Shame Leading to Salvation
(No. 2491)
A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1896.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
OCTOBER 31, 1886.
"Fill their faces with shame; that they may seek Your name, O LORRD!"
Psalm 83:16.
THIS is a very terrible Psalm. It contains some prayers against the
enemies of God and of His people that crash with the thunder of
indignation. You know that we are bid to love our enemies, but we are
never commanded to love God's enemies. We may not hate any men as men,
but as they are opposed to God, to truth, to righteousness, to purity,
we may and we must, if we are, ourselves, right-minded, feel a burning
indignation against them! Did you ever read the story of "the middle
passage" in the days of the African slave trade, when the Negroes died
by hundreds, or were flung into the sea to lighten the ship? Did you
ever read of those horrors without praying, "O God, let the
thunderbolts of Your wrath fall on the men who can perpetrate such
enormities"? When you heard the story of the Bulgarian atrocities, did
you not feel that you must, as it were, pluck God's sleeve and say to
Him, "Why does Your justice linger? Let the monsters of iniquity be
dealt with by You, O Lord, as they deserve to be"?
Such is the spirit of this Psalm. But I like best this particular verse
in it because while it breathes righteous indignation against the
wicked, it has mixed with it the tender spirit of love. "Fill their
faces with shame," prays the Psalmist, "but overrule Your severity for
their everlasting good, 'that they may seek Your name, O Lord.'" The
worst fate that I wish to any Hearer of mine who is without God and
without hope in the world, is that this prayer may be prayed by honest
and loving hearts for him and for others like he–"Fill their faces
with shame; that they may seek Your name, O
Lord."
I. To begin with, let me remind you that UNGODLY MEN HAVE GOOD CAUSE TO
BE ASHAMED.
Let us talk a little, first, of their wrong to their Maker. If I might
take each one of you by the hand, I should say to you, "Friend, you
believe in the existence of God, your Maker, do you not? Well, then,
have you treated Him rightly? If you have lived in the world 20 years,
or perhaps even 40 or 50 years, and yet you have never served Him, do
you think that is quite just to Him? If He made you and has fed you and
kept you in being all these years, has He not a right to expect some
service from you? I might go further and ask, has He not a right to
expect your love? Does He ask more than He should ask when He says,
'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all
your soul, and with all your might'? Yet you have lived these many
years and scarcely thought of Him! Certainly you have not spoken to
Him, you have never confessed your faults to Him, or sought His
forgiveness. To all intents and purposes, you have lived as if there
were no God at all! Yet, in your earthly affairs you are a very honest
man, and you pay everybody else his due– why do you, then, rob your
God of what is justly His? There is not a man in the world who could
say truly of you that you had dealt dishonorably with him. You pride
yourself upon your uprightness and integrity! But must God, alone,
then, be made to suffer through your injustice? Out of all beings, must
He, alone, who made all other beings, be the only one to be neglected?
He is first of all–do you put Him last? He is best of all–do you
treat Him worst? If so, I think that such conduct as this is a thing to
be ashamed of and I pray that you may be heartily ashamed of it."
Let me quit that line of thought and remind you, next, that there are
many ungodly men, and I suppose some here present, who ought to be
ashamed because they are acting in opposition to light and knowledge,
contrary to their conscience and against their better judgments. There
are many unconverted men who can never look back upon any day of their
lives without having to accuse themselves of wrong. And although they
are not Christians, they would scarcely attempt to justify their
position. When they act wrongly, there is a voice within them which
tells them that they are doing wrong. They are not blind–they could
see if they chose to see. They are not deaf, except that there are none
so deaf as those who will not hear. It is a horrible thing for a man to
be always holding down his conscience, like a policeman holding down a
mad dog. It is a terrible thing for a man to have to be at war with
himself in order to destroy himself–his better self resisting and
struggling, as it were, after salvation–but his worse self thrusting
back the higher part of his being, sliding his conscience and drowning
the cries of any approach to bitterness that may be within him. God
forbid that men should act thus and sin against light and knowledge! I
venture very quietly, but very solemnly, to tell any who are doing so
that they ought to be ashamed of such conduct. They ought to blush at
the very thought of acting thus against such light as they have and
against the convictions of their own conscience.
