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Jeremiah
Chapter Fifty-two
Jeremiah 52
Chapter Contents
The fate of Zedekiah. (1-11) The destruction of
Jerusalem. (12-23) The captivities. (24-30) The advancement of Jehoiachin.
(31-34)
Commentary on Jeremiah 52:1-11
(Read Jeremiah 52:1-11)
This fruit of sin we should pray against above any thing;
Cast me not away from thy presence
Psalm 51:11. None are cast out of God's presence
but those who by sin have first thrown themselves out. Zedekiah's flight was in
vain
for there is no escaping the judgments of God; they come upon the sinner
and overtake him
let him flee where he will.
Commentary on Jeremiah 52:12-23
(Read Jeremiah 52:12-23)
The Chaldean army made woful havoc. But nothing is so
particularly related here
as the carrying away of the articles in the temple.
The remembrance of their beauty and value shows us the more the evil of sin.
Commentary on Jeremiah 52:24-30
(Read Jeremiah 52:24-30)
The leaders of the Jews caused them to err; but now they
are
in particular
made monuments of Divine justice. Here is an account of two
earlier captivities. This people often were wonders both of judgment and mercy.
Commentary on Jeremiah 52:31-34
(Read Jeremiah 52:31-34)
See this history of king Jehoiachin in 2 Kings 25:27-30. Those under oppression will
find it is not in vain for them to hope and quietly to wait for the salvation
of the Lord. Our times are in God's hand
for the hearts of all we have to deal
with are so. May we be enabled
more and more
to rest on the Rock of Ages
and
to look forward with holy faith to that hour
when the Lord will bring again
Zion
and overthrow all the enemies of the church.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Jeremiah》
Jeremiah 52
Verse 2
[2] And
he did that which was evil in the eyes of the LORD
according to all that
Jehoiakim had done.
Zedekiah — It
is generally thought that this chapter was not penned by Jeremiah
who
it is
not probable
would have so largely repeated what he had related before; and
could not historically relate what happened after his time
as some things did
which are mentioned towards the end of the chapter. Probably it was penned by
some of those in Babylon
and put in here as a preface to the book of
Lamentations.
Verse 24
[24] And the captain of the guard took Seraiah the chief priest
and Zephaniah
the second priest
and the three keepers of the door:
Three — It
is probable there were more keepers of the door
but the captain of the guard
took only three of the chief.
Verse 30
[30] In
the three and twentieth year of Nebuchadrezzar Nebuzaradan the captain of the
guard carried away captive of the Jews seven hundred forty and five persons:
all the persons were four thousand and six hundred.
All the persons were four thousand and six
hundred — How amazingly were the Jews diminished
that this handful was all who were carried captive!
Verse 34
[34] And
for his diet
there was a continual diet given him of the king of Babylon
every day a portion until the day of his death
all the days of his life.
All the days of his life — Here ends the history of the kingdom of Judah. I shall only observe the
severe judgment of God upon this people
whose kingdom was made up of the two
tribes of Judah and Benjamin
and half the tribe of Manasseh. In the numbering
of the persons belonging to these two tribes
Numbers 1:27
35
37
(counting half of the number
of the tribe of Manasseh) we find one hundred twenty-six thousand one hundred: Numbers 26:22
34
41
we find of them one hundred
forty-eight thousand four hundred and fifty. Here
verse 52:30
we find no more of them carried into
captivity
than four thousand and six hundred. From whence we may judge what a
multitude of them were slain by the sword
by the famine
and pestilence! It is
a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God
to mock his
messengers
despise his words
and misuse his prophets
'till there be no
remedy
2 Chronicles 36:16.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Jeremiah》
52 Chapter 52
Verses 1-34
Verse 11
He put out the eyes of Zedekiah.
Zedekiah the prisoner
Here is no mystery.
A wicked man
unfaithful to a very sacred trust
ending his days in darkness
and a prison (Psalms 37:35). The son of the good
Josiah
whose name suggests thoughts of early piety and godly patriotism
degenerate
idolatrous
and in the end eyeless and captive
pining away years
of monotonous misery in a Babylonish dungeon--it is all according to that law
which God has stamped on the world
“Your sin will find you out.” It has been
said of him that he was a man “not so much bad at heart as weak in will.” “He
was one of those unfortunate characters
” it has been said
“frequent in
history
like our own Charles I. and Louis XVI. of France
who find themselves
at the head of affairs during a great crisis
without having the strength of
character to enable them to do what they know to be right
and whose infirmity
becomes moral guilt.” That he was weak in will and purpose we see in the manner
in which he surrendered Jeremiah to the princes who sought his life (Jeremiah 38:3). But he was “bad at heart”
likewise. His heart was not right towards the Lord God of his father--self and
the world and idols were the objects of his affection
and after them he would
go. Warning succeeded warning in vain. For eleven years the struggle lasted
between this wicked prince and the voice which came to him from the God of
heaven. And the Jerusalem of his day may be described as the Sodom of an earlier
day--
Long warned
long spared
till her whole heart was foul
And fiery vengeance on its clouds came nigh.
