The More Than Parental Love of God

Isaiah xlix. 14 — 16.

But Zion said, The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the pahns of my hands; thy walls are continually before me.

What a saying of God is this! What an exceeding great and precious promise! It is a fruit tree by a fountain in the wilderness; where many a pilgrim has, from age to age, shaken off the golden fruit for his refreshment: neither does its leaf wither; but it thrives and blooms, and bears abundantly unto this hour. Shake it only, O troubled soul, and it will yield thee a rich supply. Let us notice,

I. Zion’s building.
n. Zion’s complaint.
HI. God’s promise.

I. ‘•’ Zion” here signifies the true Church; born from above, by water and the Spirit. Elsewhere she is called Jerusalem; and very frequently is she spoken of as a city or building. Thus, St. Peter saith, “Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house.” A very expressive and comprehensive similitude of the true Church.

If we inquire, first, who is her builder we find that there is but one who can properly be called by this name. The founder of the true Church is He by whom God made the worlds; therefore she is called “The city of the Lord, The Zion of the Holy One of Israel,” Isa. Ix. 14. The plan of Zion’s buildinof is older than the world itself. Before the foundations of the earth were laid, it was designed and drawn out in the everlasting purpose of God. Its height, and depth, and breadth, and length, were all accurately laid down; the time for its completion was minutely predetermined; its very stones were numbered, and the places appointed where they should be hewn and fashioned. Nearly six thousand years ago, did the blessed God commence the building, and it is going on at this day exacdy after the original plan. The Lord buildeth up Zion, and he buildeth alone; absolutely and entirely alone; no stranger can dare to put a hand to the work. Whenever he uses any of us as his under-builders, he first makes us sensible of our own weakness; the excellency of the power is of him, and not of us. When experience has taught us, that of ourselves we can do nothing; when, like Jacob, we are obliged to halt on the shrunk limb which God has touched, then only will he make use of

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US. He who will have the temple to be built unto his own glory, he alone will be the Builder. He is jealous for the glory of his holy name.

If we inquire concerning the foundation of the true Church, an apostle meets ws with an answer: “Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” The God-Man is the Foundation. If any other Christ be professed, than he of whom the Baptist cried, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world:” if the only Blood-surety be wanting, with his all-sufficient sacrifice, with that blood which cleanseth from all sin, there may indeed be what is called a church, but it can be no ^vgia-xov, no house of the Lord. The true church is built upon Christ; not merely as he is a good man; not merely as he deserves the character which even Pilate could not but recognise in him, saying, “I find no fault in this man;” nor only upon such a Christ as infidel philosophers and mere men of taste can very well consent to, but upon the whole and entire Christ of God: who, though “to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness, is, unto them who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.”

If now we consider the building itself, it consists of stones, and of lively stones. Stones indeed all of us are by nature: hard and cold stones, dead in spiritual life, and settled and fixed in the earth by our own heaviness and inertness. How many have sat for years under the gospel, like the “children sitting in the market-place;” to whom it may equally be said, “We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented!” The rain, the sunshine, the storm, and the lightning, have from time to time, descended upon them; but still they remain as ever, hard, insensible, and unchanged. Is not this the quality of rocks and stones? But, God be thanked, that “he is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham;” and it is such very materials, rough and refractory as they are, that God has selected for the building of his spiritual temple, that the greatness of his power and wisdom might be manifested. It is not of the holy angels and archangels, nor of all the company of heaven; neither is it of the fallen angels, those once bright morning- stars, that he constitutes the building of Zion; but it is of the children of fallen Adam, who were perishing in spiritual death and misery. He who has undertaken every concern of this building, has made it his own special work to bring forth and qualify the stones for it. His evangelists, and the ministers of his word, who are styled “workers together with Him,” cannot, of themselves loosen and bring off a single pebble from its native bed, except he speak the word by their mouth, and wield the hammer in their hand. Then is fulfilled what He himself declares, “Is not my word like as a fire, and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?” Jer. xxiii. 29.

The “operations” of the great Master-builder are not uniform, but marked by “diversity.” Some stones are separated from their quarry, and brought off by a preparatory process, in a gradual and gentle manner. Thus a Martha, a Mary, a Lazarus, and others like them, are gently dislodged from earthly attachments, and fitted at length for the Lord’s service; while over a Peter, a Nicodemus, and others, a power is exercised, which is more instant and imperative. Others again are shivered from their worldly holds, as by an explosion of rocks. Such was the case of Saul on his way to Damascus, and that of the jailor at Philippi. A report is heard, and the hard stone is at once disengaged. But when may one be truly said to be thus disengaged? At that moment, my brethren, when he finds himself a poor, lost sinner, a ruined debtor, sensible that he has nothing to pay; a penitent mourner over his own moral destitution. Then is he loosed indeed. God hath broken him away, and he is become quite another man, as compared with those who remain embedded in the elements of the world; he is become a “lively stone,” awakened to reflection, and crying out unto God. Such a stone the great Master-builder takes in charge, causes it to be fashioned to his mind with the hammer of his word, and polished with the grinding of tribulation. Thus he builds it into the structure of his temple, on Christ, the sure Foundation, and secures it with the cementing and uniting virtue of that lively faith which is of his own operation. There shall be holy “stones set up in his land,” saith the prophet Zechariah, ix. 16; and the Lord, by Ezekiel, speaks even of Tyrus as “set upon the holy mountain of God, and walking among stones of fire,” Ezek. xxviii. 14.

If we closely inspect the building, we find the lively stones admirable for their unity, evenness, and mutual conformity. From whatever quarter of the world they may have originated, whether from Europe or Asia, from nations white or black, from savage wilds or cultivated regions, they are no sooner builded together into this “■ habitation of God through the Spirit,” than they are all alike and uniform. Every one of them appears sprinkled with blood; all of them are dark in the world’s eyes, and darker in their own; but in the eyes of God, they are pure as lilies, and white as snow. They are, one and all, contrite souls, humbled persons, pilgrims and strangers in the earth; having no continuing city here, but seeking that which is to come. They are all sufferers in this world, “groaning within themselves, and wailing for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of their body.” They are all saved; but it is by hope: they are happy; but it is in hope. They are but one body, and one Spirit, having been “called in one hope of their calling.” They have one Lord, who can command them from the cross; one God and Father of all, who hath reconciled them unto himself, through the blood of the Lamb. They have one faith; for they all seek their life out of themselves in Christ. They have one baptism, namely, that into the death of the Second Adam. Such is the unity of the true church. It is a perfect unity in essentials, and in its nature; but contains the most manifold variety in its forms and gifts. “Of Zion it shall be said, All kinds of people are born in her;” sings David, Psalm lxxxvii. 5. They are all born of God; here is their unity: but in themselves they are every variety of people. “Behold,” saith the Lord unto his church, Isa. liv. 11, “I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires. And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones.” Precious stones are they all, and their variety sets off their beauty. Of one, hope may be his prevailing characteristic; of another, seraphic love; a third, simple, childlike humility; a fourth, clear in wisdom and knowledge. Some are contemplative, and retiring within; others are apostolical, and active abroad. Some are babes in Christ; others are young men or fathers in the Lord. Some have been drawn to Christ in one way, others in another.

II. Zion’s complaint.

We have heard of Zion, the city and dwelling-place of our God: and that “the Lord loveth the gates of Zion,” Psa. lxxxvii. 2. But how faithfnlly and ardently he loves her, she herself does not always consider. Why else that complaint which now comes under our notice? “Zion saith, The Lord hath forsaken me; and my Lord hath forgotten me,” Isa. xlix. 14. O Zion, complain rather of thy own lui believing heart; for if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God.

It is acknowledged, that circumstances may arise, under which nothing may appear more just than this complaint of Zion. When, in Noah’s time, the earth was filled with violence against the Lord and against his Anointed, and the people of God had dwindled into one little family; when, in the days of the kings of Israel and Judah, the seed of Abraham had revolted from Jehovah, and his nominal people were bowing their knees at the altars of Moloch and of Baal; or when, in a subsequent period, the king of Babylon trampled with his iron chariots upon Salem’s ashes, and afterwards her mighty foe, Anticchus, set up his abomination of desolation upon Jehovah’s altar, and caused the holy volumes of revelation to be torn in pieces and scattereu to the winds; when, in later ages, papal darkness rested upon all the nations of Christen-THE MORE THAN

dom; and, more recently, when from a darkness of yet deeper blackness, from a national delusion of inlidelity, from a godless and monstrous perversion of intellect, there arose a cry against the King of kings, more frantic, if possible, than that ancient one of “Crucify him, crucify him;”* — in any one of these instances, who could blame the daughter of Zion for hanging her harp upon the willows, covering herself with mourning as a widow, and giving vent to her grief in the lamentation before us, “The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me?”

