GOD'S LAWSUIT (Jer. ii. 9)
STIFF-NECKED IDOLATERS AND PLIABLE CHRISTIANS (Jer. ii. 11)
FOUNTAIN AND CISTERNS (Jer. ii. 13)
FORSAKING JEHOVAH (Jer. ii. 19)
A COLLOQUY BETWEEN A PENITENT AND GOD (Jer. iii. 21, 22)
A QUESTION FOR THE BEGINNING (Jer. v. 31)
POSSESSING AND POSSESSED (Jer. x. 16, R.V.)
CALMS AND CRISES (Jer. xii. 5, R.V.)
AN IMPOSSIBILITY MADE POSSIBLE (Jer. xiii. 23; 2 Cor. v. 17; Rev. xxi. 5)
TRIUMPHANT PRAYER (Jer. xiv. 7-9)
SIN'S WRITING AND ITS ERASURE (Jer. xvii, 1; 2 Cor. iii. 3; Col. ii. 14)
THE HEATH IN THE DESERT AND THE TREE BY THE RIVER (Jer. xvii. 6, 8)
A SOUL GAZING ON GOD (Jer. xvii. 12)
TWO LISTS OF NAMES (Jer. xvii. 13; Luke x. 20)
YOKES OF WOOD AND OF IRON (Jer. xxviii. 13)
WHAT THE STABLE CREATION TEACHES (Jer. xxxi. 36)
WHAT THE IMMENSE CREATION TEACHES (Jer. xxxi. 37)
A THREEFOLD DISEASE AND A TWOFOLD CURE (Jer. xxxiii. 8)
THE RECHABITES (Jer. xxxv. 16)
JEREMIAH'S ROLL BURNED AND REPRODUCED (Jer. xxxvi. 32)
ZEDEKIAH (Jer. xxxvii. 1)
THE WORLD'S WAGES TO A PROPHET (Jer. xxxvii. 11-21)
THE LAST AGONY (Jer. xxxix. 1-10)
EBEDMELECH THE ETHIOPIAN (Jer. xxxix. 18)
GOD'S PATIENT PLEADINGS (Jer. xliv. 4)
THE SWORD OF THE LORD (Jer. xlvii. 6, 7)
THE KINSMAN-REDEEMER (Jer. 1. 34)
'As SODOM' (Jer. lii. 1-11)
'They shall feed in the ways, and their pastures shall be in all high places.' ISAIAH xlix. 9.
This is part of the prophet's glowing description of the return of the Captives, under the figure of a flock fed by a strong shepherd. We have often seen, I suppose, a flock of sheep driven along a road, some of them hastily trying to snatch a mouthful from the dusty grass by the wayside. Little can they get there; they have to wait until they reach some green pasture in which they can be folded. This flock shall 'feed in the ways'; as they go they will find nourishment. That is not all; the top of the mountains is not the place where grass grows. _There_ are bare, savage cliffs, from which every particle of soil has been washed by furious torrents, or the scanty vegetation has been burnt up by the fierce 'sunbeams like swords.' There the wild deer and the ravens live, the sheep feed down in the valleys. But '_their_ pasture shall be in all high places.' The literal rendering is even more emphatic: 'Their pasture shall be in all _bare heights_,' where a sudden verdure springs to feed them according to their need. Whilst, then, this prophecy is originally intended simply to suggest the abundant supplies that were to be provided for the band of exiles as they came back from Babylon, there lie in it great and blessed principles which belong to the Christian pilgrimage, and the flock that follows Christ.
They who follow Him, says my text, to begin with, shall find in the dusty paths of common life, and in all the smallnesses and distractions of daily duty, nourishment for their spirits. Do you remember what Jesus said? 'My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work.' We, too, may have the same meat to eat which the world knows not of, and He will give that hidden manna to the combatant as well as 'to him that overcometh.' In the measure in which 'we follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth,' in that measure do we find--like the stores of provisions that Arctic explorers come upon, _cached_ for them--food in the wilderness, and nourishment for our highest life in our common work. That is a great promise, and it is a great duty.
It is a promise the fulfilment of which is plainly guaranteed by the very nature of the case. Religion is meant to direct conduct, and the smallest affairs of life are to come under its imperial control, and the only way by which a man can get any good out of his Christianity is by living it. It is when he sets to work on the principles of the Gospel that the Gospel proves itself to be a reality in his blessed experience. It is when he does the smallest duties from the great motives that these great motives are strengthened by exercise, as every motive is. If you wish to weaken the influence of any principle upon you, do not work it out, and it will wither and die. If a man would grasp the fulness of spiritual sustenance which lies in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, let him go to work on the basis of the Gospel, and he 'shall feed in the ways,' and common duties will minister strength to him instead of taking strength from him. We can make the smallest daily incidents subserve our growth and our spiritual strength, because, if we thus do them, they will bring to us attestations of the reality of the faith by which we act on them. For convincing a man that a lifebuoy is reliable there is nothing like having had experience of its power to hold his head above the waves when he has been cast into them. _Live_ your Christianity, and it will attest itself. There will come, besides that, the blessed memory of past times in which we trusted in the Lord and were lightened, we obeyed God and found His promises true, we risked all for God and found that we had all more abundantly. It is only an active Christian life that is a nourished and growing Christian life.