The ideal state.
The return journey of the exiles is here compared to that of a well-tended flock, which has no temptation to roam, for every need is supplied and every possible danger is averted from them. Prophetic figures can never be read aright unless we carefully distinguish between the pictured ideals of poets and prophets, and their realization in actual life. The actual never comes up to the ideal. The ideal is the best possible under the best of circumstances; the actual is the best possible under circumstances that come far short of the best possible. Ideals have their mission in keeping up our standards, and making us "aim high." Utopias are never found, but the world everywhere is the better because some of the human race have conceived Utopias, and presented their conceptions to their fellows. The absence of all elements of evil from the ideal state is figured by the removal of all sources of physical distress. This applies to the prophetic descriptions in the passage before us, and to the pictures of the heavenly given us in the Book of Revelation, "They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat." The points which may be profitably treated are these two.
I. DISABILITIES ARE NEEDED WHILE MORAL CULTURE HAS TO BE CARRIED ON. If any proof were required of that fallen and deteriorated condition of man which is a matter of universal experience and conviction and really requires no proof, it would be found in the fact that man now will only learn his best moral lessons through suffering. We so readily think of suffering as arranged in the sovereign will of God; it is a sovereign necessity in meeting man's fallen condition. Why will we not learn without these disabilities? It is clear that we do not, and we will not. It is evident that we are biassed towards wrong, towards self-willedness. Bodily pain, life-distresses, are necessary to the culture of moral creatures who have become enslaved to self-will.,Sorrow is graciously linked with sin, lest sin should come to be loved.
II. DISABILITIES MAY BE REMOVED WHEN MORAL CHARACTER IS ESTABLISHED. When men are all holy, then their surroundings may be all beautiful. There is no smiting heat, no chilling cold, no lack of food, no biting hunger, no raging thirst, no wearing pain, no blinding tears, no separating sea, no remorseless death, in heaven, because all who dwell there are established in goodness, and so there is no mission for disabilities to accomplish; their "occupation's gone." And just so far as we win goodness on earth we rise above all our disabilities, heaven is begun below; as with everything, so with love, "perfect love casteth out fear."—R.T.