CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 30
Woe is pronounced on the rebellious children who act according to their prudence, but not counselled of Jehovah (verse 1-7). This is found too often even with the Christian. It is folly, even with the best intentions, to take counsel of oneself. It characterises the evil in the last times. For the Christian, is it not to take counsel of God, if one forms a plan, and then pray for a blessing? Often it is necessary for us to run back the road so as to return to the place which one had quitted. All that is time lost.
Israel sought an ally in Egypt strong as the Assyrians (verse 2). It is to seek strength in the flesh. God would make this prudence vain; He would have His people confide in Himself. So Abram went down into Egypt without consulting God (Genesis 12), and found himself the worse for it. What things have we, dear friends, done today without consulting God? It has been all lost time thus to act without God. Man would always act; though on many occasions God would have one keep quietly waiting (1 Samuel 15). Whatever be the appearances of reason and prudence, it is always folly for man to wish to go before God’s time. God does not slumber, He tries our hearts and intervenes at last in a suitable time.
Nothing is more despicable than the people of God in alliance with the world. They can but add their misery to that of the world, and the world profits them in nothing (chapter 31: 3). Ruin will come on all that the deceivers do (verse 8-14). There is no people like God’s when He abandons them: the evil reaches them, the good escapes them; there is neither force nor intelligence (verse 15-17).
[p. 224] Nevertheless Jehovah waits that He may be gracious unto them (verse 18). The Pharisees, who would have made a heap of the adulteress, disappear; whilst Jesus stays to shew grace, of which they felt no need. (See John 8: 9-11.)
“For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem: thou shalt weep no more: he will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry; when he shall hear it, he will answer thee,” verse 19. This is given also in Joel 2: 12-14. From the moment the remnant take the place where God put them, He listens to their cry. Faith takes the place of the sinner and humbles itself, and then God answers. If the church is in a sad state, faith has the consciousness of the state the church is found in; owns it, humbles itself, and God can answer. It is what Christ has done for us; He has owned fully before God the state of sin in which He put Himself for us, and He has wrought redemption. The remnant will feel the ruin of Jerusalem, and will cry according to the misery and the ruin of Jerusalem. Faith gives the consciousness of the state of ruin in which sin has placed us.
“And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction, yet shall not thy teachers be removed into a corner any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers: and thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left,” verse 20, 21. This is consoling. The remnant will be in the utmost distress, but they shall see their teachers, and hear the word of guidance. Misery may be deep, but God will shew the way. Once they are brought down to the point where God sees things, He has always a way for His people, and as they depart from all iniquity, so He will bless with every blessing on the earth (verse 22-26). The nations are to assemble in the power of their will, but God will sift and scatter them in devouring judgment (verse 27-30), while the remnant rejoice in their place.
The Assyrian is always presented here as the one with whose destruction ends “the indignation.” (See chapters 10: 24; 14; Daniel 8.) When the Assyrian is destroyed the indignation will be closed. (Compare Micah 5: 5, 6.) Jesus “shall be the peace when the Assyrian shall come into our land.” “For through the voice of Jehovah shall the Assyrian be beaten down, which smote with a rod. And in every place where the grounded staff shall pass, which Jehovah shall lay upon him, it shall be with tabrets and harps: and in battles of shaking will he fight with it. For Tophet is ordained of old; yea, for the king it is prepared; he hath made it deep and large: the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of Jehovah, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it,” verse 31-33. The staff of Jehovah shall fall on the Assyrian. One sees the aim of this judgment of God. He is full of patience and longsuffering. His people meanwhile are in alarm at the power of the enemy. When God strikes the enemies, it is always the deliverance of His people. Tophet, the place of the Assyrian’s judgment, is already prepared, not for him only, but also for “the king,” the Antichrist who shall do according to his will. (See Daniel 11: 36-45.) Antichrist will be cast with the Assyrian into Tophet. “The breath of Jehovah like a stream of brimstone doth kindle it.” (Compare 2 Thessalonians 2: 8.) He will destroy the wicked with the breath of His mouth.
[p. 225] If we listen to our own will, it would put us in movement according to the strength of man against the evil which surrounds us. But we have nothing else to do but wait on God, abiding faithful to Him who will not let us fall into ruin through the adversary. May God give us grace to receive His word that this rebellious people would not receive. For God waits to be gracious to those that receive His word. “Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation which shall come upon all the world to try them that dwell on the earth,” Revelation 3: 10.