There are also some of my Hearers–I speak very positively upon this
point–who ought to be ashamed because of their postponements of what
they know to be right They have, again and again, put off the
observance of duties which they know and admit to be incumbent upon
them. "I ought to repent of sin," says one. And then he adds, "and I
will, one of these days." "I ought to be a believer in Christ"–he
admits that–"and I shall be, I hope, before I die." Oh, how fairly you
talk, Mr. Procrastinator! You know what ought to be done at once, but
you leave it all for the future. Do you not know that every time a man
neglects a duty, he commits a sin? That which you admit is your duty,
causes you, every moment it is delayed, to commit sin by the delay! And
by delay, obedience becomes more difficult and you, yourself, become
continually more likely to commit yet greater sin! I think that a man
who says, "I ought to believe in Christ, I ought to repent of sin, I
ought to love God," and yet says, "Well, I will do so at a more
convenient season," ought to be ashamed of himself for talking and
acting in such a wicked fashion! I pray God that he may be.
I shall come more pointedly home to some when I say that they ought to
be ashamed because of their violation of vows which they have made. You
were very ill, a little while ago, and you said, "O God, if You will
but spare my life, and restore me to health and strength, I will rise
from this bed to be a better man!" God did raise you up, but you are
not a better man. You were seriously injured in an accident and likely
to die–and in your distress you prayed, "O God, if You will prolong my
unworthy life, I will turn over a new leaf. I will be a very different
man in the future!" Well, you are a different man, for you are worse
than you used to be before the accident! That is all the change that
has been worked in you. God keeps a register of the vows that are so
lightly broken here below, but so well remembered up in Heaven, and the
day will come when they shall be brought out to the condemnation of
those who made them and then failed to keep them! If you are determined
to be a liar, lie not to God! If you are resolved to make promises,
only to break them, at least trifle not with Him in whose hands your
life is, and whose are all your ways. He who must play the fool, had
better do it with some fellow fool, and not parade his folly before
"Him that rides upon the heavens by His name JAH." Think, then, dear
Friends, of vows violated and blush because of them!
Moreover, it seems to me–and I shall leave it to your judgment to
consider and approve what I say–that every man ought to be ashamed of
not loving the Lord Jesus Christ and not trusting such a Savior as the
Lord Jesus Christ is. Godin human flesh, bleeding, dying, bearing the
penalty of human sin and then presenting Himself freely as our
Sacrifice and saying that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but
shall have everlasting life! Do you push Him away from you? Will you
trample on His blood and count it an unholy thing? Will you despise His
Cross? It sometimes seems to me that blasphemy and adultery and
murder–tremendous evils though these are–scarcely reach the height of
guilt that comes through refusing the great love of Christ–thrusting
Him aside whom God took from His bosom and gave up to die that men
might live through Him! If you must spite anybody, spite anybody but
the Christ of God! If you mean to refuse a friend, refuse any friend
but the bleeding Savior who spared not His very life, but poured out
the floods from His heart that He might save the guilty!
So, you see, dear Friends, that he who loves not Christ, and trusts not
Christ, has good cause to be ashamed.
I will not say any more upon this first point, except just one thing
and that is, a man ought to be ashamed who will not even think of these
things. There are great numbers of our fellow citizens in London and
our fellow creatures all the world over who have resolved not to think
about religion at all. There stands the House of God, but on that same
street there is hardly one person who ever enters it. There is a Bible
in almost every house, but many, nowadays, will not read it, or try to
understand it. I should have thought that common and idle curiosity
alone might have made men anxious to understand the Christian religion,
the way of salvation by a crucified Savior. I should have fancied that
they would have strayed in to see what our worship was like. If it had
been the worship of Mumbo Jumbo, they would have wanted to see that,
but when it is the worship of the Lord God Almighty and of His Son,
Jesus Christ, the multitudes seem to be utterly indifferent to it! From
the Cross I hear my dying Master cry, "Is it nothing to you, all you
that pass by? Behold, and see if there is any sorrow like My sorrow."
