Peace at Last: The
Will at One with God and Man VIII
Jeremiah 7:19-34
August 6, 2023
As
I continue on with the theme of our wills towards God and man,
amidst the selfish turmoils and selfish
problems with which we are dealing
in today’s culture, I believe that I could spend the rest of
my tenure of teaching
on this subject. You
may think I am trying to purposely do this, since I
started it the first Sunday of February, 2023. We had the second joint service
last Sunday night, July 30, 2023 where eight or more churches
met at Second
Baptist
in
this world.
Once
upon a time in a tobacco patch, in
Lewis
Shadoan said that he thought that God often prepares
a man a lifetime
to do one thing.
After
over a half century of doing this through the mercy and help of God,
I
seem to be stuck on this presentation (I hope each is different)
and could teach on it until:
·
Jesus comes, or
·
we are removed from the air/radio for whatever reason, or
·
I become incapacitated, or
·
I die.
It
seems like every week in Jeremiah, there is something to deal with the subject,
and instead of making headway, the subject seems to expand to
where I have a
backlog of notes, witness the last month’s lessons illustrated at
http://www.adultbibleclass.com/
With
that said, I
would like to read highlights of the last 16 verses of Jeremiah 7.
19 Do they provoke
me to anger? saith the LORD:
do they not
provoke themselves to the confusion of
their own faces?
20 Therefore thus saith the
Lord GOD; Behold, mine
anger and my
fury shall be poured out upon this place,
upon man, and upon
beast, and upon the trees of the field, and
upon the fruit of the
ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be
quenched. (The original
scorched earth policy,
21 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of
offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat flesh.
22 For I spake not
unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day
that I brought them out of the
offerings or sacrifices:
23 But this
thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I
will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk
ye in all the
ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you. (How hard is that)
24 But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but
walked in the
counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and
went
backward, and not forward.
25 Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the
unto this day I have even sent unto you all my
servants the
prophets, daily rising up early and sending them:
26 Yet
they hearkened not unto me, nor inclined their ear, but
hardened their neck: they did worse than their fathers.
27 Therefore thou shalt
speak all these words unto them; but they will
not hearken to thee: thou shalt also call
unto them; but they
will
not answer thee.
28 But thou shalt say unto them, This is a nation that obeyeth
not the
voice of the LORD their God, nor receiveth correction: truth is
perished, and is cut off from their
mouth.
29 Cut off thine hair,
O
lamentation on high places; for the LORD hath rejected and
forsaken the generation of His wrath.
30 For the children of Judah have done evil in
my sight, saith the
LORD: they have set their abominations in
the house which is
called by my name, to pollute it.
31 And they have
built the high places of Tophet, which is in the
valley of the son of Hinnom,
to burn their sons and their daughters
in the fire; which I commanded them not, neither
came it into my
heart.
32 Therefore,
behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that it shall
no
more be called Tophet, nor
the valley of the son of Hinnom, but
the valley of slaughter: for they shall bury in Tophet, till there be
no place.
33 And the
carcasses of this people shall be meat for the fowls of the
heaven, and for the beasts of the earth; and none shall
fray them
away.
34 Then will I caus e to cease from the cities of
streets of
the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the
bride: for the land
shall be desolate. (ἐρήμωσιν - eraemosin - desolation; they-should-be-
STRIP-BARE-ing [to make deserted,
uninhabited]; [lay-waste,
cause to be abandoned] (Compare ch. 6:8 - “Be thou instructed, O
lest my soul depart from thee; lest I make thee desolate, a land not inhabited.”
CY - 2023)
·
Isaiah uses the word 21 times - chronology -750-695 B. C. - 150 years prior
to fulfillment
·
Jeremiah 31 - chronology - 628-588 B. C. - immediately prior
and
contemporary with the fulfillment
·
Is used twice in Revelation - ch.
17:16; 18:17,19 - written 68-69 A. D.
