But that is not the point to be particularly noticed in the passage, for we must rather study the mind of Jeremiah, and consider on what principle he redeemed the field. Why was it that, when he knew the city was about to be taken, and everything within it was already at famine prices, he apparently threw away these seventeen shekels in the purchase of a field which to all appearance he was never likely to possess? He knew perfectly well that at the time he purchased it it could be of no use whatever. It is believed to have been about three miles north of Jerusalem, and was probably at that very time trampled down by the besieging host, and he knew equally well that till after the restoration of the Jews he was not likely to attain possession. The city was invested by the Chaldeans, and there was not the smallest hope of a successful resistance; why then at such a time should he spend money in the redemption of the field? I believe that there were three principles on which he acted,—obedience, faith, and confidence in the law of redemption, and that he was called to do what he did in order to teach these principles to his besieged fellow-countrymen.
(1.) There was clearly obedience, simple obedience in direct opposition to human calculation. You may see this very clearly in the concluding words of his prayer. It is clear from ver. 24 that all human calculation was against him, and he knew it to be so, for he said, ‘Behold the mounts, they are come unto the city to take it; and the city is given into the hand of the Chaldeans that fight against it, because of the sword, and of the famine, and of the pestilence; and what thou hast spoken is come to pass; and, behold, thou seest it.’ But the Lord had commanded him to buy the field, for he adds, ver. 25, ‘And thou hast said unto me, O Lord God, Buy thee the field for money, and take witnesses: for’ (or rather ‘though,’ according to the margin) ‘the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans.’ God told him to buy it, though the city was given up to the Chaldeans. He was not, therefore, to be guided by what he saw, but by what he knew to be the will of God. If he were to lose all his money, and never come into possession of the field, it was his clear duty to obey. And so it is ours, when once we are convinced of the will of God.
(2.) But as believers in the Lord Jesus we are not called to obey without hope, for where there is no hope you will never find power. The Christian’s obedience, therefore, is full of hope, because it is all founded on faith, and so was the obedience of Jeremiah. He acted in faith, firmly trusting the promises of God. You see this very clearly in his words to Baruch when he handed him the deeds, as recorded ver. 15: ‘For thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Houses and fields and vineyards shall be possessed again in this land.’ He looked, therefore, beyond the present distress, and, more than that, beyond what I may term the first future. He foresaw the overthrow, but he looked beyond it to the recovery. He himself predicted desolation, but he was so sure of the restoration that on the strength of that assurance he redeemed the land. Though he saw the army of the Chaldeans around the city, though he was at that very time in prison for prophesying, ‘Thus saith the Lord, Behold I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it,’ yet he was so sure of the truth of God’s promise to restore it, that he acted on the promise, and purchased the property. He looked beyond the captivity to the recovery, and confidently acted on God’s promise. That he fully realised the difficulty is clear from the words of his prayer, in which he said, ver. 17, ‘There is nothing too hard for thee,’ and from God’s reply to these words in ver. 27, ‘Is there anything too hard for me?’ But he was, like Abraham, fully persuaded that what God had promised ‘He was able also to perform,’ and therefore he acted on the promise? and paid down his money in the certainty that God would fulfil His word. Dear brethren, is there not a noble lesson here for all of us? Are we not all taught, not merely to believe, but to act on our belief? We may see difficulties thickening around us; we may even see prophecies of sore trial in the latter days. But we know that our God shall trample down Satan under our feet shortly. We are to trust Him, therefore, and act on our trust. We see things decaying around us; we look at our own frail bodies, and believe that they will soon be laid lifeless in the grave. We see death cutting down our dearest friends, and we know that, if the Lord does not come first, it will soon cut us down too. But we look beyond to a resurrection, to the certain promise that we shall rise again; and therefore now we must live and act as those who are sure of the resurrection life. To adopt the figure of the narrative, we must purchase the field with a view to the restoration. There may be dark days and sore trials before the time of possession; but it is certain to come at last. As Daniel said, ‘The thing is true though the time appointed is long.’ So we know the premise is true, though the time of waiting may be long; and we must spend our whole life, and lay out all our powers, with the one fixed object of a certainty of possession when the dead shall arise, and the Lord shall take the kingdom.
