I will bring you into the wilderness of the people, and there will I plead with you face to face.
The spiritual wilderness
Many awful threatenings and delightful promises are scattered up and down in the Word of God. Our text seems to be of a mixed nature: the threatening and the promise are blended together, to excite a holy fear of God and a humble trust in Him.
I. “I will bring you into the wilderness of the people?”
1. God often brings His people into the wilderness gradually, by little and little. The terrors and dangers of the wilderness are concealed; slight convictions are at first impressed which afterwards grow stronger; small rumblings precede the loud claps of thunder; sometimes the clouds seem to break, and promise fair weather; then they grow thicker, and wear a more formidable aspect than ever.
2. The Lord brings them in with an high hand and an outstretched arm, as He did the children of Israel of old. However gently He may act, yet He acts powerfully, and the greatest mildness is attended with an irresistible energy. We may be fretful and impatient, unruly and unmanageable; but He who has taken the work in hand will not leave it unfinished. We may stifle our convictions, but God will revive them; may lull conscience asleep, but He will awaken it again.
3. God brings into the wilderness with a design to bring out of it again (Isa_57:16-18; Lam_3:32; Hos_6:1-2).
II. “And there will I plead with you face to face.” He does not say that He would plead against them, nor yet that He would plead for them; but He would plead with them, and that face to face, so that they should both see and hear Him. And what would He plead with them about? Perhaps the sins they had committed, and the calamities thereby brought upon themselves. He will also plead the equity of His own proceedings, and the unreasonableness of their conduct. He also pleads with them on the futility of their attempts to help themselves, and the necessity of looking to another quarter for relief (Jer_3:17; Jer_3:31; Jer_3:36; Jer_8:22).
1. He pleads powerfully. How forcible are right words, says Job. And such are the words of God: they are founded upon truth, plain and direct, and carry with them an irresistible energy.
2. He pleads convincingly. God will overcome when He judgeth. When He is opponent, no man can be respondent.
3. He pleads tenderly and in love; His appeals are made to the understanding and the heart, and an ingenuous mind must feel their force (Mic_6:3; Isa_1:18). What has been said condemns three sorts of persons--
(1) Those who have always been in the wilderness of sin, but not in that of sorrow; who are merry and jovial, saying, “Tomorrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant.”
(2) Those who think they are in the wilderness of godly sorrow, but who mistake every transient pang for real conviction, and every motion of the affections for the work of the Holy Spirit on the heart.
(3) Those who are in the wilderness, and struggling to get out of it before the Lord’s time. It is better to be in the wilderness than in Egypt; yea, it is better, unspeakably better, to be in the wilderness, though we continue there all our days, than to be in hell. (B. Beddome, M. A.)
God’s tireless pleading
Manton says: “As one that would gladly open a door, trieth key after key, till he hath tried every key, in the bunch, so doth God try one method after another to work upon man’s heart.” His persevering grace will not be baffled. He frequently begins with the silver key of a mother’s tearful prayers and a father’s tender counsels. In turn He uses the church keys of His ordinances and His ministers, and these are often found to move the bolt; but if they fail He thrusts in the iron key of trouble and affliction, which has been known to succeed after all others have failed. He has, however, a golden master key, which excels all others: it is the operation of His own most gracious Spirit by which entrance is effected into hearts which seemed shut up forever. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
