been called "the apostle of duty." The Christian did not seem to realize the truth which has been well illustrated by one who represented St. James and St. Paul as soldiers fighting "back to back," under the same banner, against the same foes to the truth, but necessarily from their position facing different errors; each soldier strengthening and supporting his comrade by guarding him from strokes "from behind," where the enemy might have taken him at disadvantage.

Let us receive—honour—and keep the Bible in its integrity, deeming no portion superfluous which God hath thought fit to preserve; waiting for more light from above to reveal its hidden mysteries, and being assured that though heavens and earth may pass away, yet "the Word of the Lord endureth for ever!"

XXXII.

The Rags of Ebedmelech.

WHO can doubt that the God of Love notices the minutest act of kindness done to His servants, when even these rags of the Ethiopian are carefully preserved in the Scriptures, memorials of considerate thoughtful tenderness shown to His afflicted prophet.

Let us review one of the most interesting passages in the history of Jeremiah.

The miserable Jehoiakim fell into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, by whose command he was bound with fetters and ordered to be carried to Babylon. As no account is given in Scripture of Jehoiakim's death, it is surmised that the prophecy which foretold that his burial should be as "the burial of an ass," was fulfilled by his dying on the way to Babylon, and his corpse being thrown into a ditch, exposed to the heat of the day and the frost of the night.

For three months Jeconiah (or Coniah), a youth of eighteen, reigned in the place of his father Jehoiakim. Of him Jeremiah had prophesied, "Thus saith the Lord . . . I will give thee into the hand of them that seek thy life, and into the hand of them whose face thou fearest, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans."

And even so came it to pass that the young king and his mother, his officers and princes, and thousands of warriors and artizans were carried away captive to Babylon, with the vessels of Solomon's Temple.

Zedekiah (the son of Josiah), the last native monarch of Judah, then mounted the throne of David, to suffer one day a fate even more terrible than that which had befallen his two brothers and his nephew, who had successively reigned before him. Zedekiah sought help from Egypt, and, as it appeared at first, with success, as on the approach of Pharaoh's army, the Chaldeans, who were besieging Jerusalem, retired. If the heart of Jeremiah had shared in the joy which this gleam of returning hope had caused in Jerusalem, it must have been to him a task all the more bitter to quench that hope in utter darkness. Anguish must have been his when he thus declared the message of God! "Behold Pharaoh's army which is come forth to help you, shall return to Egypt into their own land; and the Chaldeans shall come again, and fight against this city, and take it, and burn it with fire."

After uttering this terrible prophecy, Jeremiah made an attempt to quit Jerusalem, and return to his native land of Benjamin; but he was seized as a traitor by a captain of the ward, brought before the princes as one taken in the act of falling away to the Chaldeans, maltreated, and thrown into prison. For a time, the rigour of Jeremiah's captivity was softened by the king, who appears never to have doubted the innocence of the prophet. But Jeremiah's enemies were not satisfied with his imprisonment; they were determined to have his life, and to destroy him by a death of lingering suffering. Abusing the weakness of King Zedekiah, who delivered the prophet into their hands, the princes of Judah cast Jeremiah into a dungeon, or rather pit, in the court of the prison, which had mire at the bottom, in which their victim partially sank, and there his merciless foes seem to have left him to perish by inches from hunger and damp.

Such would probably have been the fate of Jeremiah, but for the intervention of Ebedmelech, not one of his own countrymen, but an Ethiopian in the service of the king. This African went to Zedekiah, and roused him to make an effort to save his innocent subject from so cruel a death. "My lord the king," said Ebedmelech, "these men have done evil in all that they have done to the prophet, whom they have cast into the dungeon; and he is like to die for hunger in the place where he is."

Ebedmelech succeeded in obtaining the king's order that he should take thirty men, and release the prophet from his dreadful situation. And here occurs the little trait of womanlike tenderness in the African, which God hath deemed worthy of record. Ebedmelech knew that Jeremiah must be drawn out of the pit by cords; he knew that in his probable state of weakness and emaciation the ropes would be likely to gall and hurt him. So he "went into the house of the king under the treasury, and took thence old cast clouts and old rotten rags, and let them down by cords into the dungeon to Jeremiah. And Ebedmelech the Ethiopian said unto Jeremiah, Put now these old cast clouts and rotten rags under thine armholes under the cords." And Jeremiah did so, and was safely drawn to the top.

The Lord did not fail to requite the deed of the Ethiopian, to whom was granted a special promise of deliverance in the coming time of trouble. "Thou shalt not be given into the hand of the men of whom thou art afraid." And here the African disappears from our view, and we know nothing further of Ebedmelech; but the soft wrappings which he collected to put over the rough ropes may afford us a pleasant and profitable subject for our reflections.

Ebedmelech not only did a substantial service to Jeremiah, but he did it in a tender considerate way; he did not, as most men would have done, hurt the prophet even in helping him. The complaint of the ingratitude of those who have received great benefits is very common in the world, but we shall often find that ingratitude has been caused by the want of delicacy in the benefactor who complains; he has supplied the "ropes" but neglected the "wrappings."

