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Jeremiah
Chapter Fifteen
Jeremiah 15
Chapter Contents
The destruction of the wicked described. (1-9) The
prophet laments such messages, and is reproved. (10-14) He supplicates pardon,
and is promised protection. (15-21)
Commentary on Jeremiah 15:1-9
(Read Jeremiah 15:1-9)
The Lord declares that even Moses and Samuel must have
pleaded in vain. The putting of this as a case, though they should stand before
him, shows that they do not, and that saints in heaven do not pray for saints
on earth. The Jews were condemned to different kinds of misery by the righteous
judgment of God, and the remnant would be driven away, like the chaff, into
captivity. Then was the populous city made desolate. Bad examples and misused
authority often produce fatal effects, even after men are dead, or have
repented of their crimes: this should make all greatly dread being the occasion
of sin in others.
Commentary on Jeremiah 15:10-14
(Read Jeremiah 15:10-14)
Jeremiah met with much contempt and reproach, when they
ought to have blessed him, and God for him. It is a great and sufficient
support to the people of God, that however troublesome their way may be, it
shall be well with them in their latter end. God turns to the people. Shall the
most hardy and vigorous of their efforts be able to contend with the counsel of
God, or with the army of the Chaldeans? Let them hear their doom. The enemy
will treat the prophet well. But the people who had great estates would be used
hardly. All parts of the country had added to the national guilt; and let each
take shame to itself.
Commentary on Jeremiah 15:15-21
(Read Jeremiah 15:15-21)
It is matter of comfort that we have a God, to whose knowledge
of all things we may appeal. Jeremiah pleads with God for mercy and relief
against his enemies, persecutors, and slanderers. It will be a comfort to God's
ministers, when men despise them, if they have the testimony of their own
consciences. But he complains, that he found little pleasure in his work. Some
good people lose much of the pleasantness of religion by the fretfulness and
uneasiness of their natural temper, which they indulge. The Lord called the
prophet to cease from his distrust, and to return to his work. If he attended
thereto, he might be assured the Lord would deliver him from his enemies. Those
who are with God, and faithful to him, he will deliver from trouble or carry
through it. Many things appear frightful, which do not at all hurt a real
believer in Christ.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Jeremiah》
Jeremiah 15
Verse 1
[1] Then
said the LORD unto me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind
could not be toward this people: cast them out of my sight, and let them go
forth.
Cast them out — I am
not able to abide the sight of them, therefore let them go forth.
Verse 4
[4] And I will cause them to be removed into all kingdoms of the earth,
because of Manasseh the son of Hezekiah king of Judah, for that which he did in
Jerusalem.
Manasseh —
Manasseh is here named as the son of Hezekiah for his shame, because of his
degeneracy from so good a parent; it is expressly said, 2 Kings 23:26, that not withstanding Josiah's
reformation, yet the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his wrath, kindled
against Judah, for the provocations of Manasseh.
Verse 6
[6] Thou
hast forsaken me, saith the LORD, thou art gone backward: therefore will I
stretch out my hand against thee, and destroy thee; I am weary with repenting.
I am weary — I
am resolved to bear no longer.
Verse 7
[7] And
I will fan them with a fan in the gates of the land; I will bereave them of
children, I will destroy my people, since they return not from their ways.
A fan — Not
a purging fan by affliction, to separate their chaff and dross from them, but a
scattering fan.
In the gates —
This is added in pursuit of the metaphor of fanning, men usually chusing
barn-doors to fan at, that they may have the advantage of the wind.
Verse 8
[8] Their widows are increased to me above the sand of the seas: I have
brought upon them against the mother of the young men a spoiler at noonday: I
have caused him to fall upon it suddenly, and terrors upon the city.
Their widows —
The prophet still speaks of things to come as if present. In Jehoiakim's time
we read of no such plenty of widows; they were multiplied when the city was
besieged and taken in Zedekiah's time, to a great number, hyperbolically
compared to the sands of the sea.
The mother —
Jerusalem was the mother of the Jewish people, against whom, Nebuchadnezzar the
spoiler, at noon-day, was sent.
Verse 9
[9] She
that hath borne seven languisheth: she hath given up the ghost; her sun is gone
down while it was yet day: she hath been ashamed and confounded: and the
residue of them will I deliver to the sword before their enemies, saith the
LORD.
Seven —
Seven signifies many: the prophet complains, that the country of Judah, that
had been very numerous in people, now grew feeble.
While — In
the midst of her prosperity.
Confounded — A
part of them were confounded by the judgments of God which came upon them
before their captivity.
Verse 10
[10] Woe
is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me a man of strife and a man of
contention to the whole earth! I have neither lent on usury, nor men have lent
to me on usury; yet every one of them doth curse me.
I have not — I
have done them no wrong, yet they speak of me all manner of evil.
Verse 11
[11] The
LORD said, Verily it shall be well with thy remnant; verily I will cause the
enemy to entreat thee well in the time of evil and in the time of affliction.
Thy remnant —
The latter words of the verse expound the former; for by remnant is meant the
remnant of days that Jeremiah had to live.
Verse 12
[12] Shall
iron break the northern iron and the steel?
The northern iron — As
the northern iron and steel is the hardest, and no iron could break that, so
God having edged and hardened their enemies, the Chaldeans, all opposition to
them would signify nothing.
Verse 13
[13] Thy
substance and thy treasures will I give to the spoil without price, and that
for all thy sins, even in all thy borders.
The substance —
All thy precious things shall be spoiled, there shall be no price taken for the
redemption of them.
Verse 15
[15] O
LORD, thou knowest: remember me, and visit me, and revenge me of my
persecutors; take me not away in thy longsuffering: know that for thy sake I
have suffered rebuke.
Thou knowest — My
sincerity, or my sufferings.
Visit me —
With thy love.
Verse 16
[16] Thy
words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and
rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O LORD God of hosts.
Thy words —
The words which from time to time thou didst reveal to me, were by me greedily
digested.
I am called — I
became a prophet by thy authority, therefore, do thou own and defend me.
Verse 17
[17] I
sat not in the assembly of the mockers, nor rejoiced; I sat alone because of
thy hand: for thou hast filled me with indignation.
I sat not —
God had all along filled his mouth with such dreadful messages, that his whole
prophetical life had been to him a time of mourning and solitude, a time when
he sat alone, mourning and weeping in secret for the wrath of God revealed to
him against his people.
Verse 18
[18] Why
is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuseth to be healed? wilt
thou be altogether unto me as a liar, and as waters that fail
Why —
Jeremiah, though a great prophet, was (as Elijah) a man subject to like
passions with other men.
Verse 19
[19]
Therefore thus saith the LORD, If thou return, then will I bring thee again,
and thou shalt stand before me: and if thou take forth the precious from the
vile, thou shalt be as my mouth: let them return unto thee; but return not thou
unto them.
If thou —
These are God's words to the prophet, rebuking his distrust in God, and
promising him, that if he did return from his distrust in God's providence, he
would restore him to the former favour he had with him, and he should be his
prophet to reveal his mind to the people; and that if he would separate the
precious truths of God from the vile conceits of men, then God would continue
him as his prophet, to speak in his name to the people.
But — He
charges the prophet to keep his ground, and not to go over to wicked men.
Verse 21
[21] And
I will deliver thee out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem thee out
of the hand of the terrible.
The wicked —
The wicked Jews.
The terrible —
And the power of the terrible Chaldeans.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Jeremiah》
15 Chapter 15
Verses 1-21
Verse 1
Though Moses and Samuel stood before Me, yet My mind could not be
towards this people.
Righteousness, the strength of nations
It is of great importance that we distinguish between communities,
and the individuals of which communities are composed. When the whole human
race shall be gathered before the tribunal of Christ, every man will receive
the recompense due to his actions whilst on earth. But nations cannot be judged
or punished as nations; so if God is to mark His sense of the evil wrought by
communities in their collective capacity, it must be by present retribution.
Accordingly we have full testimony given from Scripture and from experience,
that although, in the ordinary course of Divine judgment, individuals are not
in this life dealt with according to their actions, yet communities may expect
to prosper or decline according as they resist or submit to the revealed will
of God. The national character must be determined by the character of the
majority; and when this character is so debased that the national punishment
can no longer be delayed, there may be numbers influenced by a holy and unaffected
piety, and warm love of God. And can these faithful ones be instruments in
averting or mitigating wrath? Or if they cannot prevail for the deliverance of
others, will they not at least be saved from all share in the coming disaster?
These are interesting questions; and the best answer can be drawn from the
words of our text. Moses and Samuel are supposed to stand forth as pleaders for
the land; they are too late--pleading is in vain. Still it is evidently implied
that at a less advanced stage in national guilt the intercession would have
been of avail. Then, moreover, a distinction is evidently drawn between a
guilty people and such advocates as Moses and Samuel. The people are to be
“cast out”; but we are left to infer that such as Moses and Samuel would not
share to the full extent in the national disaster. Let us look more closely
into these points. Call to mind that remarkable portion of Holy Writ in which
Abraham is represented as pleading for Sodom. If the city would have been
spared had these ten righteous lived within its walls, there is
incontrovertible proof that godly men are the salt of the earth, and may often
be instrumental in preserving communities from utter desolation. It was not
without a very emphatic meaning that Christ styled His disciples “the salt of
the earth.” By their mere presence in the midst of ungodly men, and yet more,
by their prayers and intercessions, may the righteous often arrest vengeance
and prevent the utter ruin of a country. The wicked know nothing of their obligations
to the righteous. In general, they despise or hate the righteous--either
accounting them fools, or galled by the reproof conveyed by their example. If
they had what they wish, they would remove the righteous from amongst them,
reckoning that they should then have greater freedom in pursuing their schemes,
or enjoying their pleasures. And little do they think that these very objects
of their scorn and dislike may be all the while their best guardians and
benefactors; turning aside from them evils by which they might be otherwise
rapidly overtaken, and procuring for them a lengthened portion of Divine
patience and forbearance. Little do they think that the worst thing possible
for their country and themselves is when there is a rapid diminution in the number
of the righteous; every good man who dies and leaves no successor being as a
practical withdrawal from that leaven which alone stays the progress of the
universal decomposition. Now we have reached the point at which piety ceases to
have power in averting evil from others. What does it, then, do for the pious
themselves? Intercession time has gone--the judgment time has come; and every
man must be dealt with according to his own character. But if righteousness
then lose its power to avail with God for others, besides its possessors; and
if on this account the righteous may well shrink from such seasons, yet it
appears certain that righteousness is as acceptable as ever to God, and that
therefore the righteous have nothing to fear individually for themselves. Come
plague! come depopulation! if thou art indeed a devoted, consistent servant of
God, they shall not touch thee till the time has come which has been fixed by
thy merciful Father! “A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at
thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.” The funeral procession may
wend often from their doors, bearing away (it is melancholy to think) those for
whose salvation they have long prayed, and for whom they have daily sought a
further day of grace; but they themselves shall be unassailed till the day
which, in any case, God had fixed for their entry into rest; and thus shall the
pestilence, whose ravages in their households did but fit them for higher
glory, do only the part of common sickness in freeing them from a corruptible
body. And, therefore, may those in whose hearts is “the fear of the Lord,” hear
without trepidation what God says about bringing His sore judgments on a land.
There are two very important considerations suggested by the subject we have thus
endeavoured to discuss.
