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Jeremiah
Chapter Thirty-six
Jeremiah 36
Chapter Contents
Baruch is to write the prophecies of Jeremiah. (1-8) The
princes advise them to hide themselves. (9-19) The king having heard a part,
burns the roll. (20-32)
Commentary on Jeremiah 36:1-8
(Read Jeremiah 36:1-8)
The writing of the Scriptures was by Divine appointment.
The Divine wisdom directed to this as a proper means; if it failed, the house
of Judah would be the more without excuse. The Lord declares to sinners the
evil he purposes to do against them, that they may hear, and fear, and return
from their evil ways; and whenever any one makes this use of God's warnings, in
dependence on his promised mercy, he will find the Lord ready to forgive his
sins. All others will be left without excuse; and the consideration that great
is the anger God has pronounced against us for sin, should quicken both our
prayers and our endeavours.
Commentary on Jeremiah 36:9-19
(Read Jeremiah 36:9-19)
Shows of piety and devotion may be found even among
those, who, though they keep up forms of godliness, are strangers and enemies
to the power of it. The princes patiently attended the reading of the whole
book. They were in great fear. But even those who are convinced to the truth
and importance of what they hear, and are disposed to favour those who preach
it, often have difficulties and reserves about their safety, interest, or
preferment, so that they do not act according to their convictions, and try to
get rid of what they find troublesome.
Commentary on Jeremiah 36:20-32
(Read Jeremiah 36:20-32)
Those who despise the word of God, will soon show, as
this king did, that they hate it; and, like him, they would wish it destroyed.
See what enmity there is against God in the carnal mind, and wonder at his
patience. The princes showed some concern, till they saw how light the king
made of it. Beware of making light of God's word!
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Jeremiah》
Jeremiah 36
Verse 2
[2] Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the
words that I have spoken unto thee against Israel, and against Judah, and
against all the nations, from the day I spake unto thee, from the days of
Josiah, even unto this day.
A roll — Parchments, which anciently were their books.
All the words — All the revelations he had from
God for twenty-two years last past. God would have them recorded, that there
might be a memorial of them, that so the truth of them might appear, when God
should bring them to pass; the time of which now drew near.
Verse 6
[6] Therefore go thou, and read in the roll, which thou hast
written from my mouth, the words of the LORD in the ears of the people in the
LORD's house upon the fasting day: and also thou shalt read them in the ears of
all Judah that come out of their cities.
Upon the fasting day — It was undoubtedly,
because of the concourse of people which the prophet knew would that day be in
the temple, that he chose that day, when some would be present from all parts
of Judah.
Verse 10
[10] Then read Baruch in the book the words of Jeremiah in
the house of the LORD, in the chamber of Gemariah the son of Shaphan the
scribe, in the higher court, at the entry of the new gate of the LORD's house,
in the ears of all the people.
Then read — Most likely out of some window,
or balcony, the people being below, and hearing it.
Verse 18
[18] Then Baruch answered them, He pronounced all these words
unto me with his mouth, and I wrote them with ink in the book.
He pronounced — This could not but add to the
princes fear, they must needs conceive that without a special influence of God,
it had been impossible, that Jeremiah should have called to mind all that he
had spoken at several times in so many years.
Verse 22
[22] Now the king sat in the winterhouse in the ninth month:
and there was a fire on the hearth burning before him.
The ninth month — Answered to part of our November
and December.
Verse 23
[23] And it came to pass, that when Jehudi had read three or
four leaves, he cut it with the penknife, and cast it into the fire that was on
the hearth, until all the roll was consumed in the fire that was on the hearth.
He — The king not having patience to hear above three or
four columns, or periods, cut it in pieces and burned it in the fire.
Verse 25
[25] Nevertheless Elnathan and Delaiah and Gemariah had made
intercession to the king that he would not burn the roll: but he would not hear
them.
Elnathan — These princes seemed to have had a greater dread of God
upon their hearts than the rest.
Verse 26
[26] But the king commanded Jerahmeel the son of Hammelech,
and Seraiah the son of Azriel, and Shelemiah the son of Abdeel, to take Baruch
the scribe and Jeremiah the prophet: but the LORD hid them.
Hid them — God by his providence kept them both out of their
hands; directing them to find such a place of recess as the kings messengers
could not find out.
Verse 30
[30] Therefore thus saith the LORD of Jehoiakim king of
Judah; He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David: and his dead body
shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost.
None to sit — That is, none that shall be king
any considerable time. Jeconiah his son was set up, but kept his throne but
three months.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Jeremiah》
36 Chapter 36
Verses 1-32
Verse 3
It may be.
It may be
I. This word shows
us the heart of God. Displeased because of sin, but longing to show mercy to
the sinner. All His counsels and warnings, promises and threatenings, are for
good (Deuteronomy 5:29-33; Deuteronomy 32:44-47; Isaiah 1:18-20; Jeremiah 8:7-11; Ezekiel 12:3; Ezekiel 18:31; Hosea 11:1-8; John 3:16-17; Luke 19:10; Luke 19:41-42).
II. This word
reveals the grand possibilities of human life.
1. Earnest attention (Jeremiah 36:3).
2. Penitential prayer (Jeremiah 36:7).
3. Moral reconciliation. The hindrances to peace are not with God,
but with us.
III. This word holds
out encouragement to all true workers for Christ.
1. Prayer.
2. Holy endeavour.
3. Missionary enterprise. (W. Forsyth, M. A.)
Verses 4-7
I am shut up.
Jeremiah in prison
1. Jeremiah’s age was one of great political troubles.
2. It was also an age of signal religious privileges.
3. It was an age of great moral corruption.
I. His
imprisonment suggests the sad moral character of his age. The prisons of an age
are often criteria by which to determine its character. When prisons are filled
with men of signal excellence of character, force of conscience, and
self-denying philanthropy, you have sad moral proofs of the deep moral
corruption of the age that could tolerate such enormity.
II. His
imprisonment suggests God’s method of raising humanity. Heaven’s plan embraces
the agency of good men. The agency is twofold, primary and secondary. There are
spiritual seers and spiritual mechanics.
1. Jeremiah may be regarded as a type of the primary human agents
whom God employs. They are frequently in the lowest secular condition; yet in
that condition God communes with them, and gives them a message for the world.
2. Baruch may be regarded as a type of the secondary agents. In this
age the Baruchs are numerous. Men abound who will take down the thoughts of
great thinkers; but the Jeremiahs are rare. Thought power, rather than tongue
power, is wanted now.
III. His
imprisonment suggests the inability of the external to crush a holy soul.
1. He is free in his communion with heaven. From the dungeon he
cried, and God heard him (Lamentations 3:56-57).
2. He was free in his sympathies with the race. He could not go out
in body to the house of the Lord, but he went out in soul. Walls of granite,
massive iron bars, chains of adamant, cannot confine the soul; nor can the
densest darkness throw on it a single shadow. (Homilist.)
God’s servant imprisoned
When Henry Burton, two centuries ago, was persecuted for the name
of Christ and put in prison, “I found,” he said, “the comforts of my God in the
Fleet Prison exceedingly, it being the first time of my being a prisoner.” Go
thou, and read in the roll.
The prophet and the roll:--
I. The solicitude
of Jeremiah--(verses 4, 5).
II. The command of
Jeremiah (verse 6).
III. The hope of
Jeremiah (verse 7).
If Divine mercy could not woo them back to righteousness, he hoped
that Divine justice might drive them. Alas! he was disappointed. The national
heart, with a few rare exceptions, hardened into granite. And then they were
overwhelmed with calamities. (E. Davies, D. D.)
The utility of Holy Scripture
See here the utility of the Holy Scriptures and the excellent use
that may be made of reading them. A man maybe thereby doubtless converted,
where preaching is wanting, as divers were in Queen Mary’s days, when the Word
of God was precious; as Augustine was, by reading Romans 13:1-14.; Fulgentius, by the
prophet Jonah; Franciscus Junius, by John 1:1-51., &c. (John Trapp.)
Verse 6
The fasting-day.
Symbolism of a fast
I. It exhibits the
duty of a wise self-restraint or self-denial, in receiving the good gifts of
heaven. What could more exactly typify this than the temporary withdrawing from
innocent pleasure, and even from the proper nourishment of the frame? It is
temporary, and not absolute; an occasion, and not a permanency; a suspension,
and not a renunciation. It admonishes us by an example, and does not crush us
by a law. It reminds us of the obligation of sobriety in the use of the world s
offerings. It bids us reflect that it is good for us to break away at times
from what is plentiful, contenting ourselves with what is scanty; and to
interrupt the course of the enjoyments that only do not reproach us, in order
to make room for higher satisfactions. It exhorts us to be frugal, to be
watchful, to be provident. It enjoins to be temperate in all things, and to let
our moderation be known to all men; to learn how to lack as well as how to
abound; and to show to others and prove to ourselves how well we can resign
what we would fain keep, and refrain from what we desire to do, controlling
tongue and hand, wish and passion, at the call of any holy commandment.
2. It typifies our weak and subject condition. When we pause in the
midst of our blessings, and put them at a distance for a while that we may see
them the better, we remember how precarious is our hold upon them, and how
easily what we dispense with for a day may be withdrawn from us for ever.
Fulness may shrink. Strength and activity may be crippled. Resources heaped up
ever so high may be scattered to the winds. Opportunity and desire may perish
together. It is good to be impressed with this at intervals, though it would
not be good to dwell upon it perpetually; for you make a man none the better by
making him habitually sad.
3. It presents an image of the sorrows of the world. These are a part
of our subjection, and a peculiar part. While it is foolish and ungrateful to
anticipate trouble, every day having enough to do with its own; and it is one
of the worst occupations we can engage in, to torment ourselves with unarrived
calamities, and paint the white blank of the future with woe; yet it becomes
thoughtful persons, and has no tendency to make them less thankful, to consider
She evils of humanity. They may be thus preserved from presumption, thus
guarded against surprises, thus furnished with a fellow-feeling for the
sufferings of others, and thus better prepared for their own trial when God
shall send it.
4. Fasting represents penitence. It does so on the principle already
mentioned, since penitence is one kind of grief. It does so on another ground.
When a man is thoroughly stricken with the sense of sin, and seeks to express
that consciousness, he describes his unworthiness to receive the bounties of
heaven by declining to partake
of them. (N. L. Frothingham.)
Verses 20-26
He cut it with the penknife, and cast it into the fire that was on
the hearth until an the ton was consumed in the fire that was on the hearth
The burnt roll
I.
The
incidents connected with the text.
II. A few
observations upon them.
1. The piety of the parent is no assured guarantee for the religion
of the son. The life of the Spirit can alone come from God, and it is given and
withheld in a way to us past finding out. There are many instances in which we
should not be justified in attributing any neglect to the parent, though the
child may not by any means have walked in his steps; and, where this does
occur, men not unfrequently become monsters of iniquity; for it has been well
remarked that none are more abandoned than those who become wicked after a
religions education: they cannot have quietness in vice till they have
stupefied their consciences; and the greater the obstacles before men can fully
indulge their lusts, the more depraved they are afterwards. The testimony of
the Spirit, respecting Josiah, the father of Jehoiakim, is this, “that he did
that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the ways of his
father David.”
2. However men may slight and pour contempt upon the threatenings of
God, they can in no way prevent their fulfilment. Jehoiakim and his princes
mocked at the message of God, despised His gracious warnings, and purposed the
infliction of punishment upon the prophet and scribe concerned in their
delivery; but by so doing they did but provoke the wrath of the Lord till there
was no remedy: God at length brought upon them the King of Babylon. And all
this, we are told, took place, that “the Word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah
might be fulfilled.” The destruction of the world in the time of Noah was long
delayed; but it came at length, and that when men were little expecting it.
And, if men will not be prevailed upon to flee to the refuge which God hath in
infinite mercy provided, this warning must be fulfilled in their destruction.
3. Those who slight God’s warnings increase their condemnation. It
was declared by the Lord through Huldah, the prophetess, to Josiah, the father
of Jehoiakim, Because thine heart was tender, and thou didst humble thyself
before God when thou heardest His words against this place and against the
inhabitants thereof, and humbledst thyself before Me, and didst rend thy
clothes and weep before Me, I have even heard thee also, saith the Lord: behold
I will gather thee to thy fathers; and thou shalt be gathered to thy grave in
peace” (2 Chronicles 34:27).