Vengeance came in another form than that in which it fell on those
cities over whose ashes the waves of the Dead Sea now roll
and yet scarcely
less terrible. The Babylonian siege lasted sixteen months (53:4)
and the
miseries of Jerusalem were only less than those endured in the siege by the
Roman Titus
seven centuries after. The calamities which befell the royal
family are recorded with an undisguised bluntness (verses8-11). What a
catalogue of horrors! But all in keeping with the character of the people. They
had been described to the very life at an earlier stage of the ministry of
Jeremiah (Jeremiah 6:22-23). This witness is true.
The very stones
stones carved with their own hands
have been disinterred from
the grave of ages
to bear testimony to the truth of the histories and
prophecies of the Bible. Instead of being ashamed of the barbarities in which
they indulged
the Assyrians (and in this we need make no distinction between
the Assyrians and the Chaldeans) gloried in them
and employed the arts of
sculpture and painting to perpetuate the memory of their cruel deeds. On the
relics of their civilisation
now exhibited in our own museums and places of
public resort
we find cities which have surrendered represented as given up to
indiscriminate slaughter and the flames. The kings themselves took part in
perpetrating the cruelties which are brought to light by recently discovered
sculptures. On one of these sculptures a king is represented as thrusting out
the eyes of a kneeling captive with his own spear
and holding with his own
hand the cord which is inserted into the lips and nostrils of this and two
other prisoners. The spirit which possessed the Assyrians and Babylonians may
be traced through later ages in the same lands. One of the best of the Roman
emperors
Valerian
was taken prisoner in battle in the third century by a
Persian king
who detained him in hopeless bondage
and paraded him in chains
invested with the imperial purple
as a constant spectacle of fallen greatness
to the multitude. Whenever the proud conqueror mounted his horse
he placed his
foot upon the neck of the Roman emperor “Nor was this all for when Valerian
sank under the weight of his shame and grief
his corpse was flayed
and the
skin
stuffed with straw
was preserved for ages in the most celebrated temple
of Persia.” Would that such things as these could he told only of Eastern
lands! But Western story is full of them likewise. The conflicts of the Moors
and so-called Christians in Spain
from the eighth century
the age of Moorish
conquest
to the sixteenth
the age of their final expulsion from Europe
contains histories of cruelty
perhaps
to be rivalled nowhere else--cruelty in
which the so-called Christian luxuriated as much as his Moslem enemy. This
spirit attained its highest point of intensity and barbarity in the same land in
the Inquisition
strangely called the Holy Office
by which sheer torture was
invoked to root out Judaism
and every form and shade of Christianity except
that of the Roman Church. The appliances of rude barbarians
like American
Indians
and of civilised barbarians
like Assyrians and Chaldeans
are not to
compare with the appliances which the Inquisition perfected through its ages of
murder. But to return to the Babylonish cruelties on the person and family of
the Hebrew king. “The King
of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes.” How many or how old they were
we are
not told. The father being now only two-and-thirty years old
his sons must
have been boys. And ungodly as the father was
there is no sign in his life of
any want of natural affection
while there is sign of his sensibility to the
sufferings of others. To put his sons to death before his eyes was an act of
wanton cruelty
designed to give him the utmost possible pain. Then were put to
death the princes of Judah
who must now recall with bitterness
if not with
repentance
their long and obstinate resistance to the Divine counsels
and
their own hard-hearted attempt on the life of the prophet Jeremiah. His sons
dead
and the princes dead
the king himself must now submit to the cruel
sentence of his conqueror--a sentence more barbarous than death itself. His
eyes were put out. The process is revealed to us in a bas-relief
to which I
have already referred
in which the conquering king is digging out the eyes of
the conquered king with a spear. The King of Babylon may have done this with
his own hands to the King of Judah
or by the hands of another. In either ease
the conquered had no alternative but to submit. And thus blinded he is carried
to the prison on the banks of the Euphrates in which he must end his days. Two
predictions were thus fulfilled--one by Jeremiah 32:5
addressed to the king m
person
and one by Ezekiel 12:13
who was with the
captives which had been carried to Babylon some years before. The Word of the
Lord was not broken. The King of Judah saw the King of Babylon’s eyes with his
eyes
but it was the last vision which his eyes saw. The city of Babylon he saw
not
though he was doomed to be imprisoned in it and to die there. When
Zedekiah reached Babylon
there was already a King of Judah imprisoned there.
