Jeremiah 31:25 - Homiletics

Divine satisfaction.

There are always the weary who need rest, the sorrowful who need consolation.

1 . Naturally we all have restless longing, large desires that go out beyond the present and the attainable. The soul has its appetites, its hunger, its thirst.

2 . Sin and sorrow have deepened our need. The Jews in their calamities were a type of mankind in its sin and weariness.

I. NO EARTHLY SATISFACTION WILL MEET THESE WANTS . Food for the body cannot satisfy the soul. Man is not able to live by bread alone. The life is more than meat. We are too large for the world and its gifts, rich and abundant as they may be.

"We look before and after,

And pine for what is not;

Our sincerest laughter

With some pain is fraught,

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought."

(Shelley.)

Hence the restlessness and dissatisfaction we experience in the height of prosperity. Thank God for these feelings. They are indications of a heavenly birth, indications of immortality.

II. GOD OFFERS US FULL SATISFACTION . He will satisfy—satiate.

1 . God gives all we need. God does not keep his children on half rations. He has rich stores, and he offers freely. From our broken cisterns we turn to his ever-flowing fountains.

2 . What God gives is of the kind we need—true light, not mocking speculations; Divine consolations of hope and peace, not barren philosophic maxims, but full and free forgiveness. What God does he does perfectly. He does not call us to a bare salvation, but to a full satisfaction, meeting the peculiar and deep wants of the soul with the special satisfaction they need, and bestowing this to satiation.

III. THE FULL ENJOYMENT OF DIVINE SATISFACTION BELONGS TO THE FUTURE . Much may be enjoyed now. Larger faith would open at once more abundant stores. God's hand is not shortened. It is we who limit our own enjoyment of his grace by unbelief and sinfulness. Still there can be no perfect satisfaction in this imperfect world. Heaven will be totally different from earth in the fact that here we are always reaching out to the beyond; there for the first time all needs will be satisfied. The hope of such a condition should lead to patience and a faithful following of the way of the cross now that leads to the home of rest hereafter.