·
Desolation of the
As a verb in the New Testament - ἐρημόω - eraemoo - signifies to make
desolate, lay
waste - From the primary sense of making quiet
comes that of
making lonely. (Can you imagine
acting in this way.
Remember, in the illustration by Jesus of the man
without a wedding garment -
8 Then saith he to
his servants, The wedding is ready, but they which
were bidden were not worthy.
9 Go ye therefore into the highways, and as
many as ye shall find, bid
to the marriage.
10 So those servants went out into the highways, and gathered
together all as many as they found, both bad and
good: and the
wedding was furnished with guests.
11 And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man
which had not on a wedding garment:
12 And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not
having a wedding garment? And he was
speechless.
13 Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and
take him away, and cast him into Matthew 22:12
_____________________________________________________________
The
Apostasy of Men and the Departure of God
Now
this is not like the puzzling sequence of which comes first, the chicken
or the egg!
“Be thou instructed, O
from thee,
lest I make thee desolate, a land not inhabited.” (Jeremiah 6:9)
Avoid all delay in the performance of this great work
of believing in Christ -
John 6:29 - Until we have performed it we continue
under the power of sin and
Satan and are under the wrath of God; and there is
nothing between hell and
us besides the breath of our nostrils. Walter Marshall 1628-1680 - and
indepentdent
preacher and theologian. (Puritan
Publication)
Today,
many Christians are turning back to the puritans to, “walk in the old paths,”
of God’s word, and to continue to proclaim
old truth that glorifies Jesus Christ.
There
is no new theology. (Spurgeon said “There is nothing new
but that which
is
false.” (CY -
2023) In our electronic age, more and more people are looking
to add electronic books (ePubs,
mobi and PDF formats) to their library – books
from the Reformers and Puritans – in order to become a “digital puritan”
themselves. (Puritan Publication)
In
re: to God departing - New Testament reasons
Romans 1:24-32
24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness
through the lusts
of their own
hearts, to
dishonor their own bodies between themselves:
25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and
served the creature more than the Creator, who is
blessed for ever. Amen.
26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile
affections: for even their
women did change
the natural use into that which is against nature:
27 And likewise also the men, leaving the
natural use of the woman,
burned in their
lust one toward another; men with men working that
which is unseemly,
and receiving in themselves that recompence of
their error which
was meet.
28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge,
God gave them over to a reprobate* mind, to do
those things which
are not
convenient; *
ἀδόκιμον - adokimon - not standing the test;
rejected.
29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness,
covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder,
debate, deceit,
malignity; whisperers,
30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of
evil things, disobedient to parents,
31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers,
without natural
affection, implacable, unmerciful:
32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such
things are worthy of death, not only do the same,
but have pleasure
in them that do them.
(I want to hear you say that this is not
happening now - in the United
States of
out of it
“.............proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries,
fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: These are
the things which
defile a man...”
(Matthew 15:19-20) so, where there
are multitudes of
such, there will be an exaggeration of the individual
tendency and influence. As the
leader of fashion, and dominant authority in
new customs and ideas, there is an eclat (style; flamboyance) transferred
from it to what is evil. Its existence becomes, therefore:
* Proverbs 29:18 “Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that
keepeth the law, happy is he.” Where there is no vision, the people perish; rather,
cast off restraint, become
ungovernable, cannot be reined in (Exodus 32:22, 25).
“Vision” (chazon), prophecy in its widest sense, denotes the revelation of God’s will
made through
agents, which directed the course of events, and was intended to be
COORDINATE WITH THE SUPREME SECULAR
AUTHORITY! The
prophets were the instructors of the people in Divine
things, standing
witnesses of the truth and power of religion, teaching a
higher than mere
human morality. The fatal
effect of the absence of such revelation of God’s
will is stated to
be:
- confusion,
- disorder,
and
- rebellion;
“Be thou instructed, O
from thee,
lest I make thee desolate, a land not inhabited.” (Jeremiah 6:9)
the people,
uncontrolled, fall into grievous
excesses, which nothing but high
principles
can restrain. (Thus the
futility of the government trying to enforce
gun control as a remedy for societal problems - The government
can never
keep someone from killing another, or raping another,
but their religion can!
