In
the first of Jehovah's messages through the tender-hearted prophet, and recorded
in Jeremiah 2, there are a number of touching questions. "What is wrong in Me?"
(v. 5); "Why not inquire of Me?" (v. 6); "The priests ignore Me, why?" (v. 8);
"Is there any nation so whimsical as you?" (v. 11); "Why do you act as a spoiled
servant?" (v. 14); "Why have you forsaken Me?" (v. 17); "Why do you hanker after
Egypt?" (v. 18), etc. The whole of the message is a series of challenging and
searching queries. But surely none are so pointed and full of meaning as "Have
I become a wilderness unto Israel?" (v. 31). The Lord a wilderness to His redeemed
ones?
Repeatedly
we find in the sacred records that graphic phrase, "All that great and terrible
wilderness" (Deut. 1:19), by which an attempt was made to describe the dreary
places Israel had to tread in their desert journeys. A wilderness is an undesirable
place where no one cares to be. Is it not tragic to find suggested here the
possibility of the Desire of Nations, the Altogether Lovely One, the Chiefest
among Ten Thousand, becoming unattractive and undesired? Yet such is the inference.
One
of the surest and safest proofs of a growth in grace is an ever-increasing appreciation
of the finished work and the glories and beauties of the Lord! Trusting in the
Lord should speedily lead to "Delight thyself also in the Lord" (Ps. 37:3).
What a suggestive order is to be noticed here. "Trust" then "do good"; not "do
good" and then "trust." No, faith first; then works. But be sure to "do good"
after trusting. "Trust in the Lord, and feed on His faithfulness" (R.V.).
That is important. As I ponder and nourish my soul on the faithfulness of God,
I soon, very soon, will begin to "delight (my)self also in the Lord." That means
goodbye to the wilderness view of Christ. The wilderness becomes a garden of
delights.
The
saddest fact of all is that He had become as a wilderness to many of His redeemed
ones. Israel stood in that relationship. Not only had they in Egypt passed under
the blood for safety, but through the Red Sea for deliverance. He had given
them the land flowing with milk and honey for an inheritance. What more could
He have done? Though punctilious in the performance of their religious duties,
they had become empty formalists, missing and losing the Lord even in His own
sanctuary.
Neglect
is the parent of desert lives. Only too well do we know that the less we pray,
the less inclined we become to pray; the less we read the Bible, the less we
desire it; and the more we neglect the Holy Book and prayer, the less we desire
the Lord, and the further we drift away. Neglecting the daily and devotional
study of the Scriptures, and spending less and less time in private prayer,
the Lord becomes as a wilderness to us---nothing but a dry, unattractive, and
thirsty land where no water is.
But
wilderness places can blossom again. The wilderness and the solitary place can
become places of gladness, and the desert can rejoice and blossom as the rose.
One stanza old Dr. Tauler wrote, and it would be well for us to offer it as
a prayer to our Lord and Saviour, as follows:
As
the rose amid the briars
Fresh
and fair is found,
Heedless
of the tangled thicket,
And
the thorns around;
As
the sunflower ever turning
To
the mighty sun,
With
the faithfulness of fealty
Following
only One --
SO
MAKE ME, LORD, TO THEE!
"That
in all things He might have the pre-eminence." "That Christ may be all in all."