I. GOD'S RULE IS DIRECTED SOLELY FOR MAN'S PURITY. Such is his own holiness of nature, that he cannot tolerate impurity of any kind in his kingdom. Or, if he does tolerate it for a season, it is only for the purpose of more effectually purifying his saints. To distribute his own happiness, he created men; but that happiness can only reach perfection when it is rooted in purity. Purity or perdition is the only alternative under the sceptre of Jehovah.

II. THE PLACE APPOINTED FOR THE TEST. "I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there will I plead with you face to face." Already this had been done in the wilderness of Sinai, and now it shall be done again. This wilderness is not Babylon, nor the desert between Babylon and Judaea. It denotes the isolated condition of the people, when they should be scattered among all the nations. A desert is the outward emblem of man's desolation through sin. Iniquity has made a desert in his heart, in his home, in the nation - a desert in all his surroundings. There, under a sense of his folly and misfortune, God condescends to plead with men.

III. A WINNOWING PROCESS IS TO BE PURSUED. "I will purge out from among you the rebels, and them that transgress against me." If the nation, following its lower passions and following foolish kings, refuse God's salvation, God will deal with them individually. As a nation they shall be destroyed; but an election shall be saved. God will appear as a Thresher, and will purge his floor, and separate the chaff from the wheat. Would that the entire nation had yielded to his righteous rule! Yet, if the majority reject his grace, a minority will accept it. Not a single penitent shall be swept away with the rebellious. Divine wisdom can and will discriminate.

IV. THE OBDURATE SHALL BE ABANDONED. "Go ye, serve ye every one his idols, and hereafter also, if ye will not hearken unto me." Lightly as men may esteem the severity of such a sentence, it is the most crushing doom that can befall them - to be given over to the indulgence of their vices. For God to withdraw the restraints of his grace, and allow them the liberty they crave, would be the heaviest scourge, the beginning of perdition. Said God of Ephraim, "He is joined to his idols: let him alone!" Of some it is declared by Jesus the Christ, "He is guilty of eternal sin."

V. THE PENITENT SHALL RISE TO EMINENT PIETY. (See vers. 40 and 41.) They shall worship again in the consecrated mount. Their offerings shall be spontaneous and abundant. Their gifts and sacrifices shall send a sweet savour Godward. Best of all, they shall find acceptance with God. The Most High will be honoured in their midst. His presence will be felt as a purifying power. "I will be sanctified in you." The remembrance of their past ways and past experiences shall open their eyes to the foulness and loathsomeness of sin. Their inmost tastes and affections shall be refined. Self-condemnation is an essential element in repentance.

VI. THE RESULT WILL BE LARGER ACQUAINTANCE WITH GOD. "Ye shall know that I am the Lord." The manifestation of God's patience, condescension, and tender love will enlarge their conception of God. He will gain a larger place in their esteem and confidence. His true glory will come forth. In this way even human sin will contribute to human elevation; man's guilt will promote God's glory. In the widest sense, "all things shall work together for good." The darkest disaster will serve as a setting for the jewels of God's goodness. - D.

I. "I WILL BRING YOU INTO THE WILDERNESS OF THE PEOPLE?"

1. God often brings His people into the wilderness gradually, by little and little. The terrors and dangers of the wilderness are concealed; slight convictions are at first impressed which afterwards grow stronger; small rumblings precede the loud claps of thunder; sometimes the clouds seem to break, and promise fair weather; then they grow thicker, and wear a more formidable aspect than ever.

2. The Lord brings them in with an high hand and an outstretched arm, as He did the children of Israel of old. However gently He may act, yet He acts powerfully, and the greatest mildness is attended with an irresistible energy. We may be fretful and impatient, unruly and unmanageable; but He who has taken the work in hand will not leave it unfinished. We may stifle our convictions, but God will revive them; may lull conscience asleep, but He will awaken it again.

3. God brings into the wilderness with a design to bring out of it again (Isaiah 57:16-18; Lamentations 3:32; Hosea 6:1, 2).

II. "AND THERE WILL I PLEAD WITH YOU FACE TO FACE." He does not say that He would plead against them, nor yet that He would plead for them; but He would plead with them, and that face to face, so that they should both see and hear Him. And what would He plead with them about? Perhaps the sins they had committed, and the calamities thereby brought upon themselves. He will also plead the equity of His own proceedings, and the unreasonableness of their conduct. He also pleads with them on the futility of their attempts to help themselves, and the necessity of looking to another quarter for relief (Jeremiah 3:17, 31, 36, 8:22).

1. He pleads powerfully. How forcible are right words, says Job. And such are the words of God: they are founded upon truth, plain and direct, and carry with them an irresistible energy.

2. He pleads convincingly. God will overcome when He judgeth. When He is opponent, no man can be respondent.

3. He pleads tenderly and in love; His appeals are made to the understanding and the heart, and an ingenuous mind must feel their force (Micah 6:3; Isaiah 1:18). What has been said condemns three sorts of persons —(1) Those who have always been in the wilderness of sin, but not in that of sorrow; who are merry and jovial, saying, "Tomorrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant."(2) Those who think they are in the wilderness of godly sorrow, but who mistake every transient pang for real conviction, and every motion of the affections for the work of the Holy Spirit on the heart.(3) Those who are in the wilderness, and struggling to get out of it before the Lord's time. It is better to be in the wilderness than in Egypt; yea, it is better, unspeakably better, to be in the wilderness, though we continue there all our days, than to be in hell.

(B. Beddome, M. A.)