(3.) But besides faith in the promise of God there was also confidence in the validity of the act of redemption. There was no doubt about the soundness of his title. The whole transaction was according to law. Hanameel had a legal right to sell, Jeremiah a legal right to redeem, and the conveyance was legally completed. All was done that was required by the law of transfer, and when those deeds were carefully deposited in the earthen vessel, there to continue for many days, Jeremiah clearly considered that whenever the time of restoration should come, the deeds would be recognised as valid, and his title as sufficient. He regarded the act of redemption as sufficient security whenever God should restore the land to Israel. And now, dear brethren, have we not all a magnificent lesson to learn from his example? We are looking forward to the times of restoration: we expect to rise again; we fully believe that the Lord Jesus Christ will come bringing His saints with Him, and, like Jeremiah, we depend on the finished act of redemption, as our own title to a share in the coming inheritance. Now look at that great act of redemption. There was no flaw in any part of it, for the whole law was fulfilled. The full price was paid, for we may adapt the words of the prophet, ‘She hath received of the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.’ The redemption price was not seventeen shekels of silver; but the most precious blood of the Son of God. The Redeemer is not a mere man, a prisoner in the dungeon of the king; but the Son of God already risen from the dead, and already seated at the right hand of the throne. And the deeds are not deposited in any earthen vessel, or trusted to the care of such a man as Baruch; but they are treasured up in heaven itself, kept safe in the eternal counsels of Jehovah. And now follows the question, was that redemption by the Son of God sufficient? And are these title-deeds secure? If Jeremiah could trust to those sealed documents in the earthen vessel under Baruch’s care, may we not trust to the full satisfaction made through redeeming blood, and the perfect security of the covenant of God as sealed, ratified, and preserved by Jesus Christ Himself? Of course when persons have no interest in that redemption, when they have no part in that redeeming work, we cannot then say that their title is secure, for, poor people! they have neither title nor inheritance; they have no hope in the restoration as they are without God in the present. Oh! that I knew how to persuade such persons never to rest till they have their title-deeds to a heavenly inheritance. But I am not speaking of them. I am speaking rather of the redeemed believer, whose ‘life is hid with Christ in God;’ and I want to persuade all parties, both those that do, and those that do not, possess the title-deeds, to consider well the unspeakable blessedness of having the title safely deposited with the Son of God, so that, whatever happens, whatever success or discouragement, whether joy or trial, whether life or death, we may be perfectly sure that all is safe, for the redemption has been completed by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and the title-deeds are safe, being laid up in the treasury of God.
VIII. THE PIT.
‘O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life.’—Lam. iii. 58.
We studied in the last lecture the remarkable faith of Jeremiah. We found how he redeemed the field in Anathoth at the very time that Jerusalem was invested by the Chaldeans, and he himself was predicting the certainty of its destruction: but in that moment of hopelessness he had such entire trust in the promise of restoration, and such assurance in the validity of the title, that he purchased the field as readily as he would have done had everything been at the height of prosperity. We saw in such conduct the practical acting of faith. But it is very interesting also to look at the hidden life of faith, and to know, while he was thus acting, what was secretly passing in his soul. I think that this passage may throw great light on the subject. From ver. 55 it is clear that he referred to a time when he was in the low dungeon: ‘I called upon thy name, O Lord, out of the low dungeon.’ We are not informed to which imprisonment he referred. It may have been the imprisonment in the courts of the prison which was in the court of the king’s house, during which he redeemed the land of Hanameel, or it may have been the much more severe imprisonment which subsequently followed, as described Jer. xxxviii. 6, when they let him down by ropes into a deep, damp pit, called the dungeon of Malchiah. The expression ‘the low dungeon,’ seems rather to describe this latter captivity, and we may picture to ourselves God’s faithful servant left alone in a deep, dark pit, standing up to his waist in the mire, without a comfort, without a friend, and without even a fellow-prisoner to share his trouble. His title-deeds to the field in Anathoth would not do much to help him there. But he was a man of trust, and afterwards, when he was still in sore trouble, and deeply grieved at the ruin of the city, he could look back on that time and say, ‘Thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul, thou hast redeemed my life.’
