For the Lord shall judge His people.
Power for the powerless
I. The people whom Jehovah owns and claims as “His people” and “His servants.” God has a people peculiarly His own. You must be blind; indeed, when looking into your Bible, not to see that this fact is one of the most prominent things set forth in the Book of God. Moreover, this people, whom Jehovah calls “His people” and “His servants,” are held by Him as His especial property, as His own inheritance. “The Lord’s portion is His people.” What a portion! One might easily understand the Psalmist, and the prophet too, when they said, “The Lord is my portion, saith my soul”; and a blessed portion it is for a poor ruined sinner to have the covenant God as his portion. But reverse it, and see how God claims His people, and calls them “His portion,” as if they were worth something--as if they were of some value. I must not, however, overlook the second term employed in our text--“servants.” “His servants ye are to whom ye obey.” If, then, your life, your heart, your soul, and all your powers are wholly at the service of God; if that service is your delight, and you meet Him in it, surely you may come to the Conclusion that you belong to His servants. But there is another point: that His people and His servants essentially differ from all people beside. They were separated from among the nations, God’s people and God’s servants differ from the world in their life, in their language, and in their laws.
II. The exigencies to which they were reduced. They are said, in my text, to be seen by their own God as having lost all their power, and “none shut up or left”--a most affecting description of God’s chosen people under the ruined condition into which sin has brought them; and also of the extremity to which they are reduced in personal experience, before God’s deliverance appears on their behalf. What a marked description of man’s ruin under the fall, and by actual sin!--so utterly undone as to have no power! God saw that their power was gone. When the poor sinner is first awakened by the grace of God, and begins to feel the importance of obtaining salvation, he does not believe that he has no power, but sets to immediately to put forth his power, determines upon reading much, hearing much, praying much, avoiding much that is evil, and doing much that is good. Moreover, in the language of my text, the people and servants of God are to be expelled from all false refuges, “None shut up or left.” There are exigencies in the believer’s experience with regard to things spiritual and to things providential that answer exactly to this description--“none shut up or left”--as regards experience, not a hope left; not a vestige of supposed strength--not a false refuge but will be swept away as a refuge of lies; not a helper left. Moreover, it may imply, in spiritual experience, no comfort shut up or left, no reserve, nothing to fall back upon, not a promise to cling to, not a sermon which he is supposed to have heard to profit, but rises up in judgment against him! What! none of his holier feelings? No, none of them. What, none of his earnest prayers and his believing confidence? No, none of them--“none shut up or left.” Now, whether as to the spiritual experience, or the providential experience of His people, He frequently, to show His wisdom, His grace, His power, His love and condescension, strips man of his all, that He Himself may become his all, and that Christ may be found to be all in all to him.
III. By the Lord’s judging His people I understand His judging for them; judging His enemies on account of their cruelty; judging for them so as to decide that they are His own--that the chastisement has been carried on long enough, and that their enemies shall then be punished, as in the preceding verse, “To Me belongeth vengeance.” This is what I understand by His judging His people. The other phrase, “repent Himself for His servants,” means an alteration, of course, in the events of Providence, and in His manner of dealing with His people; that He changes the order of things. From this we derive the spiritual truth, that however the Lord chastises His people, and however long the chastisement may continue, there will come a moment when the Lord will “repent Himself,” or change His course, and say, “Their affliction is at an end, and I will not afflict or grieve My people any more.” Then shall the froward Ephraim be spoken to as by the prophet,” I have seen his ways, and I will heal him. God is a never-failing Deliverer to His people; and we will glance at a few things in which this is manifested. The first is, that His covenant faithfulness is called forth when His peoples faithlessness has arisen to its utmost height and been chastised. If you ask me what pertains to a Christian in himself, I should, for one, confess, after all the years I have known of the Lord, that one word, “faithlessness,” would mark all. If I am asked what constitutes the character and conduct of the Deity towards His Church and people in every age, amidst all their afflictions, and when they are reduced to the lowest ebb, I should say, “Righteousness is the girdle of His loins, and faithfulness the girdle of His reins.” One word more; entire deliverance is certain when God interferes. He who has delivered will deliver; and be assured, poor tried soul, whoever thou art, and in whichever of those exigencies thou art placed--be assured of this one thing, that if the Lord has begun to judge for you, has changed the course and order of His proceedings for you, has created a ray of hope and given you spiritual desires which you did not before possess, has communicated the ability to pour out your soul in pleading with Him, and to hang upon Him though it appears as it were by a thread, He will perfect your deliverance in due time. Every enemy shall be vanquished. Every difficulty shall disappear. (J. Irons.)
Man’s extremity, God’s opportunity
To ungodly men the time of their fall is fatal; there is no rising again for them. They mount higher and higher upon the ladder of riches; but at last they can climb no higher, their feet slide, and all is over. This calamity hasteneth on (Deuteronomy 32:35). It is not so with three characters of whom we will now consider: they are judged in this world that they may not be condemned hereafter (1 Corinthians 11:32; Psalms 37:24).
I. The Lord’s own Church.
1. A Church may be sorely tried--“power gone, none left.”
(1) By persecution.
(2) By removals, death, poverty.
(3) By the lack of a faithful ministry.
(4) By general falling off of members. Various circumstances may scatter a people--internal dissension, pestilent heresy, lack of spiritual life.
2. But it may then cry to God.
(1) If indeed His people, the covenant stands, and He will judge them.
(2) If still His servants, the bond holds on His side, and He will repent Himself for them.
(3) His eye is ever upon them, and their eye should be up to Him.
3. He will return and revive His own Church (Deuteronomy 32:39).
4. Meanwhile the trial is permitted--
(1) To find out His servants and drive out hypocrites (Isaiah 33:14).
(2) To test the faith of sincere saints, and to strengthen it.
(3) To manifest His own grace by supporting them under the trying times, and by visiting them with future blessing.
(4) To secure to Himself the glory when the happier days are granted.
II. The tried believer.
1. His power may be gone. Bodily health fails, prudence is baffled, skill is taken away, courage sinks, even spiritual force departs (Samuel 3:17, 18).
2. His earthly help may fail. A man without a friend moves the compassion of God.
3. He may be assailed by doubts and fears, and hardly know what to do with himself (Job 3:23-26).
4. His hope lies in the compassion of God: He has no pleasure in putting His people to grief (Micah 7:19).
5. Such sharp trials may be sent because--
(1) Nothing less would cure the evil hidden within.
(2) Nothing less might suffice to bring the whole heart to God alone.
(3) Nothing less might affect the believer’s future life.
(4) Nothing less might complete his experience, enlarge his acquaintance with the Word, and perfect his testimony for God.
III. The convinced sinner. He is cleaned out of all that wherein he prided himself.
1. His self-righteousness is gone.
2. His ability to perform acceptable works is gone.
3. His secret hopes which were shut up are now all dead and buried.
4. His proud romantic dreams are gone.
5. His worldly delights, his bold defiance, his unbelief, his big talk, his carelessness, his vain confidence, are all gone.
6. Nothing is left but the pity of God. When the tide has ebbed out to the very uttermost, it turns. The prodigal had spent all before he returned. Empty-handed sinners are welcome to the fulness of Christ. (C. H. Spurgeon.)