Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vols. 13–63

I am about to read a portion of Holy Scripture which may seem very strange to some of you, but it belongs to a part of the congregation, and I hope it may be the means of giving them comfort. I read is as a picture of the suffering of a soul under a sense of sin. I think it is a most graphic portrait of a heart that is awakened and made to feel its lost estate. If there are any such here, they will be sure to see themselves in the picture.

Verse 1. I am the man that has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath. It is a mistake that most souls make when in trouble, to suppose that no others ever felt as they do. John Bunyan describes Christian as being very much comforted by hearing someone quoting Scripture as he went through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, for then he perceived that there were others in the same case with his own. Do not think, poor troubled Soul, that no one was ever so broken in pieces as you are—your path of sorrow is a well-trodden one,

2. He has led me and brought me into darkness, but not into light A Hebrew method of saying that it was a thick darkness without any light, either star-light or moon-light. You who have passed through this state of conviction know what it means—no comfort from ordinances, no comfort from God's Word, no comfort from your daily mercies. Every stream of comfort seems dried up to you—and sin lies heavily upon you.

3. Surely against me is He turned; He turns His hand against me all the day. As if when a man is about to strike, he smites not with his open hand but turns his hand, so the Prophet says God did with him. He felt that he was being smitten with the heaviest blows that God seemed able to give.

4. My flesh andmy skin has He made old; He has broken my bones. As men through excessive grief sometimes appear to grow prematurely aged, so the Prophet says he had gone through grief. He felt as if his bones were broken. The sore vexations of his spirit had dashed the solid pillars of the house of Manhood from their place.

5. He has built against me, and compassed me with gall and travel That is to say, as the besiegers erected a mound against a city and threw up earthworks, so the Prophet says God seemed to have thrown up earthworks from which He might fire off the great guns of the Law against him.

6. He has set me in dark places, as they that are dead of old. As though he had to live in a tomb, where neither life nor light could come to him.

7. He has hedged me about, that I cannot get out: He has made my chain heavy. "My way seems blocked up, nothing prospers with me." As the convict sometimes drags about his chain, and has a ball at his foot, so the Prophet felt as if God had clogged him with a heavy chain so that he could not move because of its terrible weight.

8. Also when I cry and shout, He shuts out my prayer Which was the worst trial of all!

9. He has enclosed my ways with hewn stone, He has made my paths crooked. It was believed that hewn stones made the strongest wall as the joints would the more closely fit into one another. Jeremiah seems to speak as if God had taken care and trouble to build, not as men do roughly with common stones, but with polished and well-shapen troubles built like strong barriers in his way.

10. He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places. He felt as if the Justice of God was about to spring upon him. He was afraid to move, lest the couched lion should leap upon him and tear him to pieces. John Bu-nyan, in his Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, describes in his own experience precisely what the Prophet here speaks of.

11-13. He has turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: He has made me desolate. He has bent His bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow. He has caused the arrows of His quiver to pierce my soul And all this while, to aggravate his grief, he found no comfort anywhere.

14. I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day. It is just so with a man who is under a sense of sin. His companions ask him why he is so melancholy. He has an attack of the mopes, they say. They do not want his society, they will chase him from their midst. I marvel not that they want not his company, for well do I know that he wants not theirs, but this adds much to his grief, to find that they make derision and laughter of his woe.

15. He has filled me with bitterness, He has made me drunk with wormwood. What a strong expression the Prophet uses! As a drunken man has lost his wits and staggers he knows not where, even as is a sinner when he really begins to taste the bitterness of sin. He does not act as if he were endowed with reason—despair and sorrow have driven his senses away.

16. He has also broken my teeth with gravel stones, He has covered me with ashes. The Easterns usually baked their cakes on the hearth and very frequently there would be in the cakes pieces of grit, perhaps large lumps of cinder and sometimes small gravel stones, which would break the teeth. "So," the Prophet seems to say, "when I went to try to get some nourishment by the eating of bread, I was disappointed—my teeth were broken with gravel stones." I remember when I used to go up to the House of God to try to get comfort, but instead thereof, I came away more wretched than I went—for sin, that great devouring dragon, still followed me everywhere.

17-21. And You have removed my soul far off from peace: I forgot prosperity. And I said, My strength and my hope are perished from the LORD: remembering my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. My soul has them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me. This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. [See Sermon #654, Volume 11—

MEMORY—THE HANDMAID OF HOPE.] Notice the gracious change that has taken place, as if the sun had risen after the blackness and gloom of the night! Now the birds of joy begin to sing and the flowers of hope begin to open their golden cups.

