In the end of the preceding chapter the Lord charges the people addressed, with sin, and reminds them of how He dealt with their ancestors for their transgressions — Thy first father hath sinned and thy teachers have transgressed against Me. Therefore, I have profaned the princes of the sanctuary and have given Jacob to the curse and Israel to reproaches (verses 27-28), and now He is to deal favourably with them. He introduces the subject of discourse by the word “Yet”, as if He had said: “Notwithstanding all this I will do you good.” He calls their attention to what He is now to declare to them for their comfort: “Yet, now hear O Jacob, my servant, and Israel whom I have chosen: thus saith the Lord that made thee and formed thee from the womb which will help thee. Fear not O Jacob, my servant, and thou Jeshurun whom I have chosen.” The reason of these encouraging words is declared in our text, which may be divided into the following heads:—
I. The objects of the promise.
II. The promise itself.
III. The effect of the promise.
I. The objects of the promise. There are two classes included in the objects of the promise. The first is described as thirsty, the Lord’s people who were quickened to life by the Holy Spirit. It is living men that thirst, not the dead. The Lord’s people were by nature spiritually dead like others, but God quickened them (Eph. 2: 1). The first indication of life was that they became conscious of their sinful and lost condition, and that they began to thirst for salvation. “What must I do to be saved” (Acts 16: 30) was the earnest cry of each to them. But having believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, as the jailor did, they tasted that the Lord is gracious (1 Peter 2: 3). Their thirst now rose a step higher. They thirst for the living God (Ps. 52: 1-2). They thirst after His fellowship and communion and conformity to His holy image which they, in common with all the fallen race of Adam, lost by sin and the fall. They thirst for spiritual nourishment; for now, as living, they cannot do without food and drink for their souls. They thirst for the coming of the Kingdom of God in the world and for the destruction of the Kingdom of Satan and for this end they labour according to their ability in gifts and opportunities, for they believe, that although it is God that can do these things He effects them through the means and instruments He has appointed and prescribed in His Word. By the dry ground we understand sinners in a state of nature, who are to be brought out of that state in God’s good time, and brought into a state of grace. These are like the dry ground, upon which no shower of rain ever came. Such ground must be dry indeed. But sinners in a state of nature are even drier and harder for they are as possessed of a heart of stone (Ex. 11: 19). Although it is true that the Lord’s people are often in their own experience like the “dry ground” yet we shall show when we come to speak of the effect of the promise that it is not they that are meant here but sinners in a state of nature who are to be converted in due time.
II. The promise — “I will pour water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground.” That it is the Spirit that is signified by water is evident by the latter part of the promise — “I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed and my blessing upon thy offspring.” In Scripture water is often used as an emblem of the Holy Spirit (John 4: 19). As it is the Spirit that communicates the blessings of salvation to believers it is added: “and my blessing upon thine offspring.” It is to be observed that the promise is entailed — made sure to the heirs of promise and limited to them. As an earthly inheritance that is entailed belongs according to the law of entail, to the first born son during his lifetime and then descends by right to the next and so on from generation to generation; so it is spiritually. As all believers are reckoned as first born (Heb. 12: 23) the heavenly inheritance belongs to them equally, to the new born babe as well as to the matured Christian — “The promise is to you and your children.” And so it is in our text — “I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thy offspring.” We may see from God’s Word that this was fulfilled in the past. Abraham received the Spirit and the blessing, and the blessing descended to his seed and offspring — to Isaac, Jacob, and many others. This entail continued in the line of Abraham till the coming of the Messiah, who was according to the flesh of the seed of Abraham in whom all the nations of the world were to be blessed and the entail is still going on unbroken, and on a larger scale as it extends to the Gentiles, and will go on without a break to the end of the world, till all the spiritual Israel are saved. Although grace does not run in the blood, yet it runs in tribes and families. In has been observed that in the land of the Gospel in New Testament times a succession of godly people, some of whom were eminent ministers of Christ, sprang from godly parents and that unto the third and fourth generation according to the promise (Ex. 20: 6). While on the other hand the seed and offspring of unbelievers and ungodly parents who were born and brought up in the land of the Bible continued in spiritual darkness and become either atheists or idolaters. The former are characterised as “loving God and keeping His commands,” the latter as hating Him and no doubt disregarding His commandments. It is to be noted that these things are spoken of in Scripture in connection with the command: “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image of any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to serve them, for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children (who follow the evil example of their fathers) unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.” (Ex. 20: 4-6.)
It is evident that the most of professing Christians in our day who have repudiated the doctrines of God’s Word and adopted instead “the commandments of men”, are in the category of those whose iniquity shall be visited by God unto the third and fourth generation for there is no appearance of them returning to these doctrines. Ah, how many shall perish for eternity out of this generation! But as there is in the worst of ages a small remnant who love God and keep His commandments, the entail continues intact.
We shall now consider the promise in relation to the dry ground — “And floods on the dry ground.” We have already pointed out that by the dry ground we are to understand sinners in a state of nature. These require a greater measure of the work of the Spirit than the Lord’s people who are in a state of grace. Therefore the promise runs thus: “I will pour,” not showers, but “floods upon them”. It requires more power to restore a dead man to life than to feed and nourish him when he is living. Sinners are quickened by the same almighty power that raised Christ from the dead (Eph. 2: 1). They are made a new creation in Christ, they are given a new spiritual being, which they had not before. All this together with conviction of sin and its misery, which is the work of the Spirit, accounts for the form of the promise: “I will pour floods upon the dry ground.”