CY - 2023) We note the
license of Eli’s time, when there was no
open vision (I
Samuel 3.); in Asa’s days, when
teaching priest (II Chronicles 15:3); and when the
impious Ahaz “made
Judah
naked” (II Chronicles 28:19) – (I recommend Spurgeon Sermon – Ruins –
from II Chronicles 28:23 - this web site – Go to http://.www.spurgeongems.org -
go to Metropolitan Tabernacle – Volume 44 – Sermon 2565 - CY –
2014); or
when the people were destroyed by reason of lack of knowledge
of Divine things
(Hosea
4:6). Thus the importance of prophecy in
regulating the life and religion
of the people is fully acknowledged by the writer, in whose
time, doubtless, the
prophetical office was in full exercise: but this seems to
be the only passage in the
book where such teaching is directly mentioned; the
instructors and preceptors
(experienced teachers and coaches) elsewhere introduced as
disseminating the
principles of the chochmah (wisdom, understanding and knowledge)
being parents, or tutors, or professors, not inspired
prophets. But
he that
keepeth the Law, happy is he! “The Law” (torah) is not merely the
written Mosaic Law, but the announcement of God’s will by the mouth of
his representatives; and the
thought is, not the blessedness of those who in
a time of anarchy and irreligion keep to the authorized
enactments of the
Sinaitic legislation, but a contrast
between the lawlessness and ruin of a
people uninfluenced by
religious guidance, and the happy state of those
who obey alike
the voice of God, whether conveyed in written statutes or
by the teaching
of living prophets. (For “happy is he,” compare Proverbs 14:21;
16:20.)
Septuagint, “There shall be no interpreter
to a sinful nation, but he
that keepeth the Law is most blessed.”
Romans
2:2-13
2 But
we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth
against them which commit such things.
3 And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest
them which do such
things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of
God?
4 Or despisest thou the riches of His
goodness and forbearance and
longsuffering; not knowing that the
goodness of God leadeth thee
to repentance?
5 But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto
thyself wrath against the day of wrath and
revelation of the
righteous judgment of God;
6 Who
will render to every man according to his deeds:
7 To
them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory
and honor and immortality, eternal life:
8 But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the
truth, but
obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath,
9 Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of
the Jew first, and also of the Gentile;
10 But glory, honor, and peace, to every man that
worketh good, to
the Jew first, and also to the Gentile:
11 For there is no respect of persons with God.
2:12 For as many as have sinned without law shall
also perish without
law: and as many as have sinned in the law
shall be judged by the
law;
13 (For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of
the law shall be justified
Back to the
heading:
The
II. AN OCCASION
OF INJURY AND DANGER TO ALL WHO HAVE
TO DO WITH IT. It is as a
fire that has broken out amidst combustible
material. By-and-by “the wicked city” is felt to be an
intolerable evil. It is
A MENACE to the peace
and good government of its neighbors. They cannot
afford to ignore it. No time must be lost in bringing
it to reason. Its
excitements and dissipations wax madder and more widespread. No time
can be lost. Hence the avengers come from all quarters in haste
and
eagerly. “Sanctify war against her! Arise, let us go up at noon!” —the heat
being no barrier to their setting out; “Arise, and let us go up in the night!”
— the darkness and weariness being forgotten in their hatred
and
vengeance. For the same
reason no terms can be made with it. The Mosaic
regulations in warfare are set aside (Deuteronomy
20:19-20). There is
no chivalrous respect inspired by it, and as it shows no
mercy, none is
accorded to it. (All is fair in love and war. - John Lyly's novel, “Euphues:
The Anatomy of Wit,” published in 1578, is the earliest known
origin of the sentiment
“all is fair in love and war.” - CY
- 2023)
III. IT IS A
CONTINUAL OFFENCE TO GOD. God’s love for it had
been great, and He had purposed to make it a center
of redeeming love.
