Beloved Christian reader, let us seriously ponder these things in the divine presence. Let us honestly search out the root of all this lamentable failure, and have it judged and put away, that so we may more faithfully and unmistakably declare whose we are and whom we serve. May it be more thoroughly manifest that Christ is our one absorbing object. CHAPTER XXX. This chapter is one of very deep interest and importance. It is prophetic, and presents to us some of "the secret things" referred to at the close of the preceding chapter. It unfolds some of those most precious resources of grace treasured up in the heart of God, to be unfolded when Israel, having utterly failed to keep the law, should be scattered to the ends of the earth. "And it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and _thou shalt call them to mind_ among all the nations, whither the Lord thy God hath driven thee, and _shalt return unto the Lord thy God_, and shalt obey His voice according to all that I command thee this day, _thou and thy children, with all thine heart and with all thy soul_; that then the Lord thy God will turn thy captivity, and _have compassion upon thee_, and will return and gather thee from all the nations, whither the Lord thy God hath scattered thee." How touching, how perfectly beautiful, is all this! It is no question of law-keeping, but something far deeper, far more precious; it is the turning of the heart--the whole heart--the whole soul to Jehovah, at a time when a literal obedience to the law is utterly impossible. It is a broken and contrite heart turning to God, and God, in deep and tender compassion, meeting that heart. This is true blessedness, at all times and in all places. It is something above and beyond all dispensational dealings and arrangements. It is God Himself, in all the fullness and ineffable blessedness of what He is, meeting a repentant soul; and we may truly say that when these two meet, all is divinely and eternally settled.