But what are thy feelings in our own day’, O virgin daughter of Zion? Truly the times to thee now are pleasant again. We behold thee on thy tower as a watcher, surveying and considering the stability of God’s edifice around thee; and lo! it stands magnificently, and is increasing gloriously. From one quarter of it and from another, in many directions, thou hearest again the cry of “Hosannah! Blessed be He that Cometh in the name of the Lord.” There is a testimony and a praise re-awakened in the land, where all was lately sad and still as death; and it is a testimony concerning Him whom thou lovest. The banner of the cross is again unfurled. Yernal beams shine down from behind

+ Witness Voltaire’s repeated blasphemy, ‘’Crush the wretch ‘.” — Translator.

many a dark cloud; and gracious showers are descending here and there upon God’s inheritance. Our young men see visions, and our old men dream heavenly dreams of better things arriving; at all which, thou canst not forbear to take the harp down once more from the willows, and to sing to the Lord a new song, as terrible among the rulers of the darkness of this world. Nevertheless, shall any ask thee, “Watcher, what of the night? Is it quite passed away?” Then wilt thou be obliged to answer, nor canst thou do it without tears, “The morning cometh: still, as yet there will be night. If ye inquire already, yet must ye return, come, and inquire again.” Thou considerest how thou art really as yet but as the worm Jacob,” and as a solitary “cottage in a vineyard.” Thou considerest how as yet the ways of Zion do mourn and lie desolate in a thousand directions; how her priests sigh, and her virgins are afflicted. Lam. i. 4. Grief dims thine eyes, with beholding the numberless bands of hirelings in and out of the pulpit; all of whom are busied every where about leading the people astray: avoiding Calvary, and directing their course to the regions of curse and perdition. Thou dost sicken at surveying the seduced millions of the flock, who cannot endure to hear of the Great Shepherd, and most unaccountably choosing death rather than life. And while thou art witnessing all this gloom, this thick darkness, in every direction, what wonder if thy heart almost break, or if the old complaint be ready aaiii to start from thy lips, “The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me!”

But though the church of Christ do not, as a body, take up such a complaint as this at present; yet it is too obvious, that, in the hearts of individual children of Zion, thoughts of the kind are stili awake. Enough of this is perceptible in all quarters, to those who are well acquainted with God’s people, and have an ear open to their sighs; so that it is often implied, if not expressed, “The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me.” Lo! one poor penitent mourns apart, smites upon his breast, and cries, “God be merciful unto me a sinner!” But he has not yet learnt to behold the kindness and love of God our Saviour; hence he can think of nothing else, but, “The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me.” Another wrestles in hard conflict with sin and Satan; and, however much he strives to overcome the wicked one, or to subdue his own failings and corruptions, they still revive, and so prevail, that this soldier of Jesus Christ, at length, sinks down and cries, “Why am I thus forsaken?” Another sits in the darkness of horrible doubts and fears, which cause his very limbs to shake. He despairingly doubts of his state of grace; he doubts about the truth of Christ and his love; so that his heart is tortured with surmising, “The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me.” Another has long been fainting in the heat of outward tribulation, and still the Lord delays his deliverance. Meanwhile the enemy triumphs, and suggests, “Where is now thy, God?” and, alas! his God does not at present appear for him. The paths of Jehovah still remain in the deep waters, and he hideth his head in the clouds, so that even the friends of such an individual may be apt to say, “Surely, if you were sincerely seekuig the Lord, he would not thus afflict you.” Hence the poor sinner begins to despond, and to conclude that the Lord has indeed forsaken him. Be the occasion, however, what it may, such a complaint is not unfrequent amongst us. With one and another of us is it found; in this or that secret chamber, it is even loud at times; and not a few, it is feared, thus howl upon their beds, with many a tear and many a wakeful night, when the world is asleep, and people are in deep slumber about them.

But come hither, ye godly sorrowing and troubled souls, — for with the sorrow of the world that worketh death, we intermeddle not, — come hither, and think not that we mean to rebuke you for your unbelief; this is neither a duty of our office, nor doth the Lord rebuke you. Do we then undertake to comfort you? This also is beyond our ability. Nevertheless, dear brethren, there is One always present with us, who is both able and willing to impart to you the needful consolation. “Thy Redeemer is mighty, the Lord of hosts is his name.” He hath heard your cry; he hath seen your tears; and tender mercies are over you, his weeping children. Behold, he is now present in the midst of us. Lift up, therefore, your eyes to the Lord, and his throne of grace; for the light of his countenance already shines upon you. Recognize that tender love and compassion which are even at this moment proceeding from him. Flee to his outstretched arms of more than parental faithfulness, and repose your cares in the ever-wakeful bosom of his “loving mercy and truth.” Yea, and once more hearken to his voice; for he has a special word addressed to t/ou. It is a word of consolation; a word which can once for all be the means of transforming your darkness into everlasting noon. Observe,

IIL God’s promise.