This aim
had been thwarted. So it has been with the city life of man
everywhere. As a natural development, and a providential
result in human
history, the city is intended to enlarge the powers of
doing good and to
bless the world. But how seldom has this been the
case! The centralization
of life has but intensified its
corruption. Is there
any place where the
salvation of society seems more hopeless than in our
great cities? And
God’s patience threatens to give out. He cannot
bear the noisomeness of
its evil. He is
about to turn from it in utter loathing and final abandonment.
“Be thou instructed O
thee desolate, a
land not inhabited.” (v. 8 -
remember ch. 4:23-28 - CY - 2023)
But not yet. Warning is given; a prophet is sent. Nay, the Son Himself, if
haply they will hear Him, in whom alone a sufficient
antidote is found. In
Him is salvation, for of the holy city, the
New Jerusalem, the scene of
regenerated society, He is Center and Lord. He is spoken of
in Zechariah 13:1,
“In that day there shall be a Fountain opened to the house of
David and to the
inhabitants of
I
recommend the song below sung by Aretha Franklin
There Is A
Fountain Filled With Blood - YouTube
1 There is a fountain filled with blood
Drawn from Immanuel's veins;
And sinners, plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains:
Lose all their guilty stains,
Lose all their guilty stains;
And sinners, plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains.
2 The dying thief rejoiced to see
That fountain in his day;
And there may I, though vile as he,
Wash all my sins away:
Wash all my sins away,
Wash all my sins away;
And there may I, though vile as he,
Wash all my sins away.
3 Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood
Shall never lose its pow'r,
Till all the ransomed Church of God
Be saved, to sin no more:
Be saved, to sin no more,
Be saved, to sin no more;
Till all the ransomed Church of God
Be saved to sin no more.
4 E'er since by faith I saw the stream
Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme,
And shall be till I die:
And shall be till I die,
And shall be till I die;
Redeeming love has been my theme,
And shall be till I die.
5 When this poor lisping, stamm'ring tongue
Lies silent in the grave,
Then in a nobler, sweeter song
I'll sing Thy pow'r to save:
I'll sing Thy pow'r to save,
I'll sing Thy pow'r to save;
then in a nobler, sweeter song
I'll sing Thy pow'r to save.
By
William Cowper
Below are two statements by C. H. Spurgeon that if they
reflected our attitudes today,
our wills
would be much more in unison with God and man.
(CY - 2023)
The unbelief
of the natural man is the parent of his misdeeds and sin,
and keeps him from any real communion with God.
Apostasy an Anomalous (abnormal and aberrant) and Incalculable Thing
(Jeremiah
8:4-7)
I. THE
ANALOGIES OR COMMON SENSE AND INSTINCT ARE
FALSIFIED. (vs. 4-6.) If a man fall, he will rise
again to his feet; if he
has made a mistake or gone in a wrong direction, and
discovers it, he will
turn again,
unless he be absolutely
bereft of his senses. One might expect
similar behavior in spiritual matters. But in the wickedness and defection of
are taught by instinct when to return. The season
of their coming again is
almost as calculable as that of their going. But the departure of the sinner is
incomprehensible, and his return cannot with certainty be expected. Nay,
the likelihood is he will continue in his sin, and
pursue his own destruction
to the hitter end. In this, as in many other
instances, the career of the sinner
can only be explained on the score of infatuation. His moral sense is
perverted or destroyed. In place of that quick response
which conscience
ought to make to the voice of duty, there comes
over his spirit an
insensibility to moral considerations, and A GROWING IGNORANCE
of things Divine gradually deepening into OUTER DARKNESS.
II. IT IS UNMOVED BY THE CONSIDERATIONS
THAT OUGHT
TO AFFECT IT. (v. 5.) The growing misery and unhappiness which it
occasions are not strong enough to check the tendency to
sin, if indeed
their connection with it is clearly perceived or
acknowledged. The cravings
of the spiritual nature have to give place to “the lust of the flesh, the lust of
the eye, and the
pride of life.” By-and-by they are stilled, not by being
satisfied, but by being stifled; and a curious
heedlessness, which is deaf to
all the voices of prophetic warning and entreaty, increasingly
characterizes
it. Under such circumstances it is difficult to
discover any common point of
contact or argument that shall be valid to both
parties. When reason is left
behind, it is not to higher, but to lower,
susceptibilities that appeal has to
be made.
III. THE CONCERN, THE CLAIMS, AND THE GRACIOUS
PROVISION OF
GOD ARE AS NOTHING. (v. 6.) The saint in the
times of his calamity calls upon God to incline His
ear. In the fearful
condition and moral
insensibility of His people to their wickedness and
danger God is represented as of himself inclining his ear and listening
attentively for the lightest sigh of
repentance. He calls, but no notice is
taken. The means of
salvation He has provided are neglected, or abused.
The form of
godliness is cultivated when the spirit has fled and the
exercises of religion are the chief foes to its reality. What can be the
conclusion to all this? THEY ARE SPIRITUALLY DEAD! There is neither
power nor
inclination to seek for better things. Nothing but supernatural grace and
long-suffering love can avail to save them.
Poet Natasha Trethewey
served two terms as the 19th Poet Laureate of
the
The Way Home
(v. 6)
The text
suggests much concerning this way from the far country of sin to
the home of our Father and God. The Lord is here lamenting that
none of
the people of
I. THE STAGES
OF THE WAY.
1. Realization
of the ruin wrought by our sin. The soul is
represented as
contemplating this ruin,
and asking, “What have I done?” This is
the first
stage.
2. Repentance. Each one is
to repent of “his wickedness.” We are not
to
lose ourselves in a general confession of sin, as too
many do, but to think
of our own sin apart from that of other people,
and to think of what is
especially our
sin. Thus personal and particular, our repentance is
the more
likely to be genuine and godly.
3. Confession. “These that have sinned, these and these only
speak aright
when they speak of repenting, and it is sad when
they who have so much
work for repentance do not say a word of repenting.”
But confession is this
“speaking
aright” which God desires to hear from us. Now, this confession
is so acceptable to God because it glorifies His
holiness and His love. His
holiness;
for the sinner has come to see sin as God sees it, and hence to
hate and abhor it. He is of one mind with God about
it as he never was
before.
And his love; for confession casts itself in faith upon a
love that is
deeper than its sin. Deep as is
God’s abhorrence of sin, the sinner in
confession appeals to and lays hold on a love that is deeper still. Hence,
when the sinner makes his sincere confession before
God, he is at once
right out of “the far country,” and home in the heart of God. The robe, the
ring, the shoes, are put upon him; the feast is
prepared, and the merrymaking,
the joy in the presence of the angels of God, at
once begins. (see
Luke 15)
II. THE
ATTENTIVE OBSERVER OF THOSE WHO TRAVEL BY
THIS WAY. It is God who is represented as bending
down his ear,
hearkening to what is said, listening for any words of confession, and
ready
to hear them if
spoken. The text is the language of gracious expectation
and desire on the part of God. It calls to mind the father’s
waiting for the
prodigal’s return. How often had he looked with longing,
loving gaze
down the road
along which his returning son must come, if ever indeed he
would come! He had
looked so often that a speck in the far distance
would at once be discerned by him. Hence, “when
a great way off,” the
father saw him. And so here God is represented as thus waiting for his
guilty people’s return. And how much
there is to confirm our faith in this
Divine solicitude for the sinner’s salvation! Look at the very constitution
of
our nature. That, as Bishop Butler has shown, is evidently
on the side of
virtue, that is, of obedience to God, and against the
disobedient. “Who will
harm you, if ye be
doers of that which is good? “ — thus the apostle
appeals to the universally recognized fact, that the
constitution of man’s
nature is such as to favor the good. And, on the other
hand, the declaration
that “the way of transgressors is
hard” (Proverbs 13:15), is based on another like
fact of universal experience. Such is one evidence of “the care” with which, as
George
Herbert sings, “Lord, with what care thou hast begirt us round?