For instance, a sufferer is sunk in the pit of poverty; he has seen better days, his feelings are tender, the very means used to raise him are likely to wound him, to gall even while they relieve. But Christian love must regard the feelings as well as the outward wants of the sufferer; it should bestow a gift almost as if it were asking a favour; it should smooth what is rough, soften what is hard, and let down the wrappings with the rope.

Again, there is the same, and even greater, delicacy to be observed when he whom we would help is sunk in the pit, not of poverty, but of sin. We earnestly desire to draw him forth, for we know that if he stay, he must perish. Fervent exhortation, faithful reproof, may be as the cords in our hands, and with a prayer for success we use them; but our efforts will be far more likely to avail, if gentleness, consideration, and tenderness accompany earnest effort; if, shrinking from galling pride, or giving one needless pang, we let down the wrappings with the rope.

Nothing is really insignificant that affects the happiness or the character of men; a look or a word may awaken far more kindly feeling than the gift of a purse of gold, and that reproof is usually most effectual which is uttered in a tone of love.

XXXIII.

The Golden Sceptre.

VERY different is the object of our present contemplation from the last—the gold from the tatters, the sceptre of a powerful monarch from the rags of an African servant—and even so our theme rises from man's mercy to that of God, from the kindness of Ebedmelech to the free grace of our Lord.

For it is not on the history of Esther herself that we will now dwell, except so far as she appears an emblem of the Church, the queen "all glorious within," whose clothing is "of wrought gold." Let us muse on how she, and with her every individual believer, dares to approach Him who is of "purer eyes than to behold iniquity," the great and terrible God, "who hath measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, and meted out heaven with the span."

There is, indeed, far too little of reverence in the way in which we too often enter by prayer the presence of our Lord. The careless posture, the wandering thought, the hastily-uttered supplication, seem to denote that Christians little realize how solemn a thing it is to draw nigh to the King of kings. Not thus did Esther approach the throne of Ahasuerus. If the traditional account preserved in the Apocrypha be true, her heart was in anguish for fear, she turned pale, and fainted, and fell. Not that God wills that such terrors should oppress His redeemed; they are permitted to "come boldly" to the throne of grace, they are commanded to draw near with a true heart, "in full assurance of faith;" but a certain degree of holy awe should be mixed with holy confidence; "let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God; God is in heaven, and thou upon earth, therefore let thy words be few."

But for the golden sceptre of grace held out to us through the mercy and merits of Christ, the sentence of death would indeed go forth against us when we appear before Him. "For our God is a consuming fire." "The mountains quake at Him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at His presence. Who can stand before His indignation, and who can abide in the fierceness of His anger?" But the love of Persia's king for his bride was but a faint shadow of the love of the Lord for His Church. "What wilt thou, Queen Esther? and what is Thy request? it shall be even given thee to the half of the kingdom."

Such were the gracious words of Ahasuerus to the trembling supplicant before him; and so the Church hears the tender assurance of her King, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find. Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name He will give it to you."

And what was it that Esther came to entreat, when the golden sceptre of Ahasuerus was stretched out towards her? In the first place, the presence of the king at her banquet, and, beyond this, the preservation from destruction of herself and her people. Much the same as hers is the petition of Christ's Church to her heavenly King, only with the loftier blessings implored their order is reversed. The Church prays first for salvation, deliverance from death eternal, and then for the presence of her Lord—not for an hour or a day—but even for ever and ever.

If Esther, an orphan exile, born to bondage and sorrow, was able in royal garments to approach her lord, and invite him to a sumptuous banquet which she had prepared in a palace, the robes which she wore, the feast which she spread, were all the gifts of his love. She could but offer him of his own. How strikingly does this exemplify the position of the Church in regard to her Lord! By free grace He holds out to her the sceptre of pardoning mercy; by free grace He clothes her with the royal garments of righteousness; by free grace He enables her to welcome Him and minister unto Him. He is more ready to hear than she to pray, more ready to grant than she to implore. He has loved and will love her for ever, will save her from all her enemies, and crown her with joy everlasting.

Such are some of the comforting thoughts suggested to us by the golden sceptre, thoughts of mercy, grace, and love. It is a "sceptre," the emblem of power and dominion; a "golden" sceptre, reminding us of the word spoken of Christ our King, "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of Thy kingdom." It is a token of free salvation; they to whom it is extended shall live in the presence of God, shall stand accepted before Him; and it is a sceptre held out to every one who, in lowly faith, approaches Him who loved and gave Himself for us.

XXXIV.

A Vessel of the Temple.

BITTER must have been the shame and grief of the Jews when Nebuchadnezzar, King of Assyria, plundered the glorious building which they had raised, the Temple which, eleven years later, was itself given to the flames. Well was it for the good King Hezekiah that he lived not to see that day when his precious things, his silver and his gold, with the consecrated gold of the Temple, were carried away to Babylon, according to the word of the Lord spoken by the Prophet Isaiah. Great was the quantity of sacred vessels taken from Jerusalem, even if Ezra's list of those restored comprises them all. Thirty chargers and twenty basins of gold; a thousand chargers of silver. "All the vessels of gold and of silver were five thousand and four hundred." It was a humbling day to the captives from Jerusalem when the treasures of the sanctuary, the pride of their fathers, were placed as trophies in the idol temple of the Gentiles.