III. The
applicability of this subject to present times. Are there not those in this our
land who endeavour, by the keen knife of wit and sarcasm, to cut the Bible in
pieces, and thus bring it into contempt, and cause it to be neglected? And why
do they act thus? They hate the Bible because they perceive that its
threatenings are pointed at them and their sins; they are against the Bible
because they see that the Bible is against them; they Know very well that, if
the Bible be true, if it be indeed the Word of the living God, they are in a
very awful case--in danger of feeling the wrath of God for ever in another
world: this they cannot bear to think of, and therefore they first begin to
wish that it may not be true; next, indulge a faint hope that it is not; and,
lastly, are led on by. Satan to believe that it is nothing else but a
cunningly-devised fable, fitted to frighten and alarm the minds of the weak;
forgetting that the very circumstance which makes it so distasteful to
themselves, namely, that it forbids the indulgence of every sinful desire and
the practice of every wicked act, is of itself one of the very strongest proofs
that it is not the Word of man, but of God.
IV. Some lessons of
instruction.
1. The duty of reverencing God’s Word.
2. The duty of making it known according to our ability among others.
3. The duty of dealing ,faithfully with those who live in
disobedience to God’s commands. (T. Grantham.)
The burnt roll and the Scriptures
I. The words in
the roll were inspired by God; so are the Scriptures.
1. Christ appealed to and taught out of them (Matthew 4:4; Mark 12:10; John 7:42; Acts 1:16; Hebrews 3:7; 2 Peter 1:19; 2 Peter 1:21; 2 Timothy 3:16).
2. Further proof--
II. The words in
the roll contained Divine threatenings against sin. So throughout the
Scriptures.
III. The words in
the roll were intended to produce penitence and result in forgiveness (verse
3). “To the Lord our God belong--mercies,” &c.
IV. The words in
the roll are despised by the hardened and rebellious (verses 22-24). Burning
was merely the outward and visible sign of contempt, neglect, and disdain.
V. The words in
the roll are, nevertheless, reverenced by some (verse 25). (Homiletic
Magazine.)
Rejection of God’s message
I. Deep and varied
interest of the Book of Jeremiah.
1. Divine truth of doctrine and promise (Jeremiah 17:1-27; Jeremiah 30:1-24; Jeremiah 31:1-40, &c.).
2. Views of a prophet’s inner life of anguish and faith (chaps. 1, 9,
10, 12).
3. Passages of vivid narrative (this chapter).
II. A strange
scene.
III. A searching
lesson for the soul. The possibility of complete indifference to the most
urgent warnings from God, even without open rejection of religion. Let us take
the case of Zedekiah thus in some few respects.
1. His act as a specimen of the soul’s acts now.
2. His excuses.
3. His doom.
IV. Zedekiah hears
a message from one whom, on the whole, he owns as God’s messenger, and, by way
of reply, he burns it. Countless souls own the Bible, as, on the whole, God’s
Word. Perhaps in a time of distress, like Zedekiah (chap. 38.), they will
anxiously turn to it. But in their hour of security, when grief or conscience
is silent, the Bible may warn mere, but in vain. Church lessons, sermon texts,
family portions, private reading, all bring them God’s warnings. The soul,
while it dares not say it is false, can yet cast the unfelt truth aside.
V. Zedekiah,
perhaps, explained his act in some vague way to himself. “Jeremiah is a
prophet; but cannot a prophet be prejudiced and exaggerate?” So Bible readers
will let sceptical depreciation off the Bible so far warp them as just to take
the edge off the reality of its warnings. “Ye shall not surely die.”
VI. But much more
than this: Zedekiah positively rejected the message from wounded pride. He did
not want it: he was well enough as he was. This blinded him in great measure to
the question whether it were from God or not. So self will rise against the
very words of Jesus, till it has seen its need and misery as it is (Revelation 3:17).
VII. Zedekiah, for
all this security and indifference, was on the verge of a real and dreadful
doom. Ruin, captivity, blindness, bereavement (chap. 39.). So now, indifference
to Divine warnings is no disproof of their truth. The Judge of all the earth
will act, not on our view of things, but on His own.
VIII. He who
threatens is He who atones, saves, and loves. He sends His real threatenings to
drive us to His real mercy (Revelation 3:19). (H. C. G. Moule, D.
D.)
Jeremiah’s roll burnt
The history with which our text is connected is soon told. It
appears that Jeremiah the prophet, at the command of the Lord, had instructed
Baruch the scribe to write, in a roll of a book, an abstract or an abridgment
of all the sermons which during the last three-and-twenty years he had
preached, as well as an account of the various judgments which the Lord had
denounced against Judah by reason of their sins. This was done that the king
and his people might be put in remembrance of what they had heard, and that
they might the better understand it, when they had it all before them at one
view.
I. The importance
of the written word. Our Lord and His apostles speak to us by their written
words in the New Testament; and they attest the inspiration of the written Old
Testament by the numberless quotations from its various hooks. These Scriptures
we are commanded to “talk of, when we walk by the way, and when we sit in the
house.” We are also
especially to heed them when they are read or explained to us in the sanctuary
of public worship.
II. The value of
Divine ordinances. We should come up to the house of God, my brethren, “to ask
those things that be necessary as well for the body as the soul.” We should
come up “to set forth God’s most worthy praise.” We should also come up to hear
“His most holy Word.”
III. The Lord’s
object in the Scriptures. The object which God has in view in giving us His
Word, is to save our souls. He therein tells us, first, of our danger, and then
of our refuge. The Scriptures, therefore, when rightly received, issue in our
salvation. This was the Lord’s object in reference to Judah. Judah had sinned;
and the Lord had threatened, by Jeremiah, to punish those sins. Mean-while,
however, he tried once more to bring them to repentance. He therefore commanded
Jeremiah to commit to writing all the evils he had pronounced against that
nation, in the hope that, when they read what was written, they might be
alarmed at their danger, and seek pardon from their God before their
destruction came.
IV. The rebellion
of the carnal mind. “The carnal mind,” we are told, “is enmity against God.” It
on this account opposes God’s Word, and hates and persecutes God’s faithful
servants.
V. The folly of
destroying God’s word. Those men destroy God’s Word who will not receive its
sayings. It matters not, however, my brethren, whether you receive the whole
Word of God, or not. By it you must be one day judged. The judgment will be
set, and the books will be opened. If you could get together and burn all the
Bibles in the universe, that flame would never destroy God’s truth. Hell would
be the same: eternity would be the same: death and judgment would be unaltered.
Reject not, then, the inspired Word. Receive it most thankfully. Pray, over it
most earnestly. (C. Clayton, M. A.)
The rash penknife
Jehoiakim s last opportunity was now to come. The Spirit of God
comes upon the prophet Jeremiah, and inspires him with a message from Heaven.
Baruch, the scribe, is summoned to take it down in writing from his lips. I see him
coming to the prophet’s chamber with ink and pen and sheets of parchment. The
people are awed and amazed. One of them, named Michaiah, instantly hastens off
to the palace, and, finding a number of the princes gathered together,
acquaints them with what has taken place, and gives them the substance of the
prophecy. Presently one of these is commissioned to go into the monarch’s
presence and inform him. Jehoiakim, professing great indifference, has yet his
curiosity aroused, and wishes the document itself to be brought to him. So
Jehudi runs and fetches the roll, telling of the awful judgments that are about
to descend upon the throne and upon the land, and proceeds to read it aloud to
the king. The tragic sequel you already know, So Jehoiakim’s day of grace
closed. In that moment the door of mercy was shut against him for ever! His
doom was sealed. The Spirit of God was quenched. The man was given up. Not,
observe, that his life was ended; he lived at least four years after this; but
he had sinned away his day of grace, and never more was God to ply him with the
offers of mercy. His soul’s ruin was now complete.
I. Those who, in
their early days, have resisted holy influences, generally turn out the most
wicked of men. I hardly know an
exception to this rule. Nor can
you much wonder that it is so. It is just what we might expect. When a man
deliberately tramples on conviction, and resists the dealings of God’s Spirit,
he uses the most effectual means to sear his conscience and harden his heart.
If, in early days, you have been hedged round with Christian influences, and
loving counsels, and bright examples, and fervent prayers: and you have
withstood all these things, you are just the person most likely to make a
rebound to the other extreme, and plunge headlong into gross iniquity.
II. If a man’s
religion is not genuine and heart-deep, it often happens that troubles and
calamities only drive him farther away from God. Do you remember what is
written of King Ahaz? It might be written of many a one besides him. “In the
time of stress did he trespass yet more against the Lord.” Yes, with some men
the more they suffer the more they sin. Adversity angers them against God. It
is well known that times of pestilence, whilst they have brought out an
unwonted religious earnestness on the one side, have brought out an unusual
amount of wickedness on the other. The plague of London developed the vices of
the metropolis to a frightful extent. Men patrolled the streets singing ribald
songs beside the dead cart. When a ship is wrecked, and about to go to the
bottom, if some fall on their knees and pray, others fly to drink and cursing.
Nothing is a truer touchstone of character than the way in which a man treats
the chastenings of God.
III. As the heart
gets hardened in sin, there is a growing unwillingness to listen to the voice
of God. As soon as a young man begins an evil course, and resolves to take his
fill of sinful pleasure, he acquires a hatred of his Bible, and a
disinclination to attend the house of God. If he cannot silence God’s
ministers, he will keep as far as possible from them, and shut his ears against
all good counsel I know a man to whom the sound of the church bells is so
hateful, that in the warmest day in summer he will close all his windows, if
possible, to keep it out. He
was once a very different man, but now the devil has got such possession of
him, that he abhors every vestige of religion; and I verily believe that were
you to put a Bible into his hand, he would cut it in pieces with his penknife,
and pitch it into the fire. If I want to know something of your state of heart,
I ask, what value do you put on, and what use do you make of the law of God? (J.
T. Davidson, D. D.)
The Bible disposed of, what then?
Were the Bible proved to be quite unworthy of confidence, were it
shown to be dotted everywhere with error as thick as a leper with his loathsome
scales, what advantage would it be to godless men?
I. God would still
remain. The Bible does not make God; it does not even demonstrate the being of God. It
assumes Him. Its opening words are, “In the beginning God created.” The
simplest argument in all the world is that which phrases itself thus: Design
supposes a designer. Were I to say that John Milton made Paradise Lost by
jumbling letters in a bag and tossing them forth, all reasonable men would
laugh at me; but this would be no more preposterous than is the allegation that
our universe is a fortuitous concourse of atoms. All men know that back of law
is the Lawgiver, back of order the Arranger, back of design an Infinite
Contriver. But while the world would retain its belief in God, it would, in the absence of
the Scriptures, know nothing of His Providence or of His Fatherhood.
II. The sense of
sin would remain. The Bible is not responsible for the sense of sin. If there
were no Bible, our consciences would still speak to us. When Prof. Webster was
lying in prison awaiting his doom he made formal complaint that he was
affronted by his keepers, who shouted at him, “Oh, you bloody man!” and by his
fellow-prisoners, who pounded on the walls of his cell, shouting, “Oh, you bloody
man!” A watch was set, but no
voice was heard; it was his guilty conscience that was crying out against him.
It is not the Bible that gives us Ixion on the wheel, or Sisyphus vainly
rolling the stone up the mountain-side, or Tantalus up to his lips in the
ever-receding waters. No, in any case conscience would remain; but in the
absence of revelation we should know no remedy for its sting.
III. Were the bible
destroyed, our sense of duty would still remain. The moral law is set forth in
the Scriptures in the Decalogue and the Sermon on the Mount. The Decalogue,
however, was written in the human constitution long before it found expression
in Scripture. It is interwoven with the nerves and sinews of the race. The
Sermon on the Mount is simply a broad and glorious exposition of the Decalogue.
There is nothing new or original here. We are reminded that the Golden Rule
itself did not originate with Christ. The ethical system of the Bible is merely
an authoritative
statement of certain laws which are written in the soul of man. God here places
His imprimatur on those otherwise anonymous precepts which the
whole world recognises as right. So, were the Bible to vanish, the moral
distinctions would remain, and a man would know his duty while, alas! ever
sensible of not doing it.
IV. The bible gone,
death would still remain; death-and judgment following after. It needs no
revelation from on high to tell us that, as Abd-el-Kader says, “the black camel
kneels at our gate.” That admonition is written on the grave-stones that line
the journey of our life.
