Bereaved Parents Comforted
J. Hay, D. D. Jeremiah 31:16-17 Thus said the LORD; Refrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears: for your work shall be rewarded, said the LORD… I. IT IS NOT SINFUL FOR PARENTS TO BE GRIEVED AND SORROWFUL FOR THE DEATH OF THEIR CHILDREN. If we do not grieve when we are thus stricken of God, it is an evidence that we do not feel the heavy calamity which His providence hath inflicted, and how can there be any probability that we shall be profited by it? It is by the sadness of the countenance that the heart is made better. It is in consequence of the affliction being for the present not joyous, hut grievous, that, through the Divine blessing, it bringeth forth the peaceable fruits of righteousness in them that are exercised thereby. II. Parents should refrain from immoderate and excessive grief for the death of their children, when they consider that THIS EVENT FLOWS FROM GOD'S WISE AND SOVEREIGN APPOINTMENT. If our children be interested in that covenant which is ordered in all things and sure, let no one say that their death is premature or unseasonable. God hath a method, which we cannot explain, of ripening those for heaven whom He gathers into it in the beginning of their days. III. Disconsolate parents should moderate their grief for the death of their children, when we consider that OUR LOSS IS THEIR UNSPEAKABLE GAIN. Infant children, born as it were into this world only to suffer and to die, are striking evidence of the dreadful effects of sin. They are objects of compassion to the human heart, much more to the Father of mercies. It is natural, when our children are taken away, if their faculties have begun to unfold themselves, to review the little history of their lives, and to reflect with melancholy pleasure on many passages unheeded by others, but carefully marked and remembered by parents; and if any good thing towards the Lord was found in our child, the remembrance is full of comfort. If we found their hearts grateful and affectionate for our care, and submissive to our will, these were the seeds of an amiable and humble spirit. If they had a tenderness of conscience, so far as they knew good and evil, and stood in awe of offending; if they loved and hearkened to instruction; if they had a deep veneration for the Bible, as containing the revelation of God's mercy and goodness to His children; if they had some views, however faint, of a state of blessedness into which pious and good children enter after death; in a word, if to the last they grew in favour with God and man, this is an anchor of hope to disconsolate and afflicted parents. IV. Parents should moderate their grief for the death of their children, when they look forward to A JOYFUL AND BLESSED RESURRECTION. Our children shall "come again from the land of the enemy." The husbandman doth not mourn when he casteth his seed into the ground, because he soweth in hope. He commits it to the earth with the joyful expectation of receiving it again with great improvement; so when we commit the precious dust of our relations to the earth, we are warranted to exercise a joyful hope that we shall receive them again unspeakably improved at the resurrection. V. Parents should moderate their grief for the loss of their children, when they consider WHAT BENEFICIAL EFFECTS THIS IS CALCULATED TO PRODUCE IN THEIR OWN SOULS. David thankfully acknowledges it is "good for me that I have been afflicted." God deals with us as a wise parent deals with froward and undutiful children. When counsels and admonitions produce no effect, He finds it necessary to correct us with the rod; and when the strokes of providence inflicted on other families have been slightly regarded by us, He finds it necessary to smite us in our own bone and flesh. It would be highly ungrateful, then, to murmur against God when He acts a father's part toward us, and is chastening and correcting us for our spiritual profit and advantage. The impatience with which we bear the stroke, is an evidence that our affections were rooted many degrees deeper in the creature than we were aware of. Our merciful Father doth not measure out one drop from the cup of affliction, nor inflict one stripe with His correcting rod, more than He sees indispensably necessary for His children's profit and happiness. We should take in good part every trial with which we are visited, as coming from a parent's hand and a parent's heart. Conclusion — 1. Let us learn resignation to Divine providence under our affliction. 2. From the death of our children, let us learn to exercise a lively faith on that state of life and immortality which is brought to light by the Gospel. 3. The death of our children should teach us to live mindful of our own death. (J. Hay, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Thus saith the LORD; Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the LORD; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy. WEB: Thus says Yahweh: Refrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears; for your work shall be rewarded, says Yahweh; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy.