And ye shall eat in plenty.
The promise of plenty a motive to gratitude
I. The branches of this promise.
1. “Ye shall eat in plenty.” To eat and to eat in plenty, are pleasures which threatenings have disjoined and separated.
2. Satisfaction. “Be satisfied.”
3. The body is refreshed and nourished.
4. Contentment with our portion.
5. The power to eat.
6. Interest in the promise of eating is manifested and apprehended.
7. The blessing is in satisfaction.
8. God is enjoyed as our God in Christ. “And praise the name of the Lord.”
These words point to a comprehensive duty.
1. Acknowledging the goodness of the Lord our God in creating plenty and bestowing satisfaction.
2. Rejoicing m the goodness of the Lord our God, “who giveth us fruitful seasons, and filleth our heart with food and gladness.” Joy in His name is a chief part of praise. Though the good be a material or sensible good, the joy in which we praise Him is a spiritual joy.
3. Serving the Lord our God, in holiness and righteousness, all the days of our life.
4. Exercises concerning the person, and office, and beauty, excellence, riches, treasures, fulness, and sufficiency of the Lord Jesus Christ, are essential in the praise which glorifies the name of the Lord God.
II. The motive to humble ourselves and praise the name of the Lord God. There is something in God’s dealing that is wondrous. See in Joel’s sphere.
1. Calling off and destroying the devouring army is wondrous.
2. After the devastation, the springing of the earth is wondrous.
3. The season able rain which cooled the air and moistened the earth is wondrous.
4. The uncommon fertility of the years which succeeded the ravages of the army and the drought is wondrous. Make application to those who are in easy and affluent circumstances. Also to poor householders, etc. (A. Shanks.)
Using aright God’s restored blessings
What use should be made of these returns of God’s mercy to them?
1. God shall have all the glory thereof. What is the matter of their rejoicing shall be matter of their thanksgiving. The plenty of our creature comforts is a mercy indeed to us, when by them our hearts are enlarged in love and thankfulness to God, who gives us all things richly to enjoy, though we serve Him but poorly.
2. They shall have the credit, and comfort, and spiritual benefit thereof. When God gives them plenty again, and gives them to be satisfied with it--
(1) Their reputation shall be retrieved.
(2) Their joy shall be revived.
(3) Their faith in God shall be confirmed and increased.
We should labour to grow in our acquaintance with God by all providences, both merciful and afflictive.
3. Even the inferior creatures shall share therein, and be made easy thereby. They had suffered for the sin of man, and for God’s quarrel with him, and now they shall fare the better for man’s repentance and God’s reconciliation to him. This may lead us to think of the restitution of all things, when the creature, that is now made subject to vanity and groans under it, shall be brought, though not into the glorious joy, yet into the glorious liberty of the children of God (Romans 8:21). (Matthew Henry.)
Harvest thanksgiving
Joel comforts Israel with a declaration of God’s mercies, tie speaks of a change for the better which God would bring upon the Jews’ land,--a change from drought and barrenness, from blight and devouring insect, to fertility and large increase. Joy in harvest is a practice as old as any that is in the world. We find it in heathen as well as in Christian times. Especially do we find it among God’s own people, the Israelites. Their Feast of Tabernacles is also called the Feast of the Ingathering, or the Feast of the Harvest. For seven days they rejoiced together before the Lord. They brought an offering, some fruit of their land, each according to his ability, and as God had blessed him. In this they are our example. To a certain extent this joy at harvest has always been found amongst us. The shouting for the last load, the harvest supper in the master’s barn, witness to this feeling. Of late years there have come into use what are called Harvest Festivals. These do not interfere with the old customs of harvest joy. They only lift that joy into a higher sphere by adding the religious element. Praising God is our bounden duty at this time. And an unusual spirit of thankfulness seems to be now upon our people. Such a general remembering of the name of the Lord God is most refreshing to witness, and fraught with good omen for our country. We take our side with those who depart not from the living God, “Giver to all of life and breath, and all things.” The praise of our lips must be seconded by the praise of our life. (R. D. B. Rawnsley, M. A.)