“The air is full of farewells to the dying
And mournings for the dead.”
But without the Scriptures we should have no hope of triumph over
death.
V. The dream of
immortality would still remain. This is quite independent of Scripture. The
Greeks put an obolus upon the tongue of the dead to pay their ferriage across
the Styx because there might be a happy land beyond. The Indian chic was buried
with his bows and arrows at his side, because, if there should by chance be a
happy hunting-ground, he would need them there. Thus immortality has always
been a fond dream--a dream only. When Cicero lighted the lamp in the grave of his
daughter it was with the thought that possibly her life, though extinguished
for a time, might be rekindled. When Socrates put the cup of hemlock to his
lips, he said, “I go; whether to perish or to live again I know not.” The old
fable of the Phoenix expressed the fondest of pagan hopes. No, no, we should
not lose the dream but we should lose the certainty, for in the Gospel life and
immortality are brought to light. The twilight vanishes, the dream becomes a
splendid reality. The Bible is our noonday sun. Its glories are far away from
the multitude who will not receive it. There are mysteries, vast and
incomprehensible here; but burn the Book, or what is the same, let the world lose its
confidence in it, and all that makes life worth living goes from us. But the
Bible is in no danger; it has come to stay; it will glorify life and illuminate the valley
of death until the last penitent sinner has gone through heaven’s gate.
Voltaire said that he would pass through the forest of the Scriptures and
girdle all its trees so that in a hundred years Christianity would be only a
vanishing memory. The hundred years have expired; Voltaire is gone, and “none
so poor to do him reverence,” but Christianity is still here, and the trees of
the Lord are full of sap. The brazier of Jehoiakim is a golden altar, the fumes
of which, like frankincense, have gone through all the earth. (D. J.
Burrell, D. D.)
The mutilated Bible
1. Consider the object which God has in view in writing His Word and
sending His written messages to mankind. This object is most pathetically set
forth (verse 3). That is why God has given us the Bible! Not to bewilder us, not to
start us on courses of intellectual speculation, not to tempt our curiosity,
not to found rival sects, but to bring us to Himself to obtain forgiveness of
iniquity and sin.
2. Man is so unwilling to hear anything unpleasant or disagreeable
about himself that lie gets into a wrong temper before he actually knows what
God s object is. Jehoiakim did not hear the whole roll. Did any man ever
destroy the Bible who knew it wholly? The difficulty is in the “three or four
leaves.” There are men to-day who having heard three or four leaves of Genesis
have cut it with the penknife. They cannot get over the six days and the
talking serpent, so they cut the roll with the penknife. Or if they begin
another book, they are offended by the extraordinary numbers of people killed
in war, and the romantic ages of the patriarchs; so they cut the roll with the
penknife. Or if they begin elsewhere, they are offended by the descriptions of
human nature, its depravity, its helplessness, its horrible sin; and having
heard three or four leaves, they cut the roll with the penknife. Now the Bible
must be read in its entirety, that all its parts may assume their just
proportions and their appropriate colour.
3. Though Jehoiakim cut the roll and cast it into the fire, the words
were all rewritten, and the impious king fell under the severe and fatal
judgment of God (verse 30). Men have not destroyed revelation when they have
destroyed the Bible. “The Word of the Lord abideth for ever.” The penknife,
cannot reach its spirit, the fire cannot touch its life. The history of the
Bible is one of the proofs of its inspiration.
4. The desire to cut the Bible with the penknife and to cast it into
the fire, is quite intelligible because in a sense profoundly natural. The
Bible never lures human attention by flattering compliments. What wonder if the
leper should break the mirror which shows him his loathsomeness?
5. This desire to mutilate the holy Word shows itself in various
ways, some of them apparently innocent, others of them dignified with fine
names and claiming attention as the last developments of human progress.
The indestructible Book
There are thousands of Jehoiakims yet alive who cut the Word of
God with their penknives; and my object is to designate a few of them. The
first man I shall mention as thus treating the Word of God is the one who
receives a part of the Bible, but cuts out portions of it with his penknife,
and rejects them. Jehoiakim showed as much indignity toward the scroll when he
cut one way as when he cut the other. You might as well behead Moses as to
behead Jonah. Yes, I shall take all the Bible or none. No; you shall not rob me
of a single word of a single verse of a single chapter of a single book of my
Bible. When life, like an ocean, billows up with Rouble, and death comes, and
our barque is sea-smitten, with halyards cracked, and white sails flying in
shreds, like a maniac’s grey locks in the wind--then we will want God’s Word to
steer us off the rocks, and shine like lighthouses through the dark channels of
death, and with hands of light beckon our storm-tossed souls into the harbour.
In that last hour take from me my pillow, take away all soothing draughts, take
away the faces of family and kindred, take away every helping hand and every
consoling voice--alone let me die, on the mountain, on a bed of rock, covered
only by a sheet of embroidered frost, under the slap of the night-wind, and breathing
out my life on the bosom of the wild, wintry blast, rather than in that last
hour take from me my Bible. Stand off, then, ye carping, clipping, meddling
critics, with your penknives! I can think of only one right way in which the
Bible may be divided. A minister went into a house, and saw a Bible on the
stand and said, “What a pity that this Bible should be so torn! You do not seem
to take much care of it. Half the leaves are gone.” Said the man: “This was my
mother’s Bible; and my brother John wanted it, and I wanted it; and we could
not agree about the matter, and so each took a half. My half has been blessed
to my soul, and his half has been blessed to his soul.” That is the only way
that I can think of in which the Word of God may be rightfully cut with a
penknife. The next man that I shall mention as following Jehoiakim’s example is
the infidel who runs his knife through the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation,
and rejects everything. Men strike their knife through this Book, because they
say that the light of nature is sufficient. Indeed! Have the fire-worshippers
of India, cutting themselves with lancets, until the blood spurts at every
pore, found the light of nature sufficient? Has the Bornesian cannibal, gnawing
the roasted flesh from human bones, found the light of nature sufficient? No! I
call upon the pagodas of superstition, the Brahminic tortures, the infanticide of the
Ganges, the bloody wheels of the
Juggernaut, to prove the light of nature is not sufficient. A
star is beautiful, but it pours no light into the midnight of a sinful soul.
The flower is sweet, but it exudes no balm for the heart’s wound. All the
odours that ever floated from royal conservatory, or princely hanging gardens,
give not so much sweetness as is found in one waft from this scriptural
mountain of myrrh and frankincense. All the waters that ever leaped in torrent,
or foamed in cascade, or fell in summer shower, or hung in morning dew, gave no
such coolness to the fevered soul as the smallest drop that ever flashed out from the
showering fountains of this Divine Book. The light of nature is not sufficient.
Infidels strike their penknife through this Book because they say that it is
cruel and indecent. There are things in Ezekiel and Solomon’s Song that they
don’t want read in the families. Ah! if the Bible is so pernicious just show me
somebody that has been spoiled by it. Again, they strike their penknife through
the Bible because it is full of unexplained mysteries. What, will you not
believe anything you cannot explain? Have you finger-nails? You say, “Yes.”
Explain why, on the tip of your finger, there comes a nail. You cannot tell me.
You believe in the law of gravitation; explain it, if you can. I can ask you a
hundred questions about your eyes, about your ears, about your face, about your
feet, that you cannot answer. And yet you find fault that I cannot answer all
the questions you may ask about this Bible. I would not give a farthing for the
Bible if I could understand everything in it. I would know that the heights and
depths of God’s truth were not very great if, with my poor, finite mind, I
could reach everything. Again, the infidel strikes his penknife through this
Book because he says, if it were God’s Book, the whole world would have it. He
says that it is not to be supposed that if God had anything to say to the world
He would say it only to the small part of the human race who actually possess
the Bible. To this I reply that the fact that only a part of the race receives
anything is no ground for believing that God did not bestow it. Who made
oranges and bananas? You say, God. I ask, How can that be, when thousands of
our race never saw an orange or a banana? If God were going to give such things
why did He not give them to all? If all the human race had the same climate,
tile same harvests, the same health, the same advantages, then you might by
analogy argue that if He had a Bible at all He would give it to the whole race
at the same time. Again, the infidel strikes his penknife through the Book by
saying: “You have no right to make the Bible so prominent, because there are
other books that have in them great beauty and value.” There are grand things
in books professing no more than human intelligence. The heathen Bible of the
Persians says: “The heavens are a point from the pen of God’s perfection.’’
“The world is a bud from the bower of His beauty.” “The sun is a spark from the
light of His wisdom.” “The sky is a bubble on the sea of His power.” Beautiful!
Beautiful! Confucius taught kindness to enemies; the Shaster has great
affluence of imagery; the Veda of the Brahmins has ennobling sentiment; but
what have you proved by all this? Simply that the Author of the Bible was as
wise as all the great men that have ever lived put together; because, after you
have gone through all lands, and all ages, and all literatures, and after you
have heaped everything excellent together and boiled it down, you have found in
all that realm of all the ages but a portion of the wisdom that you find in
this one Book. Take it into your heart! Take it into your house! Take it into
your shop! Take it into your store! Though you may seem to get along quite well
without this Book in your days of prosperity, there will come a time to us all
when our only consolation will be this blessed Gospel. (T. De Witt Talmage.)
The written Word
Jeremiah continued to prophesy close up to the time of the first
captivity. The days were evil, the cup of the nation’s iniquity was filling
rapidly, as rapidly, indeed, as the cup of its predicted desolation and sorrow,
yet the people discerned not the signs of the times.
I. The
circumstances which led to the preparation of this roll. Jeremiah had now been
a preacher to the people for three-and-twenty years, serving the Lord with all
humility of mind, and warning the nation” every one night and day with tears.”
The effect of these spoken addresses, however, had been utterly disappointing;
under Divine guidance he must now have recourse to another expedient. He must
prepare a summary of all his sermons, revive upon the minds of the people the
warnings which seemed to have passed away; must enable them to read, each in
the solitude of his secret chamber, words which, as heard with the outward
ears, had neither moved them to repentance nor kindled in them any sense of
alarm. “And the word came unto Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, Take thee a roll
of a book, and write therein all the words that I have spoken unto thee against
Israel, and against Judah, and against all the nations, from the day I spake
unto thee, from the days of Josiah, even unto this day.” It is worthy your
noting how frequently in the Old Testament the Almighty gives instructions to
have His words committed to writing; to Habakkuk it is said, “Write the vision,
and make it plain upon tables.” The commandments given to Moses on Mount Sinai
must be preserved on two tables of testimony,--tables of stone, written with
the finger of God; and the commission given to Ezekiel shall be contained in
“the roll of a book, written within and without.” Of all this, no doubt the
design is to make us appreciate the value of a written revelation, of a written
rule of faith, of a written charter of salvation, of a written and inspired
record of the mind and will of God. In a matter so vital to man’s happiness,
God would not leave us at the mercy of man’s memories--to the fidelity with
which oral traditions might be handed down. But let us see what this history
teaches us is the avowed purpose of the Most High in giving us this written
revelation. “Write all these words, for it may be that the house of Judah will
hear all the evil which I purpose to do unto them”; and the same thought is
repeated in the seventh verse, where Baruch is instructed to go and read the
writing to the assembled people. “It may be, they will present their
supplication before the Lord, and will return every one from his evil way.” But
how striking is this language on the part of Almighty God. “It may be” that
such and such effects will follow on the use of certain means. In the infinite
prescience of the everlasting mind we know there can be no such thing as a “may
be”; gathering into its sweep as that mind does the issues of all being,
chance, time, space, every circumstance with regard to every soul, is an
inevitable must be. While still further, with regard to this very people of
whom it is said, “It may be that they will turn,” we know it was a settled
fact, in the order of the Divine omniscience, that they would not turn, but
would “deal very treacherously.” Too humble we cannot be in dealing with those
apparently conflicting difficulties of moral state, nor too thankful either.
They teach us that in relation to the acts and purposes of an infinite mind
there are things which are too high for us; that however much two statements
may seem to cross each other, if they are clearly revealed we must accept both.