1. We wish you to observe that he who serves God, serves his country
best.
2. We ask you to observe that whatever the advantages which a man
derives from having pious relatives, there is a point at which those relatives
can afford him no help. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
Intercessory prayer
I. Intercessory
prayer is an exercise of great value.
1. As developing our love to man. Interesting ourselves in his
trials, seeking to save him from his sins.
2. As carrying out the Divine precepts. In the spirit of Christ, in
the fellowship of life.
3. As following after noble examples.
4. As obtaining great blessings for others.
II. Intercessory
prayer can be offered only by good men.
1. He must not be under the sin against which he prays.
2. He should know by experience the value of the blessing he craves
for another.
3. He must be willing to join effort with prayer.
III. Intercessory
prayer has some limitations even when offered by the best of men. This is
evident--
1. From Scripture.
2. From observation.
IV. Intercessory
prayer is a grand distinction and provision of the Gospel. We have--
1. The best of intercessors (Hebrews 7:25). In office, sympathy, work,
influence.
2. Praying for the best of blessings. Salvation, preservation,
comfort, glory.
3. Taking up the ease of every soul that trusts Him.
4. Always successful. (W. Whale.)
Intercession rejected
The Hebrews had justly a very high opinion of Moses. How proudly
they boasted, “We are the disciples of Moses!” As the late Dr. R.W. Dale has
pointed out, “More than Luther is to Germany, more than Napoleon is to France,
more than Alfred, or Elizabeth, or Cromwell, or William
III. is to England,
Moses was to the Jewish people--prophet, patriot, warrior, lawgiver, all in
one.” Yet even so great a servant of God as Moses together with the famous seer
Samuel, would avail nothing in intercession for the Jews at this time. My mind,
saith the Lord, could not be toward this people.
Verse 6
I am weary with repenting.
The Almighty weary with repenting
I. God repenting.
God condescends to designate His conduct by that name. The expression may be
inadequate and defective, but still language had nothing better to describe the
idea, nor human experience to represent the fact. When God is pleased to speak
of Himself as pitying, repenting, grieving for man’s sake, what is evidently
intended is, that so intense is His love for man, that were His infinite nature
capable of these creature passions, His love would show itself in these very
forms.
II. God provoked to
a degree that He can repent no more. He is “weary with repenting”: worn and
tired out with having to cancel threatened sentences so often--as a potentate
of earth might be at finding that every fresh display of patience in his
subjects masked but deeper hatred to his rule, and every amnesty he declared
was but a signal for raising the standard of rebellion anew. What can man do,
to move the Author of his being to regard him in this way? We must not
speculate; we must let the great God speak for Himself; we must try to gather
out of other Scriptures what those things are which are said to weary God, wear
out His patience, make Him tired of His forgivenesses, reprieves, and revoked
sentences.
1. Among these provocations we may note hypocrisy and allowed
formality in religious duty (Isaiah 1:13-14).
2. We may make God weary by presumptuous and unwarranted calculations
upon His mercy (Malachi 2:17).
3. Another thing Scripture teaches us wearies, puts God out of patience,
is unbelief, a restoring to creature trust and dependencies, a want of
simplicity and unreservedness in accepting His promises, as if we thought He
would not pay them in full, or did not mean them to be taken by us, in all
their length and breadth, and depth and worth.
4. The awful limit prescribed in the text may be reached, and the
Divine forbearance tasked one step too far, by provocations after mercies. (D.
Moore, M. A.)
Jehovah weary with repenting
The fact that God is “weary of repenting” shows--
1. That God had often turned from His threatenings, and dealt in
mercy with the people.
2. That the Divine mercy had been frequently abused, and the people
had gone back again to their sins.
3. That not a change in His being, but only a change of relationship,
is expressed by the word “repent.”
4. That judgment is alien to God’s heart, whereas mercy is His
delight.
5. That when God is met with persistent ingratitude, and men relapse
continually into sin, He must eventually punish them.
6. That the operations of the Divine mind can only be expressed in
human language with difficulty and limitation.
7. That we should be careful not to trifle with or abuse, the patient
long-suffering of God. (W. Whale.)
Divine judgments and man’s relation to them
Famine, pestilence, revolution, war, are judgments of the Ruler of
the world. What sort of a ruler, we ask, is He? The answer to that question
will determine the true sense of the term--the judgment of God. The heathen saw
Him as a passionate, capricious, changeable Being, who could be angered and
appeased by men. The Jewish prophet saw Him as a God whose ways were equal, who
was unchangeable, who was not to be bought off by sacrifices but pleased by
righteous dealing, and who would remove the punishment when the causes which
brought it on were taken away; in other words, when men repented God would
repent. That does not mean that He changed His laws to relieve them of their
suffering, but that they changed their relationships to His law, so that, to
them thus changed, God seemed to change. A boat rows against the stream; the
current punishes it. So is a nation violating the law of God, it is subject to
punishment, judgment. The boat turns and goes with the stream; and the current
assists it. So is a nation which has repented and put itself into harmony with
God’s law; it is subject to a blessing. But the current is the same; it has not
changed, only the boat has changed its relation to the current. Neither does
God change--we change; and the same law which executed itself in punishment now
expresses itself in reward. (W. Brooke.)
Verses 6-9
Thou hast forsaken Me.
God forsaking and God forsaken
I. A God-forsaking
people. Conviction by God Himself of this great folly and sin. In Jeremiah 2:13, the charge is more
complete. Creation is called upon to express surprise at a folly so
conspicuous.
1. “Thou”--who oughtest to have been unto Me a loyal and loving
people, testifying of My power and grace, and proving by separation from the
nation your preference for the living and true God.
2. “Hast forsaken”--not simply forgotten, or disobeyed, but of
deliberate choice hast taken other gods, and disregarded Jehovah.
3. “Me”--who called Abraham, etc.
II. A God-forsaken
people.
1. Always retrograde. Unless they repent and obey God, there is no
way forward and upward.
2. Always in danger of destruction. If we forsake the mercy, we
inherit the misery.
3. Always exposed to terrors and disasters.
4. Always drifting into languor, premature decline, shame, and death.
(W. Whale.)
How men forsake God
A rule I have had for years is to treat the Lord Jesus Christ as a
personal friend. It is not a creed, a mere empty doctrine, but it is Christ
Himself we have. The moment we receive Christ we should receive Him as a
friend. When I go away from home I bid my wife and children good-bye; I bid my
friends and acquaintances good-bye; but I never heard of a poor backslider
going down on his knees and saying, “I have been near You for ten years. Your
service has become tedious and monotonous. I have come to bid You farewell.
Good-bye, Lord Jesus Christ!” I never heard of one doing this. I will tell you
how they go away; they just run away. (D. L. Moody.)
Verse 9
Her sun is gone down while it is yet day.
Beautiful, but brief
I. Her life was
like the sun in its shining.
1. Gloriously bright with faith and joy.
2. Blessedly useful in diffusing light.
3. Constantly comforting, by its warmth of love and hope.
4. Christianly generous, always giving.
5. A centre of attraction, in the house, in the class, in the social
circle, and in the Church.
II. Her death was
like the sun in its setting.
1. Gradual
2. Beautiful.
3. Peaceful.
4. To rise again.
III. Her sunset was
early in the day of life.
1. In the prime and beauty of being.
2. In the midst of work.
3. It seems unnatural, and suggests questions.
4. It is an interposition of God in His providence, doubtless wise
and loving.
5. It leads us from the creature to the. Creator.
6. It suggests that we be all ready, always ready. (W. Whale.)
Premature sunset
I. In nature.
1. Would be unnatural.
2. Would be injurious to all life.
3. Would make us less confident as to the unerring regularity of
nature’s law.
II. In history.
Many cases in which nations have fallen, not with decrepitude of age, but
through early and self-wrought ruin.
III. In individual
life. The young, the immoral, the unprincipled in character generally.
Obedience to God gives a long day and beautiful sunset. (W. Whale.)
The Christian’s sun
I. The Christian
has a sun. A Sun is a globe which keeps other globes in connection with it in
their proper spheres and at their assigned work, and which imports light and
heat to them and to all the creatures which inhabit them. In a sense, all men
have a sun to which they look for present and future good. But it differs with
different men. With some it is nature; some, the traditions of their fathers;
some, fancied superior morality; and the portion of good to every man, with
regard to its character and intent, is determined by the capability and quality
of his sun. Oh, how miserably off must be all who depend on the finite! The
Christian does not. His sun is Jesus as set forth in Holy Writ. From Him every
true believer has the light and heat of spiritual life, and through Him he gets
into his place, and is put to his appropriate work in creation (John 1:1-14; John 8:12; John 12:46). Receptivity is the beginning
of that state of mind which, if rightly followed up, issues in the likeness,
love, and enjoyment of God; and as Jesus, the source to which the Christian
looks for lasting, ennobling good, is infinite, his felicity and glory will be
forever enlarging.
II. The Christian
is sunnified by his sun. He is a retainer, as well as a receiver, of its
beneficent outflow. All the colours, and all the shades of colours, and every
form of animal and vegetable life, are owing to the retention and appropriation
of solar rays. The wealth, and beauty, and blessed activity of earth arise in
this way. In like manner, the rays of the world’s spiritual Sun--the divinely
inspired record of the history of incarnate Deity--must be kept and fittingly
used if His fruits are to be enjoyed.
III. The Christian
sunnifies others. He is a reflector and spreader of the brightness and goodness
of his sun. “Ye are the light of the world.” The globes which emit light and
heat as well as have them, the animals which add usefulness to life, and the
flowers which are fragrant besides being beautiful, are highest in the scale of
existence and of greatest worth. To those Christians who are active besides
being pious, who spread the Gospel in addition to living it, who enrich and
bless others as well as seek to be enriched and blessed themselves, are the
most like Jesus, the most dear to the Father, the most useful to men, the most
honoured in the Church. Their death is a calamity to others, but auspicious to
themselves. Apply the subject--
1. To sinners. Get spiritual light and life while you can.
2. To saints. Prize and make good use of your privileges. Diffuse
your light.
3. To Christian workers.
Be not weary in works of faith and labours of love. The more light
you spread, and the more men you illumine, the greater your joy now, the
greater your blessedness hereafter. (W. J. Stuart.)
Death the setting of the sun
I. The sun, in
setting, disappears from view. As the great central orb is lost to our part of
the world as he sinks beneath the horizon, so man is lost to the view of earth
as he descends to the grave. The “places that knew him know him no more.”
II. The sun in
setting obeys its law. “The sun knoweth his going down.” Death is a law of
nature. It is as natural for the body to die as for the sun to go down.
III. The sun in
setting is often gorgeous. Often have we seen the monarch of the day ride down
in a chariot of glittering gold. Many a man has died under a halo of moral
splendour. Like Stephen, they have seen the heavens open, and reflected the
celestial rays as they came down.
IV. The setting sun
will rise again. So with man in death. He does not go out of existence: he only
sinks from view, and sinks to rise again in new splendour. Conclusion--Let us
fulfil our mission as the sun does his, move in our little circle in harmony
with Divine law, enlightening, vivifying, and beautifying all, and then death
need have no terror for us. Our path will be as a “shining light,” etc. (Homilist.)
Sunset at noonday
These words are illustrative of death in life’s meridian. They
remind us of--
I. Premature
darkness. Sunsetting is the harbinger of night.