Then the revelation of His truth is yet further in evidence. That truth,
as
ministered to us by the written Word or by the lips of
prophets, apostles,
pastors, teachers — it matters not — is a
perpetual proof of the Divine
solicitude for our eternal good. And His providence, making it to be well
with the righteous and ill with the unrighteous.
Well and ill with each
respectively in mind, body, and estate. And
His Spirit.
That Spirit speaking
to us in conscience and in the powerful pleadings
of His grace in our hearts,
of which we are all so often conscious. And, last of all, God has
shown us
this loving care of His for us in his
Son. He has shown
Himself in a manner
adapted to touch and move all hearts, and to draw all men unto
Him. Now,
all this mass of evidence is in keeping with that solicitude which
this verse
and so many other portions of God’s Word reveal as felt by Him
towards
sinful men. (SOLICIT - ask for, crave,
beg, request) And if it be asked
“What moves
this solicitude?” the
character of God furnishes the answer.
The holiness of God. “Good and upright is the Lord, therefore will He
teach sinners in the
way.” (Psalm 25:8) And we are bidden“Give thanks at
the remembrance of
his holiness.” (ibid. ch. 30:4) It is the
nature of
holiness to be distressed at all that contradicts it and
is unlike itself. It rests
not until it has assimilated all around it to itself. Here,
then, is one reason
of God’s perpetual appeals to sinful men.
·
His wisdom also. It is the characteristic of God’s wisdom to adjust
means to ends.
How wonderfully and beautifully this is seen in all
departments of
nature! But for the fulfilling of the high purposes
of His grace, what instrument can He find
more fit than the
regenerated,
redeemed soul? Even now and here we see this. A soul aglow with love
and faith towards God, what will not that soul do for God? Hence
to the
principalities
and powers in heaven shall be made known by the
one
Church — the company of the redeemed shall
evidence it —
THE MANIFOLD WISDOM OF GOD!
·
His love
also. If the beholding of scenes of distress touch our hearts
and make us eager to render help, can we imagine that He who made
us is less
willing than ourselves to show pity and render help?
Our Lord’s argument is, “If ye, evil though ye be, know how”
— and we do
know how — “to give good gifts to your
children, how
much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those
that
ask Him? (Matthew
7:11) Humanity, as it has been well said, is the
heavenly Father’s sick child. Will not the Father’s love,
therefore,
be all the more called forth to that
child?
·
And His compassion also. For this life is the critical period of that
child’s malady. It is the time when the
great question of its life or death
is being determined. Terrible forces are
against it, and the struggle is
now at its most momentous hour. This fact would cause the Father’s love
to go forth, as it has gone and is going forth, in active compassion, in open
manifestation of its solicitude.
Such are
some of the considerations which lead to our Father’s
attentive
observance of all those who travel by this homeward way.
III. THE END OF
THE WAY. They who come there will find:
·
restoration
to the Father’s love,
·
the
implantation of a new nature,
·
the complete
pardon of the past,
·
power to live as God’s dear
child for the future, and ultimately
·
the everlasting dwelling in the very presence and
home of God.
IV. BROOKS BY
THE WAY. It is said, “He shall drink of the brook
by
the way, therefore
shall he lift up the head.” We may apply these words to
the travelers in the way we are speaking of; for they need, in the weary and
often most difficult journey, the refreshments WHICH GOD ALONE CAN
SUPPLY! Such aids are given in the promises of God, the
fellowship of God, the
communion of fellow-travelers on the way, and in the
service and worship
of God.