“An intellect to which nothing would be paradoxical,” says Bishop Horsley,
“would be an infinite intellect.” It is a bad way of reconciling two Scripture
doctrines to ignore or overlook or hide under a bushel one of them. The denial
of the doctrine of the Divine predestination, of a knowledge on the part of God
of how you or I shall act at any given moment of our future history, is simple
atheism; the dethronement of God from the rule of the universe, and a passing
of the sceptre to the hands of a thousand wild contingencies, that each may
contend for it as it will. And yet with all this “must be” in the Divine
purposes, room should be left for the “may be” in the human volition and acts.
I bid you take a practical example. Look at the apostle Paul and his companions
in the storm. All the men in that ship were to be saved; he knew that, as an
absolute purpose of God, which nothing could prevent. It was “a must be”; but
the sailors did not believe in this assurance. Hope was gone, the ship must be
abandoned. “Down with, the boats instantly, and let each for himself take his
chance of deliverance.” Now, how did Paul act, with his foreknowledge that all
the passengers should be saved? Did he sit quietly? Just the reverse; with all
the earnestness and solemnity of one who felt that on the assistance of these
sailors he and all that sailed with him were dependent for their life, he cried
out, “Except these abide in the ship ye cannot be saved.” I have told you that
there shall be no loss of any man’s life among us and I believe that It shall
be even as it was told. He seems to add, God s predestinations are accomplished
not by the superseding of human efforts, but by the employment of them; not by
forcing our moral liberty, but in harmony therewith. The end is fixed; but for
the fulfilment of it my earnestness is necessary, your submission to my
directions is necessary; the labour and skill of these seamen to lighten the
ship, to take up the anchor, to loose the rudder-bands, to hoist up the
mainsail to the wind are necessary. There is a sense in which it “must be” that
you shall be saved, and there is a sense in which it may be that you shall
perish. You have, to do, not with the certainty, but with the contingency, and
it hangs upon this, “Except these abide in the ship.” And it is under like
limitations that God uses the expression, “it may be,” in regard to the effect
which the writings of Jeremiah might have upon the minds of those who should
read them,--whether the Jews or ourselves. But, in our case, the putting of the
Bible into our hands is, so to speak, a moral experiment. To us, His
ministering servants, God says, “Here is a book fitted by the nature of its
discoveries to commend itself to every man’s conscience; calculated by its
discoveries of a Saviour’s love, and power, and tenderness, to win the most
hardened heart to repentance, and accompanied, moreover, with such piercing and
persuasive energy, through the influences of the Spirit, that only on the
supposition of the most resolved obduracy and pride can any conscience remain
unconvinced of its guilt, or any sinner continue in the error of his ways. I,
in My infinite foresight, may know that in the case of this man, or of that,
the message will fail, but I will have the experiment tried with all. Thou
shalt speak My word unto them, whether they will hear or whether they will
forbear.’” You must preach upon contingencies; “Take thee a roll of a book, ‘it
may be that the house of Judah will hear all the evil that I purpose to do unto
them.’” But let us look at this “may be”--this merciful contingency that God,
in condescension to our forms of thought, is pleased to speak of. These
possible results, which it is in the heart of God to do, should be produced by
our taking the Book of Scripture into our hands. First, God hopes thereby to
excite in us a holy fear of His just displeasure--“It may be that they will
hear all the evil that I purpose to do unto them.” Yes, will hear it and
believe in it--will not suppose that I speak parables, will not think that I
have just menaced merely to humble, or have drawn pictures of calamity only to
terrify, but will be persuaded of a truth that if My message be not accepted
these results will follow. I will leave men to themselves, I will withdraw from
them the influences of My Holy Spirit, I will bid the great High Priest offer
up no more prayers for them, I will even suffer them to delude themselves into
a false peace. Oh! ye who despise the Word, will ye hear all the evil which God
purposes to do unto you? But see, God has better hope of His work. He trusts it
may produce amendment of life, accompanied with earnest desires for
forgiveness--“It may be that they may return every man from his evil way, that
I may forgive their iniquity and their sin.” Do not fail to note here the
import of that expression. “That I may forgive.” It touches upon another of God
s deep things, namely, upon what God is able to do, what are the limits imposed
upon Him by the nature of His own attributes, upon some things which cannot be
done by Him, to whom, nevertheless, we are accustomed to say that “all things
are possible.” Sins of longest life I can forgive, and sins of the blackest
dye; I can forgive infirmity, forgive years of despised grace and despised
opportunity, but it is beyond the power of My holy nature, beyond the reach of
the great propitiation, to forgive where there is no returning, where the heart
is still in love with evil, enslaved under the uncast-off yoke of sin. “It may
be that they may return, that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin.” I
must note one other of these contingent results which God hopes for through His
written Word, put by the Spirit into the mouth of Jeremiah; namely, that it
will set the people upon much earnest prayer. “It may be,” he says to Baruch,
in the seventh verse, “that they will present their supplications before the
Lord, and will return every one from his evil way.” Very beautifully does this
come in, for none of the other results were to be expected without this the
sense of spiritual danger, the heart to turn from sin, the desire for
experimental assurance of the Divine forgiveness, are, it is true, not things
that we could ever obtain by ourselves, but are the gifts of God, promised to
earnest and persevering prayer. You are told to pray, told that it is the will
of God that you should pray. There you have something; use that, and then God
will give more. You pray that you may know how to pray; if the heart so turned
to God be not yours, yet you desire that you may have that heart, and all
hinges upon your honest use of God’s kind” contingencies. This merciful
experiment He is making with you as to the use of His written Word, “it may be
they wall present their supplications before the Lord.” If they do, the next
step will follow, “they will return every one from his evil way.” Such is the
design of a gracious God, in ordering Jeremiah to prepare the roll; such were
His ends in restoring it after it was destroyed, and presenting it, with all
its subsequent enrichments, for the use of us and of our children unto this
day.
II. The roll
destroyed. Jeremiah, as we learn from the narrative, was at this time under
restraint; not in prison, where he was not placed until afterwards, but only
forbidden by Jehoiakim to exercise his prophetic functions, or even to be
present at the services of the temple. Accordingly he gives it in charge to
Baruch, a man who had taken all the Lord’s words in his mouth, to go up and
recite all the words of the Lord in the ears of the people who would assemble
in the Lord’s house on the fast day. Whether there was no congregation
assembled, or in obedience to some unrecorded instruction, the first reading of
the roll seems to have taken place in the hearing of a single person only, in
one of the side courts in the entrance of the gates of the Lord’s house. This
noble hearer was Michaiah, the son of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, the scribe,
who was so arrested by the words he had heard that he lost no time in going to tell
them, as well as he could remember, to the princes at the time resident in the
court of Jehoiakim. Interested in this second-hand recital, the princes thought
they should like to hear for themselves, and they accordingly sent for Baruch
to the palace, that they might have a private hearing of the words of this
roll. And here it concerns us nearly, to watch what effect the reading of this
roll had upon the princes. Well, in the first instance, it produced in the
minds of these princes sentiments of deep emotion. “It came to pass, when they
had heard all the words, they were afraid, both one and the other, and said
unto Baruch, We will surely tell the king all these words.” Easily can we
conceive how encouraged Baruch would be by this first fruit of a faithful
message; he had stirred up the dormant activities of conscience; the arrows of
conviction were rankling sharply in the soul, a sudden fear had evidently taken
hold of the men,--“they trembled.” For this, as we know, is the sequel: the
princes tell the matter to the king, the king sends for the book, commands one
of his servants to read out of it, and is so irritated at its disclosures, that
at the end of the third or fourth leaf he takes the roll from the hand of
Jehudi, and having cut it up to pieces that no part of it might be recovered,
waits with awful deliberation until all the roll is consumed in the fire on the
hearth. The marvel of the sacred writer seems to be less at the burning than at
what followed the burning, or rather at what did not follow the blasphemous
hardihood that could go so far and not tremble at the mischief itself had
wrought, “yet they were not afraid, nor rent their garments, neither the king
nor any of his servants that heard all these words.” It is just here that an
important practical lesson comes in for us, for it tells us what despised
religious conviction may lead to; what a soul-hardening tendency there is in
warnings which we have felt once, and felt keenly too, but which we resolved
afterwards we would put aside and try to forget all about; and the danger is
the same to this day. Show me a man who has never been the subject of one
serious or solemn thought, whom the Word, whether read or preached, has never
penetrated with a sense of sin or danger, and of that man, I say, I have hope.
The arrow is yet on the wing, it may pierce him yet. But when we come to the
case of a man who, like Judah’s princes, has trembled under the power of the
Word, or who, like Jehoiakim himself, has felt it to be so pointedly addressed
to his own heart that he could bear its presence no longer, then I say there is
room for nothing but the most distressing apprehension, and fearful standings
in doubt. Ay! better had it been for Elnathan, and Delaiah, and Gemariah never
to have seen that roll at which their consciences trembled, than having seen it
and having trembled at it, to have relapsed into their former indifference, and
even to stand by whilst its dishonoured pages were blazing on the hearth.
III. The roll
restored and replenished with more awful judgments. Who ever hardened his heart
against God and prospered? Who ever kicked against the pricks of an accusing
conscience and did not live to mourn in bitterness his folly? The anger of
Jehoiakim against the roll was great, because it told him that the king of
Babylon should certainly come and destroy the land. And so, like the foolish
Brahmin who crushed the microscope with a stone because it showed him insects
in his food, he thought to be revenged on the roll by burning it in the fire.
Well, what are the consequences? Why, the new roll Jeremiah was to write
contained not only the former things, but some worse, even the utter ruin of
the royal house, the condemnation of Jehoiakim’s posterity to captivity and
shame, and the exposure of his own body to the burial of an ass, as an eternal
monument of God’s displeasure against all who despised the warnings of His
written Word. Not only was Jeremiah to rewrite all the words of the Book which
had been burned in the fire, but, says the sacred historian, “There were added
besides unto them many like words.” And what is the great practical lesson I
wish you to derive from this part of the history? That the Word of God is
imperishable. A singular and wonderful Providence, as we all know, has watched
over that Word. Every jot and tittle shall have its complete fulfilment, for
indeed there is something beyond the mere writing. Oh, suffer me to remind you
of its double aspect, its double lesson, its double tendency, either to
strengthen the mind and hopes of the righteous, or to cover with overwhelming
hopelessness the prospects of the ungodly and the sinner. Let me say a word
first to those who feel that they do not belong to Christ, have no part in the
covenant, know well enough they are not washed, not sanctified, not justified
by the Lord Jesus Christ, and by the Spirit of our God. Must I not in all faithfulness say
to them, even as Baruch would have said to Jehoiakim when he threw the strips
and shreds of heavenly truth into the flame, “Be thou well assured that all the
words written in this roll shall come to pass, yes, and there shall be added
unto them many like words”? The neglect of the preached Word can but aggravate
the condemnation. “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not
pass away.” More grateful, however, is it to the minister of the Gospel of love
and peace to approach this imperishableness of the written Word from its other
side, and see what are the promises to them that fear God. And to them I say,
even to all that are in Christ Jesus, to all that have found peace, this
unfailing certainty of all that God hath written in His Word is like a footing
on the everlasting rock. Yes, it is yours to live in a world of change, changes
in nature, changes in Providence, changes in the Church of God, changes in the
rolling seasons, changes in your own frames and feelings, and desires and
spiritual experiences; and what protection and refuge against your own
inconstancy, your own fluctuations of purpose, and will, and power, is it to be
able to fall back on the unchanging, eternal, indefeasible Word of promise of
the Most High God, of Jesus “the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.” (D.
Moore, M. A.)
Bible-burning
We read in the first lesson this morning the earliest instance of
Bible-burning on record, and also the uselessness of the experiment. On this
page of the Bible we have two extremes brought into juxtaposition--there is the
extreme of utter obedience,
as illustrated by the Rechabites, in the preceding chapter, and the extreme of disobedience,
recorded here. Between these two cases lies the life conduct of the men and
women of our generation. Few are so obedient as to follow out to the very
letter the duties enjoined on us by God’s holy Word. We like to shirk the more
disagreeable, and to modify others so as to justify a partial obedience; and
yet, though we may try to find loopholes through which to escape distasteful
duties, I question much whether any would go to the extreme of defiance,
represented by Jehoiakim’s conduct in burning the Book itself. Whether the
teachings of the Book are followed out as they should be, or disregarded,
people generally admit their duty to obey and yield honour and respect to the
Book itself, if not from proper motives, then from a superstitious, unreasoning
veneration. The holy Bible ought to be treated by us with respect at least; the
Book ought not to be treated as any other book, but should occupy a place
peculiarly its own, and that because it is the gift of God to man, the gift
which shows us the way of salvation, which tells us of God’s relationship to us
as our Father, which tells the story of a Saviour’s love and compassion.