III. The effect of the promise. (1) Its effect on the Lord’s people — “And they shall spring up as among the grass.” Growth is the effect when water is poured upon them. When the Spirit is poured upon them they grow up. They are already planted and rooted in Christ, but as they are not yet perfect they need to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (11 Peter 3: 18). In order to their growing the Spirit, like water or rain, is to be poured upon them and before the Spirit is poured upon them they thirst — they ask that they may receive, and the Spirit is poured upon them in answer to prayer. “They shall grow” — this growth is compared to the growth of grass, “And they shall spring up as among the grass,” or like the grass. The grass grows quickly when the rain comes upon it. It grows plentifully also. So do believers when the Spirit is poured upon them. They grow quickly, and in all the graces. Their growth is also compared to the growth of the willow. “As willows by the watercourses.” Perhaps there is no tree that grows so quickly as the willow. It grows best when planted near water or a river. The watercourses are the means of grace. Believer, if you would grow, and you must grow before you can get to heaven, be often at the Bible, at secret and public prayer, at family worship or at the preaching of the Gospel, and at Communions to which the Lord’s people gather from various parts of the country, and where many of them had to say: “Master, it is good for us to be here.” You are not like the heath — the dead sinner — that does not know when the blessing comes. (2) Its effect on sinners in a state of nature when they are called effectually. The Gospel is preached not only that the flock of God might be fed and edified, but also that sinners might be converted. The Lord was adding to the Church such as should be saved, and He will continue to do so to the end of time. Sinners added to the Church are the effect of floods poured upon the dry ground. This is good news — “One shall say I am the Lord’s.” Whose were you before? I was Satan’s. I was the world’s. I was by nature a child of wrath even as others, but now, by grace, I am the Lord’s. Here is one convert and others will follow. “And another shall call himself by the name of Jacob.” “Thy Kingdom come,” yea, His Kingdom will come, for it is a growing Kingdom. “And another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord and surname himself by the name of Israel.” Here are three representing many others — added to the Church as the effect of pouring floods upon the dry, very dry, ground. It was observing the different effects of the promise on the thirsty and the dry ground that convinced me that the thirsty and the dry ground signified two classes of men as already pointed out, although it is true that the Lord’s people often feel themselves like the dry ground, a dry parched land in which there is no water.
It is to be observed that there is some difference in degree but not in kind in the faith of the new converts added to the Church. The first said: “I am the Lord’s.” Here is the assurance of faith as the Church said: “My beloved is mine and I am His” (Song 2: 16). The second could not speak with such assurance, but although he could not say, “Thy God is my God,” he could sincerely say, “Thy people are my people.” He called himself by “the name of Jacob.” The third went further than the second, though he did not come up to the first. He subscribed with his hand unto the Lord and called himself by the name of “Israel”. Israel was Jacob before he was called by the name Israel. It was when Jacob wrestled with the Angel of the Covenant and prevailed that his name was changed to Israel — a prince with God. We may observe from these cases the order of Church membership. We must first give ourselves to the Lord — “I am the Lord’s” before we offer ourselves to the Church as members. This is in accord with what Paul said about believers: “They first gave themselves to the Lord and then to us (or to the Church) by the will of God” (2 Cor. 8: 5). In the Church of Rome the order is reversed. In their opinion, to be members of the Church is necessary in order to be members of Christ’s mystical body. In other Churches, too, of which better things might be expected, this order is reversed. Church membership is the general rule in these Churches, without examining applicants as to whether they give evidence of union with Christ by faith or not.
In conclusion, the end for which the Gospel is preached is twofold, namely, the conversion of sinners and the edification of saints, which end is spoken of in our text. Not only that the Lord’s people grow in grace under the influence of the Holy Spirit, but some others are added to the Church by pouring floods upon the dry ground. In the days of the Apostles the Lord was adding to the Church daily such as should be saved. If we saw, even, one sinner added to the Church yearly, it would be a great comfort to us, but in this evil age few conversions take place, though we believe that the Lord’s people are fed with the best of the wheat and with the honey from the rock when the Gospel is preached to them, so that the Lord would continue the preaching of the Gospel in a congregation so long as there was one of His own people there. The fewer there are of these the more they are like the weeping willow, whose branches bow down towards the earth. It was this that caused the prophet Micah to utter the following lamentation: — “Woe is me! for I am as when they have gathered the summer fruits, as the grape gleanings of the vintage: there is no cluster to eat: my soul desired the first ripe fruit. The good man is perished from the earth: and there is none upright among men,” etc. Where he could at one time see clusters of the Lord’s people, he sees now so few that he is indeed like the weeping willow, and this must be the experience of the Lord’s people now. But there is a time coming when they shall be very numerous throughout the world, and then the weeping willow shall rejoice when they meet the godly in large numbers in families, congregations, and kingdoms. Then Christ’s Kingdom shall come and His will shall be done on earth as it is done in heaven. Amen, so let it be.