His nephew
the son of his elder brother Jehoiakim
had been dethroned
as we
have seen
after a brief reign of three months and ten days
and had been
carried into exile with many of his princes and subjects (Jeremiah 29:1-32.). That he was still alive
when his uncle and successor
blind and childless
arrived in the city of their
enemy
we know--for the last sentences of the Book of Jeremiah tell us what
befell him many years later. One wonders whether the two dethroned Kings of
Judah
uncle and nephew
ever met in the land of their imprisonment
and had
opportunity of talking over the events which had involved them in so great a
disaster. If they had
did they curse the God of their fathers
or did they
learn
as some of these fathers had done in the day of their adversity
to
humble themselves and seek forgiveness? Their great predecessor
Solomon
in
dedicating the temple which Babylon had now ]aid waste
had prayed (1 Kings 8:46-50). Imagine Jehoiakim
reading these words out of the book of the law to his blind uncle Zedekiah.
Imagine them recalling the history of the great-grandfather of the elder of
them--how Manasseh had done evil exceedingly; how the King of ‘Assyria had
bound him with fetters and carried him to Babylon; and how
when he was in
affliction
he besought the Lord (2 Chronicles 33:12). Thus encouraged
to repent and seek forgiveness
the royal prisoners may have bent the knee
together before the throne of the heavenly grace
and pied the promises which
had been given so often to the penitent. And if they presented thus the
sacrifice of a broken and contrite heart in their prison-house
we know that
mercy was not withheld. We find one little word which encourages hope. “There
shall he be till I visit him
saith the Lord” (32:5). God visits men with
judgment; but this He had done to Zedekiah before he reached his prison in
Babylon. God visits men with favour
with compassion
with restoring mercy: was
it thus He said He should visit Zedekiah in Babylon I doubt not that the words
“until I visit him” were meant to be indefinite and obscure
but were meant at
the same time to give assurance to the king that in Babylon he should not be
beyond the reach of God
whether for good or evil. “Am I a God at hand
saith
the Lord
and not a God afar off? Can any hide in secret places
that I shall
not see him
saith the Lord?” (Jeremiah 23:23-24.) Jehovah was a God at
hand in Jerusalem
but equally a God in Babylon afar off. The throne of Judah
was exposed to His eye
but equally so the most secret place in the Babylonish
prison. And God would visit Zedekiah in his exile and prison. This assurance
might be a terror or a joy. If the king hoped that
being in Babylon
he was
now away from the presence of Jehovah and under the rule of other gods
and had
nothing more to fear
let him know that Jehovah should visit him even there. If
he feared that
being in Babylon
he should be beyond the reach of the mercy of
the God of his fathers
let him know
to his heart’s joy
that Jehovah should
visit him even in that far-off land. (J. Kennedy
D. D.)
Verses 31-34
Lifted up the head of Jehoiachin.
Jehoiachin’s change of fortune
What changes may occur in life: who can tell what we may come to?
After thirty-seven years there arose a king who took a fancy to Jehoiachin
and
made quite a favourite of him in the court. Good fortune is often tardy in
coming to men; we are impatient
we want to be taken out of prison to-day
and
set among kings at once
and to have all our desires gratified fully
and
especially at once. See what has befallen Jehoiachin. For the first time for
seven-and-thirty years the man of authority has spoken kindly to him. Kind
words have different values at different times; sometimes a kind word would be
a fortune--if not a fortune in the hand
a fortune in the way of stimulating
imagination
comforting disconsolateness
and so pointing to the sky that we
could see only its real blue beauties
its glints of light
its hints of coming
day. When we have an abundant table
what do we care for an offered crust? that
crust may be regarded by our sated appetite as an insult: but when the table is
bare
and hunger is gnawing
and thirst is consuming
what then is a crust of
bread
or a draught of water? More men hunger for kind words than for bread.