Jehoiakim is a beacon to us to warn us of the danger of hardening our hearts
and resisting holy influences. Sins persisted in bring sorrow and reverses, and
the effect of reverses is either to bring us to God or to drive us far away
from Him into the outer darkness of misery and ruin. Unless the heart is
illuminated by the light of true religion, man will rebel when God chastens;
misfortunes will but drive him into evil excesses, and, instead of quickening
within his breast the sense of sin and inciting to repentance, he will go from
bad to worse, he will be unwilling to hear the voice of God, will shut his eyes
to his danger, and will, in effect, dismiss those whose duty it is to recall
him to his better self, with the old answer of Felix to Paul. (M. P.
Maturin, M.A.)
Rejected blessings
Time is the material of our lives, but do not those people out it
with a penknife, and cast it into the fire, who talk of “killing time,” and put
their words into practice? But if it perishes it is recorded, and an hour will
come when they would give all that they possess for a moment of it. Youth is
one of the precious opportunities of life--rich in blessings if we choose to
make it so, but having in it the materials of undying remorse if we out it with
a penknife, and cast it into the fire. Health is another of God’s most precious
gifts which is too often cut with a penknife and thrown into the fire of
passionate sin. “Never treat money affairs with levity--money is character.”
This is a wise precept, for money is a power lent to us by God, not for our own
use only, but for the good of others. There is then such a thing as
conscientious money-spending, and it is very sinful to cut money, so to speak,
with a penknife and cast it into the fire. If we are to be saved, we must use
the means of salvation which God gives to us as He gave this roll of a book to
Jehoiakim. Above all, we must not treat with contempt the gracious invitations
of our Saviour to come unto Him. If we despise or neglect so great salvation,
we shall kill our souls. No doubt Jehoiakim fancied when he burned the roll
upon which God’s threatenings against his sins were written, that these would
somehow be prevented from taking effect. But the truth of God is not so easily
destroyed. Jeremiah caused another and a longer roll to be written. From this
we may learn the often-forgotten fact that the truth of God does not depend
upon men. They may believe or they may not believe, but though this matters to
themselves it cannot destroy truth. It is well to remember this fact, which,
when stated, seems so obvious, for many men have a contemptuous patronising way
of talking about religion as if it would perish if they ceased to believe it.
And as it is with truth, so is it with our responsibilities. We do not get rid
of them by simply ignoring them and treating them with contempt. (E. J.
Hardy, M. A.)
Jehoiakim’s penknife
A homely writer says, “Jehoiakim’s patent has expired, and a whole
army of followers of his are fond of cutting at God’s Word.” God gives very
sharp, earnest, forcible warnings. He gives them in Scripture; He gives them in
our daily lives. Do not let us handle Jehoiakim’s penknife to pare down the
long dark columns of warning against sin and heedlessness and godlessness,
which are written in His book. Shall I tell you how this absurd childish folly
comes about? It comes of small pieces of heedlessness, gentle warnings not
heeded, then stronger ones are sent, and they too are soon tossed aside. I
cannot believe that Jehoiakim became such a downright fighter against God by
any sudden visitation; he probably went on from smaller neglects to greater;
from neglects to rejections; from rejections to defiance, till at last he
thought as little of cutting God’s Word into fragments, as he once would have
thought of putting off a serious thought to a more convenient season. (J.
Kempthorne, M. A.)
Burning the roll
I remember, when on a mission, coming down from a pulpit
where I had been pleading with souls, and going up to a respectably dressed
man, one on whom my eye had rested more than once while preaching. I saw the
tear was in his eye; I knew that the Word had gone home to his heart. I entreated
him then and there to give himself up to the Lord. I daresay I talked with him
for a quarter of an hour, till at last I found he too seemed to burn the roll.
He began by listening to me politely and civilly, but as I went on earnestly
pleading with him, pressing him to surrender himself to God, I saw he was
resisting and hardening his heart, till at last he said something to the effect
that he wished I would not talk to him any more. So after offering a short
prayer I had to withdraw. A few weeks after, that man was struck on the head in
a drunken broil, and never had time to say, “God save my soul.” His day of
grace ended in that church, he too had burned the roll. (W. Hay Aitken, M. A.)
Unbelief does not alter facts
Jehoiakim made the other mistake of thinking that he had removed
the danger when he had destroyed the roll that told of it. He could burn the
parchment, but did that arrest the tramp of Nebuchadnezzar’s army? Putting out
the lighthouse lamps does not blow up the reef. Its merciless fangs are as
sharp as ever, and all the more surely fatal because they are hid in the
darkness. We do not alter facts by refusing to believe them, or to attend to
the statement of them. As Bishop Butler says, “Things are as they are,” and
burning Jeremiah’s roll changed nothing. Only it was the throwing away of one
more possibility of escape, and made the king a more hopeless victim of the
fierce conqueror. (A. Maclaren.)
Jehoiakim’s wickedness
We have before us one of the most tragic acts of wickedness
recorded in the history of the kings of Judah. It is in striking contrast with
the act of the good King Josiah (2 Chronicles 34:15-33), who, when
the lost book of the law was found, humbled himself and gave instant heed to
its warnings and precepts; all the more so because the good king was father of
this wicked and defiant one. Truly grace does not run in the blood. The chapter
before us relates how Jeremiah had written out a summary of the prophecies
concerning the impending captivity, and caused it to be read to the people
assembled at a great and special fast in the Temple, and afterward to the
princes in private, and finally to the king (verses 1-19). The object of the
special message was one of compassion and pity on the part of Jehovah (verses
3, 7). It is
wonderful how, in the midst of His wrath, God always remembers mercy. The
reading of the prophecy to the people evidently made a deep impression, for the
news of it was carried to the princes, who sent for Baruch and had him read it
to them. They in turn were deeply affected, and said it must be brought before
the king. They, however, knew his tyrannical temper, and took two precautions.
First, after hearing from Baruch s lips how he came to write this prophecy of
woe, they warned him to go with Jeremiah, and both to secrete themselves from
the wrath of the king; then they laid the writing up in the house of the scribe
(verses 15-19), and lastly went in to report the matter to the king. These princes
seemed favourable to the prophet and to the Word of God, but they feared the
king. An evil king can suppress the good that is in his people and prevent a
whole nation from repentance or reformation. Men in authority have great
privilege, but also great responsibility.
I. The Word of God
destroyed. The burden of the word of Jeremiah, which was a summary of all his
prophecies on this point, was that Judah should be carried away captive by the
King of Babylon (verse 29). This was not the first warning, but the gathering
up of all past threats; it was God’s final word to the king and the people. As
it was read, he ordered it bit by bit to be cut away and thrown into the fire
until all was consumed. In this action the following points may be noted--
1. The contempt of the king. The princes had put the writing away in
the house of the scribe (verse 20) before they went in to the king. This was a
testimony of their respect for a message sent by a prophet of the Lord, and of
their fear for its safety. The king, however, had no such feelings of reverence
for God’s Word. He did not even dignify the document by sending a proper
official to bring it; but showed his contempt by telling a page or
under-secretary to fetch it. This act was a suggestive prelude to what followed
afterward. The Bible, of all books, is entitled to the place of highest honour,
and it is a bad sign when this due respect ceases to be manifest.
2. The rage of the king. As the book was being read, the king
overlooked the message, which undoubtedly was incorporated, that God hoped that
the reading of it might induce them to turn from their sins and claim His
promised mercy. Many people, who declaim against what they call the hard and
bitter denunciation of sin and of the judgments of God, seem persistently to
forget that the Book which condemns sinners to death and hell is mostly taken
up with earnest and loving entreaties to repentance, with promises of life and
salvation. God was beyond his reach, but” His Word being within his grasp, he poured
out his wrath against that. He ordered it to be cut to pieces and burned with
fire. This was not a hasty and impulsive action on the part of the king, but
deliberate and premeditated. He perseveres in his evil work, notwithstanding
the remonstrances of his princes. He was a “proud and haughty scorner, who
dealt in proud wrath” (Proverbs 21:24). There are times when
remonstrance ceases to be wise, and a wilful sinner must be given up to his
chosen way. The reason for his wrath was the evil tidings which the prophet’s
words brought him. Yet how foolish was his wrath--how impotent his rage! For
what did he destroy? Only the parchment on which the Word of God was written;
not the Word of God itself. It is related of a heathen princess of hideous
countenance, that on looking into a mirror which a missionary had, and seeing
her ugliness, she destroyed the glass in rage, and ordered that no more mirrors
should be brought into her kingdom. I once saw a man in a railway carriage to
whom a leaf of the New Testament had been given, crumple it up in his hand,
fling it on the floor, spit on it, and grind it under his heel. This action was
as ridiculous as it was impotent. The rage of the hater of God’s Word was
evoked, but the Word of God was not destroyed.
3. The attitude of the witnesses. There were two classes of witnesses
present.
4. The baffled king. Having destroyed the writing, the king began to
reflect that he had not avoided God’s Word or put himself beyond the further
reach of it, so long as the scribe and the prophet were at large. He therefore
sent to have them arrested. Probably he contemplated their murder, thinking
thus he would get rid of the Word. This is an old method with the haters of
God. “But the Lord hid them.” Let us suppose he had succeeded in getting hold
of the prophet and had killed him; would he next seek to destroy God too? This
would be the logical course. How men forget that when they have destroyed the
outward revelation they have not destroyed the Word of God; and when they have
killed the prophets they have not baffled the Spirit by whom the prophets
speak. God hid His prophet and His scribe. Man is immortal till God has no
further need of him. Let all God s witnesses know of a truth that God can
deliver His servants from any manifestation of the wrath of man, if it is best
for them and for His cause; and let them know when He does not deliver, it is
neither for want of love, faithfulness, nor power, but because all round it is
best that they should seal their testimony with suffering or death.
II. The
indestructible Word. The facts in this incident bring out clearly the truth,
that man’s hatred and rage against God’s Word are as impotent as is the broken
wave that falls back in spray from the rock against which it has spent itself.
In this conflict of man against God’s message, we see that it is neither a book
nor a man against which the enemies of Christ fight. God can reproduce His
Word, either by the same prophet, as He did in this case, or by another. Before
the world can get rid of the Gospel it must kill all the believers in the
world, and then they must not be too sure that God has not hidden His Word as
He hid His prophet, to come forth unexpectedly, as the law came forth in the
time of Josiah. Millions of Bibles may be destroyed, and the preachers and
witnesses of the Word burned and put to the sword, but it only serves to both
increase the Word of God and multiply the witnesses. When will the world learn
that they cannot fight against God? Look only at the impotence of men in this
conflict in the past. One Herod destroyed the little children, but God hid His
Christ; another Herod beheaded John the Baptist, but failed utterly to destroy
his testimony. The world crucified Christ; but God raised Him from the dead.
The world imprisoned the apostles, stoned Stephen, put James to the sword,
persecuted the young Church, but this only served to increase the number of
believers and multiply the revelation. Paul wrote more Epistles while in prison
than he would have if he had been free. John wrote the Revelation while he was
exiled for the Word of God. “The Word of God cannot be broken,” or
defeated,--as this foolish and wicked king found out. Several points more may be
noted in connection with this latter half of our study.
1. God takes note of our treatment of His Word. It is evident that
the eyes of the
Lord were upon the king while he was burning the roll, from the fact that,
immediately afterward, He commissioned Jeremiah to rewrite it.
2. The Word rewritten. “Not one jot or tittle” of God’s Word shall
pass away till all be fulfilled. What was the king advantaged by his work? What
are any of us advantaged by our unbelief? Suppose we say, “I do not believe
God’s Word,” will that alter the fact that it will be carried out to the
letter? Suppose instead of destroying God’s Word, we keep it closed, never look
into it and never go where it is preached, or, reading and hearing, do not heed
it; will that prevent it from being fulfilled? Shall our unbelief make God’s
Word to be a lie? Did the unbelief of the antediluvians prevent the flood?
