Our salvation the fruit of everlasting love, and nothing else. You have been drawn to this. Pray for the immediate revelation of God Himself to your spirit in a way of joy and transport that shall set your soul in rapid motion towards the Lord. Nothing but the applause of men. If the Bridegroom deigns to visit you, hold Him fast. So Isa 44:21, "O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of Me.". Unless we are to understand the term “goodness” as comprehending love, the omission may be thus explained and illustrated. — Ed. He who is loved with an everlasting love, and knows it, should swim in an ocean of joy. Appeared to him - To whom does him refer? Then we learn that the great motive of the Divine drawings is everlasting love. Though all things in the field and the garden show what the sun doeth, yet none of these “fruits put forth by the sun” can be perceived till the sun himself reveals them. Nothing can be more clear, than that the doctrine of Divine influences pervades the Holy Scriptures, and that these influences are constantly represented as imparted to men according to God’s sovereign will and pleasure: yet the generality of men reject those doctrines merely because they cannot explain all the difficulties involved in them. But we soon learn that these are only types, yet, God’s mercy pursued man in times of yore, and does now, and everywhere. (21-26) God's care over the church. He must speak, or we cannot interpret His acts. “Loving-kindness.” The heavenly magnet. I am Jehovah that change not, whatever thou mayest think of me, because I seem angry at thy misdoings. This appears a very remarkable omission, as remarkable as if an orator, who undertook to describe the firmament, left out the sun, or an artist in painting the human face, made it sightless, and gave no place on the canvas to those beaming eyes which impart to the countenance its life and expression. But God never hates us. All his thoughts, therefore, all his plans, all his ways are like himself, eternal, infinite, unchanging, and unchangeable. Romans 11:16.]. “The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee.” What exceeding love the Lord showed to us before we knew Him! Love. and have you a good hope that you are of the number of God’s elect? GOD'S COVENANT FAITHFULNESS IN ACTION. everlasting love. You have not found out yet the depth, the full significance of its revelations. We look back, and see an altar, and a victim, and a priest. Everything marked us as, in the worst sense, slaves. Our love partakes of this narrowness of our nature--it can embrace but a few objects and it cannot travel far. But the truth is, that our proud hearts do not like to be so stripped of all goodness, or to be made so entirely dependent on God. How sweetly does immutability smile on us as we hear it say, “Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love”! And when Jehovah says to you, a feeble woman, an unknown man, “I have loved thee,” He means it. What more beautiful symbols of Divine love and watchfulness can there be than that of the Good Shepherd in search of those who have wandered away from Him--of the lost sheep; and when He finds the lost one He lays it on His shoulder rejoicing. I. it is “to be conformed to the image of his Son [Note: Romans 8:29. There is a tendency in the human mind to thrust itself behind the birthday of time, and fall--where? I. So Isaiah 44:21, “O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of Me.”, ‘I have loved thee with an everlasting love.’, I. 2 Thus saith the LORD, The people which were left of the sword found grace in the wilderness; even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest. God must reveal Himself to the man, or else he will not discover the hand of the Lord in the anguish of his spirit. Our text enables us to answer these questions; and we will answer them in their order. — — — They are particularly careful to exclude all works of ours from forming a ground of God’s electing love, lest we should boast as having in some degree merited his favour [Note: 2 Timothy 1:9.]. The method of redemption. The matchless declaration. (Thomas Spurgeon.). C'est pourquoi je t'ai conserve ma grace. 1. To which the prophet replies by assuring them that God’s love was not a temporary love, manifested to a single generation, but it was an everlasting love; therefore he had drawn them with loving-kindness, he had all along dealt graciously with them, that way attempting to oblige them to that duty which they owed to him: this drawing with loving-kindness he calleth a drawing with the cords of men, Hosea 11:4, who ordinarily are little wrought upon by force, but won by love. A revelation of God’s love is foundational to everything. God promised to make everything new through Jeremiah. Thus, our text is a word of love in the past. Jehovah enthroned in Zion, or in the heaven of heavens, hears the cry of the exiles by the waters of Babylon or Nineveh. Nor is love, to drop our figure, inactive