There is a hunger of the heart. Here is an office we can all exercise. Where we
cannot give much that is described as substantial we can speak kindly
we can
look benignantly
we can conduct ourselves as if we would relieve the burden if
we could: thus life would be multiplied
brightened
sweetened
a great
comforting sense of Divine nearness would fall upon our whole consciousness
and we should enter into the possession and the mystery of heavenly peace. See
what fortune has befallen Jehoiachin! After thirty-seven years he is recognised
as king and gentleman and friend
and has kind words spoken to him in a kind of
domestic music. Was not all this worth living for? What have we been doing in
thus dwelling upon the good fortune of Jehoiachin? We have been playing the
fool. We have been reckoning up social precedences
better clothes
and
abundance of food; and we have been adding up how much the man must have worn
and eaten and drunken within the twenty-four hours
and all the while the king
looking at him benignantly
speaking to him as an equal
dealing out to him
kind words
--the whole constituting an ineffable insult. Yet how prone we are
to add up circumstances
and to speak of social relations as if they
constituted the sum-total of life. Now look at realities. Jehoiachin was in his
heart a bad man. That is written upon the face of the history of the kings of
Judah
and not a single word is said about his change of heart; and bad men
cannot have good fortune. He has been taken out of prison in the narrow sense
of the term
his head has been lifted up
a place of precedence has been
accorded him at the royal table
and his bread and water have been made sure
for the rest of his days: what a delightful situation! No. Jehoiachin at his
best was only a decorated captive; he was still in Babylon. That is the sting.
Not what have we
but where are we
is heaven’s piercing inquiry. Not how great
the barns; state the height
the width
the depth
the cubic measure of the
barns; but
What wheat have we in the heart
what bread in the soul
what
love-wine for the spirit’s drinking? (J. Parker
D. D.)
A captor’s magnanimity and generous dealing
At the battle of Poitiers the Black Prince defeats and captures the
French King John II. That night the Prince of Wales (the Black Prince) made a
supper in his lodging for the French king and to the great lords that were
prisoners. “And always the prince served before the king
as humbly as he
could
and would not sit at the king’s board
for any desire that the king
could make
and exhorted him not to be of heavy cheer
for that King Edward
his father
should bear him all honour and amity
and accord with him so
reasonably that they should be friends ever after.”. . . This scene
so
gracefully performed by him who
a few hours before
was “courageous and cruel
as a lion
” was in perfect accordance with the system of chivalry. (Knight’s
England.)
And spake kindly unto him.--
Kindness
To be kind is “to be disposed to do good to others
and to make
them happy”; and kindness is “that temper or disposition which delights in
contributing to the happiness of others.”
I. Much depends on
our spirit and disposition--well-nigh everything; for a kindly spirit or
disposition will always be finding ways of showing itself.
II. Be kind in your
thoughts one to another. To have pure streams you must have a pure fountain;
and if we think unkindly of people
we shall not be likely to speak or act
kindly towards them. Some people rob their own hearts of peace and sweetness
and destroy in themselves all nobility of character
because they have got into
the sad
sinful habit of always looking for the faults and failings of others
and attributing to them wrong motives.
III. Be kind in your
speech one to another. Words are little things and soon spoken
but they carry
much with them. They have power to give great joy or bitter sorrow; they may
nestle in the heart a very benediction
cherished to the dying day as an
inspiration to all that is good; or they may rankle in the breast
fostering a
bitterness which goes down to the grave. “Kind words can never die.”
IV. Do kind acts
one to another. Every day brings opportunities. Keep a look-out for them. (R.
M. Spoor.)
Every day a portion.