Even the voice of His gaping wounds and the voice of His bloody sweat,
and the voice of His broken heart seem to fall upon hearts that will
not listen and upon ears that are as deaf as stones!
Many who come to hear the Gospel go their way to their farms and to
their merchandise, but they care nothing for Him who is worth more than
all beside. O Sirs, in that day when this solid earth shall rock and
reel, when the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, when the stars
shall fall like the leaves of autumn and when there shall sail into the
sky, conspicuous to the gaze of all, the Great White Throne, and on it
shall sit the despised Redeemer, you will repent, then, and regret when
it is too late that you gave Him none of your thoughts, but put the
affairs of religion wholly on the side! Investigate this matter, I
charge you! By what your Immortal souls are worth, by an eternal Heaven
and an endless Hell–and there are both of these, despite what some
say–I charge you, as I shall meet you at the Judgment Seat, and would
be clear of your blood–give earnest attention to the things that make
for your peace and consider the claims of God and of His Christ! And
seek to find the way of salvation by faith in Jesus.
Thus, surely, I have said enough upon this first point–ungodly men
have good cause to be ashamed.
II. Now, secondly, concerning these ungodly people, let me show you
that SHAME IS A VERY DESIRABLE THING IF IT DRIVES THEM TO GOD. Hence
the prayer, "Fill their faces with shame, that they may seek Your name,
O Lord."
I have known shame to drive men to God in various ways. Sometimes shame
attends the breaking up of self-righteousness. I knew a young fellow
who had been a very upright moral man all his days. He seemed to think
that he should go to Heaven by his good works, but he had no notion of
a Savior and no regard for the things of Christ. One day, being in the
workshop, he upset an oil can and his boss, who was rather a
bad-tempered man, enquired sharply who had wasted the oil. And this
man, who had always, till then, been truthful, on this occasion told a
lie and said that he did not upset the can. Nobody found him out, mark
you–he was so highly respected that his employer fully believed that
he had not done it–but he went down greatly in his own esteem. He said
to me, "Sir, my righteousness went all to pieces in a moment. I knew
that I had told a lie. I felt disgusted with myself and when I got out
of the shop, for the first time in my life, I cried to God for mercy,
for I saw myself to be a sinner." Now I do not wish any of you to
commit further sin in order that you may realize your true condition in
God's sight! You have done already enough evil, without doing any more,
but I would like some one of these sins to come so sharply home to you
that it would make you feel ashamed and give up all pretence of
self-righteousness–and come by faith to Christ and take His
righteousness to be your perfect covering before God.
I have known this shame to operate in some, when they have done wrong,
and have lost the reputation they enjoyed among their fellow creatures.
They have been found out in doing wrong and, sad as it was to them, yet
when they felt that they could no longer come to the front and lead as
they used to do–when they knew that they must get somewhere in the
rear and that if their true character became known, people would shun
them–then it was that, like the prodigal son, they said, "I will arise
and go to my Father." There is many a man who stands high in popular
esteem, but who is never likely to be saved, for he is too proud and
self-conceited ever to seek the Savior. But there have been some others
who, for a grave fault, have had all their glory trailed in the mire
and then they have sought the face of Christ. I do not care howor why
they seek that blessed face, so long as they find it and are saved!
There are two instances, then, in which shame drives men to God. First,
when a man has lost his own good opinion of himself. And next when he
has lost the good opinion of others. Filled with shame, he has often
fled to Christ.