He declares, “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget; yet will 1 not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me.” What an appeal is this to our hearts! what grace, mercy, and peace are here! Ponder each word of this oracle distinctly, my brethren; enter into its full meaning; leave not any part of it unconsidered, and then say if it is not enough. If it be an unspeakable privilege to be permitted to come before the Almighty, and to say, “My God, my God;” if it be a still greater privilege to cry “Abba, Father!” — what must it be to have God expostulating with us more tenderly than the tenderest mother!

“O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted,” think to what the Lord here compares his love, and how iiitinitely great he appears in this his condescension I “Behold what manner of love!” Thou hast not yet forgotten the tenderness of thy mother: and, behold, greater tenderness is here. “As one whom his mother comforteth,” so would the Lord thy God thus comfort thee. Did thy mother bear and carry thee all the days of thy infancy? Did she love thee as her own life, from thy childhood? And hath not thy God done much more? Whence was it that thy first existence sprang, with all thy blessings and mercies unto this day? Who was it that laid down his life for thee? Of whom wast thou born again? Is not every true believer in Christ a new creature in him, and born of God? Behold, He will not concede that the love felt by any mother is so tender as his own. Her arms may, on all occasions, be stretched out towards thee; but His everlasting arms are ever underneath thee. Her bosom may have been the resting-place for thy infant weariness or pain; it may at the present moment be a resting-place for the cares of thy aching heart; but the bosom of the Almighty is ever open to thee as the resting-place of thy soul. Thy mother’s eyes may have been wakeful and watchful for thee day and night; but the eyes of the Lord, though they behold all the evils of thy nature, (evils, of which maternal eyes, if they see them at all, can discern but a little,) are still upon thee for good. “The Father himself loveth you,” saith our Saviour, “because ye have loved me, and have believed that 1 came out from God,” John xvi. 27. And again, when praying to his father for all believers, he saith, “Thou hast loved tlieni as thou hast loved ?ne,” John xvii. 23. Does the mother carry or lead her child; does she take charge of it, nurture it. guard its health, watch every opportunity of promoting its comfort and happiness, and clothe it with fair and goodly raiment? Think how the “faithful Creator” will not be outdone in all this by the creature whom he has formed. He bears and carries you; he guides and conducts you. He takes care of you, and gives his angels charge concerning you. He nurtures you, guards your health and spiritual welfare, and watches every occasion for promoting your true comfort and happiness. He clothes you with the garments of his salvation. And must not even the mother’s love sometimes rebuke and chasten her child? What does God more, or what does he less; even God our Saviour, who saith, “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten?” Rev. iii. 19. Is the mother unwearied in brinsfing her child to repose, however uneasy or distressed it may be? Our God is unwearied in doing much more for every uneasy or distressed soul; for every one who is willing to repose all care in his bosom, and to find peace there.

But, will God in every deed thus compassionate me, with tenderness more than that of a mother, and with loving kindness infinitely better adapted to my wants and necessities? He will, my brother, he will; for his word is true. Let us, then, attend once more to these his own gracious words, «’ Can a woman lore?” Truly she can, as it were, forget her father and her mother, to cleave unto her husband; but can she forget the child of her bosom? Should it even grow up a perverse child, however ungrateful such a child may prove to her in after life, can she forget him? O ye mothers, are ye not ready to say, “Never, never?” But, supposing it possible for her to endeavour to forget an unworthy child grown up, can she forget her litde child, or her tender infant? still more can she wilfully thrust it away from her love and care? How could this be possible to any one resembling a mother? But though we should imagine what is thus impossible to be possible, namely, for a mother to forget her helpless child, we can hardly imagine the possibility of her not having compassion for the son of her womb. What! can she with calm indifference behold it writhino: in at!;ony, or pining with want? If she had never wept before, she would weep at such a sight; and where is the mother that would not be ready with all her heart to suffer in her child’s stead? Therefore, when the Lord asks, “Can a woman forget her sucking child?” does not the heart of every mother reply, No; it is impossible? But, saith the Lord, though it tcere possible, yet will I not forget my children. Though even a tender mother should forget her child; yet not so the unchangeable, independent, and all-perfect God our Saviour, whose words are, ‘• I icUl not forget thee!’’’ Here, then, he discloses a depth of love which no human mind can fathom. We find nothing comparable to it; we have no word to express it. Daughter of Zion, canst thou still complain, “The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me?” Such a complaint surely is doing him wrong; it is injustice; it is sin: and take heed that it be not blasphemy. Away with it; fall prostrate before Him in the dust, and adore.

