THE DROUGHT OF NATURE, THE RAIN OF GRACE AND THE LESSON THEREFROM – Charles Spurgeon
THE DROUGHT OF NATURE, THE RAIN OF GRACE AND THE LESSON THEREFROM
Introduction
“And their nobles have sent their little ones to the waters: they came to the pits and found no water. They returned with their vessels empty. They were ashamed and confounded and covered their heads. Because the ground is parched, for there was no rain in the earth, the plowmen were ashamed, they covered their heads. Are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause rain? Or can the heavens give showers? Are not You He, O Lord our God? Therefore we will wait upon You: for You have made all these things.” Jeremiah 14:3-4, 22.
It is my heart’s desire and earnest prayer that many in this house may this morning say with the Prophet, “O Lord our God, we will wait upon You.” I shall not be satisfied to have delivered a discourse, nor for you to have heard it, and even approved of it, unless there shall come from it this delightful fruit: that those far off from God shall be drawn near to Him. And that they shall say, in very deed and of a truth, “Therefore we will wait upon You.”
In God alone can men live happily. And if they would be recovered from their fallen state, it is to the Lord their God that they must turn. Oh, that they would wait upon Him! In the last verse we have the word “therefore,” which shows that the speakers had come to this conclusion by an argument. In truth, they had been forced to their resolution by a very painful and personal argument, which God had set before them in the order of His Providence. By their thirst and by their failure to find water anywhere, the Lord had driven them to say, “Therefore we will wait upon You.”
I trust it will not be needful to urge us to conversion by sufferings as terrible. “Be you not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding.” Come willingly, since the argument for coming is clear and cogent. I should like you to go this morning mentally through the process by which the Israelites passed practically when they came to the gracious conclusion, “Therefore we will wait upon You.” Let us begin at once with the argument, praying God to send it home to every heart by His good Spirit, that we may reach the desired conclusion.
I. Man Is a Very Dependent Creature
He is, in some respects, the most dependent creature that God has made. For the range of his wants is very wide, and at a thousand points, he is dependent upon something outside of himself. All creation exists by the will of the Lord. And if His will should cease to send forth conserving power to maintain the created things in existence, they would all cease to be.
This great world—the sun, the moon, the stars—would all dissolve. And, as a moment’s foam dissolves into the wave that bears it, they would be lost forever. At the Lord’s will the universe would be gone, as yonder bubble which your child was blowing but a moment ago, and now has vanished, and left no trace behind. God alone is by His own power—all else is dependent upon Him—“Life, death, Hell, and worlds unknown, hang on His firm decree— He sits on no precarious throne, nor borrows leave to be.”
Man as a living creature is peculiarly dependent upon God as to temporals. We see in the text that when the dews no longer fell and the rains were withheld, the unhappy inhabitants of Palestine suffered from drought, and that drought brought with it failure of the harvest, famine, disease, and death. To quote our common saying, the people died like flies. They fell everywhere by thousands, fainting, famished, doomed. On what a feeble thread hangs human life! Water, though it is itself unstable, is needed to the establishment of human life and without it man expires.
Many an animal can bear thirst better than man. Other creatures carry their own garments with them. But we must be indebted to a plant, or to a sheep, for the covering of our nakedness. Many other creatures are endowed with sufficient physical force to win their food in fight. But we must produce our own food from the soil. Behold, how we come into the world, helpless and without strength—utterly dependent upon others. And when our strength is developed and our manhood is perfected, we only enter upon another phase of dependence upon our surroundings for our food—and therefore, for our life, we are dependent upon drops of rain.
We cannot produce food from the earth without the dew and the rain. However cleverly you have prepared your soil, however carefully you have selected your seed, all will fail without the rain of Heaven. Even though your corn should spring up, yet will it refuse to come to the ear if the heavens are dry. Nor can you of yourself produce a single shower, or even a drop of dew. If God withholds the rain, what can the farmer do? Call together the Parliament! Collect a synod of scientists! Convoke a conclave of princes—what can they do? In vain their acts, theories, and commands. When the skies are brass, the earth is iron. When God is angry, then the clouds scatter no blessings over our field, and earth yields not her increase to the husbandman.