1. In nature. We do not expect sunset until eventide.
2. In morals. The departure of moral integrity. This sun should never
set.
3. In physical life. Death is sunset to the aged, at night; to the
young, at noon.
4. Unexpected darkness is unanticipated sorrow to community, family,
individual.
II. Uncompleted
work. “Man goeth forth unto his work.” Ordinarily, man has work enough to last
all day; when called away prematurely, he leaves part untouched. So in life’s
aggregation. In life’s morning his work is largely preparatory for mightier
accomplishments of his post meridian.
III. Frustrated
design. Man lives in the future--
Setting suns of life. Permanently overwrought powers. Commercial
disasters. Succumbing to evil. In each case failure to realise the hope.
IV. A speedier
enjoyment of rest. Darkness suggests night; night suggests repose. As in the
physical, so in the soul’s life. “Blessed are the dead,” etc. “There remaineth
therefore,” etc. (Homiletic Monthly.)
Death in the midst of life
I. The sun as an
emblem of the saints of God. When we contemplate the great orb of day we are
impressed--
1. With his greatness and elevation. This greatness and elevation
fitly represents the true character of the Christian, contrasted with what he
was, with what others are around him. Knowledge makes a man great. Grace of God
elevates and lifts up to heaven. “I will set him on high,” etc.
2. Natural glory and magnificence. The most glorious of all the
heavenly bodies. “The king’s daughter,” etc. (Psalms 45:13). See this strikingly set
forth (2 Corinthians 3:18).
3. As the great diffuser of light and beauty. The Christian is first
the recipient of light, and then he is called to shine. “Arise, shine,” etc.
“So let your light shine,” etc.
4. As the chief source of fertility and fruitfulness. Where
Christians live there is knowledge, benevolence, happiness, and life. Look at
all our institutions of temporal and moral goodness.
II. The setting of
the sun as a striking representation of the morality of the Christian.
1. The going down of the sun is a usual and therefore expected event.
So sure as he arises we know he will go down. Man is born to die, etc. “I know
that Thou wilt bring me to death,” etc. “The living know,” etc.
2. The period of the going down of the sun is very diversified. Look
at the short winter’s day and the long summer’s day. So in life,--every age is
alike mortal, etc. But the text speaks of the sun going down while it is yet
day--prematurely. How often is this the case.
3. The going down of the sun is often peculiarly splendid and
beautiful. How characteristic of the good man’s death!
4. The sun goes down to arise and shine on another horizon. (J.
Burn, D. D.)
Verse 10
A man of strife.
Men of progress, men of strife
I. Because of
noncompliance with popular sins. Always some interested in doing wrong, and
maintaining evil among the people. Those who will not conform, especially such
as speak and labour against sin, are considered men of strife.
II. Because they
are in advance of the age. They look at all matters from a more elevated
standpoint, and seek to bring the people up to their level.
III. Because they
are earnest and energetic. Some can be indifferent; true souls cannot be.
IV. Because all
good work causes strife. Evil has to be conquered, the devil to be cast out. No
curse will peaceably give place to a blessing.
V. Because the
field of battle is the path of glory. Salvation is finally for “him that
endureth to the end.” “Fight the good fight of faith.” (W. Whale.)
Verse 12
Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel?
The northern iron and steel
In order to achieve a purpose there must be sufficient force. The
weaker cannot overcome the stronger. In a general clash the firmest will win.
You cannot cut granite with a pen knife, nor drill a hole in a rock with an
anger of silk. We shall apply this proverb--
I. To the people
of God individually.
1. Many Christians are subjected to great temptations and
persecutions; mocked, ridiculed, called by evil names. Persecuted one, will you
deny the faith? If so, you are not made of the same stuff as the true disciple
of Jesus Christ; for when the grace of God is in them, if the world be iron,
they are northern iron and steel.
2. We are frequently called to serve God amid great difficulties.
Will you say, there is no converting these dark and obdurate souls? Is the iron
to break the northern iron and steel? Look at Mont Cenis Tunnel, made through
one of the hardest rocks; with a sharp tool, edged with diamond, they have
pierced the Alps. As St. Bernard says: “Is thy work hard? set a harder
resolution against it; for there is nothing so hard that cannot be cut with
something harder still.”
3. To labour with non-success, and to wait, is hard work. It is a
grand thing for a Christian to continue patiently in well-doing.
II. Applicable to
the cause of God in the world--to the Church. What power, however like to iron,
shall suffice to break the kingdom of Jesus, which is comparable to steel?
1. We hear it said that Romanism will again vanquish England; that
the Gospel light, which Latimer helped to kindle, will be extinguished.
Atrocious nonsense, if not partial blasphemy. If this thing were of men, it
would come to nought; but if it be of God, who shall overthrow it?
2. Others foretell the triumph of infidelity. That the gates of hell
are to prevail against the Church; that the pleasure of the Lord is not to
prosper in His hand. Who but a lying spirit would thus lay low the faith and
confidence of God’s people?
III. Apply the
principle to the self-righteous efforts which men make for their own salvation.
1. The bonds of guilt are not to be snapped by a merely human power.
2. Yet that were an easy task compared with a man renewing his own
heart.
3. Do you think you can force your way to heaven by ceremony? Come,
sinner, with thy fetters; lay thy wrist at the cross foot, where Christ can
break the iron at once.
IV. Applicable to
all persons who are making self-reliant efforts for the good of others.
1. Our preaching--we try to make it forcible--how powerless it is of
itself! We plead, reason, seek goodly words, etc., but the northern iron and
steel remain immovable. Though all the apostles reasoned with them, they would
turn a deaf ear.
2. The best adapted means cannot succeed. A mother’s tears, as she
spoke to you of Jesus; the pleadings of a grey-headed father over you--no power
to change your heart! The Gospel, though put to you very tenderly by those you
love best, leaves you unsaved still! You have been sick, near death, within an
inch of doom; yet even the judgments of God have not aroused you.
V. This text has a
very solemn application to all those who are rebels against God. Fight against
God, would you? Measure your adversary, I charge you. The wax is about to
wrestle with the flame, the tow to contend with the fire. (C. H.
Spurgeon.)
Nothing more to be done
It is impossible to explain these words to the satisfaction of
all. The general explanation, according to a large consensus of opinion, is
that the prayer of the prophet cannot break the inflexible purpose of Jehovah.
Jeremiah is still concerned for his countrymen, and he will still pray, though
he has been told that if the mightiest intercessors that ever lived were to
lift up their heads in devoutest argument they would not be listened to, for
heaven was offended, and mighty in just indignation. Now the question is put,
not by Jeremiah, but by another: “Shall iron break the northern iron and the
steel?” Is there any iron in the south that can stand against the iron of the
north? Has not the iron of the north been proved in a thousand controversies,
and has it ever failed t Who will smite that northern iron with straw? Who will
break it with a weapon of wood? Who will set his own frail hand against an
instrument so tremendous? The argument, then, would seem to be--Why pray to me
for these people? It is as iron applied to the iron of the north, which has
been seen to fail in innumerable instances: all the prayers that can now be
offered to heaven would be broken upon the threshold of that sanctuary and fall
back in fragments upon the weary intercessor; the day has closed, the door is
shut, the offended angel of grace has flown away on eagle pinions, and the
sister angel of mercy can no longer be found: pray no more for Jerusalem. Thus
the Lord dramatically represents Himself; and in all this dramatic reply to the
interrogations and pleadings of earth there is a great principle indicated;
that principle is that the day closes--“My Spirit shall not always strive with
men.” These are awful words. If a man had invented them, we should have denied
their truthfulness and their force; but when we hear them as from above we
confirm them, we say, It is right, we do not deserve to be heard; if we had to
assign ourselves to a fate, we dare not plant ha the wilderness of our solitude
one single flower; we have done the things we ought not to have done, we have
left undone the things we ought to have done; all we like sheep have gone
astray, we have turned everyone to his own way. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Verse 15
Remember me and visit me.
The desire to be remembered
Jeremiah desires many things; but the thing he asks first, as
including all the rest, is that God would not let him drop out of sight and
thought.
I. The perpetually
recurring phrase, “God knows,” expresses a mood of thought common to rational
creatures.
1. A craving everywhere to be remembered. From the lips of the dying,
from friends of whom we are taking farewell, fall the words, “Remember me.”
Ambitious minds, not content that their memorial should be kept in a few
hearts, labour that their names may be remembered by multitudes. Oblivion
appalls us.
2. The moralist can easily show the vanity of this desire, and the
emptiness of the end. What good will it do you, he asks, to be remembered when
out amid Australian wilds or on parched Indian plains? or what harm to be
forgot?
3. Enough for us, that God so made us that, by the make of our being,
we desire to be kindly remembered.
II. The prophet
shows us the right direction in which to train this desire. Pointing to the
heaven above, he bids us seek to be remembered there.
1. The thought that such a prayer may be offered to God, teaches us a
great deal of His kindliness, condescension, thoughtful care.
2. It was while looking on the kindly human face of Christ, that the
whole heart’s wish of the poor penitent thief went out in the “Lord, remember
me!”
3. It was in special clearness of revelation of God’s love, that the
Psalmist was emboldened to say, “I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh
upon me.”
III. The encouraging
view of the hearer of prayer implied in the words of the prophet’s petition.
1. He was not staggered, as he drew near in prayer, by intruding
doubt whether the Almighty would listen to his poor words or consider his
heart’s desires.
2. It is not presumption, but faith, that speaks here.
3. Ponder for your comfort that God “thinketh upon” you “knoweth your
frame,” etc.
IV. In such
individuality of prayer there is no selfishness. It is not the wish to be
distinguished above, but to be remembered even as the other members of the
family. It is but that when Christ, the great Intercessor, speaks to Almighty
God for Himself and His brethren of mankind, saying, in name of all, “Our
Father,” the poor sinner should not be left out.
V. Mark what
simple trust in God’s wisdom and kindness is implied.
1. Everything is asked in that. Enough, just to put oneself under
God’s eye, just to get God to think of one at all.
2. It is assumed that if God remembers us, it will be in love.
3. God’s remembrance is practical. He comes to our help.
4. Doubtless there is a season in the history of the unconverted man
in which he can have no real desire that God should remember him: he rather
desires to keep out of God’s sight and remembrance.
5. Yet the prayer expresses the first reaching after God of the
awakened soul (A. K. H. Boyd, D. D.)
Jeremiah’s prayer
I. The prophet’s
prayer.
1. “Remember me,” O Lord!
2. “And visit me.” This implies that where God graciously remembers
anyone, He will also visit them. Of the Lord’s visits to His people, it may be
observed--
II. Concluding
remarks.
1. Though God hath promised His presence with His people, yet He may
for a time withhold the manifestation of it (Job 23:8-9; Lamentations 1:16). Such departures are
very distressing, though but temporary; and those who have been most indulged
with the Divine presence are most affected with its withdrawment; while those
who have never experienced the former are insensible and unconcerned about the
latter.
2. When God forbears His visits, His people are apt to think that He
has forgotten them (Psalms 31:12; Psalms 88:14-15).
3. To be remembered and visited of God is a blessing infinitely to be
desired; and those especially who fear they are forgotten by Him feel it to be
so (Psalms 73:25).
4. Those who desire God’s presence must seek it by earnest prayer. (B.
Beddome, M. A.)
