PRESENT CONDITION of Israel. The expression used by Jeremiah
through the Psalms and the Prophets once, if not twice, every year they live. Of course you attach some meaning to the words I have just referred to. You place some sense upon them. Now what is that sense? What is that meaning? Take heed that it is the right one.
Reader, accept a friendly exhortation this day. Cleave to the literal sense of Bible words and beware of departing from it — except in cases of absolute necessity. Beware of that system of allegorizing and spiritualizing and accommodating, which the school of Origen first brought in, and which has found such an unfortunate degree of favor in the Church. In reading the authorized version of the English Bible, do not put too much confidence in the "headings" of pages and "tables of contents" at beginnings of chapters, which I consider to be a most unhappy accompaniment of that admirable translation. Remember that those headings and tables of contents were drawn up by uninspired hands. In reading the Prophets, they are sometimes not helps, but real hindrances and less likely to assist a reader than to lead him astray. Settle it in your mind, in the reading the Psalms and Prophets, that Israel means Israel; and Zion means Zion; and Jerusalem means Jerusalem.
And, finally, whatever edification you derive from applying to your own soul the words which God addresses to His ancient people — never lose sight of the primary sense of the text.
2. The second point in the text on which I proposed to dwell, is the PRESENT CONDITION of Israel. The expression used by Jeremiah describes exactly the state in which the Jews are at this day, and have been for nearly eighteen hundred years. They are a "scattered" people. The armies of Assyria, Babylon, and Rome have, one after another, swept over the land of Israel and carried its inhabitants into captivity. Few, if any, of the ten tribes appear to have returned from the Assyrian captivity. Not fifty thousand of Judah and Benjamin came back from the captivity of Babylon. From the last and worst captivity, when the temple was burned and Jerusalem destroyed — there has been no return at all. For eighteen hundred years, Israel
has been dispersed over the four quarters of the globe. Like the wreck of some goodly ship, the Jews have been tossed to and fro on all waters and stranded in broken pieces on every shore.
But though Israel has been "scattered," Israel has not been destroyed. For eighteen hundred years, the Jews have continued a separate people, without a king, without a land, without a territory — but never lost, never absorbed among other nations. They have been often trampled underfoot — but never shaken from the faith of their fathers. They have been often persecuted — but never destroyed. At this very moment, they are as distinct and peculiar a people as any people upon earth — an unanswerable argument in the way of the infidel, a puzzling difficulty in the way of politicians, a standing lesson to all the world. Romans, Danes, Saxons, Normans, Belgians, French, Germans have all in turn settled on English soil. All have in turn lost their national distinctiveness. All have in turn become part and parcel of the English nation, after the lapse of a few hundred years. But it has never been so with the Jews.
Dispersed as they are, there is a principle of cohesion among them which no circumstances have been able to melt. Scattered as they are, there is a national vitality among them which is stronger than that of any nation on earth. Go where you will, you always find them. Settle where you please, in hot countries or in cold, you will find the Jews. But go where you will and settle where you please, this wonderful people is always the same. Scattered as they are, few in number compared to those among whom they live, the Jews are always the Jews. Three thousand years ago Balaam said, "The people shall dwell alone, and not be reckoned among the nations." Eighteen hundred years ago our Lord said, "This generation shall not pass away until all be fulfilled." We see these words made good before our eyes (Num. 23:9; Luke 21:32).
But by whose hands was this scattering of Israel wrought? The text before us today declares expressly that it was the hand of God. It was not the armies of Tiglath-Pileser or Shalmanezer, of Nebuchadnezzar
or of Titus. They were only instruments in the hand of a far higher power. It was that God who orders all things in Heaven and earth, who dispersed the twelve tribes over the face of the earth. It was the same God who brought Israel out of Egypt with a high hand and mighty arm and planted them in Canaan — who plucked them up by the roots and made them "wanderers among the nations" (Hosea 9:17).