Yes, and life itself would vanish as the food of life ceased. It would be an instructive calculation if it could be accurately worked out—to estimate how much bread—food, there is at any time laid up upon the surface of the earth. If all harvests were to fail from this date. If there were no harvests in Australia during our winter, no harvests early in the year in India and the warm regions, if there were no harvests in America and in Europe, I have been informed that, by the time of our own harvest months, there would be upon the face of the earth no more food than would last us for six weeks. How dependent we are for each year’s crop! Should there be universal failure, starvation would be closely within sight. God does, indeed, give us bread as we need it. Even as, in the wilderness, He gave the manna. We are every hour dependent upon His generous care. The bottles of Heaven contain the juices of human life—if these were utterly stopped, none of us could endure the burning drought and the consequent famine.
See, then, the absolute dependence upon God, not only of the Eastern nations but of all peoples of our race. Whatever may be our trade or profession, we are all fed by the fruit of the field. And whatever may be said about laws of nature, the God of nature is not bound and limited by methods of procedure. He can operate exactly as He pleases and fill our barns full, or stop the supplies of grain by the simple method of giving or withholding rain.
Our breath is in our nostrils—He takes away that breath and we die. Apart from His preserving, the whole race of man would be turned to dust and cease from the land of the living. In spiritual things, this dependence is most evident. Brethren, if God shall bless us with His saving health and with the visitation of His Spirit, we shall be as a field that God has blessed, and our lives shall be glad with a harvest to His praise. But apart from God, what can we do? In this realm of spiritual things, we are absolutely and wholly dependent upon God. And without His aid, we are as a salt land, which is destitute of verdure. Salvation is of the Lord. Vain is all trust which builds not on Him.
II. Men May Be Reduced to Dire Distress
Men, being dependent upon God, may be reduced to dire distress if they disobey Him and incur His just displeasure. Kindly follow me in the earlier verses of my text. Here we have great temporal distress—the people had no water! The highest ranks of society were made to feel the terrible pinch. The whole of the city was tormented with thirst, and the leading men instituted diligent searches to find water. They sent to the great reservoirs which Solomon had constructed in his time—the upper and the lower pools. But they found no water. They searched again and again, but the waters had utterly failed, and they were driven to despair. They covered their heads as men who gave themselves up to die without hope.
Terrible was the drought which Jehovah sent upon His land because of the sin of His people—it was as if the day of Elijah had returned, wherein there was neither dew nor rain for three years and six months. My dear Hearers, there is a spiritual distress of which this drought is a figure. Behold, as in a parable, the state into which we have seen many brought when God has begun to deal with them—to such there comes drought of life and famine of hope.
My Hearer, do you know what is meant by God’s dealing with a man? Do you remember that passage in Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress,” where one pilgrim says to the other, “Let us fall into good discourse. Where shall we begin?” The other answers, “Where God began with us.” Do you know what that means? Has God begun with you? If so, you will follow me with understanding when I say God makes the aroused and convicted man conscious of the greatest conceivable want, even of a drought in his own soul.
These people were conscious that they wanted water. The case was worse than that—they were tormented with thirst. So does God come to men and make them feel that they need the living water of His Divine Grace, and He sets them thirsting for it. They did not know their need before but went on merrily enough, content with the pleasures of time and sense. But now, being quickened, they feel an intolerable hunger and thirst after higher and better things. They are tormented by an insatiable desire, which cannot and will not be set aside.
We have seen these thirsty ones. Have we not pitied them? Have we not pointed them to the one and only Source of supply? Have we not in secret rejoiced over them as we have foreseen to what their anguish tended?
III. Man’s Only Sure Resort is His God
“God is a refuge for us.” If I address myself to any here who are in such trouble as I have described, let me press upon them this thought—the only place of refuge for you is in God as He reveals Himself in Christ Jesus. Hasten to Him! Lay hold upon His strength! Hide under the wings of His care! For, first, there is no help anywhere else. Read verse 22—“Are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause rain?” He says not “the gods of the Gentiles”—those who were “gods” in better days are seen to be, in truth, nothing but vanities in the time of need. To make rain is a Divine prerogative. Therefore, the priests of the idols pretend to it for their false deities. The Rainmaker is found in every idolatrous country, but I think scarcely anybody believes in him now. What antics and tricks the Rain-makers go through to produce rain but it does not come, neither can their gods create a cloud!