Prayer
I. Divine
knowledge is no hindrance to prayer.
1. “Thou knowest”--
2. Yet, though Thou knowest, yea, because Thou knowest, I pray to
Thee.
II. Divine
condescension an encouragement to prayer.
1. Remember me.
2. Visit me.
3. Vindicate me.
III. Human need a
stimulus to prayer. Poor, persecuted, and in peril, where could he go for help?
He is driven to God by trouble, and drawn by loving kindness.
IV. The
vicissitudes of life suggest topics for prayer. Poverty, weakness, affliction,
persecution, temptation--the sins and sorrows of others.
V. Conscious
sincerity gives freedom in prayer. “I have suffered for Thy sake.”
VI. The mediation
of Christ gives efficacy to our prayer. (W. Whale.)
Take me not away in Thy
long-suffering.
The long-suffering of God
I. The nature of
this long-suffering.
1. It is part of the Divine goodness and mercy, yet differs from
both. The Lord is full of compassion, slow to anger.
2. Since it is a part of goodness and mercy, it is not insensibility.
God’s anger burns against the sin, whilst His arms are open to receive the
sinner.
3. As long-suffering is a part of mercy and goodness, it is not
constrained or faint-hearted patience.
4. Since it is not for want of power over the creature, it is from a
fulness of the power over Himself.
5. As long-suffering is a branch of mercy, the exercise of it is
founded on the death of Christ.
II. How this
long-suffering or patience is manifested.
1. His giving warning of judgments before they are commissioned to go
forth.
2. In His unwillingness to execute His threatened judgments, when He
can delay no longer.
3. In that when He begins to Send out His judgments, He doth it by
degrees.
4. By moderating His judgments. “He rewardeth us not according to our
iniquities.”
5. In giving great mercies after provocations.
6. When we consider the greatness and multitude of our provocations.
III. The ground and
reason of this long-suffering to us-ward.
1. As a testimony of His reconcilable and merciful nature towards
sinners.
2. That sinners may be brought to repentance.
3. For the continuance of His Church (Isaiah 65:8-9).
4. That His justice may be clear when He condemns the impenitent.
5. In answer to the prayers of His people, His long-suffering is
exercised towards sinners.
To conclude--
1. How is the long-suffering of God abused?
2. Is the Lord long-suffering? How much better, therefore, is it to
fall into the hands of God, than into the hands of man; the best of men.
3. We may infer from the Lord’s long-suffering towards sinners, the
value of the soul; He not only died to redeem it, but waits with unwearied
patience and forbearance to receive it.
4. If the Lord be thus long-suffering to us-ward, who have so long
and repeatedly rebelled against Him, ought not Christians to exercise
forbearance and long-suffering one towards another? (Ephesians 4:1-6.) (Pulpit Assistant.)
A promise of better things
Thomas Scott, the commentator, tells the following incident: “A
poor man, most dangerously ill, of whose religious state I entertained some
hopes, seemed to me in the agonies of death. I sat by his bed for a long time,
expecting to see him expire; but at length he awoke as from a sleep, and
noticed me. I said, ‘You are extremely ill.’ He replied, ‘Yes, but I shall not
die this time.’ I asked the ground of this strange confidence, saying that I
was persuaded he would not recover. To this he answered, ‘I have just dreamed
that you, with a very venerable-looking person, came to me. He asked you what
you thought of me.’ ‘What kind of tree is it? Is there any fruit?’ You said,
‘No; but there are blossoms!’ ‘Well, then, I will spare it a little longer.’
This dream so exactly met my ideas as to the man’s state of mind, and the event
so answered his confidence by recovery, that I could not but think there was
something peculiar in it. I have since learned that after many backslidings the
man became a decidedly religious character--and his case furnishes a most striking
instance of the long-suffering and tender mercy of our God!”
Verse 16
Thy word was unto me the Joy and rejoicing of mine heart.
The soul’s discovery and use of the words of God
I. The soul’s
discovery of the words of God. “Thy words were found.”
1. In their truth. “He that believeth hath the witness”--i.e.,
the thing witnessed, the testimony--“in himself.” He feels the reality of the
words of God. They are substance, not shadow, to him.
2. In their meaning. The words of God are not designed to act upon us
as an ignorant charm. They are necessarily full of the mind of God. Sympathy
with the mind of God is therefore indispensable for understanding them.
3. In their immense importance.
4. In their intense applicability.
5. In their impressive power. “Demonstration of the Spirit.”
II. The soul’s use
of the words of God. “I did eat them.” As the mouth receives food for the body,
so faith for the soul.
1. The believing soul loves the words. With its regenerated taste it
relishes them keenly, finds them to be bread of God, better even than angels’
food.
2. The believing soul dwells on the words; meditates upon them day
and night.
3. The believing soul turns the words into the nourishment of the
spiritual life. For its appetite is wholesome. It desires the sincere milk of
the Word, that it may grow thereby. And it does.
III. The delightful
effect of the soul’s discovery and use of the words of God. “Thy word was unto
me the joy,” etc. This is owing to--
1. The suitableness and comprehensiveness of its provision.
2. The preciousness of its grace.
3. The grandeur of its discoveries. Of God, His attributes,
providence, Church, heaven.
4. The elevated piety and purity of its tone.
Conclusion--Would you be able to express yourselves thus?
Remember, then, that God’s words are spread before your eye, and spoken to your
ear, like any other words, to be inquired into, if you would understand them;
to be attended to and detained in your memory, if you would experience their
intended and beneficial effects. But remember also, that they are but the
textbook of the heavenly Teacher; and do not fail to implore His gracious
teaching. (H. Angus, D. D.)
The secret food and the public name
It was good advice of a venerable divine to a young man who
aspired to be a preacher, when he said to him, “Don’t become a minister if you
can help it.” The man who could very easily be a tradesman or a merchant had
better not be a minister. A preacher of the Gospel should always be a
volunteer, and yet he should always be a pressed man, who serves his King
because he is omnipotently constrained to do so. Only he is fit to preach who
cannot avoid preaching, who feels that woe is upon him unless he preach the Gospel,
and that the very stones would cry out against him if he should hold his peace.
I. In the
description of Jeremiah’s secret life, which consists of his inward reception
of the Word of God (which description will answer for ourselves), we have three
points.
1. The finding of it--“Thy words were found.”
2. A second view of the inner life must now be considered. “Thy word
was found, and I did eat it.”
3. Notice, then, the third glimpse into the inner life. “It was unto
me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart.” Nothing makes a man so happy as the
Word of God. Nothing makes him so full of delight and peace of soul as feeding
upon the Word.
II. The Christian
in his outward life, as he is mentioned here--“I am called by Thy name, O Lord
God of hosts.”
1. The condition of Jeremiah was one which he had attained by his
conduct. He was so continually preaching about Jehovah, so constantly insisting
upon Jehovah’s will, and going upon Jehovah’s errands that they came to call
him “Jehovah’s man,” and he was known by Jehovah’s name. Now the man who loves
God’s Word, and feeds on it, and rejoices in it, will so act that he will come
to be called a Christian. He will not only be so, but he will be called so. Men
will take knowledge of him that he has been with Jesus. To be called “Jehovah’s
man” was an honour to Jeremiah; and to be called by any of these nicknames,
which signify that we belong to God, is an honour to aspire after and not to be
regretted. May we all win some opprobrious name, and wear it as our title of
holy chivalry.
2. But this is a name, in the second place, which is involved in the
profession of every Christian. “I am called by Thy name, O Jehovah, God of
hosts.” Of course you are so called, if your profession be true. Oh, that we
remembered always that we are Christians, and therefore must always act up to
the name that is named upon us. God grant you, friends, that, in the power of
the eating of God’s Word, you may be constrained to act ever as becometh those
upon whom the name of Christ is named.
3. Once more, this word may be used in the sense which arises out of
the Gospel itself. “I am called by Thy name, O Lord God of hosts.” I belong to
Thee. When they gather up the nations, and they say, ‘This man belongs to
Babylon, and that man to Assyria, and that man to Egypt,’ I belong to Thee, and
am called by Thy name, O Lord God of hosts. What a comfort this is--we who
believe in Christ belong to God. We are His portion, and He will never lose us.
“They shall be Mine,” saith the Lord, “when I make up My jewels.” You are poor:
but you are Christ’s. Does not that mitigate your poverty? You are sick: but
you are God’s. Does not that comfort you? The poor lamb lies in the cold field,
but, if it belongs to a good shepherd, it shall not die. The sheep is sick, or
it has wandered; but, if it belongs to an Omnipotent Shepherd, it shall be
healed and it shall be brought back. The name of Christ being named upon us is
the guarantee of our present comfort and of our future security. (C. H.
Spurgeon.)
God’s Word found and eaten
I. What was the
prize which Jeremiah describes himself as having found? It was the Word of God.
“Thy words,” says he, “were found”--just as a man, on digging in the ground,
might find beyond his hopes a treasure there; or as a merchantman, seeking goodly
pearls, might find unexpectedly one of greater price than any he was looking
for. When men find the Word of God, they find also their duty and calling. They
make a grand discovery of the will of God concerning them.
II. What use he
made of this discovery. “Thy words were found, and I did eat them.” So then he
made the words of God his food--he made a meal of them--not only did he “hear,
read, mark, and learn,” but he “inwardly digested them.” It is dealing with
them as the hungry man does with food. It is converting the Word of God into
wholesome nourishment. The Word is thus “hid in the heart,” as the food we eat
is in the body, and becomes, as it were, a part of us--the very life blood of
the soul.
III. The happiness
which he acquired in consequence. “Thy Word was unto me the joy and the
rejoicing of my heart.” A noble testimony this to the efficacy of God’s Word.
How sweetly it went down (Song of Solomon 7:9); how blessed its
effects upon the prophet’s heart, when “joy and rejoicing” were the
consequences! David also “ate” God’s words; and what is his account of it! (Psalms 119:103; Psalms 19:10.) Hear what is the voice of
the whole Church without exception (Song of Solomon 2:3). Not a single member
of Christ’s Church but is ready to declare with the prophet that the precious
Word of God, when fed upon by faith, is “the joy and the rejoicing of his
heart”--his “songs in the house of his pilgrimage.” (A. Roberts, M.
A.)
Divine revelation
I. As a Divine
word. What is the Word? Not the book we call the Bible, that is but the record
of the revelation. Jesus Christ is emphatically the Logos. The fullest,
brightest, strongest Word of God is this. A true word answers two purposes.
1. By it the speaker reveals his own soul.
2. By it the speaker exerts his influence.
II. As a Divine
Word appropriated.
1. Something more than to possess its record.
2. Something more than the mere understanding of its contents.
3. Something more than the mere transfusion of it into the realm of
emotions.
It is to convert it into the ruling spirit of life.
III. As a Divine
Word enjoyed.
1. The joy of moral satisfaction.
2. The joy of renewed strength.
Conclusion--Thank God for His Word. Study it in nature, history,
consciousness, and especially in Jesus Christ. Peruse, ponder, and prize this
wonderful Book, containing the pearl of great price. (Homilist.)
The influence of the Bible conducive to personal happiness
The Bible may be compared to a medicine: man is the patient,
misery is the disease, and the Scriptures are presented to us as a remedy. Are
they such?
I. The truth of
this proposition.