3. More words added. In the first message God had simply told the
king that he and the people would be carried away captive, but now He adds
more, saying that for this act of wickedness he himself should be deprived of a
direct heir, and his body should be cast out and exposed to the heat of the day
and the frost of the night. He would not only bring upon the men of Judah all
that He had first declared, but would add an especial punishment to the king.
Cumulative unbelief brings cumulative punishment. With the burial of an ass
shall he be
buried; dragged and east out far from the gates of Jerusalem, and none shall
mourn for him, either as brother, or kindred, or king (Jeremiah 22:19). To mutilate the Word of God, either by
adding to it or destroying it, is to bring special additional plagues and
sufferings upon the transgressor (Revelation 22:18-19). Let us learn this
solemn lesson in connection with the Word of God. His Word is eternal; it can
neither be bound nor broken; that it will not cease in the world until all that
is written therein be fulfilled. All the unbelief, neglect, and rage against it
are utterly futile (Isaiah 40:6-8). (G. F. Pentecost.)
The story of a penknife
I. Jehoiakim’s use
or misuse of the penknife. Let us talk a little about this famous penknife. In
itself it was a very insignificant article. Very unlike was it to its namesakes
of to-day, which contain so many other things beside the knife blades that one
feels as if one were carrying about an engineer’s tool bag and a portable
carpenter’s shop. The knife Jehoiakim used was a rough specimen of workmanship,
doubtless, even though, as it belonged to me king s confidential secretary, it
is likely to have been the very best of its kind. Probably it was a straight
bit of metal thickened at one end for a handle, flattened and sharpened for a
blade at the other end. A pocket-knife it was not, being carried in the oblong
writing-case or box along with the ink horn and reed pen. That rough bit of
bladed iron was the instrument of the king’s spiritual suicide.
II. The meaning of
Jehoiakim’s conduct.
1. He had formed a resolution against God. The message of the roll
asserts the Divine authority over Jehoiakim and his kingdom. He would not
permit such interference. He would manage his own affairs. How bright a day was
it for some of us when we resolved that we would serve God! But what a black
day it must be when the decision is taken that God shall not be served. That
was what Jehoiakim meant. He doomed himself henceforward to follow his own
will.
2. This resolution was avowed by a public act. Among our red-letter
days, if the day of decision for Christ comes first, the day of professing
Christ comes next in importance. As days are reckoned in heaven, that would be
the exact order. But what a terrible thing to express the opposite decision! It
may be quickly and easily done-by the tone of a laugh. Jehoiakim’s courtiers would
all know, as well as if he had said the words, punctuating each word with a
slash of the penknife at the manuscript,
“I will not serve God.”
3. The decision and profession were impatient and hasty. The entire
roll was God’s message to the king. Only three or four columns--a very small
portion comparatively, was read before the whole was destroyed. To decide
against God without hearing Him out, is a madman’s act. “Let our minds be open
a while longer.” Jehoiakim had committed himself, and all the greater part of
his people.
4. This hasty action was an insult to God. To tear up a letter unread
or in public--and Jehoiakim did both--can have but one meaning. “This letter
ought never to have been written.” But fancy acting like this towards God, and
saying to your Maker, “You have no business to interfere with me!”
III. The use of the
penknife by imitators of Jehoiakim in other times. In many ways it is possible
to insult Almighty God by professing a hasty, half-conscious decision that we
will let Him manage our life. The penknife is still at work in various ways.
1. One favourite kind of penknife is an insult or injury to God’s
messenger. God’s message is often represented by the man who brings it, and
pulling the servant to pieces, in one way or another, is a common expression of
revolt against God. Herod’s penknife was the sharp sword of his executioner,
putting an end to the life of the prophet who had become an incarnate rebuke.
Cruelty is not always necessary. A passing slight is quite enough.
2. Similar results may be effected by staying away from a meeting, or
severing oneself from a society or class, breaking off an acquaintance with an
earnest Christian, and so on. The Bible class is getting rather “warm,” as you
call it. Conversions are frequent, and it will be your turn soon. So you absent
yourself.
3. A more or less sincere profession of scepticism will serve the
purpose well. Are there some here ready to decide hastily against God and
heaven? Have you listened to the entire message which, in various ways, God has
spoken? Have some of us used the penknife in days gone by? Has the message of
the Saviour no power to affect us now, because of certain action of ours in the
past, which has torn up, as it were, the communication between God and
ourselves? Are we on this account conscious of no desire or inclination to be
better than we are? Let us humbly entreat the Lord we have insulted to speak
again. Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth. No, I am not Thy servant; but I
fain would be; nor am I sure that I can hear. I destroyed my hearing by my own
act; but oh, for the sake of the dear Saviour, who bade the Gospel be preached
to every creature, speak again, Lord, and make me listen. (W. Carey Sage, M.
A.)
A fool and his penknife
All things were hastening to a general clash and ruin
unless they speedily mended their ways; and the king and his flatterers were
living, as such gentry do, in a fools’ paradise. Jeremiah saw it with the
seer’s illumined eyes. It came to him as the Word of the Lord, and as the Word
of the Lord he wrote it down on a roll of parchment. The roll was brought to
the king, as he sat enthroned in one of his palaces, with his courtly parasites
and sycophants around him. It contained no flattery. It was a black picture of
the king’s misdoings, and the terrible consequences which some near morrow
would bring. The royal sinner did not like it. What sinner does, whether he be
king or beggar? He did not want to think about to-morrow. No man on the highway
to destruction does.
I. Now that
picture of the king with the penknife is often repeated in various ways. The
Bible has been so often attacked by that instrument that if it were not the
indestructible Word and work of God it would long since have disappeared.
People have always been so busy cutting out what they did not believe, or what
they did not like, that really it is only by a perpetual miracle that there is
any of it left. I thank God that I have still my Bible, and believe in it in
spite of all the cutting and paring down that has been done. Somehow it stands
the fire and comes out unharmed, no matter what furnace you pass it through.
Critics have their day, and Jehoiakims do their fooling and die, but the Word
of the Lord endureth for ever.
II. I am afraid we
all keep that instrument for special occasions, and use it when we do not wish
to face an inconvenient or unwelcome truth. Men who profess the greatest
reverence for the Bible sometimes manage to put out parts which do not
harmonise with their conduct and views. There are our good friends who admire,
honour, revere, and love Christ as the highest man, but stop short of
worshipping Him as Divine. It must surely be a difficult thing for them to read
the New Testament without the penknife.
III. I fear we are
all sinners, either with penknife or the paste. We often cut out moral precepts
and commandments if they do not quite accord with our conduct. Most of us use
the knife on those many words of Jesus and His apostles which warn us against
Mammon worship and covetousness and the love of money, and tell us not to pay
all our devotions to the people who have it. It makes our conscience easier if
we can somehow get these texts put out. Some people do not always like the
Fourth Commandment and kindred injunctions which speak to us about honouring
father and mother and reverencing the hoary head. “That is quite antiquated
prejudice, and out of date,” they say; “let the penknife deal with it.” There
are people who talk far too freely, and not always too truthfully, discussing
the faults of friends, and passing on mischievous scandal. I read them what
Jesus said: “For every idle word you shall give account.” “Oh! is that there?”
they say. “I do not believe it; lend me a penknife.” And there are Christian
people who find it desperately hard to forgive; it is as hard as to get a camel
through the eye of s needle. They will keep a grudge and maintain a silent
quarrel with a fellow-Christian for years. I open the book for them and read:
“If thy brother offend thee seventy times, and seventy times repent, thou shalt
forgive him,” &c. “Be ye kind, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, if
any man have a quarrel against any.” And they stop me and say, “These things
are not in my Bible; I have cut them all out.” And there are all those sayings
of the Master and His apostles about cheerfulness, gladness, thankfulness--“Be
of good cheer; in all things give thanks; be content with such things as ye
have; rejoice always, and again I say rejoice.” They are the brightest and
pleasantest sunshine in the Bible; but some of us use the penknife on them
every day. We should all be better Christians if we could lust take the Book as
it is, and not be always forgetting or putting out the parts we least like. But
let me not forget to say that the penknife is used far more constantly, and
more in Jehoiakim’s fashion, by those who are not Christians at all, by those
who are living wholly irreligious lives. Away with all the warnings,
threatenings, counsels, and invitations which stand in the way of our desires.
“The soul that sinneth it shall die.” “The wages of sin is death.” “For all
these things God will surely bring thee into judgment.” “Whatsoever a man
soweth that shall he also reap” Cut away the roll; burn it; let us forget the
words; out of mind is out of existence; the day of reckoning will never come.
But it does come, nevertheless! The inevitable hour creeps on; the debt stands
though you tear the bill in two and burn both halves. You cannot burn God’s
ledger in which all the accounts are kept. You will have to pay that bill
unless, through faith and repentance and the merits of Jesus, it is all
forgiven. (J. G. Greenhough, M. A.)
The indestructible Word
I. Eyes opened to
see. There was a vast difference between Baruch, whose heart was in perfect
sympathy with Jeremiah, and Jehudi or the princes. But there was almost as much
between the faithful scribe and the heaven-illumined prophet. The one could
only write as the words streamed from those burning lips; he saw nothing, he
realised nothing; to him the walls of the chamber were the utmost bound of
vision; whilst the other beheld the whole landscape of truth outspread before
him, the rocks and shoals on the margin of the ocean, the inrolling
storm-billows tipped with angry foam, the gathering clouds, the ship straining
in every timber and driving sheer on the shore. This was the work of the Spirit
who inspired him, and whose special function it was to open the eye of the
seers of the old time to the great facts of the unseen and eternal world, which
were shortly to be reduplicated in the world of the temporal and visible. To
speak what he knew, and to testify what he had seen--such was the mission of
the prophet. In our case there is no likelihood of this. Yet men may be seers
still. Two men may sit together side by side. The veil of sense may hang darkly
before the one, whilst for the other it is rent in twain from the top to the
bottom. Happy are they the eyes of whose heart are opened, to know what is the
hope of His calling, what the riches of His inheritance in the saints, and what
the exceeding greatness of His power toward them that believe. It is very
important that all Christians should be alive to and possess this power of
vision. It is deeper than intellectual, since it is spiritual; it is not the
result of reasoning or learning, but of intuition; it cannot be acquired in the
school of earthly science, but is the gift of Him who alone can open the eyes
of the blind, and remove the films of earthliness that shut out the eternal and
unseen. It is a thousand pities to be blind, and not able to see afar off, when
all around stand the mountains of God in solemn majesty; as the Alps around the
Swiss hostelry, where the traveller arrives after nightfall, to eat and drink
and sleep, unconscious of the proximity of so much loveliness. If, on the other
hand, you have the opened eye, yon will not need books of evidences to
establish to your satisfaction the truth of our holy religion; the glory of the
risen Lord; the world of the unseen. With the woman of Samaria you will say,
“We have seen it for ourselves.” They who see these things are indifferent to
the privations of the tent-life, or, as in Jeremiah’s case, rise superior to
the hatred of man and the terrors of a siege.
II. The use of the
penknife. It is probable that no one is free from the almost unconscious habit
of evading or toning down certain passages which conflict with the doctrinal or
ecclesiastical position in which we were reared, or which we have assumed. In
our private reading of the Scripture we must beware of using the penknife.
Whole books and tracts of truth are practically cut out of the Bible of some
earnest Christians. But we can only eliminate these things at our peril. The
Bible is like good wheaten bread, which contains all the properties necessary
to support life. And we cannot eliminate its starch or sugar, its nitrates or
phosphates, without becoming enfeebled and unhealthy. It is a golden rule to
read the Bible as a whole.
III. The
indestructible word. Jeremiah wrote another roll. And the facts to which
Jeremiah bore witness all came to pass. Neither knife nor fire could arrest the
inevitable doom of king, city, and people. The drunken captain may cut in
pieces the chart that tells of the rocks in the vessel’s course, and put in
irons the sailor who calls his attention to it; but neither will avert the crash that must ensue
unless the helm is turned. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
Verse 24
Yet they were not afraid.
