It is so encouraging and uplifting to read God’s promises to recover and restore His people, and to realize that He wants to bring us into the enjoyment of Christ as everything to God and to man so that we may be His people, the church, the Body of Christ!
The people of Israel are a type of the church, and what happened to them in the Old Testament is a type of what we as the church experience today, and their history is our story in the spiritual realm.
Just as the children of Israel went through certain things physically, so we go through similar things in the spiritual realm.
We were chosen by God (just as Israel was chosen by God from all nations), redeemed by Him (as Israel was redeemed by God from Egypt), and we are brought to enjoy Christ as the Spirit as the life supply (as Israel entered into the enjoyment of the good land, a type of the all-inclusive Christ).
We are building the church as God’s habitation (just as Israel built the tabernacle and later the temple as God’s habitation), we inherit Christ as our portion (Christ as the all-inclusive good land has been allotted to us to be our portion), we degrade and are captured (just as the children of Israel were degraded and were captured by the enemies), we are recovered (just as Israel was restored and recovered) and we await the Lord’s coming (just as Israel awaited the coming of Messiah).
In particular in the book of Jeremiah we see that the people of Israel left God, forsook Him as the fountain of living waters, and sought to hew out for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that hold no water; because of this, because of their idolatry and apostasy, God allowed the Babylonians to come and take them captive and destroy the city of Jerusalem and the temple.
The children of Israel were taken into captivity in Babylon and scattered among the nations, and those who remained went to Egypt and other places; the whole nation of Israel was divided and scattered, and it seemed that God has no testimony on earth.
Today in Christendom we see so many Christians, millions upon millions of Christians, but they are all scattered, divided, mixed with the nations, and there is so much confusion, mixture, division, self-exaltation, and even idolatry.
The genuine believers in Christ in Christianity are in captivity and in division; just as we see in the Old Testament with the children of Israel, God promises to return His people to the genuine ground of oneness, to the fulfillment of God’s purpose, to the enjoyment of the all-inclusive Christ, and to the building up of the church as the Body of Christ.
In Jeremiah we see in type how God promised the recovery and restoration of Israel, which point to God’s desire to recover and restore His spiritual people, the believers in Christ, so that they may be one flock under Christ as the one Shepherd.
God Promised to Recover and Restore His People to Himself to Enjoy Christ in the Church Life
How we thank and praise the Lord that, in spite of all the division, scattering, confusion, and mixture in today’s Christianity, He promises to recover and restore His people to Himself so that they would enjoy Christ in the church life! Amen!
In Jer. 31:11-14 we see how Jehovah promises to redeem Israel from the hand of one stronger than them; this is a type of our being redeemed by Christ on the cross – He has come to be our Redeemer, to redeem us, and to give us redemption, even though we were held in captivity by one stronger than us.
When God redeems His people, they will come and sing in the height of Zion, and they will flow forth to the goodness of Jehovah – to the grain, to the new wine, to the fresh oil, and to the young of the flock and of the herd.
Hallelujah, when we are redeemed by God out of any captivity and scattering, and when we return to Christ Himself on the ground of oneness, we will sing and overflow with joy, for we enjoy the riches of Christ!
We can testify that, as God recovers and restores us to Himself, we enjoy the all-inclusive Christ with all His riches, and He is our food, our drink, our cheering wine, our anointing oil, and all that we need for our daily life.
As we enjoy Christ in the church life, our soul is like a watered garden, and we will languish no more; we have Christ, we enjoy Him, and He is everything to us, so we don’t languish in the land but rather labor on Christ, enjoy the rich harvest of Christ, and bring Him to the church meetings to enjoy Him with the saints and with God on the ground of oneness.
When God fulfills His promise to recover and restore His people to Himself in the land, the virgin will rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old men together; Jehovah will turn their mourning to gladness, He will comfort them, and He will cause them to rejoice after their sorrow.
What a sweet and delightful promise, and how much we experience this in the church life today!
We can testify that in the church life we enjoy Christ, we rejoice together, we sing for joy, and all our mourning is turned to gladness, for the Lord comforts us, and He causes us to rejoice after our sorrow.
In the divisions and scattering in Christianity there is much speaking about prosperity and how God wants to bless His people, but unless His people are recovered and restored to the place where God puts His name, unless we return to the genuine ground of oneness and enjoy God Himself as our unique portion, we can’t really enjoy God’s blessings as promised in His word.
But praise the Lord, God promises to recover and restore us to Himself, He will fill our soul with abundance, and we as His people will be satisfied with His goodness!
How rich our Christ is. How all-inclusive He is to us, and how much we enjoy Him with the saints!
He satisfies us with His goodness, and He fills our soul with the good things, even with abundance, as we enjoy Christ in the church life.
We praise the Lord for His rich promises that, even as He scattered His people and chastised them, He will also gather them and keep them, as a shepherd his flock (Jer. 31:10).
This is what delights Jehovah, and this is what He wants us as His people to experience today.