1. The Scriptures received into the mind remove the misery arising
from remorse and the apprehension of punishment, and introduce into the heart
the feeling of delight connected with reconciliation with God, a peaceful state
of conscience, and the hope of everlasting life. A missionary was discoursing
in one of the South Sea Islands to some of the inhabitants of those benighted
regions, and this was his text, “God so loved the world,” etc. The attention of
one of the islanders was arrested: he began to interrogate the preacher.
“What!” said he, “is that true? Is it so? Read that again!” The missionary read
it a second time. (I heard the statement from his own lips.) “What! God so love
us, as to send His Son to die for us! and are we to have everlasting life in
the world to come--is that true?” “It is true,” replied the preacher: “there is
no ground whatever to question it.” The man’s mind was filled with amazement, and
with sensations of repentance on account of sin, and wonder and joy on account
of his salvation occupied his breast: he retired to weep, he retired to
meditate, he retired to pray to God, and to praise his Creator’s name. What
happiness comes into the soul when the soul is assured of eternal life?
2. The Bible preserves us from the state of misery arising from bad
and ungovernable passions, and introduces the delights connected with a holy
state of heart.
3. The Bible received into the heart by faith turns the afflictions
of life into real mercies, and renders them at once bearable and beneficial.
4. The Bible welcomed into the soul by faith removes the sting of
death, and turns the monster from a dreadful curse into a blessing of no small
magnitude. I was acquainted with a gentleman, many years ago; he was of a
sceptical turn of mind, and, as a consequence, not very attentive to religion.
He was following a very lucrative profession, and unexpectedly exhibited the
symptoms of a fatal disease. He fully expected he should die in the course of a
few months. He found no support in scepticism; none whatever. And the lash of
conscience began, for having neglected the Scriptures, and not having fairly
and candidly investigated their claims. This filled him with great remorse; for
he felt that if the Bible should be true, he would certainly be condemned for
his negligence and his want of candid examination. He resolved, as long as life
should last, that he would study the sacred volume, and inquire into its claims.
His health was restored to him, and after devoting all his leisure time, for
about twelve months to reading the Scriptures, and books connected with them,
and explanatory of them, and pointing out their claims and their evidences, the
result was a firm conviction, that the Bible was from God. He was induced then
to begin to act upon it. He went abroad; he was one night in the river Ganges,
and suddenly, while fast asleep, a cry was raised that the boat was sinking;
and so it was--there were holes in the keel, and the stern of the boat was
brought under water in the night season by the men, who went and slept, and the
boat was gradually filling, and in a few minutes more all would have sunk like
a stone or lead to the bottom of the river. His first impression was, I have
not an hour to live. There was a tumultuous feeling in his mind, yet had he
sufficient composure to reflect upon the difference of his feelings then, and
what they were when he anticipated death some years prior. His impression and
conviction was, that he should be in heaven in an hour; and oh! the support of
the Gospel in that moment. Subsequently, he was seized with the Asiatic
cholera, and life was in suspense. Similar support was again experienced. A
Brahmin was by his side; and he took occasion to say, Now you see the support,
that the Christian experiences in the season of extremity: my life is in
suspense: for me to live is Christ; for me to die is gain.”
II. Some objections
which stand in the way of its practical adoption. There are some who will not,
like Jeremiah, “eat” the words of God--that will not receive Him into their
heart; therefore they do not share in this holy joy. Some will say, “I cannot
wholly satisfy my mind that this book is from God: I have doubts, and doubts
which amount to what is considerable; so that I cannot enjoy the book in
consequence of these sceptical ideas. How should I get rid of them?” I would
say, in order to get rid of these doubts act conscientiously: do not act in a
manner inconsistent with what you believe to be the will of God: do not live in
wilful sin. “If any man will do the will of My Father, he shall know of the
doctrine whether it be of God.” So said Christ. Act according to your own
conscientious views of holiness, and you will find scepticism disappear. Let me
entreat you to read the Bible, read the whole of it, if you are troubled with
sceptical thoughts. Dr. Johnson said that no honest man could be a deist, if he
had had opportunity to study the evidence: if he read through the evidence, and
through the Bible, he could not continue a deist, as the evidence was so clear
and so conclusive. Hume’s name was mentioned to him, that he disbelieved the
Bible. Dr. Johnson replied, “Hume, I know, made the confession to a clergyman
in the bishopric of Durham, that he had never read the New Testament
carefully.” There are some sceptics who read a little here and a little there;
but they do not get a complete view of the subject; and they read rather to
find something to object to, something they may lay hold of. The conduct of
such men has been compared to that of the Athenian, who had a palace to be sold
by auction: he took a brick out of one of the walls of the palace, and at the
auction mart he said, “Here is a sample of my palace.” How absurd! A brick out
of the wall to be a sample. But so some men take here a text and there a
text--a brick taken out of the wall--and what do they know about the entire
edifice? Give the Bible throughout a candid and complete perusal; and read
books which are explanatory, written in a spirit of candour and intelligence.
But let me add, to put your sceptical thoughts to flight, I think you will find
prayer to be the most powerful thing of all, and the most rapid way to scatter
your doubts. “He hath the witness in himself.” When a man begins to pray to
God, God answers him, if he prays sincerely, and God gives him a new heart and
makes him a new man. Then he begins to argue in this way, “Why the Bible has
changed my heart, the Bible has made me holy, the Bible has made me happy; what
want I with further witness? (H. Townley.)
Hidden manna
I. A memorable
discovery. What is meant by finding God’s words?
1. A thing found has usually to be sought for. Happy is he who reads
or hears the Scriptures, searching all the while for the hidden spiritual sense
(Proverbs 2:4-5).
2. To find God’s Word means that we have been made to understand them
(1 Corinthians 3:14). The Bible is a
dull book till illuminated; a tantalising riddle till you get the key; but, the
clue once found, it absorbs our attention, delights our intellect, and enriches
our heart.
3. Means to appropriate it as belonging to yourself. Reading a will
is not interesting till you find you have a part in it.
II. An eager
reception. What is meant by eating them?
1. An eager study. Greedy for the truth. My soul hungered even to
ravenousness to be fed upon the bread of heaven.
2. Cheerful reception. My soul was in love with the Word.
3. An intense belief. Not questioning it, but living upon it.
4. The language means, besides, both the diligent treasuring up of
the truth, and the inward digestion of the same.
III. The happy
consequences.
1. Hold the truth in its entirety and harmony, and then it will be
joy to your heart.
2. The Word of God would have given no joy had he not been obedient
to it.
3. Yet there are certain choice truths in God’s Word, especially joy
giving: the doctrine of election, to know that you are called and
predestinated; and of the immutability of Divine love.
IV. A
distinguishing title.
1. The name of the Lord of hosts was reviled in Jeremiah’s day, yet
he felt it an honour to be associated with the Lord in this contempt. Oh ye who
love the Lord Jesus, never shun the scandal of the Cross!
2. Some do not count it a fair thing to bear the name of the Most
High. It is a disgrace to any man that his Lord should die for his soul on
Calvary and yet he be afraid to wear His livery. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Enjoying God’s Word
I. A high
valuation for this Word. Prized as God’s Word, and sought under that character.
Love to the Word of God is a sure sign of a gracious heart.
1. It partakes of the Divinity of its Author.
2. It is adapted to the nature of its subject; suited to man.
3. It has produced most astonishing effects.
II. A personal
experience of its power. “I did eat it.”
1. Religion is the life of the soul, as the soul is the life of the
body. Truth is the sustenance of the moral man. Divine truth must be
incorporated with the elements of the intellectual nature, or we perish.
2. When you come to the Word, remember that Divine influence alone
can make it effectual. As you say grace before meat, let your reading be
preceded by prayer.
III. A conscious
participation of the happiness it produces. “It was the rejoicing of my heart.”
How does it promote joy?
1. By the light it imparts to the understanding. It gives decision to
the judgment; fully occupies the mind upon the noblest subject; engages
faculties and powers in God’s service.
2. By the relief it gives to the conscience. In the hope of pardon
and acceptance.
3. By the exercise it affords to the best affections of the heart.
The pleasures of benevolence are genuine pleasures; allied to the happiness of
God Himself.
4. By the consolations and hopes under sorrow.
IV. A sense of
consecration. “I am called by Thy name.” Improvement--It reproves--
1. Those who never seek.
2. Those who are content with knowledge without experience.
3. Those who are strangers to religious peace and joy.
4. Those who neither own God’s name, nor are owned of Him. (S.
Thodey.)
God’s Word found, eaten, and enjoyed
I. God’s word
found.
1. It comes to us through nature.
2. It comes also through our own spiritual being, in its instinctive
yearnings.
3. In the fullest sense, it has come through Christ.
4. Also through prophets and apostles--in the written Word.
II. God’s word
eaten.
1. This is more than to possess its record. To have a full larder
will not sustain life nor give strength.
2. It is more than an intellectual understanding of the contents of
Scripture. The mere analysis of food will not give sustenance.
3. Positively, it is to turn it into the principle of life by
assimilation.
III. God’s word
enjoyed.
1. The joy of satisfaction.
2. The joy of strength renewed. (John Oswald.)
Found, eaten, and enjoyed
I. An important
discovery was made.
1. Words are the representatives of thought. Have great power to move
men’s minds.
2. Words derive much of their power from the mind which utters them.
God’s words are a hammer, a fire, a sword, a balm, a saving and sanctifying
power to men who receive and obey them.
3. That which is found must previously have existed. God’s Word
exists, whether men find it or not. He who finds it is wise, rich, happy.
II. A peculiar
method of appropriation was made.
1. It implies soul hunger. Caused by stress of duty, pressure of
persecution, and multiplied sorrows.
2. It affirms that God’s words are soul food. Wholesome, nourishing,
savoury, saving.
III. A delightful
experience was realised. Joy and rejoicing--
1. In what the Word revealed of God.
2. In the way that revelation met his utmost need.
3. In the knowledge of salvation there unfolded.
4. In the prospects to which the attention of God’s servants was
directed.
IV. An emphatic
public testimony was given. “I am called by Thy name,” etc.
1. God’s name was called upon him. As the saving power, and source of
hope and joy, the name of Christ has been called upon us.
2. He was called by God’s name. We, by Christ’s.
3. He was strengthened by God in all his works.
Application--
1. The Word discovered--a treasure.
2. The Word in the heart--a joy.
3. The Word on the lips--a message.
4. The Word in the hand--a weapon. (W. Whale.)
Feeding on God’s truth
“Understandest thou what thou readest?” That is the main point.
The butterflies flit over the garden, and nothing comes of their flitting; but
look at the bees, how they drive into the bells of the flowers and come forth
with their thighs laden with the pollen and filled with the sweetest honey for
their hives. This is the way to read your Bible: get into the flowers of
Scriptures, plunge into the inward meaning, and suck out that secret sweetness
which the Lord hath put there for your spiritual nourishment. (C. H.
Spurgeon.)
How to make the Bible our own
“Thy words were found, and I did eat them.” In the absence of his
father, a little boy attended the Sabbath School of a Dutch Reformed minister.
On the father’s return he went upstairs and finding his son reading the Word of
God, he asked him, “What book are you reading?” He replied, “The Bible.” “Where
did you get it?” “In yonder Sabbath School.” He then took the Bible from him
and committed it to the flame, saying, “If you ever go to the Sunday School
again, I’ll give you such a thrashing as you have never had.” Having
ascertained that the Bible was burned, his son said to him, “Father, you have
burned my Bible; but you cannot burn out of me those chapters I have committed
to memory from the Gospel of John.” (W. Baxendale.)