V. THE
SOLITARINESS OF THE WAY. It is but “here and there a
traveler” that is found. The way is not thronged. This verse is God’s lament
that scarce any are found willing to go along this
road; for it is
not the way
of worldly advantage. They who “are given to covetousness” (v. 10) will
never choose this way. They have persuaded themselves
that they are as
well off and better where they are. They are deceived, and, what is worse,
are willing to be
deceived: “They
hold fast deceit, and so refuse to return.”
(v. 5) We should have
thought that surely it would be otherwise.
1. Reason bids them return (v. 4). If
a man have fallen, he will not lie
content on the earth, but will arise. If in an ordinary
journey he have missed
his way, he will at once retrace his steps. Reason rules in such cases, but
not here.
2. Conscience bids them return. They could
not but know that their sin had
done them sore harm; but
none of them asked, “What have I done?”
however loudly conscience might summon them to such
repentance.
3. God’s
Word bade then return (v. 8), but lo! certainly in
vain He made
it.
4. Providences bade them. The events that had taken
place were all
admonitions of God; but though the birds of the air marked
and obeyed the
providence of God, sinful man “knew not the judgment of the Lord” (v. 7).
(And like
the people of Noah’s day, at the time of the Flood “....were
eating
and drinking,
marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah
entered into the ark,
And knew not until the Flood came, and took them all
away...” (Matthew 24:38-39 - I hope this doesn’t sound
like a fairy tale to
you - Christ doesn’t do fairy tales. CY - 2023) Hence the way is solitary.
·
CONCLUSION. But the
question for us is, “Are we in this way?” Let us
bless God if we are, and press on
therein. Let us note how short the day is
in which we can travel, how its few fleeting hours
are lessening, lest when
we would start on the way we have to exclaim
(Jeremiah 6:4), “Woe
unto us I for the day goeth away, for the shadows
of the evening are
stretched out.”
Ecclesiastes
12 man goeth to his long home
Oh how I
want to go home
Backsliding
in Its Worst Forms (vs. 4-11)
All departures from God are evil, but some are only temporary, and are
quickly followed by repentance, return, and
restoration. There are others,
however, of a far more serious kind, and we have in
these verses a great
deal told us concerning them. We are told of some
of:
I. THEIR
CHARACTERISTICS.
1. So contrary to men’s wonted ways. For when men find that they have
brought evil on themselves, they will
at once seek to undo such evil (v..4).
If a man fall, he win
not lie still in the mire or in the road, but will get
up again as speedily as may be. If he
have mistaken his path and got on a
wrong track, wilt he not, as soon as he
discovers his mistake, quickly
retrace his steps that he may get into the
right way? That is how men act
in
the common affairs of life. But,
though
they had
fallen, yet they showed no desire to rise, and though they could
not but
know they were altogether out of the right way, they showed no
willingness to
return.
2. Resists
the strivings of God’s Spirit and all
his drawings of them to
Himself. V. 7 implies such God-implanted instincts in
men’s souls, but
declares that, unlike the
ever-obedient birds, man resists
and refuses the
call of God.
3. Becomes
shameless. (vs. 6,12.) This
feature we have had noticed
before (compare ch.6:15); it arrested the prophet’s attention as being
evil exceedingly.
4. Determined and defiant. (v. 6.)
5. Is at last
perpetual. (v. 5.) They have
gone into an evil way, and they
abide in that way, no power of Divine grace being able to draw them
therefrom. So terrible
is this worst form of backsliding, it is perpetual.
“......they hold fast
deceit.”
Let each wanderer
from God ask himself the question, “What have I done?”
3. The time for
such inquiry is lessening day by day.
4. “It is a fearful thing” for an unforgiven man “to fall into the
hands of the living God.” (Hebrews
12:29)
Peace, Peace; When There is No Peace (8:8-12)
The present
condition of the country, why these
scandals, miseries, and
impending evils?
