The Lord has His set times. He has laid His plans from eternity. They never miscarry. How different from man whose best laid plans often miscarry or are rendered void by some unlooked for eventuality! How often do men see their dearest and most well constructed schemes come crashing down on their own heads. Man proposes but God disposes. He is disposing all things for His own glory and anything and everything that might tend to thwart His purposes He will destroy or turn it to His own account.
The Lord has His set times for judgment and for the destruction of His enemies. The year of His redeemed is also His time for executing judgment upon His adversaries — “the day of vengeance is in my heart.” Though His enemies magnify themselves against Him, He will lay their heritage waste and take glory to Himself in the display of His power in their destruction. Men are fools who think they can fight against God and prosper. He has reserved judgment for His enemies, fury for His adversaries, and they shall not escape. Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not go unpunished. The waves may roar, but the Lord is more in might by far than the noise of the mighty waves of the sea. He will carry all before Him and sweep His enemies away into everlasting destruction. He will tread them in His anger and trample them in His fury.
To the children of Israel, the fiftieth year, the year of Jubilee, was the year of the Lord’s redeemed. The approach of that year with all that it meant in deliverance from burdens and bonds must have filled the heart of many an Israelite with rejoicing. But it was an institution of deeper meaning than that of temporal deliverance. It pointed to the spiritual deliverance which Christ, the promised Messiah, was to give His people, when He would appear to redeem Israel from all her iniquities.
How long the Church had to wait for the coming of the Messiah. But the long, weary centuries at length drew to a close. The vision was for an appointed time and the Lord’s people had to wait for it. It shall come, they were told, it will not tarry. When the fulness of the time was come then God sent forth a Redeemer out of Zion — the year of His redeemed had come. The substance of the song of the angelic host which proclaimed His coming was in effect, ‘the year of my redeemed is come.’ And when later we see the same Saviour going before His disciples as they ascend up to Jerusalem with Him for the last time, what is the spur that carries Him onward to the death He was to die there? Was it not this word — the year of my redeemed is come? How mysterious was the path that He trod, and how mysterious that He of all men should tread it. Again, as we look upon the Saviour, nailed to the accursed tree of Calvary, and view the amazing spectacle that meets our gaze there, how are we to account for it but by the Lord’s own declaration — the year of my redeemed is come.
For each of the believing people of God the fulfilment of this promise in their own personal experience is in the time of their deliverance from everlasting death, the time they were brought out of an horrible pit and out of the miry clay. But it is not one deliverance they need but many for their enemies are too strong for them and the Lord is pleased to grant this once and again. Is it any wonder then that they can say: “Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver; in whom we trust that He will yet deliver us”?
How many times in the history of the Church of God has this promise — the year of my redeemed has come — been fulfilled. The deliverance of Israel out of Egypt was such a time. The Lord appeared on behalf of His people to the destruction of their enemies and for His people’s salvation. “I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed thee out of the house of bondage.”
Again in the deliverance from the bondage of Babylon the Lord showed that the year of His redeemed had come. How sad was their condition as they sat by the rivers of Babylon and wept and hung their harps on the willows, refusing to sing a song of Zion, as they were carried into bondage. Who can but weep with them? But how different is their case when those long and weary years in captivity come to a close and they return to their own land. Who can but rejoice with them then as they once more tune their harps to sing again the songs of Zion?
“When Zion’s bondage God turned back
like men that dreamed were we
Then filled with laughter was our mouth
our tongue with melody.”
The year of the Lord’s redeemed had come.
Will it not be the same, too, when the promised days of millennial blessing for the Church come? At that time this word will also find its fulfilment — the year of my redeemed is come. We do not know how long the Church may have to wait for that year to dawn. We cannot tell whether this year will see the beginning of millennial glory for the Church of God or whether the Church will have still to pass through a season of tribulation and trial before the promise is fulfilled. But one thing is certain. What the Lord has promised He will fulfil in His own time. Meanwhile let us take encouragement in this that that day of His redeemed will come, and let us also be assured that, though the Church should have still to pass through days as dark as any she has yet known, the Lord is able to preserve His Church in the midst of the fiercest opposition.
Finally, there is that glorious day of the Lord when the Lord shall come in the clouds of heaven to receive His people unto Himself. At the moment of death each one of His own people will have this promise fulfilled in their own experience — the year of my redeemed is come. But collectively it will be fulfilled in the experience of the Church as a whole when Christ presents her before the Throne of His Father with exceeding joy. He will present her a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but holy and without blemish. If, on their deliverance out of Babylon the children of Israel tuned their harps to sing Zion’s songs, how much more will the redeemed upon Mount Zion above tune their harps to sing an endless song of praise to Him who loved them and washed them from their sins in His own blood and made them kings and priests unto God and His Father. That will be the year of the Lord’s redeemed that shall know a beginning but shall know no end.
A GOOD CONSCIENCE. Keep the conscience whole without a crack! If there be a hole in it so that it take in water at a leak, it will with difficulty mend again. It is a dainty delicate creature, and a rare piece of the workmanship of your Maker; and therefore deal gently with it, and keep it entire, that amidst this world’s glory you may learn to entertain Christ.
Samuel Rutherford