The daily portion
If the King of Babylon did thus for a captive king
his prisoner
will your Heavenly Father do less for you? He created you to need the daily
portion
and cannot be oblivious of His own constitution of your nature. You
wind up your watch each day
because you know that otherwise it will stop; and
God win not be less thoughtful of your constant need of reinforcement. His
faithfulness guarantees that there always will be the portion of good for the
body; always the portion of love and light for the soul; always the portion of
Holy Spirit quickening
for the spirit. It is easier to die once than to live
always. It is not easy to meets the continual demand of recurrent duty; not
easy to live a full and strong life
that never dips below the horizon
or sinks
in the fountain-basin. But it is possible
when the soul has learnt to leave
all care with God
waiting on Him for the supply of all its needs
and
esteeming that He is the only really satisfactory portion we need. “Neither
prison walls
nor locks
nor the cruelty of man
” said some imprisoned
suffering soul
“can obstruct the issues of the Lord’s love nor the
manifestation of His presence
which is our joy and comfort
and carries us
above all sufferings
and makes days and hours and years pleasant to us; which
pass away as a moment
because of the enjoyment of seeing Him with whom a
thousand years is but as one day.” Those who can trust God in these directions
are not only abundantly satisfied of His great goodness
but are able to send
portions to others. Like the disciples
they share out their slender supplies
and get twelve baskets full in return. (F. B. Meyer
B. A.)
All the days of his life.--
A good income for life
This paragraph describes the providential dealings of the Lord
with Jehoiachin by the instrumentality of Evil-merodach
the son of
Nebuchadnezzar
who was then King of Babylon; yet the successive items of those
dealings are so expressive that they seem almost to force themselves upon the
mind in a spiritual form
and therefore I shall accommodate those items to
spiritual things.
I. The dealings of
the Lord as here set before us
with Jehoiachin
king
as he should have been
of Judah
but for thirty-seven years a captive. Now
however
the time came for
him to be released. First
then
“Evil-merodach
King of Babylon
lifted up the
head of Jehoiachin
” that is
gave him a hope of deliverance
This is the first
item. Now it is sin” which hath brought us down
” and when a sinner is made
acquainted with his state as a sinner
he feels then that his heart and soul
are bowed down
and he can in no wise lift up himself. Faith brings in the
Redeemer in His perfection; there is an end to our sin and our folly; by faith
in Him we may lift up our heads and meet the smiles of heaven; we shall meet
by
faith in Him
the approbation of heaven
the light of Jehovah’s countenance; we
shall thus meet our great Creator as our covenant God
dwelling between the
cherubim
and He will shine forth. Here
then
we may say with David
“Thou art
my glory
and the lifter up of mine head.” If
then
we would lift up our
heads
it must be by Jesus Christ; that is
by His wisdom
not by our own;
except that our wisdom consisteth in the feeling our foolishness
and receiving
the Lord Jesus Christ as that way in which we may rise
and do at times rise as
eagles; run
and are not weary; walk
and shall not faint. Second
he brought
him forth out of prison. Here we have another Gospel blessing to go with us all
the days of our life. Jesus Christ came into the prison of our law
responsibility; He became a debtor to do the whole law; and He hath
preceptively
actively
and passively magnified the law. He has gone to the end
of our law responsibility
and has suffered all that sin has entailed. He has
done a great deal more spiritually than Evil-merodach
King of Babylon
did
literally. He brought forth Jehoiachin out of prison
but our Jesus Christ has
destroyed our prison; there is no prison left. The Son of God has made you
free; let us stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free
and
that all the days of our lives. So
then
He lifts up our heads
and we are
free. The next thing the king did was a very wonderful thing
an extraordinary
out-of-the-way
uncommon thing--an unheard-of
an unseen thing almost. And what
was that? Why
“spake kindly unto him” all the days of his life. So our God. He
spake kindly unto us when He called us by His grace
and He has spoken kindly
unto us ever since
and He will speak kindly unto us all the days of our life;
and there will be no danger afterwards
because no manner of cause win exist
after the end of this life for there to be anything but kindness. The law of
kindness is the mightiest power in existence; it will do what nothing else can.
But
fourth
Jehoiachin s throne was set “above the throne of the kings that
were with him in Babylon.” How expressive is this! The Christian has a higher
throne than the highest men in this world. Then
fifth
he changed his prison
garments. So the Lord has promised to give His people the oil of joy for
mourning; the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. But in the last
place--and all these things put together seem to amount to perfection
itself--“he did continually eat bread before the king all the days of his
life.” So we are brought before God and into the presence of God
and as long
as Jesus Christ remains in the presence of God
so long shall His people
remain. Jehoiachin was associated in eating with the king; that is to say
he
partook of the same
food
or he delighted in the same things
the same provisions
the same
pleasant fruits. Now the things the people of God live upon are the testimonies
of the Gospel in Christ.
II. The duration of
these blessings. First
then
his head was lifted up all the days of his life.
Look at it
Christian
what a good life you have before you! You have the Holy
Spirit to keep you believing in Jesus Christ; the day will never come when you
shall not lift up your head to God. You have before you Jesus Christ
the
lifter up of your head; the day will never come when He will cease to love you.