I. DIVINE ILLUMINATION ALONE CAN GIVE TRUE
UNDERSTANDING OF GOD’S WORD. The
priests and scribes, because
of familiarity with holy things, claimed to be wise. They were
satisfied with
the spiritual state of
anticipated what took place. The Holy Spirit alone bestows Divine insight
and foresight.
II. THE
DESPISERS OF DIVINE TRUTH, AND THOSE WHO
FALSELY PRETEND TO ITS CUSTODY, WILL BE PUT TO
SHAME.
“Refuges of lies” will be swept away. The judgment,
when it comes, will
find them wholly unprepared and helpless. “Take heed that the light that is
in thee be not darkness.”
“Blind leaders of the blind,” the sorrowing
comes
to them in vain for comfort, or is deceived to his own hurt;
at last the
victim of a misplaced confidence, to find
himself “of all men most
miserable.”
The Inveterate
(ingrained; deep-seated) Disobedience of
(v.
28)
All along,
from v. 21, this is the theme, viz. the disobedience of
Now, to
give full force to a charge of disobedience there must be the
means of furnishing ample proofs that directions
have
first been given —
plain, earnest, and authoritative. And this is just
what we find here. God
refers His people back over the long years in which, by
divers agencies, He
had laid before them his righteous and beneficent will.
What he
commended was for His glory; for His glory because for His people’s
good; for His people’s good because for His glory. The present state and
prospects of the people are very humiliating, but assuredly
no part of their
humiliation can be laid to the charge of their God. The cloudy
and the fiery
pillar was but a symbol of most distinct guidance for
the whole heart. The
people were not suffered to wander for lack of
expostulation and warning.
When a lad turns out badly, criticizing speech is
often directed against the
parents, as if somehow they
must be at fault. They may be at
fault indeed,
but there is no must
in the matter. Hasty criticism at such
a time, from the
very injustice of it, adds a cruel intensity to the pain
and disappointment
already existing. But hasty criticism cannot be silenced by
merely
deprecating it, and parents
at such moments would do well to remember
that they stand in relations to their disobedient
children not unlike those in
which, as is represented here, Jehovah stood towards
most loving and watchful and patient of parents
never did for his children
NEAR SO MUCH
AS JEHOVAH DID FOR
of their wonderful career, in which God had moved so sublimely
among them.
There were
the ten commandments, formulated so distinctly, and
set in
such a grand historical frame. There were all the
rites and ceremonies filled
with instructing power to those who would seek to
understand them. And
there was also, accumulating generation after
generation, the great mass of
prophetic truth. Man is what he is, not for want of light, but for want of
disposition to use and obey the light
when it appears. There is
an
indisposition to attend to truth and to fidelity in all
duty, until at last the
very feeling of what faithfulness and
righteousness are vanishes from the
breast. But still the excuse is attempted, and
persisted in with shameless
impudence, that the word which professes to come from
God must have in
it something defective, something that
effectually prevents it from being
received. But it is only from the unrenewed mind that talk of this kind
comes. Those who
have had their eyes opened to the truth of God soon
begin to discern that in that truth there is no lack
of guidance, or
inspiration, or comfort, or any good thing which can uplift
and satisfy the
heart. And we may be sure that God, who has given this immense
and
fruitful body of truth, has brought it nearer to the individual
conscience
than the individual in his perversity will always
acknowledge. Men are
indulged too much in the complaint that nobody has
spoken to them about
their souls. A miserable egotism often lies
at the bottom of such
complaining. If they know by any means
whatever — and it matters not
how slight the hint may be-that there is something written for
the
obedience of all mankind and for their consequent advantage,
then these
complainers are bound to attend to it. Men are not so foolish in the quest
of worldly gains. Then they will go upon the
slightest hint, and follow it up
discreetly and warily. Why,
then, should they be so foolish in the matter of
spiritual gain? Because “truth is perished, and is cut off from their mouth.”