Let us study then this remarkable record of his intercourse with God during this time of his deep trouble. There was nothing done. It was not a time for doing. He could not climb out, he could only stand and wait. What then was passing in his soul? What transactions took place between him and God? To these questions I think this passage supplies an answer. There are three things that seem perfectly clear.
(1.) He called on the name of the Lord. Perhaps he remembered the words of Psalm xxxiv.: ‘This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.’ At all events he acted on them, and though in all probability he could not kneel because of the mire, yet he could pray, and so he did. But he was not like many people who live prayerless lives, and only begin to pray when they get into trouble, for prayer was no new thing to him. He was no stranger at the throne of grace, and he could look back on many happy occasions in which he had reason to be quite sure God had answered him. It is a terrible thing when men go on, strangers to prayer, till they are driven to it by calamity. It was not so with Jeremiah. He knew the mercy-seat well, and he was well known there. He could refer to answers in former times, and say, ‘Thou hast heard my voice,’ and so appeal to God in his present trouble and say, ‘Hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry.’ There was both a breathing and a cry; the cry being the actual expression of his wants in words, and the breathing, the outpouring of his soul in mental intercourse with a God who knew his thoughts. It is well to remember this distinction between the breathing and the prayer. The prayer is not altogether unlike the food at stated seasons. The breathing is the unceasing communion of soul as essential to life as breath is to the body.
(2.) And now mark, in the second place, how God treated him. The King of Kings was not ashamed of being the companion of the prisoner in the pit. It was a deep, dark dungeon; but the man of God was not alone there. The stone on the top could not shut out God, as it could not shut in prayer. And you will observe the prophet was not required to climb out of the pit to find the Lord, as so many people are continually trying to do, but the Lord drew nigh to him when he was at the bottom, not when he was at the top, or half-way up; but at the bottom, in the mire, and in the dark. It was there that God drew near to him in the day that he called, and most graciously spoke to his soul, and said, ‘Fear not.’ How often, how mercifully have these words been spoken! I believe they occur more than fifty times in Scripture. How often do we meet with such words as ‘Fear not, Abraham.’ ‘Fear not, thou worm Jacob.’ ‘Fear not, Daniel.’ ‘Fear not, Zacharias.’ ‘Fear not, little flock.’ ‘Fear not, Paul.’ ‘Fear not, I am the first and the last!’ Do not all these passages show that there is reason for fear in outward life, and that there is the element of fear in the human heart, but there may be a victory over fear even in the bottom of the pit, when the Lord Himself draws nigh, and says, ‘Fear not.’ But you may say you cannot hear the words, and, no doubt, in that you are correct, for we are not to expect loud voices from heaven. We have not the least reason to believe that Jeremiah heard a voice. When David prayed, ‘Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation,’ he did not mean that these words should be spoken audibly to his ear. But he did mean that the assurance of God’s salvation should be applied by the Holy Spirit to his heart. And so when God drew near to Jeremiah and said, ‘Fear not,’ we are not to understand that His person was visible to the eye, or the sound of His voice perceptible to the ear. But we are to understand that He so spoke to his heart as to assure him of His nearness, and to still his fears. And so it is with us. We do not look for anything perceptible by outward sense, but we do look for a rest from fear in the heart through the divine application of the Lord’s grace and very present help to the soul.