The Pulpit Commentary — Jeremiah — Volume 1 — Section 306

and this promise God ever fulfils. And it means also, "I will be your rest." The soul whose God the Lord is, reposes on him. The storms of life may rage, its tempests beat, but "firm and unmoved are they who rest their souls on God." Everything may appear to be slipping away from a man, and he may seem to be like one gliding down a steep, smooth slope, ever faster and faster to tho precipice over which he will be hurled into destruction, unable to grasp any friendly rock or branch, or to find foothold anywhere-and men's circumstances are like that sometimes; but they to whom this word, "I will be your God," is fulfilled, do find foothold in God and can stay themselves upon him. Hence, when heart and flesh fail, God is the Strength of their heart and their Portion for evermore. II. THE CONDITION OF THEm FULFILMENT. They were faithfully to do the command- ments which he hau made known to them: "Obey my voice, so," etc. And this condition is not abrogated; it is in as full force to-day as it was in the days of old. But whcu it is complied with, then, not merely by the gracious appointment of God, but also in the way of natural result, there follows the enjoyment of the promised blessings. For: ] . Obedience tends to such enjoyment of God, inasmuch as it prevents the rising of those mists whereby the sight of God is shut oot from the soul. Trr.vellers along the Rhine or over the mountains of Switzerland know to their cost how often the most glorious scenery the world contains is completely hidden from their view by the uprising of some wretched mist, wrapping in cold, dark, impenetrable fog all that upon which their eyes would have so delightedly rested. They want to gaze upon all that loveliness; they have come for that very purpose; but they cannot for those thick clouds. And oh, what a beautiful vision is the face of God I How good it is to gaze upon him, and to behold the shining of his countenance I And this we should do were it not for those mists with which disobedience to God's will ever blots out all that otherwise we should so delightedly see. "If our hearts condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God;" but when they do condemn us, confidence vanishes, and, as by a veil of impenetrable cloud, the face of God is hidden from our view. We have lost him; we cannot realize him· he is as if he were not, and the soul is forlorn and wretched and exposed to all manner of ill. Now, this sad experience, which is as common as it is sad, shows how toP obeying of the voice of God must tend to the enjoy- ment of him, inasmuch as it prevents all that which hides God from our souls. 2. And before obedience that wall of the rebellious will, which more than aught else displeases and dishonours God and keeps him out from the soul, "falls down flat," as did the walls of Jericho before the obedient tribes of Israel. That will must be subdued, that stronghold of evil must he pulled down, and obedience is the strong hand that accom- plishes this much-needed work. That strong fortress cast down, the soul becomes the pos- session of God, and the hitherto rebellious forces of the soul own him as their God. Or, to take another similitude, obedience uubars that fastened door before which the Lord Jesus has stood so long and knocked, but in vain, for admission. He desires to enter and to make us the glad partakers of his grace. But till that door be unbarred all this cannot be. 3. Obedience, furthermore, lceeps us in those paths along which alone God is to be met. Full well we know that there are paths innumerable along which men go, along which we have gone ourselves; but God is never to be met with in them. But along the path by which obedionce leads us, there we do meet with him, and are blessed by him. 4.. And without this obedience God cannot carry oot his purposes of grace. This is what we aro told in the verse that follows our text. God asks for obedience, "that I may perform the oath which I have sworn unto," etc. Therefore without this be is held back from what he earnestly desires, and he cannot do the things that he would. God cannot admit the ungodly and the disobedient into the blessed land of promise. To do that would be to perpetuate for ever tho sins and sorrows of time. Therefore- " Those holy gates for ever bar Pollution, si.n, and shame." But "blessed are they that do bis commandments, that they,n etc. (Rev. xx.ii. 14). Now, the first step of this obedience-;--that whic? introduces to all these recompenses- is to surrender to the Lord Jesus Chnst (John v1. 28, 29).-C. Vera. 16, 17.-The first last. Many, indeed, are the instanoes in which those who JERE?d.IAq, :l,  306 THE BOOK OF THE l'ltOPB.ET JEREMIAH. [011. xx. 1-211.