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The Desire of Ages
off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the Lord.”
Jeremiah 31:35-37
. The Jews regarded their natural descent from
Abraham as giving them a claim to this promise. But they overlooked
the conditions which God had specified. Before giving the promise,
He had said, “I will put My law in their inward parts, and write it in
their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be My people.... For
I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
Jeremiah 31:33, 34
.
To a people in whose hearts His law is written, the favor of God
is assured. They are one with Him. But the Jews had separated
themselves from God. Because of their sins they were suffering under
His judgments. This was the cause of their bondage to a heathen
nation. Their minds were darkened by transgression, and because in
times past the Lord had shown them so great favor, they excused their
sins. They flattered themselves that they were better than other men,
and entitled to His blessings.
These things “are written for our admonition, upon whom the
ends of the world are come.”
1 Corinthians 10:11
. How often we
misinterpret God’s blessings, and flatter ourselves that we are favored
on account of some goodness in us! God cannot do for us that which
He longs to do. His gifts are used to increase our self-satisfaction, and
to harden our hearts in unbelief and sin.
John declared to the teachers of Israel that their pride, selfishness,
and cruelty showed them to be a generation of vipers, a deadly curse
to the people, rather than the children of just and obedient Abraham.
In view of the light they had received from God, they were even worse
than the heathen, to whom they felt so much superior. They had
forgotten the rock whence they were hewn, and the hole of the pit from
which they had been digged. God was not dependent upon them for
the fulfilling of His purpose. As He had called Abraham out from a
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heathen people, so He could call others to His service. Their hearts
might now appear as lifeless as the stones of the desert, but His Spirit
could quicken them to do His will, and receive the fulfillment of His
promise.
“And now also,” said the prophet, “the ax is laid unto the root of
the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is
hewn down, and cast into the fire.” Not by its name, but by its fruit,
is the value of a tree determined. If the fruit is worthless, the name