And where can any of you go to get Divine Grace if you refuse to look to God alone? There is a Rain-maker over there at the Ritualistic Church, who can produce a shower on the child’s heart, by which it becomes “a member of Christ, a child of God and an inheritor of the kingdom of Heaven.” But I trust you are not so foolish as to believe in him. And therefore you will not make a fruitless journey towards priest-craft.
Where will you go? Come not to any of us poor gospelers, for in us you will find nothing—we are only fingers to point you to the Lord Jesus, in whom all fullness dwells. The long-descended priest of the Church of Rome, who can, for a shilling, grant you absolution—will you look to him? No, you have still some wit remaining and feel that to be absolved of man will not ease your conscience.
Priests of Baal are of small account when a total drought and a terrible dearth are in the land. In the days of Elijah they cried aloud and cut themselves with knives and said, “O Baal, hear us! O Baal, hear us!” But only the God that answered by fire could answer by water. And Baal could do neither the one nor the other. Therefore we will leave Baal alone and all the prophets of the grove, with their candles and their crucifixes and their incense and their robes.
I know where you are likely to go and that is to your own frames and feelings, to your own resolves and doings. Alas for your folly! Oh, yes, you want to get peace, and so you take the pledge, and you vow that you will become a decent, sober body and all that. What are these confidences but vanities of the heathen? The very best of duties that you and I can perform, if we put our trust in them, are only false confidences, refuges of lies, and they can yield us no help.
No, look—according to the text, there is no help for us even in the usual means of Divine Grace if we forget the Lord. Read that second question—“Can the heavens give showers?” Showers come from the heavens, but the heavens cannot yield showers apart from God. The eastern sky, without rain, is blue, bright, beautiful. But after months of pitiless drought, when no tear of pity has stood in the eye of the heavens, the blue color becomes the ensign of melancholy. And if this continues month after month, it becomes the color of despair.
Until the Lord opens the windows of Heaven to pour out the blessing, neither sun, nor moon, nor stars can help the need of man. If God does not help you, O tried and anxious Soul, the sacraments are all in vain, though they are ordained of Heaven. And preaching and reading, liturgy and song, are all in vain to bring the refreshing dew of Divine Grace. Job truly says, “If God will not withdraw His anger, the proud helpers do stoop under Him.”
If God Himself save you not, O Man, all that can be done by men or angels throughout the ages can never help you one single jot. You are lost, lost, lost, if a stronger arm than man’s is not stretched out to help you! But with God is all power. There is the mercy—“Are not You He, O Lord our God? For You have made all these things.” See in how short a time He covers the heavens with clouds and pours forth an abundance of rain till He makes the wilderness a pool and the dry land springs of water. He can. He can! He can reach the extremity of human weakness and woe. What can He NOT do? Nothing is too hard for the Lord. And you, poor Sinner, dried up like the sand of the desert—God can, within an hour, yes—in a moment, make your heart to be flooded with His Grace.
He is the Creator, making all things out of nothing. And He can create in you at once the tender heart, the loving spirit, the believing mind, the sanctified nature. Though you have no Divine Grace this morning, no, not a drop of it—He can open streams in the desert. You cannot find within yourself, wherever you look, any trace of love, or holy feelings, or anything that is good. Yet He can give you all, can give you all for nothing, can give it to you now!
If you believe that He can and will trust Him, as He displays His love in the Lord Jesus, He will save you. He can give you the power to believe it and lead you now to cast yourself on Him. He can, but it hangs upon His will. Does He not say, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion”? A God without a will is no God at all. And if He has no will in the matter of salvation, then is He dethroned from His choicest empire and man is set up above the God of Divine Grace Himself. This cannot be.
Well, then, what follows from this? If God has all this power, our wisdom is to wait upon Him, since He alone can help. We draw this inference—“Therefore we will wait upon You.” O my beloved Hearer, if you have never been converted, I pray the Holy Spirit to bring you to decision, that you may at once seek the Lord.