or useless among the children of men even in their low estate. Then the gentlest of hands will endeavour to extract it. Children’s Sermon Jeremiah 31:3 – How Big is God’s Love. The Lord loves the believer now. He fills all space with His presence; there is no limit to His capabilities. “I,” whom ye have--, II. Martin.). Sometimes that picture is in words of sympathy, of love, of encouragement, and inspiration. If they turned their thoughts more to his everlasting love, they would soon feel its attractive and constraining influence. What is love? I have known others drawn to the Lord by another view of His loving-kindness, namely, His willingness to make new creatures of us. 2. and What hast thou which thou hast not received? But, meanwhile, it is for the spiritual Israel—for those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ—the Messiah Who has come.’. Jeremiah 30 Jeremiah 32 ... Advance your knowledge of Scripture with this resource library of over 40 reference books, including commentaries and Study Bible notes. Consider the particular form which God’s loving-kindness has assumed in order to attract man to virtue. "Therefore I have preserved my grace to thee.". Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiff-necked [Note: Deuteronomy 10:15-16. What a constraint, often inexplicable, has it put upon your inclinations to accomplish an object which, had it been granted, you afterwards saw would have been your ruin! Again you will take up your timbrels and go out to dance with the joyful. That their connexion with him is altogether owing to his influence—, [If the most express declarations of Scripture can determine any thing, the point in hand is established beyond a doubt: for our blessed Lord says, that “no man,” whatever his quality or talents, “can come to him,” in the exercise of true faith, “unless the Father draw him [Note: John 6:44. III. His mediation was no afterthought. His “yea” amounts to a sacred asseveration: “Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love.”, III. Since, then, the covenant of God is inviolable and cannot fail, even were heaven and earth brought into confusion, we ought to feel assured that God will ever be a deliverer to us: how so? It is the same when we announce any terrors according to ancient examples, “He! Some of us scarcely know how, but we found ourselves beneath the blood-stained tree. He has seemed to despise me, (St. Jerome) or he has spoken to my ancestors. God saves us. 2. The covenant between God and Israel, the covenant made so long ago … Continue reading "Commentary on Jeremiah 31:31-34" Under what aspects has mercy appeared unto men? Am I drawn? ), The place of love among Divine attributes, According to the Catechism of the Westminster Assembly, “God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth” A very comprehensive and noble definition, no doubt I yet did it never strike you as strange that there is no mention of love here? Therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee - "Therefore have I lengthened out mercy to thee." The love of God is individual; it is personal; it is the love of one loving heart to another; it is no mere impersonal conception of supreme benevolence; it is the love of a father to a child, the love of a mother to a daughter; it would not be love otherwise, for it is a distinguishing idea of love that it discriminates its object. II. God Himself filled and thrilled my soul. Grace begins its work by transforming the heart into the image of the Son of God. Say then, with the Church of old, “Draw me, and I will run after thee [Note: Song of Solomon 1:4. One grain of the Saviour’s love in that heart will leaven the whole. This is an instance of the love of God; a fruit and effect of it: it is love that draws a soul to Christ, and is the cause of its coming to him; it is love that reveals him to it, and causes it to come to him; love is then manifested and shed abroad in the heart; a cord of it is let down into it, and with it the Lord draws; it is not by the threats of the law, but by the declarations of grace in the Gospel; the cause of drawing is love, and the manner of it is with it. Cast round about the heart those mysterious cords of love, as soft as silk, and yet as strong as steel; ah! References: Jeremiah 31:3.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ), I. What melted that heart of ice,--what, but the warm breath of love? The Lord surrounded you as a fish is surrounded with a net; and though you laboured to escape you could not, but were drawn more and more within the meshes of mercy. It delights where it can delight, and seeks the good of its object in every form, and in the highest degree. But this is equally inconsistent with true spiritual experience. (1-9) Promises of guidance and happiness; Rachel lamenting. (e) Thus the Lord answers that his love is not changeable. why dost not thou rather shew us plainly what God intends to do? 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