And why did God send this heavy judgment upon Israel? To what are we to attribute this surprising dispersion of a people so highly favored? The inquiry is a very useful one. Let us mark well the answer. The Jews are a "scattered" people — because of their many sins. Their hardness and stiff-neckedness, their impenitence and unbelief, their abuse of privileges and neglect of gifts, their rejection of prophets and messengers from Heaven, and finally their refusal to receive the Lord Jesus Christ, the King's own Son — these were the things which called down God's wrath upon them. These were the causes of their present dispersion.
The vine which was brought out of Egypt bore wild grapes. The gardener to whom the vineyard was let out, rendered not of the fruit to the Lord of the vineyard. The people that were brought out of the house of bondage, rebelled against Him by whom they were set free. Hence the wrath of God rose until there was no remedy. Thus He says, "You only have I known among the inhabitants of the earth, therefore I will punish you, because of your iniquities" (Amos 3:2). "They killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to all men in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. In this way they always heap up their sins to the limit. The wrath of God has come upon them at last!" (1 Thessalonians 2:15,16).
Israel was "scattered" to be a perpetual warning to the Gentile Churches of Christ. The Jews are God's beacon or pillar of salt to all Christendom, and a silent standing lesson which all who profess to know God, ought never to forget. They proclaim to all Christians . . .
God's hatred of spiritual pride and self-righteousness, God's high displeasure with those who exalt the traditions of men and depart from His Word, God's hatred of formality and ceremonialism.
If any man desires to know how much God hates these things, he has only to look at the present condition of the Jews. For eighteen hundred years, God has held them up before the eyes of the world, and written His abhorrence of their sins, in letters which he who runs may read.
I cannot pass away from this part of my subject without entreating all who read this address, to learn a practical lesson from the scattering of Israel. I entreat you to remember the causes which led to their dispersion, and to beware of the slightest approach to their peculiar sins. I am sure the warning is needed in these latter days. I am sure that the opinions which are boldly broached and openly maintained by many religious teachers in all Churches of Christendom, call loudly on all Christians to stand on their guard. It is not without good reason that our Lord said, "Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Sadducees and Pharisees" (Matthew 16:6).
Look to your own heart. Beware of tampering with false doctrines. Churches are never safe unless their members know their individual responsibility. Let us each look to ourselves and take heed to our own souls.
The same God lives, who scattered Israel because of Israel's sins. And what does He say to the Churches of Christ this day? He says, "Be not high-minded, but fear. If God spared not the natural branches — take heed lest He also spare not you!" (Romans 11:20, 21).
The third part of the text on which I propose to dwell is the FUTURE PROSPECTS of Israel. In taking up this branch of my subject, I feel that I am entering on the region of unfulfilled prophecy. I desire to
do so with all reverence, and with a deep sense of the many difficulties surrounding this department of theology, and the many diversities of opinion which prevail upon it. But the servant of God must call no man master on earth. Truth is never likely to be attained, unless all ministers of Christ speak out their opinions fully, freely, and unreservedly — and give men an opportunity of weighing what they teach.
Reader, however great the difficulties surrounding many parts of unfulfilled prophecy, two points appear to my own mind to stand out as plainly as if written by a sunbeam. One of these points is the second personal advent of our Lord Jesus Christ before the Millennium. The other of these points is the future literal gathering of the Jewish nation and their restoration to their own land. I tell no man that these two truths are essential to salvation and that he cannot be saved, unless he sees them with my eyes. But I tell any man that these truths appear to me distinctly set down in holy Scripture, and that the denial of them is as astonishing and incomprehensible to my own mind, as the denial of the divinity of Christ.
Now what says our text about the future prospects of the Jews? It says, "He who scattered Israel — will gather him." That gathering is an event which plainly is yet to come. It could not apply in any sense to the ten tribes of Israel. They have never been gathered in any way. Their scattering has never come to an end. It cannot be applied to the return of the remnant of Judah and Benjamin from the Babylonian captivity. The language of the text makes such an application impossible.
The text is addressed to the Gentiles, "the nations." The declaration they are commanded to make is, "to the isles of the sea." In the days of the Babylonian captivity, the "nations" of the earth knew nothing of the Word of the Lord. They were sunk in darkness and had not even heard the Lord's name. If Jeremiah had told them to proclaim the return of the Jews from Babylon under such circumstances, it