The description of the text is remarkably picturesque. We seem to behold the panic-stricken remnant escaping from the city with trembling forms and anxious countenances. Horror and shame impel their flight, as, girded in coarse sackcloth, they hurry away, barely hoping that they may save their lives. As they go, in their terror they cast away their silver and gold, the burden of which may impede their fight, and which have lost their interest in the all-absorbing endeavour to escape from the hands of the foe. The action thus graphically described is suggestive of a great principle.

I. THE WEALTHY ARE USUALLY PRONE TO PLACE TOO GREAT RELIANCE UPON THEIR RICHES. Money can purchase many things, and it is not surprising that the rich should have a latent belief that it can procure for them everything that they may need.

II. THE VANITY OF SUCH RESOURCES BECOMES MANIFEST EVEN IN ORDINARY EARTHLY CALAMITIES. In sickness, in sorrow of heart, in many calamities, especially in distressing bereavement, the powerlessness of wealth to deliver or to aid is made painfully apparent. In how many circumstances are the rich and the poor almost upon a level! How often would the wealthy be glad to exchange their riches for the poor man's poverty, might they enjoy the poor man's health!

III. SUCH POWERLESSNESS IS YET MORE EVIDENT IN THE PRESENCE OF SUCH CALAMITIES AS ARE THE SIGN OF DIVINE DISPLEASURE. Judah was fated to experience the catastrophe designated by the prophet as "the day of the wrath of the Lord." This awful expression conveys a distinct declaration concerning the Divine government, concerning human responsibility for rebellion and defection. From this wrath no worldly agency could possibly deliver. In the day when the Eternal enters into judgment with the sons of men, earth can offer no immunity, no protection. Release, exemption from righteous judgment can be purchased by no treasures, no gifts, no sacrifice.

IV. WEALTH, WHEN ABUSED, MAY EVEN BE A DISADVANTAGE AND HINDRANCE TO ITS POSSESSOR. In a shipwreck, in a fire, in flight from a besieged or captured city, men have been known, by clutching their gold and burdening themselves with its weight, to lose their chance of escape, and consequently miserably to perish. Their wealth has been their stumbling block. Such action and such a fate are a picture, a figure, of the conduct and the doom of not a few. They trust in uncertain riches instead of trusting in the living God. They make an idol of their possessions. That which they might have used for good ends they misuse to their own destruction.

V. HENCE APPEARS THE REASONABLENESS, THE WISDOM, OF SEEKING BETTER RESOURCES AND MAKING BETTER PROVISION FOR THE DAY OF TRIAL. Silver and gold must fail their possessor; the time must come when they will be cast aside. But there are true riches; there is a steadfast and unfailing prop; there are riches of Divine mercy and compassion. It is not what a man has, it is what a man is, which is of supreme concern. He who has repented of sin and forsaken sin, who has sought and obtained through Christ acceptance with God, whose attitude towards the great King is no longer an attitude of opposition and rebellion, but one of subjection and obedience, he only can look forward with calm confidence to the day of trial; for he knows whom he has trusted, and is persuaded that the Lord will keep that which he has committed to him against that day. - T.

Now the Jews recovered from all their former captivities; but from this one they never can recover. Where is their tribal register now? My object, therefore, will be to set before you a fourfold contrast between the covenant that is passed away and the covenant that shall not pass away.

1. The first contrast I notice is the passing away of the Jewish land, and the sure continuation of a better land in its place. In the second verse of this same chapter where our text is it saith, "An end, the end"; — that is a remarkable form of speech — "An end, the end," — the ultimate end, as it means, the final end — "is come upon the four corners of the land." Let us then see what we have to put in the place thereof, after just observing that that land was to pass away by violence, by war, famine, and pestilence, and everything that was awful. Now we go to the 60th of Isaiah, and we get something to put in the place thereof. There is a land of which it is written, "Violence shall no more be heard in thee," etc. And what land is this? Why, the land spoken of in the 1st chapter of the First Epistle of Peter, — "an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away." Here, then, by Jesus Christ, we have a land into which no violence can come. No sin can defile the Saviour, and no sin can defile the people as they stand in Christ, and no sin can defile that heavenly land into which He hath entered. There is therefore no violence. "Violence shall no more be heard in thee." Jesus is not crucified there, but glorified; the people are not persecuted and hated there, but universally loved. The people have no pain, no sorrow, no sigh, no tear there. And this blessedness, in place of the old land, is by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And now mark, — "Thou shalt call thy walls salvation"; that is, "salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks"; so that God will take care of you as a citizen by salvation; He is round about you by the perfect work of Jesus Christ. Can you think of a position so lovely as this?

2. The second contrast I give is that in ver. 11 — "Violence is risen up into a rod of wickedness; none of them shall remain," etc. Here is a positive declaration. Now go to the Saviour's day, and see how literally this is fulfilled. Was not the government of the Pharisees, as described in the 23rd of Matthew, a sceptre or rod of wickedness? They must be taken away, and taken away forever. Now let us look at the contrast to this. Let us come to the new covenant, and hear what is said there. In the new covenant the Lord speaketh thus: — "For as the new heavens" — meaning the Christian economy of eternal salvation "and the new earth" — meaning in substance the same thing — "which I will make" — and which were made when Christ was on the earth, for when Christ was on the earth He made, as it were, a new earth; that is, He established a new life, a new inheritance, a new kingdom, a new heaven, old things passed away, all things become new; — "As the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before Me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain." All now is spiritual. "The time is come when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship Him."

3. The third contrast I notice is, I think, a very strong one. "The seller shall not return to that which is sold." Now, this seems a simple declaration, but it means a great deal more than may at first sight appear. Under the Old Testament dispensation when a man waxed poor, he sold his inheritance, but he sold it only up to the day of jubilee. Then, when the jubilee came, that man. without money, without price, by virtue of the order of things that God had established, returned to his inheritance. Now, this chapter says "The seller," alluding to that same circumstance, "shall not return to that which is sold." The meaning of it, therefore, is, — there shall never be another jubilee, and there has not been from that day to this, and there never will be down to the end of time. Where shall I now find the true jubilee? Why, in Christ. He has paid the mighty debt we owed; He has set the prisoners free; He brings His brethren into the inheritance.

4. Is there from the first chapter of Matthew to the last of Revelation a single hint about the restoration of the old Jerusalem? The Saviour says, "Your house is left unto you desolate." Does He say it shall some day be restored? Does He say, "Your house is left unto you desolate till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord"? No, He says no such thing. He says, "Ye shall not see Me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." If I should get an invitation to preach in some Jewish synagogue, where they wanted to hear the Gospel, what would that be but their saying, "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord"? that is, in the name of Jesus Christ. And if God were to open their eyes, and they should see Jesus, what would they say then? Ah, they would say, let the shadow go; let us have the substance. Let the ceremonial go; let us have the vital, the living, the eternal. They would turn their backs upon the temporal, and look at those things which are eternal.

(James Wells.)