Praise for plenty
I. The promise of an ample sufficiency of food for the use of man. “Ye shall eat in plenty.” Such, from the productiveness of the earth, the excellence of the weather to ripen, and for the gathering in of the late harvest, ought to be the case with even the most toiling and humble classes of our fellow-countrymen during the winter. The poor are greatly dependent on the bounties of Providence.
II. The duty of praise. “Ye shall praise the name of the Lord your God.” It was a charge brought by Jeremiah against the Jews, that they overlooked the hand of God in filling them with the finest of the wheat. Many considerations are adapted to excite and strengthen our gratitude for the blessings of the harvest. All was suspended on the will of God; and where should we have been if God had rewarded us according to our iniquities? Now turn to consider the higher signification of which the text is capable. Not one thing mentioned, as the subject of promise or the ground of duty, but has an evangelical complexion, and may be applied to the Gospel in its nature and claims.
(1) Look at the provision of the Gospel. There is no emblem under which the blessings of salvation are more commonly or more aptly exhibited than that of food. The Gospel is the bread of life. It is placed before us with unstinted and ungrudging liberality.
(2) Look at the satisfaction. There is this material difference between earthly and heavenly things. The meat for which men labour is perishable. To live in peace as to the safety of the soul, is not that satisfying?
(3) Look at the praise. If praise is duo for temporal blessings, how much more is it due for our eternal redemption, for gospel provisions. (Anon.)
My people shall never be ashamed.--
The courage and confidence of God’s people
Of God the prophet says, “He shall deal wonderfully with you.”
I. The nature and ground of that confidence under which believers “shall never be ashamed.” They that fear the Lord rest upon the strong arm of Omnipotence; therefore they are not afraid. In the hour of their temptation the precepts of God are the source of their spiritual vigour. They build on a foundation which shall never shake under them, therefore they tremble not in the day of adversity. The sure and certain promises of God, given through Christ by the Gospel, afford to the faithful in Christ a never-failing source of courage and confidence in the day of trial. “The righteous is bold as a lion” in the face of danger; for his anchor of hope is thrown out, and holds fast to the eternal rock of his salvation. Time cannot shake the courage of the faithful; for this courage has it’s graft in a Divine stock, which is eternal.
II. The effect of this Godly boldness and confidence. Shame and confusion of face bring distress and disquietude. There cannot be true peace within, where there is habitual feeling of shame, and sense of dread, doubt, and misgiving. The courage of the people of God is a state of peace within, solidly based, strongly secured beneath the adamantine bars of Divine grace, redeeming love, the Gospel’s gladdening voice and elevating spirit. A state of well-tried and well-founded courage is a state of well-assured and well supported peace. And the tranquillity depends not upon outward things for its permanency, but rests upon the watchful guardianship and unchangeable love of the Shepherd and Bishop of souls. See the great excellency of the benefit of this gift of godly courage. Is it not desirable to be enabled to walk through life, securely armed amid its storms, in a track undeviating, fixed, and stedfast, preserving the even tenor of a godly course, without weariness and with out wavering? This is the sound consistency of character which we should all aim after. What shall give you confidence in the day of adversity, but the sure provision of Divine grace laid up in the soul? What shall give you bold ness in the day of Christ’s appearing, but the love you have had for Christ, the concern you have shown for the ‘tone thing needful,” and the diligence you have used in “working out your salvation with fear and trembling “? (W. Stone, M. A.)
No condemnation to the righteous
There are few men in whom the moral sense is so extinguished that they never think at all of a judgment to come. But there are “many deceits by which the worldly minded may impose on themselves. Putting off consideration to a more convenient season. Attempting to serve two masters. But religion is not a thing for half measures. Who are those who shall never be ashamed? They are described as “the people of God.” Not persons wholly free from sin. Those who hate sin, and are earnestly striving to be wholly freed from it. Their sins are sins of ignorance or infirmity; and these, though they call for sorrow, can hardly demand shame. The people of God are those in whom there is honesty and integrity of moral purpose, rather than actual conformity to the whole law of God.