“Having loved His own
He loved them unto the end.” You have God the Father
with whom is no variableness
neither shadow of turning. Ah
then
let me say
if circumstances of affliction or adversity should be such that you can lift up
your head nowhere else you can lift up your head there; there is a God that
will sustain
that will bear
that will carry to old age
to hoar hairs
and
will deliver. And so he was brought out of prison; and we are made free all the
days of our life. There never will be when we shall not have liberty in Christ;
there never will be when we are not free there. There we may lift up our heads
because the Saviour has put down into eternal silence everything that is
against us. And the king spake kindly unto him all the days of his life.
Circumstances are like the clouds--not in one shape
nor in one form
nor one
height
nor one colour
nor one position
for a day
or half a day
or half an
hour sometimes; but the glorious truths of the Gospel--His kindness--still the
same. And he set his throne above the kings of Babylon all the days of his
life. I want a religion that places my foot upon the lion
upon the adder
upon
the young lion
upon the dragon
and enables me to trample the whole under
foot. Here
then
is a God that lifts up your head for life
that sets you free
for life
speaks
kindly to you all the days of your life
will keep you enthroned all the days
of your life; you shall reign like a king
and your throne unshaken stands; you
shall wear the royal robe all the days of your life
and be sustained all the
days of your life. What more can you want?
III. Several
Scriptures by which these things are very strikingly and beautifully
exemplified. I will notice three different Scriptures where we have the words
of our text named
“All the days of his life.” David upon this subject saith
“Goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” What goodness and
mercy? First
pastoral goodness and mercy. “He maketh me to lie down
” not in
dry
but “in green pastures
” new covenant promises; “He leadeth me beside the
still waters
” the deep mysteries of His wondrous kingdom; pastoral kindness
and restorative and directive goodness and mercy. “He restoreth my soul.” I am
sick
wretched
and miserable; He restores me to health; cast down
weary
everything against me; He restores me again. “He leadeth me in the paths of
righteousness
” paths of faith
righteousness of faith; “for His name’s sake”;
directive and restorative goodness and mercy. Also accompaniment goodness and
mercy. “Yea
though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
I will
fear no evil: for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me.” And
then comes provisional goodness and mercy; “Thou preparest a table before me in
the presence of mine enemies; Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth
over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” Go
from the 23rd to the 27th Psalm. “One thing have I desired of the Lord”; “that
will I seek after.” To be so good and pious that all the world should admire”
you? No
that is self-righteousness
no
that I may dwell in the house of the
Lord all the days of my life.” Well
what are you going to do? “To behold the
beauty of the Lord
and to inquire in His temple. For in the time of trouble He
shall hide me in His pavilion”; His royal pavilion
the place of His royal
authority; and if I have God on my side in His sovereign authority
who can be
against me? “In the secret of His tabernacle shall He hide me”; where the
mercy-seat is
that is where I like to be
He shall set me upon a rock. And
what then? “Now shall mine head be lifted up above wine enemies round about me;
therefore I will offer in His tabernacle sacrifices of joy; I will sing
yea
I
will sing praises unto the Lord.” One more Scripture upon this subject.
Zacharias
in the 1st of Luke
saith
“That we might serve Him without fear
in
holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life.” Here carefully
note how Zacharias comes into possession of that holiness and that
righteousness by which he knew he should serve the Lord acceptably all the days
of his life. He saith
“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for He hath visited
and redeemed His people
” “and bath raised up an horn of salvation.” Oh
then
if you are going to get this holiness by faith in Christ’s eternal redemption
”
I will come with you. “As He spake by the mouth of His holy prophets
which
have been since the world began. So here is redemption
and here is salvation.
Well
that redemption brings holiness
and brings in everlasting righteousness.
Salvation brings holiness
and brings in everlasting righteousness. “To perform
the mercy promised to our fathers
and to remember His holy covenant; the oath
which He aware to our father Abraham
” saying
“In thee and in thy seed
”
Christ Jesus
“shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” So
then
Zacharias got this holiness and righteousness by faith in the redemption
salvation
mercy
and covenant of Christ
and the oath of God. Now
in
conclusion
if you lose sight of all the rest
do pay attention to the spirit
in which Zacharias desired all the days of his life to serve God. I do not
think there is any Scripture more expressive of the feeling of the right-minded
than that there given. “That He would grant unto us
” &c. How different
this from the spirit in which people suppose that they do God a great favour
and that they merit great things at His hands
by a little formal service! But
Zacharias looked at being admitted into the faith
the service of faith
the
service of that faith that receives Christ as the end of sin
and thereby you
serve God in Christ as your sanctification and your justification--Zacharias
looked upon that as a Divine grant; “that He would grant unto us to serve Him
in holiness and in righteousness all the days of our life.” (Jas Wells.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》