So have I also seen it in the case of failure driving a man to the
Strong for strength. There is a young man who has come lately from the
country. He knew the temptations of London, but he said to his father
and mother, "You will never hear of your son John doing such things."
Ah, John! They have not heard of it, yet, but you have done a great
many evil things by now and you ought to be ashamed! If your father
finds it out, as likely enough he will, you will be ashamed. But,
seeing that you have found yourself"out, I wish that you would be
ashamed before the Lord! O that virtuous John, that silent youth, that
dear young man! You were just going to join the Church, were you not?
Where were you last night? Ah, not drinking of the Communion cup, I
will guarantee you! Where are you now? O John, if you could have seen
yourself six months ago, to be what you noware, you would not have held
your head so high when you came away from your native town! But your
failure, that wretched broken back of yours with which you meant to
stand so bolt upright should all help to drive you to God–your
father's God and your mother's God!
My dear Friend, I pray you seek the face of the Most High and begin
again, for, John, though you cannot stand by yourself, God can make you
stand! With a new heart and a right spirit, you can do a deal better
than you have done in the past in your own strength, which is utter
weakness. I have known a teetotaler who has felt himself quite safe
because he wore a blue ribbon, to become a drunk, notwithstanding that
very desirable badge. If that is your case, my Brother, when you are
ashamed of yourself on that account, as well you may be, go to the Lord
for a new heart and a right spirit, and then begin again, that you may
truly be what you aspire to be, an example to others! So, you see, that
shame in such a case of failure as I have described, may bring a man to
Christ.
I have also known men brought to Christ with shame of another
sort–shame of mental terror leading to a humble faith. A young
gentleman felt that he had heard the old-fashioned Gospel long enough
and he should like to go and hear the new gospel. More light is said to
have broken out of late–I can only tell you that it comes from some
very dark places–and I do not think there is much light in it. But
this gentleman thought that he must know about this new light, and he
has kept going further and further. And the new light has led him, like
the will-o'-the-wisp does, into all sorts of boggy places. And now he
begins to feel that he can do a great many things which once he dared
not do, until suddenly the thought occurs to him, "Where have I got to
now?" He has become altogether an unbeliever! He who was once almost
persuaded to be a Christian has run into very wild ways and nothing is
sure with him! It is all rocking to and fro before him, like the waves
of the sea, and there is nothing solid left. Ah, now you begin to be
ashamed, do you? You are not, after all, so full of wisdom as you
thought you were! Come back, then! Come back and believe the old Book,
and trust the Savior who has brought so many to the Eternal Kingdom!
Believe His Words, follow in His track and this very shame on account
of your fancied intellectual prowess, which has turned out to be sheer
folly, will bind you, in future, to the simple Cross of Christ and you
will never go away from it again!
I want to suggest one thing more before I leave this part of my
subject. In this congregation there must be a good many men and women
who might do well to look back upon the utter uselessness of their past
lives. As I looked along these galleries, at the immense preponderance
of men in the congregation, which is so usual with us, I thought, "What
a number there must be here who, if they threw the weight of their
influence in with us, and sought to do good to others, would be
immensely valuable to the Church of God!" But are there not many,
perhaps even professing Christianity, who, in looking back upon their
past lives, will be obliged to say that they have done nothing? What
did you ever accomplish, dear Friends? There was a lady who had a large
sum of money in her possession–much more than sufficient for her
needs. She was a Christian woman, living a quiet, comfortable life by
the seaside. One night, as she walked up and down the beach, she said
to herself, "What have I ever done for Him who died for me? If I were
to die now, would anybody miss me? When my life is finished, shall I
have accomplished anything?" She felt that she had done nothing, so she
went home and ruminated upon what she could do.
