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SALVATION IS OF GOD, FROM FIRST TO LAST
THERE is not any thing more common than for persons, who treated with contempt God’s threatened judgments, to sink under them in the most abject manner, as soon as they begin to feel them. The Jews would not be persuaded for a long season that God would ever deliver them into the hand of the Chaldeans: but when they found that his word was ready to take effect, they were overwhelmed with grief and despondency. To preserve them from running to this extreme, and to shew them that the Divine judgments would be tempered with mercy, the prophet was inspired to foretel their future restoration to that very land from whence they were about to be carried captive. But it is evident that this prophecy has respect to a far greater deliverance, even to the redemption of the world from sin and Satan, and the restoration of sinners to their forfeited inheritance. A near prospect of the punishment which their sins have merited, often brings them, with a very quick transition, from presumption to despair: but, for their encouragement, God teaches them to look to him as an all-sufficient helper, and to rely on him for the carrying on of the good work wherever he has begun it. In this view of the passage we may notice,
I. The means of our conversion—
In our natural state we are afar off from God, going astray like sheep that are lost. In order to recover us,
God puts his fear into our hearts—
[While unconverted, we “have no fear of God before our eyes:” we all walk after the imagination of our own hearts, seeking happiness in various ways, according as we are led by our different inclinations or situations in life. But in conversion, God “gives us one heart and one way.” By these words we do not so much understand, an unity of affection and pursuit, in opposition to the multiplicity of desires with which every carnal mind is distracted (though doubtless that idea is included in them) as, that oneness of sentiment and action that pervades all who are the subjects of divine grace. As on the day of Pentecost, so, in every age and place, Christians, as far as they are taught of God, are of one heart and mind. The prejudices of education do indeed make a difference between them with respect to some matters of less importance; and an undue stress laid upon these things too often prevents that close union and communion that should subsist between all the members of Christ’s mystical body: but, with respect to the grand point of fearing God, there is no difference among them: all, without exception, have “one heart and one way,” in that they desire above all things, and earnestly endeavour, to walk in the fear of God all the day long — — —]
This is to the unspeakable benefit of ourselves, and of all connected with us—
[Too often are men dissuaded from entertaining this fear, lest it should prove injurious to them; but none ever received it into their hearts without looking back upon all their former life with shame and sorrow: yea, they have ever considered the season of their first submission to it as the most blessed era of their lives; and, instead of regretting that they ever yielded to its influence, they invariably wish to have their whole souls subjected to its dominion. And as they find it thus for their own good, inasmuch as it enlivens their hopes, and purifies their hearts, so is it for the good of their children, yea, and of all connected with them. It makes them better in every station and relation of life, whether as parents or children, masters or servants, rulers or subjects: it leads them to fill up their various duties to the honour of God; and to communicate, to the utmost of their power, the same blessed disposition to all around them.]
The same divine agency, that first converted us, proves afterwards,
II. The source of our perseverance—
“It is not in man to direct his own steps:” our progress in the way of duty depends on,
1. The engagements of God’s covenant—
[God has entered into covenant with his Church and people, and undertaken to preserve them from apostasy. Nor is this covenant liable to be broken, like that which he made with the Israelites in the wilderness [Note: Jer_31:31-32.]: it is and will be “everlasting,” because God himself engages to do all which is requisite for our support. “He will not depart from us to do us good;” he may, like a wise parent, sometimes frown, and sometimes chastise; but, while he acts in this manner, he does it for our good, no less than when ho lifts up the light of his countenance upon us. He has said that, “if we break his statutes, and keep not his commandments, he will visit our transgression with the rod, and our iniquity with stripes; nevertheless his loving-kindness will he not utterly take from us, nor suffer his faithfulness to fail; his covenant will he not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of his lips [Note: Psa_89:31-34.].” “He engages further that we shall not depart from him.” Here, doubtless, is the greater danger, seeing we have a heart “bent to backslide from him;” and, if left by him for one moment, we should relapse into all our former sins. But he knows how to establish the wavering, or restore the fallen; and thus to “perfect his own strength in our weakness.” He may leave us for a season, as he did Hezekiah, that we may know what is in our hearts: but he assures us, that our “steps shall be ordered by him,” and that our “light shall shine brighter and brighter unto the perfect day:” he will so “draw us, that we shall run after him;” and so “keep us from falling, that an entrance may be ministered unto us abundantly into the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”]
2. The exertions of his power—
[God speaks of himself in language accommodated to our low apprehensions of his nature, and declares that he will exert all his power, and find all his delight, in doing us good. His people, after their dismission from Babylon, laboured under many difficulties in rebuilding their city and temple; yet, through the good providence of God, they surmounted all. Thus shall we meet with many obstructions before we arrive at the Paradise above: but God will regard us as trees of righteousness, and “will plant us in that land assuredly with his whole heart and with his whole soul.” Who then shall defeat his efforts, or disappoint his aim? “If God be for us, who can be against us?” In vain shall earth and hell be confederate against us; for “hath he said, and will he not do it? hath he spoken, and will he not make it good?” He will never cease to work, till he has fulfilled in us all his good pleasure, and “perfected that which concerneth us:” “he will keep us by his own power through faith unto salvation.”]
We may observe from hence,
1. How suitable is the way of salvation!
[Foolish and ignorant men would be better pleased with a gospel that left them to earn, either wholly or in part, their own salvation. But, alas! how ill adapted would such a Gospel be to us, who are “insufficient of ourselves even to think a good thought!” How much more suitable is the promise in the text, wherein God undertakes to do every thing in us, and for us! Let us then receive thankfully what God offers freely. Let us embrace “a covenant that is ordered in all things and sure;” and rejoice in serving God, who so rejoices in saving us.]
2. What effectual care is taken that we should not turn the grace of God into licentiousness!
[There are, it must be acknowledged, some who abuse this doctrine, (for what is there, however excellent, which men will not abuse?) and take occasion from it to rest in n state of worldliness and sloth. But the very promise gives us a sufficient antidote against the poison it is supposed to convey: it tells us indeed, that God will keep us from departing from him; but it tells us also, that he will do this by “putting his fear into our hearts.” This destroys at once all delusive hopes; inasmuch as it shews us, that, if we be not living habitually in the fear of God, we are actually departed from him, and consequently can have no ground whatever to expect salvation at his hands. Let the carnal and slothful professor of religion well consider this. His abuse of this promise cannot invalidate its truth; but it may deceive his soul to his eternal ruin. Be it ever remembered, that the very same fear which God puts into our hearts in our first conversion, must continue to operate, and that too with increasing activity, to the end of our lives and, that we have no longer any reason to think our past experience to be scriptural, than while we cultivate that fear, and endeavour to “walk in it all the day long.” We do not mean that every occasional backsliding should subvert our hopes; but, if ever the fear of God cease to be the leading principle in our hearts, or to stimulate us to further attainments in holiness, we may be sure that we have deceived our own souls, and that our religion is vain. May God keep us all from such a fatal delusion for his mercy’s sake!]