the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Bowen's Daily Meditations
" Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a pleasant child? For since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still." - Jeremiah 31:20.
Written according to the analogy of the English language, this would be, "Is not Ephraim my dear son? Is he not a pleasant child?" The sins of the ten tribes, represented by Ephraim, had required of the Lord to withhold from them the expressions of his kindness, and to give them into the hands of their enemies that they might have a taste of the great difference between the service of an earthly master and that of their heavenly master. But as a king whose son has transgressed the laws of the land, and whom it has been found necessary to send into exile, is still remembered as a son, and will be recalled as soon as justice allows, to his father’s presence, so God yearned over those whom he had been constrained to banish for a season from his presence.
Believers are the sons of God in the midst of a perverse generation. When they forget their high descent and live as men that are yet in their sins, they bring a cloud over their conscience through which the rays of the divine love faintly penetrate. But when some sense of the bitterness of their situation has taken hold upon them, and longings for communion with God are intermingled with fears lest they have forfeited all hope of restoration, then they may hear the marvellous expressions of our text. Paternity is a bond not easily broken. What God hath wrought in you in former days, though it be much of it fallen into unsightliness and ruin, is yet a memorial of his grace that may be viewed as having an attraction for Him. Yes, if you will give God an opportunity of glorifying his Son by means of you, if Christ may yet be honored through you, there is no reason why you should doubt that God will take pleasure in you, and regard you as a pleasant son.
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