I. The man of God has no cause to be ashamed when he searches into himself. Arraign him before the tribunal of conscience. There could be nothing of shame where there was nothing of sin. Shame entered the world with sin. Our first parents had no sooner transgressed than conscience poured out its reproaches, and they hid themselves from the presence of the Lord. When his own heart is laid open to a man, he shrinks from the scene of foulness and deformity. He cannot look into a single recess of his heart without finding fresh cause for confusion of face. Can a man ever be so transformed that he may search into himself and find no reason to be ashamed? It is not true that he can ever examine himself and find no impurity. But his paramount desire, and unwearying endeavour, may be to obey in everything the law of his God. When he falls into sin, it is not because he loves it; and his every offence is quickly followed by penitence and confession. If a man “have respect unto all God’s commandments,” conscience may produce the catalogue of his sins, and yet not put him to shame. If a man have not sinned deliberately, and if he have repented sincerely, there is nothing of which he needs to be ashamed.
II. The man of God has no cause to be ashamed when he stands before the world. Arraign him before the tribunal of the world. Nothing but a clear conscience will enable us to look the world clearly and calmly in the face. We know how, in extreme cases, the inquietude of conscience will make a man afraid to meet his fellow-man. Probably much of the reluctance that is observable among Christians to reprove unrighteousness and assert cause of truth may be traced to a consciousness of their own inconsistency, which makes them ashamed to condemn what they too often practise, and recommend what they are apt to neglect. It is quite essential, in order that we be not ashamed before men, that we be not ashamed at the tribunal of conscience. The world is very disposed to impute wrong motives to the professors of religion--to put a false construction on actions which should excite the praise of all honest and well-meaning men. What is to secure Christians in the midst of unceasing endeavours to laugh them to scorn? They must uphold the characteristics of God’s people, and have respect unto all God’s commandments. There is no other receipt against shame. The people of God must carry religion with them into every business of life, and see that all scenes are pervaded by its influence. Christians should bear themselves with that lofty dignity which no calumny could disturb.
III. The man of God has no cause to be ashamed when he stands before God. Here it will not serve our argument to say that there is no love of sin, for every offence must be known. Indeed, if the blush is to be removed from our hearts, only by a consciousness that though God may search us and try us, He will find no evil in us, we must be left without confidence. But the people of God have respect unto all God’s commandments; and amongst these from the first have been reckoned the commandments which relate to faith. Here we have the ground-work of confidence before God, notwithstanding our own insufficiency. There is a breadth and fulness in the work of atonement which makes it commensurate with every necessity, leaving nothing unperformed which either human wants or Divine honour could demand. Then how are God’s people to be ashamed before God? (H. Melvill, B. D.)
Never ashamed
The explorer may be ashamed because the route he has patiently followed may lose itself in the waste, or the theory he has adopted may fail to explain all the facts. The discoverer may be ashamed because the unknown substance will not yield up its secrets to his tests. But God’s people shall never be ashamed--never in this world, never in the next. In the hour of death and in the day of judgment, never ashamed.
I. Never ashamed in offering prayers which God has Himself indited. There are many prayers, doubtless, in which we shall be ashamed. We endeavour to impose our will on the Eternal, with strong cryings and team, as though to carry His unwillingness by the rush of our assault. Nay, it is not thus that we shall prevail. Of these prayers we shall often have good reason to be ashamed. But the true prayer is far other than this.
II. Never ashamed in our appeal for help against temptation. Temptations do not cease with increasing years. There may be now and then a brief lull and respite, but the storm will break with all the greater intensity. The temptations which you overcame in earlier life will come back again, urged on you by cleverer, subtler, more crafty spirits than before. Our only hope is to remain in union with the Risen, Living Saviour, whose Name is above every name, so that at the Name of Jesus every knee shall bow of things under the earth.
III. Never ashamed in the result of words which He has given us to speak, or in the missions on which He has sent us. We may be very often ashamed as we consider the result of the elaborated sentences and perfected style; very much ashamed of the net result of enterprises which we have planned and executed with consummate care. Where are your sheaves? I have none. And why is this? Because our work has been in the power of the flesh.
IV. Never ashamed of our hope. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)