James Nisbet's Church Pulpit Commentary
Jeremiah 8:7
A LESSON FROM THE STORK
‘The stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times.’
We could lay down on the map the great highways along which bird-life comes and goes.
How do they know how to journey so unerringly for thousands of miles? It is one of the greatest mysteries in Nature. They do not travel by sight of landmarks; the birds of each year’s brood go straight for the first time to their goal. It is not that they are guided by those who have made the journey before; the lark is a solitary pilgrim, and, in the case of many species, the young and the old travel in separate flocks. We, with all our science, know little more of the matter than did Jeremiah.
I. Consider the fowls of the air.—The mystery of Nature has its parallel in a mystery of grace; we also are birds of passage, and in us also God has put the homing instinct. We come from Him; in His presence is our native land, our home, and however far we have wandered thence, there is an instinct in our hearts which will not suffer us to rest in peace, but now whispers, now loudly cries, Return, return! He who suffers not seedtime and harvest to fail brings round at last the spiritual spring, when we hear Him call, ‘Rise up and come away, for, lo, the winter is past.… The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come. Arise and come away.’ The homing instinct may be feeble now; we have so long resisted, quenched, but it is there; it is in every hardest, vilest heart. Return unto thy rest, O my soul!
II. How far the birds have come!—We too have a long journey back to God, but our very unrest and unhappiness in estrangement from Him are assurance that we are not so very far from home as we fear. It is a long journey, but the yearning which bids us set out is promise that we, like the birds, shall be safely guided. They have their appointed path; we have the true and living Way. The birds of passage come unfailingly when the feet of the coming spring touch the meadows and leave the daisies rosy; the souls come home because the bleeding feet of Christ have reddened the path to Calvary.
III. The birds set out, but not all arrive.—Many are driven from their course by stress of tempest; birds of North America are found on the east coast of England; hundreds, hypnotised by the glare, dash themselves against the lighthouse lanterns; tens of thousands are snared and shot. There is danger for the birds of passage, and there is danger for the returning souls. Some who started once to come to God—whither have the tempests of passion driven them, to what bleak shores of exile? Some, dazzled by sins, are dashing out their life in vain attempt to pass the barrier, invisible but impenetrable, which God has set between the sinner and satisfaction. Some are taken by subtle temptation, as the bird in the net of the fowler. The home-coming here is often sad, so many, yet so few—where are the nine?
And there awaits us all a great mysterious migration by a path which no fowl knoweth, which vulture’s eye hath not seen, a path which, in loneliness, all unerringly follow—the tender infant, man in his prime, the feebleness of age—the great migration, whither? From the great deep to the great deep—who knows save God? Doubt and fear are natural, yet we have not so learned of Christ. He teaches that we come, the glories of dawn tinging the soul’s wings, from God, into the shadowed house of life, and thence emerge into the sun’s noontide splendour. Birds of passage are we all; yes, but we follow the sun.
Illustrations
(1) ‘If we behold such examples in nature we ought surely to be ashamed that irrational creatures are so willing and obedient, and do that for which they are created, but we men (who were made in His image and sealed with the Holy Ghost on the day of redemption) are so opposed, rebellious, and disobedient to Him. This will certainly, in the case of no amendment, lead to a hopelessly bad ending.’
(2) ‘In ordinary life, if one falls he tries to rise again; if he turns away from the right road he endeavours to return to it. But sinful men cling to their self-deceits; they refuse to return (Jeremiah 8:4), and madly rush forward in their headlong course like the horse in the battle. The very instinct of the birds may rebuke men who pride themselves on their intelligence. Those who profess to be wise and the leaders of others are especially exposed to the Divine wrath, and on them the heaviest brunt of judgment must fall.’
(3) ‘It is worthy of observation that the young birds which have been born in this country and have never made the long journey before, yet set forth with the older ones at the appointed time. They are novices in the art of travelling, yet they try their callow wings, and away they fly to the far-off land where the sun shines as it does not in this higher latitude. I wish that our young people were all as wise as the young swallows are: that they knew their appointed time, that they understood that there is no period in life which has so much of hopefulness about it as the period of childhood and youth, that it is the best time in which to seek the Saviour, for it has a special promise attached to it: “Those that seek Me early shall find Me.” I would that they could hear the Lord Jesus Christ’s peculiarly sweet and tender message concerning them: “Suffer the little children, and forbid them not, to come unto Me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” Yet, alas! young storks, and swallows, and cranes, and turtle-doves fly at the appointed season, but many young men and maidens delay and waste the joyous hours of the morning of their lives in the ways of sin and folly. Yes, waste the hours which, if consecrated to Christ and to His service, would have brought them a rich return in this life; and, in the life to come, would have tended to increase and intensify their everlasting felicity.’