Joy in God’s Word
“I have many books,” says Mr. Newton, “that I cannot sit down to
read; they are indeed good and sound, but, like halfpence, there goes a great
quantity to a little amount. There are silver books, and a very few golden
books; but I have one book worth more than all, called the Bible, and that is a
book of bank notes.”
Verse 17
I sat not in the assembly of the mockers.
Christians delight not in godless company
It is better and safer to ride alone than to have a thief’s
company; and such is a wicked man, who will rob thee of precious time, if he do
thee no more mischief. The Nazarites, who might drink no wine, were also
forbidden to cut grapes whereof wine is made, so we must not only avoid sin,
but also the causes and occasions thereof, among which is bad company. (J.
Spencer.)
The difficulty of maintaining purity in evil company
That is a sound body that continues healthful in a pest house. It
is a far greater wonder to see a saint maintain his purity among sinners, than
it is to behold, a sinner becoming pure among saints. Christians are not always
like fish, which retain their freshness in a salt sea; or like the rose, which preserves
its sweetness among the most noisome weeds; or like the fire, which burns the
hottest when the season is coldest. A good man was once heard to lament, “that
as often as he went into the company of the wicked he returned less a man from
them than he was before he joined with them.” The Lord’s people, by keeping
evil company, are like persons who are much exposed to the sun, insensibly
tanned. (T. Seeker.)
Verse 18
Why is my pain perpetual?
The function of pain
This piteous lament may fitly represent the anguished cry of
suffering humanity, from age to age. In all lands, under all skies, in all
times, the same mournful wail is heard,--a ceaseless dirge of woe, day and
night, from ten thousand times ten thousand hearts, struggling with adversity,
battling with disease, staggering under the weight of sorrow or suffering. “Why
is my pain perpetual?” It would almost seem that men had abandoned the attempt
to solve these problems; for by common consent, pain and disease, suffering and
sorrow, are called “mysteries,”--“dark and inscrutable mysteries.” But they are
not all darkness and incomprehensibility. These “mysteries” are also
“masteries”--masterful forces in the education and exaltation of humanity. Have
you ever considered what kind of a world this would be if there were no pain
here, no sick beds, no sorrow-stricken homes? Have you ever reflected that
these “inscrutable mysteries” are the chosen instrumentalities for fashioning
the highest types of character, both in the sufferer himself and in those who
minister to his suffering? Pain and disease did, it is true, come into the
world as the attendants and servants of sin; but it is pity indeed if we have
not learned that the Lord has made them His ministers and His servants, even as
He made the thorns and thistles, the labour and the sweat, which resulted from
the Fall, the means of the development of the faculties and powers of man, the
fountains of progress and civilisation. The earth was once a stranger to pain,
and it will be again; but in the former case sin had not entered, and so
perhaps pain was not needed; and in the latter, sin will be abolished because
the lesson of pain will have been fully learned. Had there never been pain and
suffering, what a different world it would have been! All marsh and meadow; all
plain and prairie; no towering cliffs and yawning chasms; no heaven-kissing
Mont Blanc; no thunderous Niagara; no valley of the Yosemite--a dead-level world!
Those lofty heights of heroism and patience which now delight the eye in the
retrospect of the past, would sink into monotonous stretches of commonplace
lives. Those names writ large by the pen of history, and made radiant by the
light of self-forgetting devotion, would disappear with the pain or the
suffering or the calamity that made them great. We may, therefore, thank God
for pain, for suffering, for sorrow. Whichever has been our lot, depend upon it
we arc, or if not, we ought to be, the better, the wiser, the richer, for it.
If we take it patiently, as the good will of our good God, then will it prove a
blessing. Then will sorrow be the crucible in the hands of the Divine Master,
wherein the dross of the soul will be purged away, and the gold refined. But
let us not make the mistake of supposing that tribulation--this threshing of
the soul--in any of its forms necessarily produces the results which I have
described. These are the peaceable fruits which the gracious Father desires and
designs that they should bring forth. These are what they are fitted to
produce. But we must remember that the material to be fashioned in this case is
a free, self-determining human soul, whose freedom cannot be violated without
destroying its very essential fibre. The effect, then, of trial and affliction,
whether bodily or mental, depends upon the way in which it is received. It may
embitter, instead of sweetening, the spirit. It may harden, instead of
softening, the heart. And then the gracious purpose of Him who chasteneth not
in wrath, but in mercy, will be frustrated and turned aside by the perversity
of man. To strengthen our faith, then, let us recall some of the utterances of
those holy men of old who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost,--passages
in which the casual connection between suffering and holiness is distinctly
stated. Saith the wise man, “The fining pot is for silver, and the furnace for
gold: but the Lord trieth the hearts.” Saith the afflicted patriarch, “Though
He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.” “When He hath tried me, I shall come
forth as gold.” Saith the prophet in the name of the Lord, “I will bring the
third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined,” etc.
Our Lord said, “I am the Vine, ye are the branches,” and added, “Every branch
that beareth fruit, He purgeth it,” etc. St. Peter, the foremost of the
apostles, writes, “Though now for a season . . . ye are in heaviness through
manifold temptations,” it is that “the trial of your faith,” etc. St. James
bids us etc., giving as the reason, that chastisement produces “the peaceable
fruits of righteousness.” Side by side with their words let us place the deeds,
the examples, of these holy men of old. One can see in the mirror of their
writings, as well as in the record of their lives, that these chosen ones were,
like their Divine Master, “made perfect through suffering,” or at least that
their sufferings and afflictions had led them far up the path whose goal is
perfection. The intensity of their conviction glows and burns on every page.
When they assert the purifying effect of suffering, we feel that they are
testifying out of the fulness of a personal knowledge. They speak that they do
know, and testify that they have seen and felt in their own hearts and lives. But
not these holy men of old alone. Men and women of our time, too, a noble army,
have ascended with Jesus into the holy mount by the same arduous path, leaving
us an example that we should follow their steps. How often have we seen the
purifying power of pain and loss, of sorrow and trial! How often have we marked
in the life of some patient sufferer the gradual unfolding of the
Christlikeness, till at length the crown of thorns has been changed into a
mitre of glory, on which we could trace the words, “Perfect through suffering!”
You may, therefore, strengthen your wavering faith, O sufferer! in the
beneficent purpose of this, God’s strange economy, by lifting your eyes to the
great “cloud of witnesses” who have trod the same rough and thorny path. Your suffering,
whatever its form, whatever its intensity, is not “without your Father.” You
are in His hands. He does not forget you; He will never leave or forsake you;
He only designs “thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.” Look intently,
O sufferer! and you will see pain slowly transfigured before your gaze till it
takes on the very features of Him of whom the prophet said, “He shall sit as a
refiner and purifier of silver.” You are suffering, moreover, it may be, not
for your own benefit alone, but for that of others. There is a principle of
vicariousness in human suffering. Let me illustrate. A poor traveller falls ill
of fever all alone in the South American swamps. There he lies for days in a
wretched hut, quenching his thirst with the waters of a pool close at hand. At
last this pool dries up; and with extreme difficulty, the sick man crawls to
another, half a mile distant. Its water is so bitter he can scarcely drink it;
but he must drink it, or die of thirst. That afternoon he could not think why he
felt stronger than for many weeks. Next day he drank more abundantly of the
bitter pool; and still, the more he drank, the stronger he grew, till he was
entirely restored; then he found that a tree had fallen into the water, which
gave it its bitterness, and gave it also its power of cure. And this is the way
in which one of the most important medicines now in use was discovered,--a
medicine which has saved thousands and thousands of lives which must else have
perished. Even so hath God appointed that some of us should drink the bitter
waters of affliction or of pain, that others may be given spiritual health and
salvation. (R. H. M’Kim, D. D.)
Uses of pain
Some plants owe their medicinal qualities to the marsh in which
they grow; others to the shades in which alone they flourish. There are
precious fruits put forth by the moon as well as by the sun. Boats need ballast
as well as sail; a drag on the carriage wheel is no hindrance when the road
runs downhill. Pain has, probably, in some cases developed genius, hunting out
the soul which otherwise might have slept like a lion in its den. Had it not
been for the broken wing some might have lost themselves in the clouds, some
even of those choice doves who now bear the olive branch in their mouths, and
show the way to the ark. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Blessing of pain
Above all things let us learn this lesson from the example of
Princess Alice--the quickening, purifying, bracing power of pain. In every
trial that she had to undergo--and perhaps these trials were more than
ordinarily severe and frequent--we see how her character developed and
strengthened. To her each trial was as an April storm to a young plant or tree,
lending new vigour to the roots, new power to its growth, so that when the sun
shines the buds are seen to expand and blossom--those same buds which, without
the rain cloud, would have shrivelled and died. Every time she was called upon
to give up what she most deeply cherished, she counted, with faith and
gratitude, the blessings that remained to her. “Thus do we learn humility,” she
said with quivering lip. “God has called for one life, and has given me back
Chronic fain
Pascal, the great mathematician and moralist, said, “From the day
I was eighteen, I do not know that I ever passed a single day without pain.”
Wilt Thou be altogether
unto me as a liar.--
God misjudged
Here the prophet overfreely expostulateth with God as less
faithful, or less mindful, at least, of the promised preservation. This was in
a fit of diffidence and discontent, as the best have their outbursts, and the
greatest lamps have needed snuffers. The Milesians, saith the philosophers, are
not fools, yet they do the things that fools use to do. So the saints do oft as
wicked ones, but not in the same manner and degree. (John Trapp.)
Verse 19-20
If thou shalt take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be
as My mouth.
The personal factor in our thought of God and man
If Jeremiah at the time he wrote these words had been asked our
modern question, “Is life worth living?” he would have returned a negative
answer. For here you have the significant spectacle of a prophet of the Lord
cursing the day of his birth. He finds that he is a man of strife and
contention to the whole earth; everyone curses him, he says, though he has not
given men cause to do so. And God is not keeping His word with him either. “Why
is my pain perpetual?” he cries, “and my wound incurable, which refuseth to be
healed? Wilt Thou,” he says to God, “be altogether unto me as a liar, and as
waters that fail?” The prophet cries out for revenge upon his persecutors. Let
us admit at once that he was plunged deeply into disappointments. The sense of
the Divine pressure in life had come to him early. When he first felt that he
must do some great work for God he was very young, and he felt his youth as an
objection to undertaking the work. The consciousness of duty and the
consciousness of unfitness were there together as they have often been in men.
Great geniuses have often begun to show themselves very early, but it is also
true that in going on they have had much to unlearn and much to cancel, and
they have had to bear the shattering of many dreams. A youth inspired from such
heights must needs be bitterly disappointed on the planes of practical life. It
was so with Jeremiah. What it was that brought him under the pressure of the
higher things so early we do not know. It has been conjectured, and Professor
Cornill favours the conjecture, that he had descended from Abiathar, the high
priest of David, whom Solomon banished to Anathoth. Jeremiah was brought up
there, we know, and his father was a priest. If the conjecture is right, the
tale of banishment, the story of the hardship, would come down from sire to
son, and the old family virtues and heroisms would be told the children of each
generation. In young Jeremiah these found responsive soil, and his enthusiasm
was kindled. The lad set out to be a reformer; he was going to put the world
right! Now it is certain beforehand that he will meet with terrible
disappointments, and not at all unlikely that they will sometimes be so severe
that he will curse the day of his birth. That is what befell Jeremiah, as it
has befallen others since. In these verses he is in the depths of misery. He
notes the sins he has not been guilty of: he has not exacted usury, for
example; he recalls how zealous he had been for God: he had found the Divine
words and eaten them, assimilated them and made them his own, and had found joy
in them. But all to no purpose; everybody was against him; everyone cursed him.
