CHAPTER 25
[p. 212] CHAPTER 25
This is the song of Israel which corresponds with the subject. We have need of long patience. The counsels were of old, and they are faithfulness and truth; they are not yet accomplished, but they will be manifested in all their precision and solidity according to God. 2 Peter 3 shews us the world clinging to visible things: the sun rose today, as it did yesterday and will to-morrow, and with more prosperity still in hope. Let us eat and drink say they: the things that are have ever been, and nothing is so permanent; the earth, the world, goes on for ever. So men speak and act. The child of God, on the contrary, rests on the firmness of God’s word. By His word the world was made; by His word it has been judged and will be destroyed. If we judge by the events before us, as incredulity does, we shall attach ourselves till the last moment to the things about to pass away. If I conclude from experience, I try to make the best of things around me, instead of adhering to the word of God. It is a principle of all importance. Faith separates from evil, because it is evil; but it is quite a different thing to separate from a thing because God is going to judge it. One sees Christians who do not recognise evil until they are injured by it. But one ought to recognise evil beforehand by the word of God, in order not to be in the midst of evil when it shall be judged. It is not the man entangled by evil who can put his brethren on their guard.
In verses 2-8 we have the things that God does in that day. Not only will He put down wickedness and pride, but He will make unto all people a feast of fat things, that is, a full blessing; and He will destroy in the mountain of Israel the covering that covers over all people — an expression very applicable to the day when judicially God will send men strong delusion that they should believe a lie. Moreover He will swallow up death in victory, wiping away every tear and taking away the rebuke of His people from off all the earth. This is applied in 1 Corinthians 15: 54 to the first resurrection, of which the apostle treats throughout. All is presented together in a general way. We may so, for the Eternal has spoken, and it is our blessedness to believe God when there is only the word of God for our faith. The world will think only of what it likes; man believes Satan and despises God, who demands faith in His word; and we believe God in the midst of all the illusions, and the wiles of the devil by which we are surrounded in this world. We must believe God though encompassed with the effects of sin. Adam believed Satan though encompassed with the effects of the goodness of God. Faith gains the victory over the world, and acts in fact of that which is not as if it already existed.
[p. 213] Comparing verse 8 of our chapter with 1 Corinthians 15: 54 we see something different in tone from the resurrection of the wicked, who are to be by rising again plunged into the lake of fire, the second death. We clearly see here Israel restored at the time of the first resurrection. All the brightness of the sun will be as nothing in comparison with the glory of Jehovah, when the covering of darkness shall be removed from the nations. For God will have delivered the Gentiles to blindness (Romans 1; 2 Thessalonians 2). In the two chapters that follow are given the blessing of Judah, and the destruction of Satan or leviathan.
“In that day” (verse 1) is an expression of frequent recurrence which marks the time of accomplishment. “In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah.” Israel becomes again the centre of God’s government for the earth (Deuteronomy 32: 8). At present the nations have the upper-hand; these are the “times of the Gentiles”; but at length Judah re-appears on the scene as the object of God’s counsels.
Though Israel has been for a time delivered to the nations as to fierce beasts of prey, nevertheless the nations are not the direct object of the government of God, whilst providence directs everything. From Psalm 67 and many other scriptures we learn that the face of God must shine on Israel in order that His way may be known in the earth. When God strikes the nations, they are set aside, and He resumes the course of His government toward Israel. God overthrows the power of the Gentiles, and as to Israel shews Himself to be Jehovah, the Eternal.
“The way of the just is uprightness” (verse 7) — of him who walks faithfully. The immediate government of God takes place only in the midst of His people. Them God judges; and when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world. Every act in the life of the Christian has its consequence. God judges immediately, and the unfaithful Christian has not a path of uprightness. This is what Israel has already proved, as it will prove more. God smooths the way of him who is faithful.
[p. 214] The remnant of the Jewish people will have waited for Jehovah, spite of Antichrist and all the difficulties. Psalm 44 shews the anguish of the remnant at this time. God has to chasten them; nevertheless they are watched tenderly by God. Jesus perfectly realised this waiting of the faithful which counts on God, whatever the anguish to which obedience might bring Him. Never did He turn aside from the path of obedience, although it led Him on to drink “the cup.”
“The inhabitants of the world” will only learn righteousness (verse 9) by the divine judgment which strikes the earth. The Christian ought to take his part in suffering; if he walks with the world, he does not understand the interests of Christ and is weakened, he has not the desire for the glory of Christ and does not suffer for Christ. “The inhabitants of the world” are not of God; their portion is on the earth, they enjoy this world. We (Christians) are the dwellers in the heavens, or at least belong to heaven (1 Corinthians 15: 48; Philippians 3: 20), though too often Christians learn the ways of the dwellers on earth. God waits till iniquity reaches its height before striking; meanwhile the wicked will deal unjustly still.
“The land of uprightness” (verse 10) is what is promised to Israel, Canaan under the Messiah.
The wicked fail to see the uplifted hand of Jehovah (verse 11) until it falls upon them, when they shall see. As to the result here below, grace does not accomplish the conversion of the world. Every hope of the world’s conversion by the gospel is without ground in the word of God; and it is even worse with Christendom, hardened as it is against the truth, than with pagans. Christendom as it refuses the love of the truth will receive a spirit of error.
The Jewish remnant (verse 12, 13), have nothing but the name of Jehovah to boast. There are moments in life for the saint where nothing but that remains for the soul.
[p. 215] The nations which ill-treated Israel shall not live longer; their day is over. Not chosen of God for this world, they have failed in their responsibility; their day of visitation comes, and all their memory is made to perish.
Verses 15-19. Israel ends by renouncing all hope in itself; whilst now-a-days we see the Jews in their unbelief full of hope in their re-establishment. Yet they shall live. (Compare Ezekiel 37.) They shall rise as a nation.
The remnant (verse 20, 21) are called to hide themselves during the time of indignation or the day of vengeance. It is the time when the lawlessness of Antichrist will draw down the consuming wrath of God. The sole testimony will then be His judgment.