This is what we experience today in the church life in the Lord’s recovery.
And this is not our doing – the recovery is not a “cistern that we have hewed out”; rather, God promised to recover and restore His people to Himself so that they may enjoy Christ in the church life, and He is preparing His people and does a work of returning us to Himself!
How satisfying this is to us and to Him!
Thank You Lord for Your promise to recover and restore us to Yourself so that we may enjoy Christ in the church life on the ground of oneness with all the saints and with God! Hallelujah! We come and sing praises to You, Lord, and we flow forth to the goodness of God, for our Christ is so rich, so all-inclusive, and so wonderful! Thank You Lord, You make our soul like a watered garden, and we languish no more but rather, we enjoy You with the saints as our God-allotted portion. Thank You for turning our mourning into gladness and for comforting us; You cause us to rejoice after our sorrow, and You fill our soul with abundance! Lord, we are satisfied with Your goodness!
God will Turn the Captivity of His People, He will Save them and Multiply them, and He will cause them to Rejoice!
In Jer. 30 we see how God promises to recover and restore His people Israel after He has chastised them, after He punished them with justice (v. 11).
Jehovah has struck His people with the striking of an enemy and with the chastisement of a cruel one, because of the greatest of His people’s iniquities (vv. 14-15).
But He promises to consume all those who consumed Israel, and He will bring all his enemies into captivity.
Praise the Lord, Jehovah will bring Israel recovery and will heal him of his wounds (vv. 16-17).
This is something that God promises today to all His people, no matter how scattered they are in the divisions in Christianity: He will bring them recovery and He will heal them of their wounds.
Just as God has turned the captivity of the tents of Jacob and had compassion on his dwelling places (Jer. 30:18), so He promises to turn the captivity of all the genuine believers in Christ who are in the many denominations today, and He will have compassion on them; He will bring them all under Himself as one Shepherd with one flock.
Praise the Lord, the city of God will be rebuilt and the palace will be inhabited after its own manner (v. 19); the church as the house of God and the kingdom of God will be built in the church life as we are restored and recovered to God Himself.
As God restores and recovers His people, as He turns the captivity of His people, He heals them and rebuilds them, and out of them will come thanksgiving and the voice of those who make merry. Praise the Lord!
In Jer. 31:38-40 Jehovah declares that days are coming when the city of Jerusalem will be built unto Jehovah.
Days are coming, brothers and sisters in the Lord, when the church as the city of God will be built unto the Lord, and He will have a kingdom on earth!
When Jehovah will turn again Israel’s captivity, they will say in the land of Judah and in its cities, Jehovah bless you, o habitation of righteousness, o mountain of holiness (v. 23).
There will be much blessing when God turns the captivity of His people, as He recovers and restores His people to Himself and to the land.
When God turns the captivity of His people, He will satisfy the weary soul and fill every languishing soul (v. 25); He will give all His people rich divine life, life will grow in them, and everything will be rich in life (v. 27).
God Himself watches over His recovered and restored people to build and to plant (v. 28).
God will multiply His people, so that they will not be few; He will cause them to be honored, so that they will not be small (Jer. 30:19).
Hallelujah, God promises to turn our mourning into gladness and comfort us and cause us to rejoice after our sorrow (Jer. 31:13). After mourning there will be gladness; after sorrow there will be comfort and joy and much rejoicing.
May we read the word of God, muse on His promises, meditate prayerfully on what He promises to do to recover and restore His people, and be deeply touched, moved, and inspired by what He has done with His people Israel and what He is doing with us today in the church life!
Thank You Lord for bringing recovery to Your people and for healing Your people of their wounds. Amen, Lord, You are turning the captivity of Your people and You are building up the church with Your recovered and restored people. Oh, what a blessing to be turned from captivity in the degraded and divided Christianity and return to the ground of oneness to enjoy God Himself in Christ as the Spirit with all the saints in the church life! Thank You Lord, You satisfy the weary soul and fill every languishing soul. You cause us to grow in life and everything is rich in life in the church life. You cause us to increase and be honored, and You save us from any yoke and bonds. Praise the Lord for His promise of recovery and restoration to His people!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Jeremiah, msg. 27 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization Study of Jeremiah and Lamentations, week 10, The Promise, the Prophecy, the Remnant, and the Recovery.
- Hymns on this topic:
– Thou the Shepherd and Physician, / Thou hast healed our sick condition; / Comfort, guide, protect-Thy mission; / Thou dost care for us. (Hymns #78)
– In the divisions He sought us, / Weary and famished for food; / Into the good land He brought us, / Oh, to our spirit how good! / Jesus Himself is our pasture, / He is the food that we eat; / We as His sheep are fed richly / Each time, whenever we meet. (Hymns #1221)
– When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, / We were like them that dream, / We were like them that dream. / Then was our mouth filled with laughter, / And our tongue with singing: / Then said they among the nations, / The Lord hath done great things. (Hymns #1337)
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