II. But, let it be understood how it may, the prophetic statement is tkue. In the wilderness of Sinai what grace God's people found there 1 Blessings in basket and in store, in guidance, governance, guardianship; in instruction, discipline, and develop- ment as a nation : how they were welded together, trained for duty, qualified for the lii;ih honc^iT God designed for them I And in the wilderness which they had to cross 01) their return from their exile, infested, then as now, with robber tribes, to whom their comparatively scant numbers, their unwarlike character, and above all their treasures of gold and silver destined for the temple of God, would offer an irresistible temptation, how could the exiles have escaped this peril of the wilderness, to say nothing of many others, but lor the grace of God ? It was emphatically true that they " found grace in the wilderness." Those dreary leagues of burning sand, the awful dangers of the way, might well have daunted them, and no doubt did deter the majority of the people from ill attempt at return ; for it was but a remnant that came back. But all these perils were surmounted. Day after day for four months the caravan of the exiles crept along the wilderness way. " Unlike that oi Siuai, it was diversified by no towering mountains, no delicious palm groves, no gushing springs. A hard gravel plain tnira the moment they left the banks of the Euphrates till they reached the northern extremity of Syria, with no solace except the occasional wells and walled stations. Ferocious hordes of Bedouin robbers then, as now, swept the whole trail." But like their great ancestor, " they went forth to go into the land of Canaan ; and into the laud of Canaau thej came." " They,'' as he, " found grace in the wilderness." And so abundant was that grace that their perilous enterprise became a veritable march of triumph. "The redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion ; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy; and sorrow and mourning shall flee away." " As before some royal potentate, there would go before them an invisible Protector, who should remove the hard stones from the bare feet of those that ran beside the camels, and cast them up in piles on either side to mark the broad track seen for miles along the desert." (Cf. Isa. xl. 1 — 4, for description of this '^lace loiind in the wilderness.) And so what seemed so sore a trouble added on to the sword of the exile, was in reality the healing of the wound caused by that sword. But this is olten the Divine plan. The second trouble heals the first, and so trouble ii lessened by increase. Note —
III. Further illustrations. The plague of London was followed by the fire, but that fire purged the city as nothing else could, and no such plague has visited it since. In medical science it is well known how often one disease is driven out by another. In the hot, close valleys of mountainous lands the wild storm is welcomed, notwith- standing its fierce might, overturning and destroying in ruthless manner, for it purges the whole atmosphere and drives away the seeds of disease and death. The heat was terrible, and the storm, but the second trouble lessened the first. To have to leaT« Paradise and to go out into a wilderness in which thorns and briars should aDound
Sa THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET JEUEMIAH. [ca. xxxt 1—40
was another trouble, but the labaur the second demanded was to be the healing force whereby the first luss should be lessened and the curse turned into a blessing. What a tissue of troubles Jacob's life seemit to have been made up of I and yet once and again the new trouble healed the old. The imprisonment of his sons in Kgypt led to his recovery of his lost son Joseph, Death follows on disease. Ah! what a new trouble is death in instances not a few I but in that wilderness of thi.^ grave what ^race the departed soul finds there I Take our Lord's illustration of the birih of childrrn: how the last sorrows of the birth-throes, the dread hour of ti'avail, because thereby a new life is born, are with all the pain that went before forgotten, " remembered no more " I And in things spiritual the law of our text is true. The prodigal's outward misery was followed by the inward pangs of shame, remorse, and sorrow. But they led to the " I will arise and go," etc. And to a renewed soul what misery there is in the return of temptation ! and if it have overcome the soul, what yet greater misery haunts the soul then ! " Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, Lord." But that new disttess is to render the recurrence of the first less and less possible, and by-and-by impossible. In God's providential ordering of our affairs, this same law is often shown. '1 he straitened means that follow bereavement of the bread-winner of the household — that poverty often develops character, compels the mind to turn from perpetual brooding over its loss, which it is so apt to do, draws forth sympathy of friends, and in innumer- able ways works good. "All things" do, as a fact, " work together for good to them that love God."
IV. The philosophy of thm, (Cf. Rom. v. 3, 4.) The outward ills may not always be removed, bnt their power to do aught else than bless the believer is taken away. Instead of casting him down, they lead him into the full possession of that hope, having which tlie soni is independent of all that man or hell can do against it.
V. Its lesson. If "the wilderness" should follow "the sword," we need not fear; that is to say, it a second sorrow should come upon the steps of a former one, we may regard it as a probable means of lessening the lormer, and not increasing it. 'i'he long sorrow of no Isaac born to Abraham was followed by the awful command to slay him ; but that led to an issue that swallowed up in glory and joy all the darkness and sorruw of all the past, and lit up all the future of the long ages to come with a liuht whose r\diance is as bright to-day as ever. Then let our song be, " Father, I wait thy daily »/ill," etc.— 0.
Ver. 3. — The love of Ood. In these chapters, the thirtieth and the thirty-first, we have a delightful change from the prolonged accusations, warnin^rs, and threateeiings which form the staple of well-nigh all that has gone before. Here we have a series of good and comfortable words designed for the encouragement of God's peoiile in the midst of the sorrows of their exile. This verse declares that the love of God was the real cause of all that had befallen his people. Now —