CHARLES SPURGEON — SERMON NOTES
87.
But I said, How shall I put thee among the children, and give thee a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the hosts of nations? and I said, Thou shalt call me, My father; and shalt not turn away from me. — Jeremiah 3:19
MAN thinks lightly of sin; but not so the Lord.
Man thinks lightly of grace; but not so the Lord.
Man trifles where God wonders.
Man forgets where God considers.
The text may be viewed as written with a note of interrogation (?) or a note of exclamation (!).
Let us treat it somewhat in that blended fashion.
I. HERE IS A DIFFICULT QUESTION.
Many knotty questions are involved in it.
1. As to the holy Lord."How shall I put thee among the children?" How, in consistency with justice and purity, shall the Holy One place in his family persons of such character? They have forgotten, despised, forsaken, rejected, and insulted their God and can he treat them as if they had loved and obeyed?
2. As to the unholy person."How shall I put thee among the children?" Shalt thou be adopted after being—
- A rebel so set on mischief, willfully disobeying?
- A sinner so open, so presumptuous, so obstinate?
- A desperado so profligate, profane, and persecuting?
- A criminal "condemned already" by thine unbelief?.
Such persons do obtain mercy, but how is it done?
3. As to the family. "How shall I put thee among the children?"
- What will the children say? "A fine brother, certainly?
- What will the world say? Will not observers exclaim, "See what characters are received into the household of God!" May it not even seem like trifling with iniquity? May not the wicked hope for impunity in their sinning?
- What can I myself say to justify such a course? How shall I make this appear to be the act of the Judge of all the earth?
4. As to the inheritance: "and give thee a pleasant land, a goodly heritage?" Is not this too good for such?
- Shalt thou have peace and happiness below?
- Shalt thou have all that my favored children enjoy?
- Shalt thou be admitted into heaven?
It is a question which none but the Lord would ever have thought of.
He himself asked it long ago, as if to let us see that it was no small matter which he proposed.
He himself answered the question, or it had been unanswerable.
II. HERE IS A WONDERFUL ANSWER.
l. It is from God himself, and is therefore a perfect answer.
2. It is in the divine style: "Thou shalt" and "thou shalt not." Omnipotence speaks, and grace reveals its unconditional character.
3. It is concerning a divine work. God himself puts sinners among his children, and none beside can do it.
- The Lord infuses a new spirit — a filial spirit.
- This spirit expresses itself by a new call: "My Father."
- This creates new bonds: "and shalt not turn away from me."
4 It is effectual for its purpose.
- Those who heartily cry"My Father" may safely be put among the children.
- Those who do not turn away from their father must be children.
Servants go, but sons abide.
Thus the wisdom of our gracious God, by regeneration and adoption, answers the difficult question.
III. HERE, WITHOUT QUESTION, IS A MATCHLESS PRIVILEGE.
We are put among the children.
1. We are indeed made children of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.
2. We are as much loved as the children.
3. We are treated as the children.
- We are forgiven as a father forgives his children.
- We are clothed, fed, and housed as children.
- We are taught, ruled, and chastened as children.
- We are honored and enriched as children.
4. We are placed under filial obligations:
To love, honor, obey, and serve our Father.
This should be regarded as a high honor, and not as a burden.
Let us admire the grace which puts us into the family.
Let us enjoy the privileges which this secures to us.
Let us act as loving children should do.
Extracts
God seems, as it were, to be at a stand. "How shall I act so as to save these
sinners, and yet not wrong myself?" This should greatly humble us for our sins. As if a child should do much evil, and bring himself into grievous troubles, so that if his tender father would help him he must be put to abundance of difficulties, and is fain to beat his brains, and laboriously study how he shall contrive to save his poor, foolish child from utter undoing. Now, if the child has any ingenuousness in him, he will not think, "My father's anxiety is no great matter, so long as I am delivered"; but he will cry,"Alas, this will break my heart! What troubles have I brought my father into! I cannot bear to think of it!" It should be thus with us in reference to our God, who in this text speaketh after the manner of men. — Jeremiah Burroughs.
In the second century, Celsus, a celebrated adversary of Christianity, distorting our Lord's words, complained, "Jesus Christ came into the world to make the most horrible and dreadful society; for he calls sinners, and not the righteous; so that the body he came to assemble is a body of profligates, separated from good people, among whom they before were mixed. He has rejected all the good, and collected all the bad." "True," said Origen, in reply, "our Jesus came to call sinners — but to repentance. He assembled the wicked — but to convert them into new men, or rather to change them into angels. We come to him covetous, he makes us liberal; lascivious, he makes us chaste; violent, he makes us meek; impious, he makes us religious."
Regeneration is not a change of the old nature, but an introduction of a new nature. Not "Ishmael changed," but "Isaac born? is the son of the promise.
Whom God adopts, he anoints; whom he makes sons, he makes saints. — Watson.
One of my parishioners at East Hampton, converted after having lived, through three or four revivals, to the age of fifty, and having given up hope, used to exclaim for several weeks after his change,"Is it I? Am I the same man who used to think it so hard to be converted, and my case so hopeless? Is it I? Is it I? Oh, wonderful!" — Dr. Lyman Beecher
CHARLES HADDEN SPURGEON
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