O tried and anxious soul, the sacraments are all in vain, though they are ordained of Heaven. And preaching and reading, liturgy and song, are all in vain to bring the refreshing dew of Divine Grace. Every road is closed but the way of Sovereign Grace. You have no merit, you have no strength. You never can have any merit, you never can have any strength of your own. God must save you, or you are lost to all eternity. But He can save you to glorify His own Grace and make His own mercy to be known and to reveal His great power in turning hearts of stone into hearts of flesh. He can save you. Submit yourself to Him, then, and come to Him and say, with the “therefore” of my text, “Therefore we will wait upon You.”
Do I hear somebody say, “How I would like to pray”? Yes, that is the way to come to God. Come to Him by prayer in the name of Jesus. Do you want a prayer? This chapter is full of petitions, and there is one which I would point out to you. Here is a short one for you (verse 7), “O Lord, though our iniquities testify against us, do You it.” “Do You it.” “Lord, I cannot create Grace in my own heart, any more than I can make rain to fall from the sky. But do You it.” “Lord, I cannot come to You, come You to me; do You it.”
Is not that a wonderful prayer? There is more in it than you think—the more you consider it, the bigger you will see it to be. Three monosyllables—“Do you it!” And then observe the argument—four words all of one syllable, “for Your name’s sake.” Not for my sake but for Christ’s sake, who is the manifestation of Your name. For Your own glory’s sake, for Your glory is Your name. Lord, make men see what a sinner You can save by saving me! Lord, glorify Your mercy by forgiving me. For, oh, if You will save such a poor, unworthy wretch as I am, even Heaven itself will ring with Your praises. And even in Hell, they will say, “See what God can do! He saved one who was ripe for the eternal fire and He has placed the rebel among His children.”
“Do You it for Your name’s sake.” Heartily do I commend this prayer to every soul here that is seeking the Lord. May the Spirit write it on your hearts! I cannot give you a better. “Do You it for Your name’s sake.”
Well then, next, if you are really going to wait upon the Lord, you must do it through a Mediator. These guilty people of Jerusalem had Jeremiah to pray for them. Jeremiah, with the weeping eye, fitly typifies a greater than Jeremiah. Remember the Man of Sorrows, the Acquaintance of Grief? Jeremiah’s Master must be your Intercessor. Beg Him to be your Mediator. You cannot go in unto an absolute God. You need a Mediator. A Mediator is provided—He has presented an acceptable sacrifice—He will plead the causes of your soul. Trust in His blood instead of your tears. Let His death wash your life. Leave your case in the great Mediator’s hands. For if you believe in Him, He will undertake for you. And He never fails. He will go into the Court of King’s Bench for you and be your Advocate and win your suit. Come, trust yourself with Jesus. For He will save.
Let me advise you to make a full confession of sin. Read verse 20, “We acknowledge, O Lord, our wickedness: for we have sinned against You.” Make a clean breast of it, admit the past, lay bare the present. Think not to cloak sin. To conceal sin is to ruin yourself. To confess it is to find mercy. Place yourself among the guilty, for there mercy can fitly reach you. When you have done this, cast yourself down before your God, saying, “Therefore I will wait upon You.”
Come through Christ, believing in the power of His precious blood and you may draw near to God. Though you are loaded with enough sins to sink a world of sinners down to Hell, yet if you will believe in the mercy of God through Christ Jesus and cast yourself down at His feet and lie there, He will never say “Depart.” Jesus has said, “He that comes unto Me I will in no wise cast out.”
If you perish, it is because you do not come. Not because you come and He rejects you. O dear Souls, I do not know some of you, others I do know. But whether known to me or not, I look at you now with loving eyes and say, Come to my Lord. Does your heart say, “I will arise and go unto my Father”? Then am I glad. You have tried the citizens of this country and they have sent you into the fields to feed swine. And husks are all that you have to feed upon. You have spent your money and wasted your substance in riotous living. You can find no pleasure now—go where you may. Vanity of vanities. All is vanity! Quit the vanities and seek the verities. Turn unto your God. Turn instantly! Hark back! Hark back! You have gone too far already in the evil way. A precipice is before you! One more step, yes, one more step and you are over and your eternal ruin is complete. Hark back as quickly as you can to the great God from whom you have departed! Come now, even now, for He invites you—“Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” While He speaks in this manner, I hope you will answer to the call and bow at His feet at once. “Today if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.” May the Holy Spirit lay hold on you, that you may lay hold on Jesus! God grant it, for Christ’s sake! Amen.