Further; let us ponder those precious words with which this Divine appeal concludes, “Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands: thy walls are continually before me.” What inestimable consolation is here intended to be conveyed to the church in general, and to every converted soul in particular! As the master builder of a city first draws out his plan, and describes the city in its whole circumference, with its streets, squares, palaces, and houses, so hath the Lord Almighty laid down the whole plan of his spiritual city, and graven it on the palms of his hands. In his “determinate counsel and foreknowledge” it already stands perfect and complete with all its magnificence. He has long commenced the actual building, and in due time he will finish it; for he is ever carrying it on towards its accomplishment: “He will work, and who shall let it?” Who shall hinder him from bringing forth the top stone with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it? Zech. iv. 7. Though ye of Samaria and of theCanaanites exclaim ever so vehemently, “Down with it, down with it, even unto the ground,” never shall ye be able to plant your banner upon its citadel, nor even upon its walls. Zion’s walls are continually before him; his eyes are upon his church day and night. “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it,” Matt. xvi. 18.

And as is Zion in general, so is each of her sons and daughters graven upon the palms of his hands. Couldst thou view thy own image which is graven there, it would amaze thee to perceive how gloriously it is described. It is not such as thou now bearest upon thee; not at all like that body of sin and death which still cleaveth to thy present self The Lord has there described thee, such as thou shalt be found hereafter: he beholds thee, ah’eady in the glory of thy perfected holiness, even while thou art going about here below in the midst of sufferings and spiritual conflict: and such as thou art now described on the palms of his hands, such shalt thcu be found hereafter in his kingdom of glory. His zeal will perform this; his almighty hands will accomplish it. And thinkest thou there can be a time or place in this world, wherein the eyes of the Lord shall not be upon thee? Learn here from his own word, that thou art continually before him. Though thou retire into the most secret chamber to weep, though in the dead of the night thou water thy couch with thy tears, though thou lie, like Elijah, under some juniper-tree in the waste howling wilderness, or have lost thy way in the deepest thicket of the mountain forest, the more than motherly heart of thy God is with thee, the more than motherly eye of thy God is upon thee, and in his hand thine own is grasped, however little it may be felt by thee. Wherever, or in whatever circumstances, thou mayest be, if thou imagine that the Lord hath forsaken thee, and thy Lord hath forgotten thee, such an idea is erroneous; and herein, God knoweth, thou disquietest thyself without cause. Oh, if thine eyes were only opened, as were the eyes of Elisha’s servant, to see the chariots of fire and horses of fire that are really round about thee, how wouldst thou be amazed!

Away, then, with all needless anxieties and nnbelieving fears! Whoever is able to receive the comfort of the more than maternal love of his God, let him receive it. The Lord forgetleth not one of his children, not one of those little ones that believe in Him: not one; not the weakest babe in Christ. “He shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom;” and we may be sure that the poorest of the flock are in the hollow of his hand. But am T really one of them? is the inquiry of many an anxious heart; and we reply, Indeed, indeed, you are, if such you are seeking to be found: if you are seeking it with humiliation and sorrow for sin, and this with all your heart and all your soul. If you are “hungering and thirsting after righteousness,” if you are humbly lonoing for the full benefit of his atonement, namely, for pardon, justification, holiness, peace with God, perfect love to himself and to the brethren — if all this is sought after with a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart; if inward purification, through fiiiih in his blood, be your most earnest desire, then indeed are ye born again by the word of God; beloved, then are ye the children of God. And although you may not be able, as yet, fully to rejoice in your adoption, or to feel the comfort of that more than maternal love of God our Saviour, still we exhort you to persist in believing all that he here declares concerning it; and the time for you to

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taste how gracious he is will soon arrive. Smoother and pleasanter paths would his love gladly assign us, were it not that the health and safety of our souls require a different treatment. You remember, in the history of the women who came before Solomon, the yearnings of the real mother over her own infant; and so you may rest assured, that whenever any mischief is near you, the Lord, with infinitely more wakeful tenderness than that of the best of mothers, will interpose for your deliverance.

But, oh! take heed not to presume upon this tenderness of everlasting love, if you are living in wilful transgression of the least of your Saviour’s commandments. It is only the children of Zion that can be joyful in their King, Psa. cxlix. 2. Into this happy state we are not introduced by any virtues of our own, not by fastings or alms, not by “much speaking,” or benevolent exertions. All that you are to bring and lay before Him is your own misery under the burden of sin, your poverty and helplessness, a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart. Then, if you can only utter, like the thief upon the cross, “Lord, remember me!” — if you can only smite your breast, saying, “God be merciful to me a sinner;” — if you can sincerely mourn at the sight of Him whom your sins have pierced; your very sighs will rend the heavens, will “enter into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth,” and will verily reach his heart. May God renew this right spirit within us all! Amen.