But now, here is the significant thing: in the midst of all this, just when he
was seeing all men and God in the worst possible light, another thought struck
him--the thought that, after all, perhaps it was he himself who was most at
fault. Thus saith the Lord: “If thou becomest again Mine, thou shalt be My
servant, and if thou wilt separate thy better self from the vile, thou shalt
still be as My mouth.” What had Jeremiah been doing in his pessimism? He had
been allowing the personal factor too much room. Listen: “Revenge me upon my
persecutors; take me not away in Thy long-suffering”--as if he said: “Do not be
so merciful and patient with them as to let them kill me; take care of me even
if they be killed.” “Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and prepare
them for the day of throttling,” he once said. This was not Jeremiah’s
character, not his better self; this was his mood when stung with disappointment.
And this mood was bad; it was what my text calls “the vile.” The personal
factor was so large that it cast men and God into deep shadow. Jeremiah saw so
much of himself, his own virtue, his own failure, that he saw men worse than
they were, and God almost as a gigantic untruth. But a great character conquers
such moods, and Jeremiah conquered them. It was through his better self that
the word of the Lord came to him, and Jeremiah saw that he, in thinking so much
of himself, had ceased to be his true self, and had lapsed out of God’s
service, and that if he wanted to speak again as the mouth of God, and to do
God’s work, he must separate the precious from the vile, the better self from
the baser self in his own nature. Now we are living in an age when pessimism is
said to be very prevalent; men take gloomy views of things. I think it is true
that when we are pessimistic about things in general the fault is mostly in
ourselves. Unreasonable selfishness in some form or other is at the bottom of
most pessimism; we allow the personal factor to make a larger claim than the
universe is prepared to acknowledge, and we grow sullen at the refusal.
1. This may be the case, and often is in the nobler form of
intellectual pursuits, and often in the greaser form of material pursuits.
Through philosophy we see some men become pessimistic. They think, and think,
they tell us, but the mystery increases, and they despair of thought
altogether: the universe is a riddle, and no one can guess its meaning. Now, it
is a fine thing to see a man in quest after truth, and it is very honourable in
him to make the fullest and frankest inquiry into the nature of things. But,
nevertheless, the pessimism, the despair, the wretchedness even here is due to
an unreasonable claim on the part of the individual. Is it not rather
irrational to suppose that you can uncover the final secret? If that privilege
were granted to you, what interest would there be in the world to you or to
anyone else? “It is the glory of the Lord,” said an old writer, “to conceal a
thing,” and there was more philosophic insight in the saying than in any number
of moderns who whimper and cower before the Great Unknown. Cut down your
demands to something like what is reasonable, and then your inquiries will give
you much-prized gains--things to rejoice and sing over, and not to break your
heart about. There is a peace of mind to be got from knowing what is not
possible to us, and accepting the fact like men. Ii man could fully understand
God, he would be God. Let him know his own place and fill it like a man.
2. But it is through the material pursuits many grow pessimistic.
Many people’s thought of God and their neighbours is gloomy simply because they
claim too much room for themselves in the world. There are men who are very
prosperous in money matters, and in getting position and power, and yet who are
always dissatisfied, only because self is their God--the greatest tyrant in the
world, never satisfied. It is astonishing how much adversity and disappointment
men can bear when they are thinking of another, or others, and how little when
thinking of themselves.
3. And out of this arises one other truth--namely, that you must take
yourself in hand, and separate the precious from the vile, the better from the
baser, in order to be again the servant of the living God, and the exponent of
Divine truth. Whenever you see all the world in shadow, all men bad, and doubt
even God, be sure it is you who need reforming. There is badness in the world,
badness in men, and circumstances may be very trying, but if you are rightly
minded, and rightly hearted, you can hope and conquer. It would be a good thing
for each of us in melancholy or in bitter moods to stop speaking of the faults
of others, and the wrongs of the world, and the problems of God, and ask,
“What’s wrong with me?” Every man’s biggest problem is himself. Not that the
circumstances were not trying--they were very trying; not that others had no
faults--they had, perhaps, great faults; but faith in God is possible in the worst
of situations, so long as we are humble, and in manly relation to our sorrow.
When unworthy feelings come in, separate the vile, release the better self, and
you will yet be God’s servant, and speak for Him. A clean personal life will
give you a strong hold on truth, even in the midst of trouble; a pure mind will
give you access to Divine reality, though your circumstances might be terribly
hard, and though all men reviled you. Mark: Jesus does not say that the
circumstances will change; and all that God says to Jeremiah is that he shall
be His servant again, and speak for Him. If you separate the better self from
the vile, it does not follow that you will create outward success, but you
shall go on with your work, and your work shall be a speech for God. I believe
that God speaks to us in nature, but I grant that I do not always understand.
The notes of the speech are discordant. In the world of man, too, there is much
that staggers one. But there is one fact in which I always read the mind of
God--this act of separating the precious from the vile in man. Whenever I make
an effort to expel something bad, I know I am acting for God; whenever I seek
to put down anything that is unworthy, to overcome any animosity or
uncharitableness, to make my better nature supreme, I have no doubt of God
then. There we find His mind, there we get the beatific vision, and there we
equip for the world’s work. Will you remember that God says to each one of us,
“If thou wilt separate the precious from the vile, thou shalt again be My
servant”? Pure life is a clear vision of God for you, and a definite speech for
God by you. Nothing speaks like it. A clean soul reflects God as a clear river
reflects the sky. You will be yourself an exponent of the eternal in separating
the good from the bad in your own life. They mingle strangely--the base with
the noble, the false with the true; and their persistent separation speaks of
the eternal purpose of redemption. And I am glad of another word in this text.
It is the little word “again”--“If thou becomest again Mine.” We know what it
is to lapse--to feel the relation to God gone; indifference holds us in its icy
grasp, where all was once enthusiasm. Let me emphasise this little
word--“again.” It opens a door; it marks a possibility; it is a Father’s voice
coming out after you into the darkness. There is a restoring power at work; you
may be reunited consciously to God; you may feel Him again to be the Greatest
Reality in your life. (T. R. Williams.)
The essential distinction between saints and sinners
I. There is an
essential distinction between saints and sinners.
1. The inspired writers divide all mankind into two, and but two
classes, and distinguish them by very different and opposite appellations. They
call the saints the precious, but sinners the vile. They call saints the godly,
but sinners the ungodly. They call saints the children of God, but sinners the
children of the wicked one. They call saints the elect, but sinners the
reprobate. They call saints vessels of mercy, but sinners vessels of wrath.
2. God does that for saints which He does not do for sinners; He
regenerates saints, but not sinners; gives a new heart to saints, but not to
sinners; softens the hearts of saints, but hardens the hearts of sinners; and
gives a spiritual discerning of spiritual things to saints, but not to sinners;
so there must be an essential distinction between them.
3. God has made promises of good to saints, but none to sinners;
which proves they are essentially different in their moral characters.
4. God has threatened that evil to sinners, which He has not
threatened to saints.
II. Why ministers
should, in their preaching, constantly exhibit and keep up this great moral and
essential distinction between those who have, and those who have not the love
of God in them.
1. This is necessary, in order to preach the Word of God intelligibly
to their people.
2. It is necessary, in order to give pertinent and profitable
instruction to their hearers.
3. Ministers must distinguish saints from sinners, in order to preach
faithfully, as well as profitably.
Application--
1. It is utterly a fault in ministers, either designedly or
undesignedly, to keep the essential distinction between saints and sinners out
of sight.
2. In the view of this subject, we may see how easy it is for
ministers to lead people insensibly into great and fatal errors. They may do
so, by not mentioning or not explaining the essential distinction between
saints and sinners; or by not mentioning or not explaining the peculiar
doctrines of the Gospel which flow from this distinction; while, at the same
time, they preach some valuable truths.
3. If there be an essential distinction between saints and sinners,
then sinners are very liable to be fatally deceived and corrupted by those who
lie in wait to deceive and destroy. Saints have an antidote against the poison
of error, that sinners are entirely destitute of. Saints are lovers of God and
of His Word; they desire the sincere milk of the Word, that they may grow
thereby in grace, and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. The hearts of
all good men are attached to Divine truth. But sinners are lovers of their own
selves, and haters of God, and equally haters of His Word.
4. The best way the ministers of the Gospel can take to guard their
people against every species of error and errorists, is to make and keep up the
essential distinction between saints and sinners.
5. The people may easily discover the real sentiments of ministers by
their preaching.
6. There may be a great deal of good preaching in the land, and at
the same time, a great want of good preaching. How many ministers do not take
forth the precious from the vile, nor cause their hearers to see and feel the
difference!
7. This subject calls upon saints to walk worthy of their high and
holy calling. They are called the precious, the holy, the godly, the excellent
of the earth. (N. Emmons, D. D.)
Unsullied character
The degree of impurity in any precious stone is just the measure
of its depreciation. The initial act of their formation is separation. “The
dark drift of the inland river, or stagnant slime of inland pool and lake,
divides or resolves itself, as it dries, into layers of its several elements:
slowly purifying each by the patient withdrawal of it from the anarchy of the
mass in which it was mingled.” Thus begin both the crystallisation of the gem
and the life of the Christian. “Come out, and be separate! Take forth the
precious from the vile,” is the call of the Lord to His saints. For our call is
to saintliness; and as the unseen foundations of the New Jerusalem are of as
precious stones as the dazzling walls, so the part of our life and character
which is hidden from the eyes of the world is to be as clear and unsullied as
that which all see and admire. Keep thyself pure, thou child of God. (W. Y.
Fullerton.)
Righteous zeal encouraged by Divine protection
I. God’s direction
to the prophet, and in him to all eat do His work in such a season as this
described. “Let them return to thee, return not thou to them.” Plausible
compliances of men in authority, with those against whom they are employed, are
treacherous contrivances against the God of heaven, by whom they are employed.
1. It cannot be done but by preferring the creature before the
Creator, especially in those things which are the proximate causes of
deviation. Two principal causes I have observed of this crooked walking.
II. The supportment
and assistance promised. “I will make thee to this people a brazen and a fenced
wall.” Now the Lord will do this--
1. Because of His own engagement.
2. For our encouragement.
III. The opposition
which men cleaving to the Lord in all His ways shall find, with the issue and
success of it. “They shall fight against thee, but shall not prevail.” The
words may be considered either as a prediction depending on God’s prescience of
what will be; or a commination from His just judgment, of what shall be. In the
first sense the Lord tells the prophet, from the corruption, apostasy,
stubbornness of that people, what would come to pass. In the second, what for
their sins and provocations, by His just judgment, should come to pass. I shall
take up the latter only, namely, That it is a commination of what shall be for
the further misery of that wretched people; they shall judicially be given up
to a fighting against Him. Now the Lord doth this--
1. To seal up a sinful people’s destruction. Eli’s sons hearkened
not, because the Lord would slay them (1 Samuel 2:25).