22. It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassion fails not Bad as our state is, we are not yet in Hell—we are not yet beyond the reach of hope!

23. They are new every morning: great is Your faithfulness.We had new mercies this morning, and we have had fresh mercies this evening. God has not forgotten us! The very breath in our nostrils is a proof of His goodness to us. Let us, therefore, dear Friends, still hope for yet further favors from Him!

24, 25. The LORD is my portion, says my soul; therefore will I hope in Him. The LORD is good unto them that of charge, at http://www.spurgeongems.org.] Can you get a hold of this blessed Truth of God, any of you troubled ones who are here? Broken-hearted Sinner, can you get a grip of this comforting assurance? If so, there will soon be peace for you!

26, 27. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. [See Sermon #1291, Volume 22—THE BEST BURDEN FOR YOUNG SHOULDERS.] For this yoke, though it may seem to be very heavy for a time, when it has humbled us and brought us to Christ, will bring us innumerable blessings!

28-33. He sits alone and keeps silence, because he has borne it upon him. He puts his mouth in the dust so there may be hope. He gives his cheek to him that smites him: he is filled full with reproach. For the LORD willnot cast off forever: but though He causes grief, yet will He have compassion according to the multitude of His mercies. For He does not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men. Unless He has some gracious motive for it, He never afflicts or grieves them, and when He does act thus, it is as when a father smites his child. It is because it must be done and not because he loves to do it. See, then, the great mercy of God! May it lead the sinner to repentance, yes, and lead us all to put our trust in the Lord!

Jeremiah 31:22. For the LORD has created a new thing in the earth, A woman shall compass a man. Here is a prophecy of the birth of Immanuel, God With Us, born of a woman by the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit. Mary was indeed blessed among women and we rejoice in that Man who was thus miraculously born to be the Savior, Christ the Lord.

23-20. Thus says the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel; As yet they shall use this speech in the land of Judah and in the cities thereof, when I shall bring again their captivity; The LORD bless you, O habitation of justice, and mountain of holiness. And there shall dwell in Judah itself, and in all the cities thereof together, husbandmen, and they that go forth with flocks. For I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul. There are good times in store for Israel! Jerusalem shall then be the "habitation of justice, and mountain of holiness."

26. Upon this I awaked, and beheld; and my sleep was sweet unto me. Jeremiah woke up with a pleasant impression of his vision upon him, and well he might, for was there ever a more blessed one than that of which we have just read?

27, 28. Behold, the days come, says the LORD, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man, and with the seed of beast. And it shall come to pass, that like as I have watched over them, to pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to destroy, and to afflict; so will I watch over them, to build, and to plant, says the LORD. All the ingenuity of Heaven seems to be taxed to bless Believers! And just as man sought out many inventions for evil, God, in His Infinite Love and Mercy seeks out many inventions for the good of His people.

29, 30. In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth are set on edge. But everyone shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eats the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge. We live under a personaldispensation—there is no such thing as hereditary godliness or salvation by proxy! Every man must for himself repent, and for himself believe. Vain and foolish is the idea that because we have had Christian parents, therefore we also are Christians!

31, 32. Behold, the days come, says the LORD, that I will make a new Covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the Covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which My Covenant they broke, although I was an Husband unto them, says the LORD. What bliss it is to know about this new Covenant! Let us notice its tenor.

33. But this shall be the Covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; after those days, says the LORD, I will put My Law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts [See Sermons #1687, Volume 28—THE LAW WRITTEN IN THE HEART and

#2992, Volume 52—GOD'S WRITING UPON MAN'S HEART.] Not on the tablets

The passage here expounded is Jeremiah 31:22-37.

of stone, not on the walls of the Church, but "I will write it in their hearts."

33. And will be their God, and they shall be My people. You may have heard it said that Christ will not leave His people, but that His people may leave Him—but in this promise the second contingency is provided for as well as the first!

34-37. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, says the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I wiil remember their sin no more. Thus says the LORD, which gives the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divides the sea when the waves thereofroar; The LORD of Hosts is His name: If those ordinances depart from before Me says the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before Me forever. Thus says the LORD, If Heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, says the LORD. What a God of Infinite Mercy He is!