The hardening power of sin
Is it conceivable that men who believed Jeremiah to be a prophet
of God should despise his words? Is it credible that, after preaching for
twenty years, those who listened to him should think him a prophet, and yet
throw his sermons in the fire? I am afraid this is very conceivable and very
credible: I see nothing in it a whir more incredible than in this, that men who
dare not deny the Bible to be the Word of God, should know what is right and
not do it, that they should have warning of a far more fearful captivity than
that which was coming on the Jews, and yet should never tremble. The king of
Judah and his people were not in the condition of men who had been sinning in
ignorance, and to whom a sudden message had come from God to warn them to
repent; they had no excuse of this kind, they had been deliberately disobeying
God in spite of the warnings of Jeremiah, they had sinned against light, as we
say, and so they had become blinded and hardened. At first probably, when they
heard the prophet, they felt that they were living wickedly and made
resolutions to amend, but by and by temptation came again and they gave way;
then once more they would hear the warning voice, but somehow it would not this time be so
terrible. Is it difficult to find examples of the like thing now? of men who by
little and little fall from one sin to another, who have been taught as
children the way of God and have been told of heaven and hell, and so are
scared at first when they think that “the wages of sin is death”; but by and by
this truth seems to lose its edge, sin has gained more hold, and Satan has said
as he did to Eve, “Ye shall not surely die”; one sin leads to another, and each
seems easier than the one before it; things which once appeared frightful now
seem simple and familiar, and thus after a time the man becomes hardened. This
is what the confession of many criminals confirms, they trace their
wretchedness hack to some much smaller sin committed when young: a boy disobeys
his parents, and perhaps would not believe you if you told him that he had taken
one step towards the gallows; and let this may be true. This I understand by
the deceitfulness of sin, to which the apostle refers its hardening power (Hebrews 3:13); it is deceitful, because
what we call a small sin appears trifling, because we judge of sins merely in
themselves, without considering to what they lead. If in a war a general were
to see a few of the enemy’s soldiers straggling over the hills, he might say
that they were so few that they were not worth considering, but would he say
so? or would he not rather look upon them as the forerunners of a great army,
would he not prepare at once to resist the host of enemies which he must know
lurked behind? In like manner the sins of childhood are the forerunners of the
great army of the world, the flesh, and the devil, which comes up in maturer
years, and the only safe course is to look upon no sin as trifling, but to root
out every enemy whether small or great, lest perhaps we allow our enemy to gain such
strength as shall end in our overthrow. We will consider first the ease of a
man who seldom or never goes to church. Now I suppose the reason such a man
would give is, that he does not
see the use of it. Did he always think so? Most probably he had
been taught differently when a child, he had been taught that God is with His
people gathered together in His Name, that our Lord Jesus Christ is there; he
was taught this, and he once believed it, but now he thinks he is as well at home:
how has this change come about? has he reasoned about it? probably not at all:
has any one for whom he has any respect told him so? certainly not: then what
has changed him? it is the effect of habit; he has been “hardened by the
deceitfulness of sin.” What I have just said will apply almost without change
to the case of a man who never prays. He was taught to pray as a child, and
perhaps he continues the practice, till at length, because he does not act up
to his prayers, he finds the practice tiresome, and so he finds an excuse to
omit prayer occasionally; then he grows more careless and more irregular, and
yet the omission costs him less and less pain, till at last the time comes when
he forgets God altogether, and so starves his soul to death. Or again, what
shall we say of those who continually hear of their duty, and do not do it, or
at all events do it in a very stinted degree? One man is just and kind and
liberal, being scarcely aware of it himself, and another is niggardly and
churlish, not because he thinks it right to be so, but because he has become
hardened. It is a thing for every one of us to think over and pray over,
whether we are in all things following God without reserve, and whether there
may not be some point in which we are falling very grievously short, but to
which habit has hardened us. (Bishop Harvey Goodwin.)
Afraid of the Bible
A celebrated infidel once said, “There is one thing which mars all
the pleasure of my life.” “Indeed,” replied his friend; “what is that? I am
afraid the Bible is true,” was the answer. “If I could know for certain that
death is an eternal sleep, I should be happy--my joy would be complete. But
here is the thorn that stings me--this is the sword that pierces my very soul:
if the Bible is true, I am lost for ever.” This is the Bible upon the truths of
which many have lived, and in the belief of which many have died. Oh, how
terribly afraid would they have been if anyone had been able to show that it
was untrue! For upon its truths all their hopes are built. An untrue Bible
would mean an untrue Christ; and a Christless death would be a death of doom to
them. (Quiver.)
A foolish bravery
I. It is a foolish
bravery to ignore facts. Just that did Jehoiakim. It was a fact that he had
sinned. It was a fact that Jeremiah was God’s prophet. It was a fact that God,
by the mouth of Jeremiah, had spoken doom for the sin of Jehoiakim unless he
should repent. But Jehoiakim would have nothing of these facts. He cut the roll
to pieces and threw it in the fire, &c. This did not change the facts.
1. It is a fact that good is what ought to be.
2. It is a fact that God is the good.
3. It is a fact that evil is what ought not to be.
4. It is a fact that the good which ought to be must be against the evil which
ought not to be.
5. It is therefore a fact that God, who is the good which ought to
be, must be Himself against the evil which ought not to be.
6. It is, therefore, a further fact that if I choose the evil which
ought not to be, the good God, who must be against the evil which ought not to be, must be against
me.
II. It is a foolish
bravery to imagine yourself an exception from the working of the Divine law.
Have you never been subdued into a vast awe, as the absolute irreversibleness
of natural law has been pressed upon you? It is because natural law is so
unchanging that we may build our cities, and send our ships, and plough our
fields, and reap our harvests. But there is another and a fearful side to this
irreversibleness of natural law. When, for any reason, man stands athwart one
of these great natural laws, the penalty for violation is sure to smite. And
this is as true in the moral realm. It is a foolish bravery to think yourself
an exception to God’s law. He said it--there am many who think it who do not so
plainly say it--that young man, whom I was seeking to dissuade from
courses of dissipation. “Oh,” he answered, “it may hurt other fellows, but it
won’t me; I am an exception.” How crammed with folly such temerity!
III. It is a foolish
bravery to refuse truth which you dislike.
IV. It is a foolish
bravery to go on heedlessly, saying, “i don’t care.”
V. It is a foolish
bravery to refuse repentance. (W. Hoyt, D. D.)
The guilt of indifference to Divine threatenings
1. The man who hears God’s threatenings without being afraid, and His
kind invitations and promises without being melted, does in effect say to His
face, I consider nothing which Thou canst utter as of sufficient importance to
excite the smallest emotion; neither Thy favour nor Thy displeasure is of the
least consequence to me; I dread not Thy threatenings, I regard not Thy
promises; after Thou hast said all that Thou canst say, I remain perfectly
unmoved, and prepared to execute, not Thy pleasure, but my own. And if this
does not express the utmost contempt of God, what can express it?
2. This sin also involves and indicates the highest degree of
unbelief, of that unbelief which makes God a liar. When a man brings us
intelligence of most important events, of events in which, if true, we are
deeply interested, we cannot tell him more plainly that we disbelieve
everything which he has said, than by remaining perfectly unaffected. He then
who is but in a small degree affected by God’s Word, has but little faith in
it, and he who is not at all affected by it has no faith in it at all. He is as
completely an infidel as anyone who ever gloried in the name.
3. Those who hear or read the Word of God without being affected,
display extreme hardness of heart. They show that their hearts are absolutely
unimpressible by any motives or considerations which infinite wisdom itself can
suggest; that they are of so much more than flinty hardness, as to resist that
Word which God Himself declares to be like a fire, and a hammer, that breaketh
the rock in pieces. (E. Payson, D. D.)
Verse 26
But the Lord hid him.
Hidden, but radiant
“The Lord hid him.” What that precisely means it is impossible to
say: Was there a John of Gaunt for this Wycliff, an Elector of Saxony for this
Luther? Did Ahikam, who had before interposed on his behalf, or his
sons--Gemariah, who lent Jeremiah his room in the Temple for the reading of his
roll, and Gedaliah, who became Governor of Judah after Zedekiah’s deportation--take
the prophet under their care? Or was this hiding something more Divine and
blessed still? These Divine hidings are needed by us all. We must obey the
voice that cries to us, as it did to Elijah, “Get thee hence, and turn thee
eastward, and hide thyself.” We are too prominent, too self-important, too
conscious of ourselves. And God must sometimes hide us in the sick-chamber, the
valley of shadow, the cleft of the rock. He calls us to Zarephath, or Carmel,
to the privacy of obscurity, or of solitude. It is stated that on one occasion
when the dragoons of Claverhouse were scouring the mountains of Scotland in
search of the Covenanters, a little party of these godly folk, gathered on the
hillside for prayer, must have fallen into their hands had not a cloud suddenly
settled, down, effectually concealing them from their pursuers. Thus the Son of
God still interposes for His own.
II. He re-edited
his prophecies. To this period we may refer the Divine injunction: “Thus
speaketh the Lord, the God of Israel, saying, Write thee all the words that I
have spoken unto thee in a book” (Jeremiah 36:2). It may be that
throughout, this period Baruch continued to act as his faithful amanuensis and
scribe. He, at least, was certainly included in the Divine hidings (Jeremiah 36:26-32). It was at great cost
to his earthly prospects. He came of a good family, his brother being Seraiah,
who held high office under King Zedekiah, and he cherished the ambition of
distinguishing himself amongst his compeers. “He sought great things for
himself.” But he was reconciled to the lot of suffering and sorrow to which his
close identification with Jeremiah led him, by a special revelation assuring
him of the speedy overthrow of the State; and that, in the general chaos, he
would escape with his life (45). By the aid of this faithful friend, Jeremiah
gathered together the prophecies which he had uttered on various occasions, and
put them in order, specially elaborating the predictions given in the fourth
year of Jehoiakim against the surrounding nations. The word of the Lord came to
him concerning the Philistines, and Moab, and the children of Ammon and Edom,
Damascus and Kedar. This time of Jeremiah’s seclusion was therefore not lost to
the world. It was fruitful as Bunyan’s in Bedford Gaol; Luther’s in the
Wartburg; Madame Guyon’s in the Bastille. Unseen, the prophet busied himself,
as the night settled down on his country, in kindling the sure light of
prophecy, that should cast its radiant beams over the dark waters of time,
until the day should dawn, and the day-star glimmer out in the eastern sky. (F.
B. Meyer,. B. A.)
Take thee again another
roll, and write in it all the former words.
The Word of God cannot be
burnt
I. The Word of God
is imperishable. The truth is not pen and ink, parchment and words, but a force
of an unchangeable character. It borrows material forms for garments, and uses
outward methods for expression; these change, but truth never. Changes are observable in nature,
but its laws remain firm. The process of destruction and restitution is ever on
the march. The lily will fade, and the rose will perish, but the law of their
life will say to the elements, “Take thee another roll,” and write another lily
and another rose. The pattern is never destroyed. Truth, law, symmetry, beauty,
and life are emanations from the Eternal Mind, abiding immutable in the midst
of change. Revelation has assumed aspects, many of which have passed away. The
centre of all religious truth is the Saviour--“Jesus Christ, the same
yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.” Whatever talents we possess, or whatever
circumstances affect us, if there is a straight line from the heart to
Jesus--if we are bound to Him by the radius of love--our lives will express the
old truths, and present the old faith which animated patriarch, prophet,
priest, apostle, and martyr.
II. Opposition to
the Word of God will not avert the consequences of sin. Why did the king
precipitate the destruction of the Book before its contents were examined? If
the moral condition of the people was wrongly described, facts would have
disproved the fiction; if the threatened invasion by the King of Babylon was a
myth, time would have revealed it. Evidently Jehoiakim found that the entrance
of God’s Word brought with it light, and that the spectacle it discovered was
too frightful to contemplate. Either he must burn the roll, or the roll would
burn him. Sin prevailed, and the roll was burnt. Was it a victory? Three months
before the destruction of the city, Jehoiakim died a miserable death. The
Florentine philosopher declined to look through Galileo’s telescope, fearing he
might see in the heavens some movement which would contradict his old view that
the sun revolved, and the earth stood still Sinners fear to look at themselves
through the Word of God. Dr. South wrote many years ago those words, “Truth is
so connatural to the mind of man, that it would certainly be entertained by all
men, did it not by accident contradict some beloved interest or other. The
thief hates the break of day; not hut that he naturally loves the light as well
as other men, but his condition makes him dread and abhor that which, of all
things, he knows to be the likeliest means of his discovery.” God is not in all
the thoughts of the wicked, but there is another roll, and God is there.