2. To manifest His own power and sovereignty in maintaining a small
handful, ofttimes a few single persons, a Moses, a Samuel, two witnesses
against the opposing rage of a hardened multitude.
Use--
1. Let men, constant, sincere, upright in the ways of God, especially
in difficult times, know what they are to expect from many, yea, the most of
the generation, whose good they intend, and among whom they live; opposition
and fighting is like to be their lot; and that not only it will be so because
of men’s lusts, corruptions, prejudices; but also it shall be so, from God’s
righteous judgments against a stubborn people; they harden their hearts that it
may be so, to compass their ends; and God hardens their hearts that it shall be
so to bring about His aims; they will do it to execute their revenge upon
others, they shall do it to execute God’s vengeance upon themselves.
2. Let men set upon opposition make a diligent inquiry, whether there
be no hand in the business, but their own? whether their counsels be not
leavened with the wrath of God, and their thoughts mixed with a spirit of
giddiness, and themselves carried on to their own destruction? (J.
Owen, D. D.)
The ministry of the Word
1. A ministry of Divine authority.
2. A ministry of Divine revelations.
3. A ministry of wise discrimination.
4. A ministry often opposed by those to whom it is sent.
5. A ministry requiring much courage.
6. A ministry which will be Divinely vindicated.
7. A ministry which lifts up Christ as the Saviour of men. (W.
Whale.)
The power of rebuke
I. The Christian
ministry includes an office of commination. If the messengers of heaven, when
among the outcasts of mankind, who, in ignorance of God, have gone astray from
virtue, speak more of virtue than of wrath; when they stand among those who,
being well informed in matters of religion, use the grace of the Gospel to
palliate their vices, the messages of wrath must be most on their lips.
II. The tendency of
the Christian ministry is to move down from its remedial functions to become an
office of delectation.
1. Furnishing intellectual entertainment; uttering, as matters of
gorgeous eloquence, the appalling verities of eternal justice. Nature forbids
such an incongruity, and the renovating Spirit refuses to yield the energy of
His power to the sway of a mere minister of public recreation.
2. Affording spiritual entertainment; by exhibiting the conceits and
ingenuities of mystic exposition; by painting in high colours the honours and
privileges of the believer, and allowing professors of all sorts to appropriate
the fulsome description; or by pealing out thunders of wrath against distant
adversaries, rather than at the impure, unjust, rapacious and malicious around.
III. It behoves
preachers to beware of the indurating effect of accustomed phrases and forms of
words. Such conventional phrases conceal from the mind the ideas they should
convey; hence preachers should continually endeavour to break up the mental
incrustations which are always spreading themselves over the sensitive surface
of the sails. This is especially necessary in reference to matters wherein the
drowsy formalities of language tend directly to augment the stupefying
influence that belongs to all vicious indulgences.
IV. It is a
pressing duty of the minister of religion to maintain in vigour the spirit he
needs as the reprover of sin and guardian of virtue. It is easy to teach the
articles of belief, to illustrate the branches of Christian ethics, to proclaim
the Divine mercy, to meet and assuage the fears of the feeble and sorrows of
the afflicted. But to keep in full activity the power of rebuke, demands rare
qualities. To speak efficaciously of the holiness and justice of God, and of
its future consequences; to speak in modesty, tenderness, and power of the
approaching doom of the impenitent, must be left to those whose spirits have
had much communion with the dread Majesty on high.
V. Three
indispensable qualifications for the vigorous exercise of the Christian
minister for this power of rebuke.
1. Such a conviction of the truth of Christianity as shall render him
proof against assaults from within and without. Fatal to his influence as a
refuter of sin must be a lurking scepticism in the preacher’s breast. The
infection of his own doubts will pass into the heart of the hearer, and will
serve to harden each transgressor in his impenitence.
2. A resolute loyalty to the Divine administration. Such loyalty will
break through the mazes of much sophistry, will support the servant of God when
assailed by more fallacies than he can at the moment refute, and enable him to
cleave under all obloquies and embarrassments to what he inwardly knows must in
the end prove the better cause.
3. An unaffected and sensitive compassion towards his fellow men. The
end of all reproof is mercy. If there were no redemption at hand, it were idle
or cruel to talk of judgment. (Isaac Taylor, LL. D.)
Ministerial obligations
My text refers us to three distinct characters of the pastoral
office--to be the servant of God; to be the mouth of God; and to be the guide
whom the people shall follow. And these involve three several duties, in which
the pastor’s own personal responsibility is closely linked with the solemn
responsibilities of his office--that of preparing his own heart to seek the
Lord; that of discriminating the “precious from the vile” in his instruction
and conversation; and that of guarding himself and his flock against all
declension after the ways of them who depart from God.
I. A Divine
admonition as to personal religion. “To stand before,” implies the office of
one who stands in the presence of his sovereign, ready to execute His commands.
It is the highest order of dignity and of service to which a subject can be
called. He enjoys the privilege of constant access to the presence of majesty,
a knowledge of the high affairs of government, and a share in the splendours of
courtly life. Such is the relation in which a minister of true religion stands
to the court of Heaven, in order that he may bring near a people prepared for
the Lord, to whom, when they have received his message, he may say, Ye are a
chosen generation, etc. See, then, the unspeakable importance of personal
religion in one who shall perform such a ministration. He that would cause the
people to hear the words of God must habitually listen to the voice of God in
his own conscience, as often as he turns aside--and who is not conscious of too
frequently doing so?--saying, “If thou return, then will I bring thee again,
and thou shalt stand before Me.” And then with confidence--the confidence of
one who comes from a nearer access to the throne on high--he may go forth to
his charge, and say, having the words of God in his mouth, “Turn ye, turn ye at
My reproof.”
II. A divine
direction. “If thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as My
mouth.” The prophet may seem to have been charged with having, in some respect,
mistaken his duty. In the view he took of his personal trials he had lost sight
of the principal object of his ministry, namely, to cause the precious to come
out from the vile. In times like the present, there may be an undue regard to
the trials of the Church at large. From a just and pious jealousy of the
dangers to which it is exposed, or by which it has been affected as a
community, we may lose sight of the especial end of our ministry. In our
reasonable remonstrance with unreasonable foes, and from just indignation at
the treachery or declension of pretended friends, we may overlook the faithful
use of the word “for reproof, for correction, for instruction in
righteousness.” In our zeal to mark an open enemy, or to discriminate an
unsound adherent, we may forget the true flock of Christ; or in our eager
cooperation with mere defenders of our Church polity, we may put aside from our
own view, and obscure from the view of others, the real distinction which must
ever be admitted in the doctrine of visible Church communion between the
precious and the vile.
III. A divine
caution: “Let them return unto thee; but return not thou unto them.” No object
or consideration must induce the prophet to identify himself with their
apostasy: he must take a decidedly contrary course. He must so order his life
and conversation, his doctrines and his admonitions, that those who desire to
return unto God may see in him the way and pattern. In this, as in every age of
the Church, no inconsiderable portion of those who profess themselves its
members are yet under the influence of that love of the world which is opposed
to the love of God. To counteract the tendency of this spirit, rests greatly
with the clergy. It is their duty more strictly to define the Christian
character by precept and example, and more clearly to exhibit Christian truth,
than to allow those who pursue so inconsistent a course to indulge in vain
confidence as to their religious state. The clergy at least ought to define the
boundary between the world and the people of God. If they are negligent in
doing so, it cannot but be obscured. If they pass the boundary, they lead many
across it who probably never return. The clergy are preeminently the “salt of
the earth; but if the salt have lost its savour,” woe to the Church, and “woe
to them by whom the offence cometh”; “Let them return unto Thee; but return not
Thou unto them.” (W. Wilson, D. D.)
A ministry of discrimination
I. What is
supposed.
1. The vast importance and responsibility of the work assigned to
ministers with a view to the welfare of their people. Ministers are to take the
precious from the vile; to separate the wheat from the weeds; to distinguish
the dross from the gold.
2. That there are some essential distinctions between right and
wrong, good and evil, truth and error.
3. That there is a standard of truth. As the office of a judge is not
to make but declare the law, so that of a minister is not to burden the ears of
people with his own doubtful disputations, but to declare the whole counsel of
God.
4. That these characters are closely intermingled, and that there is
a great disinclination in mankind to have the truth fully told them, and to be
brought to the decisive test.
5. That it is of the utmost consequence to both parties that the
separation should be made. Take forth the precious from the vile, and the most
advantageous results will immediately accrue to each.
II. What is
demanded of ministers with a view to this solemn discrimination?
1. A plain and decisive exhibition of the truth as it is in Jesus. We
are to contend earnestly for the faith--to vindicate it from the blasphemies of
the infidel, the perversions of the worldling, the mistakes of the Pharisee,
and the corruptions of the Antinomian.
2. A fearless application of Scripture truth.
3. To point ourselves and our hearers to the only Agent who can make
the Word effectual.
III. What is
promised? “Thou shalt be as My mouth.” The accredited and approved servant--to
speak in accordance with His will--be the organ of His clemency--all His
authenticated messages crowned with success. Mighty and blessed such a
ministry. (S. Thodey.)
I am with thee to save
thee and to deliver thee.--
Divine assistance promised to Church governors
I. God’s
qualification of Jeremy to be an overseer in His Church. “I will make thee a
brazen fenced wall.”
1. A wall implies enclosure. God did not think fit to leave His
Church without enclosure, open like a common, for every beast to feed upon and
devour it. Commons are always bare, pilled, and shorn, as the sheep that feed
upon them. And our experience has shown us, as soon as the enclosures of our
Church were plucked up, what a herd of cattle of all sorts invaded it. It
contained, as commons usually do, both multitude and mixture.
2. A wall imports fortification. No city can be secure without it. It
is, as it were, a standing inanimate army; a continual defence without the help
of defenders. Something must encircle the Church, that will both discriminate
and protect it. And the altar must be railed in, not only for distinction, but
defence. And such a thing is a church governor, a well-qualified bishop. Which
title that he may make good and verify, there are required in him these three
qualifications--
II. The opposition
that the Church governor, thus qualified, will be sure to meet with in the
administration of his office.
1. They will assault their governors with seditious preaching and
praying. To preach Christ out of contention is condemned by the apostle; but to
preach contention instead of Christ, certainly is most abominable.
2. Their second way of fighting against the officers of the Church
will be by railing and libels.
3. They may oppose the governors and government of the Church by open
force: and this is fighting indeed; but yet the genuine, natural consequent of
the other: he that rails, having opportunity, would rebel; for it is the same
malice in a various posture, in a different way of eruption; and as he that
rebels shows what he can do, so he that rails does as really demonstrate what
he would do.
III. That, as in all
fights, we see the issue and success, which is exhibited to us in these words,
“But they shall not prevail against thee.”
1. Moral causes will afford but a moral certainty but so far as the
light of this shines, it gives us a good prospect into our future success. For
which is most likely to prevail, a force marshalled into order, or disranked
and scattered into confusion? A force united and compacted with the strength of
agreement, or a force shrivelled into parties, and crumbled into infinite
subdivisions?
2. But besides the arguments of reason, we have the surer ground of
Divine revelation. God has engaged His assistance, made Himself a party, and
obliged His omnipotence as a second in the cause. (R. South, D. D.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》