Impressions of sin, of death, and of a judgment to come have suffered violence,
and have been wiped off human recollection, at least for a time, but they are
written in the other roll. The last vision which terrified the soul of
Jehoiakim was the other roll The authority of truth is inviolable, which no
penknife can cut, and no fire burn. Let the Word of God shine into our heart,
expose its follies and impurities, and the blush on the cheek will be the dawn
of a better day.
III. There is a gracious
purpose in the reiteration of the Word of God. Jeremiah and Baruch retired to
re-commit to writing the contents of the first roll This was done to give Judah
another chance of escape from the impending storm. Although the roll was fun of
denunciation and warning, yet the
terms of peace are included in the declaration of war. Prophet after prophet
brought to Israel the re-written message. This is set forth in the parable of
the barren fig-tree; the end of all God’s dealings is fruit unto life everlasting.
What have we done with the second roll? Nature has re-written her message.
Providence speaks again in terms of mercy. Gospel truths come up afresh, like
the flowers in the garden. True, we have turned a deaf ear; but is it so still?
Do we persist in unbelief?
IV. All attempts to
frustrate the Word of the Lord must ignominiously fail. The Word of God has
been assailed by every conceivable opposition. The learned, with the sharp
penknife of criticism, and the unlearned, with the fire of raillery, have made
the attempt to destroy the authority of God’s written Word, but they no more
succeeded than if they had dug a grave in which to bury the law of gravitation.
Julian the apostate, and Gibbon the historian, cut and burnt the roll, but they
were as grass, “The grass withereth,” &c. There was once a printing-press
used solely to manufacture penknives to cut the roll; that press was afterwards
used to print Bibles. The house in which Hume wrote against miracles was
converted into a committee-room for the promotion of religious truth.
Conviction of sin is the voice of God in the soul. Drown it you never can.
Close the covers of the Bible, and fasten them with a clasp, but its very
silence is louder than thunder. Messages and messengers come anew to remind us of
our duty towards God and man. Let us bear in mind that the Word of the Lord is
a hammer to break the rock; a fire to consume the stubble. Its wisdom is
unbounded, backed by infinite power. Heaven and earth will dissolve before one
iota of the Word will fail. Let us surrender our hearts to its power. (T.
Davies, M. A.)
The sacred oracles
I. The committing
of the mind and will of God to writing. This is important.
1. Because the knowledge of them must be preserved and extended.
2. Because there was no way of preserving and extending this
knowledge to be compared to this.
II. What think you
of those who would destroy the Scriptures?
1. The enemies who deny its authenticity. Surely those precious
pieces of antiquity which are found in the Book of Genesis--who would not wish
to admire and preserve them? But the Vandalism of infidelity would fling them
all into the fire, and fix our eyes on the darkness and dreariness of two
thousand years ago.
2. View these men as to their patriotism, or their regard to public
good. What benevolence was seen in the pagan world? Produce one instance in
which the philosophy of Greece or Rome ever established an infirmary or an
hospital.
3. View the enemies of the Bible, with regard to their charity and
compassion. What do you think of the human being that would take away the
Bible, dash this only cup of consolation from the parched lip--that would pull
down the only refuge to which the polluted sinner can escape from the storms of
life--that would deprive him of a resource to which, by and by, there will be
an entire enjoyment, and that gives him the consciousness of present support?
What can you think of a man that would do this, while he knows that he has
nothing to substitute in the room of it, and that if the thing be a delusion, it
is a solace which can be obtained in no other way?
4. View these men once more as to their guilt. This may be fairly
determined from their doom. “Oh,” say some, “we are not
accountable for our belief!” To which we answer that if we are not accountable
for our belief we are accountable for nothing; for all our actions spring from
belief; and infidelity does not arise from want of evidence, but from
want of inclination.
III. Some things
which seem likely to injure revelation, and which yet prove its advantage.
1. The attacks of the infidel on its divinity. What has been the
consequence of all his opposition? Why zeal in its diffusion; and able articles
brought forth in its favour; for inquiry is always friendly to truth, as
darkness and concealment are friendly to error.
2. The sufferings of its followers by persecution. The periods of
suffering have been always the most glorious for Christianity; the brethren
have been united and endeared the more to each other; the Spirit of glory and
of God has rested upon them; their sufferings have arrested attention and
induced sympathy; the witness of their sufferings has been found to be
impressed, and they have been led to inspire the principles that would produce
such effects.
3. The divisions and parties that have sprung up among its
professors. The differences which subsist amongst all those who hold the Head
do not affect the oneness of the Church; they are only so many branches which
form one tree--so many members which form one body. By these they have always proved
stimulations to each other: they have awakened and increased emulation and
zeal; and religion has always been upon the whole a gainer by them.
4. The failings of its members. It would seem impossible any good
should arise from these to the cause of the Gospel. And yet what is the fact?
No thanks to themselves--even these scandals have been overruled for good.
These scandals were foretold by the Scriptures; and, therefore, they are
pledges of their truth; these have shown that the Gospel is Divine and almighty--because
it can bear to be betrayed from within as well as assaulted from without. The
excommunication of these persons has always strikingly shown the purity of the
Church, and that they cannot bear those that are evil; while the true
professors have been led, by these instances, to fear, and tremble, and pray.
IV. Admonitions.
1. Be persuaded of the stability of the cause of revelation.
2. Apply Scripture to your own use, and apply it to the purposes for
which it has been given.
3. Be concerned for the spread and diffusion of it. (W. Jay.)
Cutting up and burning his
Bible
True, those were very
anxious times. Party feeling ran high, and we may find this much excuse for the
foolish king, that party feeling carried him away. The last days of the kingdom
of Judah had come. Two rival nations were seeking her alliance, each as a
protection against the other. The good Josiah had favoured Babylon, and even
fought against Pharaoh Necho, king of Egypt. In the great battle of Carchemish,
Josiah lost his life, but the party favouring alliance with Babylon was strong
enough to secure the election of his son Shallum as king, rather than the elder
son, Jehoiakim, who seems to have favoured the Egyptians. Shallum, however,
only held the throne for three months, and then Jehoiakim succeeded. Now
Jeremiah, as the prophet of God, had distinctly, and over and over again,
advised alliance with Babylon. He was consequently in disgrace when Jehoiakim
came to the throne, and the Egyptian party gained the upper hand. He was no
longer able to declare the Divine message freely in the streets, and at the
court. But what is to be done with the roll? It was a great fast day; a
national humiliation on account of the national peril. The people were crowding
in from the district round, and were assembling for solemn services in the
Temple courts. There the roll must be read. Baruch knew the peril, and shrank
from the task, until comforted by an assurance of personal protection. They
felt the news of all this must be taken to the king. They knew his impulsive
willfulness so well that they feared to take the roll into his presence. Jehudi
began to read, and the king began to grow angry at the Divine disapproval of
his plans, and presently he seized the scribe s knife, as it lay on the ground,
stripped a piece of the skin off, and threw it on the fire; and then,
emboldened by his wilful act, proceeded to cut strip after strip, until the
entire roll was consumed. What a daring act! And what a foolish act! More
foolish than wicked, for he could not silence God’s Word, or alter God’s will
in that way. It is very important that we should recognise the distinction
between the revelation of God’s will to a man, and the particular form in which
that will may be made known to him. It is not the mere wording of the message
that is our chief concern, it is the message itself. Men nowadays are finding
so much to complain of in the mere form and wording of the Bible, that there is
grave danger of their failing to heed that Bible as it comes closely up to each
one of them, saying, “I have a message from God unto thee. And is our message
to be refused because the form of its setting is unpleasing to fastidious
tastes?
I. God’s message
to us may be an offence to us. It is when it opposes our inclinations. It is a
wholly wrong attitude in which to stand towards God’s Word, if we think to
judge it by our inclinations and preferences, approving it only if it accords
with them. God’s will and Word are the standard by which we must test our
inclinations, and they are stamped as wrong if we cannot gain the Divine
approval. But so often our condition of approving the Bible is, that it shall
comfortably allow us to “follow the devices and desires of our own hearts.” We
shut it up, we put it on the upper shelf, out of reach, when we have a half
fear that it will-speak with an arresting voice, and say, “What doest thou
here, Elijah?” And the Bible is an offence when it convicts us of our sins. The
sin of our day is this--we are attempting to judge God’s Word instead of to
receive it. We conceitedly criticise it, instead of reverently listening to it.
We are making ourselves the standard for ourselves; and are determined that we
will have nothing in the Bible that we do not like.
II. Our offence may
end expression in injury to the Word. That injury is not always coarse and
vulgar like the injury done to the roll by Jehoiakim.
1. In subtle ways we injure it, nowadays, by making it out to mean
what it suits us to think it means, and by picking out bits here and there
which are of doubtful authority; and so creating a general suspicion of the
authority of the whole.
2. How utterly foolish all this is! We cannot change one declaration
of Holy Scripture. We cannot prevent the execution of one threatening. We
cannot, by any of our devices, secure a comfortable arrangement for impenitent
sinners in the next life.
III. God’s will can
never be frustrated by any injury we may do to His messengers, or to His
message. Because though it is in a message, it exists apart from the message. Jeremiah
can soon write it all over again. Moreover, the attempted injury cannot fail to
rouse further vindications of God’s outraged majesty. Kings never pass lightly
by the insults that are offered to their ambassadors. And the Word of God does
but tell of providential workings that go on, in spite of anything that may
happen to the message that reports them to us. To destroy the Word is as
foolish and as useless as for the ostrich to hide her head in the sand, and
convince herself that there is no danger, when the hunters are every moment
nearing her. (The Weekly Pulpit.)
Burning the Scripture
The 98th annual report
(1902) of “The British and Foreign Bible Society” contains the following
experience of Colporteur Galibert: “Calling at a handsome house, he explained
his object to madame. ‘How much do you ask for your whole load of books?’ she
inquired. ‘Nine francs,’ he answered, supposing that the lady wished to make a
free distribution of the Scriptures. She paid the price and then called the
servant, ‘Take all these books and throw them into the fire.’ ‘Madame’ said
Galibert, ‘here is your money; give me back my books.’ ‘No!’ said the lady. ‘I
have paid you, and you may go. But when you pass this way again, don’t forget
to call; I’ll buy your books again.’ ‘Madame,’ says Galibert, ‘I will go; but
let me tell you that the very Word of God which you have destroyed will rise up
to judge you at the last day.’”
Hatred of the truth teller
Macaulay tells of a rich
Brahman who saw a drop of sacred Ganges water under the microscope, and bought
the instrument and dashed it to atoms that it might not by its revelations
rebuke his superstitious practices. In a similar way did Jehoiakim treat God’s
Word because it revealed his character in its true light, and set in array the
judgments for sin which were gathering about him. (C. Deal.)
The indestructible power
of God’s Word
It was burned, but
Jeremiah lived, and Jeremiah’s God lived. Therefore to burn it was not to
destroy it. Another spell of work for Baruch, and the loss was repaired. Like
the fabled blood-stains on some palace floor where murder has been done, and
all the planing in the world will not remove the dark spots, God’s threatenings
are destroyed, as men think, and presently there they are again, as plain as ever.
It is true of the written Word, which men have tried to make away with many a
time in many a way, but it “liveth
and abideth for ever.” It is true of the echoes of that Word in conscience,
which may be neglected, sophisticated, drugged, and stifled, but still
sometimes wakes and solemnly reiterates its message. And all that Jehoiakim
made by his foolish attempt was that the new roll had added to it “many like
words.” The indestructible
Word of God grows by every attempt to silence it. Each warning neglected
increases guilt, and therefore punishment. The fabled sibyl came back, after
each rejection of her offered books, with fewer volumes at a higher price.
God’s Word comes back after each rejection with additions of heavier penalties
for darker sins. We but draw down surer and more terrible destruction on our
own heads by refusing to listen to the merciful voice which warns us that the floods are out,
and the ruin of the house impending, and bids us floe from it before the crash
comes. (A. Maclaren.)
Efforts to destroy the
Christian books in Madagascar
The purpose to
extinguish Christianity was firmly determined on. The week after the Queen
Ranavalona’s message had been delivered, every person who had received books
was ordered to deliver them up, without retaining even a single leaf, on pain
of death. This order was severely felt; few obeyed it literally, and in the
distant provinces scarcely any obeyed it at all (Jacox.)
.
Verse 30-31
──《The Biblical Illustrator》