She began to live very frugally that she might save all she could and
she accumulated quite a large amount, for she had an objective to live
for. The Orphanage at Stockwell is the outcome of that good woman's
thought at the seaside! She consecrated her substance to the starting
of a home where boys and girls, whose fathers were dead, might be
housed. I cannot but think of her and then say to myself, "Are there
not many ladies, many gentlemen, many men, many women, who might walk
up and down and say, 'Well, now, when I die, who will miss me?'" I
believe that there are numbers of people who call themselves Christians
who might be tied hand and foot and flung into the Atlantic–and nobody
would miss them beyond the two or three members of their own families.
They do nothing and they are living for nothing. "Oh, but," they say,
"we are accumulating money!" Yes, yes. That is like a jackdaw hiding
rubbish behind the door, putting away everything he can get. Poor
jackdaw! That is what you are doing, nothing more! To get money is well
enough, if you get it that you may use it well. And to learn is right
enough, if you learn with the view of teaching others. If our life is
not to be wasted, there must be a living to God with a noble purpose!
And they who have lived in vain with multitudes of opportunities of
doing good, ought to be ashamed–and such shame should bring them to
the Savior's feet in humble penitence. God give such shame as that to
any here who ought to have it, that they may at once seek the name of
the
Lord!
III. I must close by speaking only briefly upon the last head of my
discourse, which is, THE LORD IS WILLING,
NOW, TO RECEIVE THOSE WHO ARE ASHAMED OF THEMSELVES. Let me say that
again. The Lord is waiting and willing, now, to receive to the love of
His heart those who are thus ashamed of themselves.
I do not think that I need say much to enforce this great Truth of God.
Is there one person here who is ashamed of himself because of his past
sin? Then you are the man I invite to come to that Savior who bore your
shame in His own body on the Cross! You are the sort of man for whom He
died. Remember how He, Himself, said, "The Son of Man is come to seek
and to save that which was lost." And one mark of the lost is their
deep sense of shame when they get to be so ashamed of themselves that
they try to hide from the gaze of their fellow creatures. If you are
ashamed of yourself, Christ is willing to receive you! Behold, He
stands before you with open arms and bids you come and trust Him, that
He may give you rest.
You are the sort of man to come to Christ, because, first, you have the
greatest need of Him. In the time of famine, we give the meal, away,
first to the most hungry family. He who has alms to distribute to the
poor, if he is wise, will give the most speedy relief to those who are
the most destitute. And you, my dear Hearer, are like that if you are
ashamed of yourself! You are the bankrupt, you are the beggar, you are
the sort of sinner whom Jesus came to save! God's elect are known by
this mark–in their own natural estate they are as poor as poverty,
itself. If you are empty, there is a full Christ for you! If your last
mite is gone, Heaven's treasures are all open for you! Come and take
them, take them freely, as freely as you breathe the air, as freely as
you would drink of the flowing river! Come and take Christ without
question and without delay! Take Him, now, and be happy! And the way to
take Him is to trust Him, to trust yourself with Him absolutely! He is
a Savior–let Him save you. Have no finger in the work, yourself, but
leave it all to Him. Commit yourself entirely and absolutely to those
mighty hands that molded the heavens and the earth–to those dear hands
that were nailed to the Cross! Jesus can save you! He will save you! He
must save you! He is pledged to save you! If you have believed in Him,
He has saved you and you may go your way and rejoice with joy
unspeakable and full of glory!
Next, if you are ashamed of yourself, you are the man to come to Christ
because you will make no bargains with Him. You will say, "Save me,
Lord, at any price, and in any way!" And you are the man who will give
Him all the glory if you are saved. That is the kind of sinner Jesus
loves to save–not one who will run away with the credit of his
salvation and say, "I was always good and I had many traces of an
excellent character about me before Christ saved me." Such a man might
try to divide with the Lord the glory of his salvation, so he is not
likely to be saved! But God delights to save those in whom there is no
traceof goodness, no hopeof goodness, no shadowof goodness–the men and
women who not only feel that God may well be ashamed of them, but who
are absolutely ashamed of themselves!
In preaching on this important theme, I have not used any grace of
diction, nor have I made any display of oratory. I have plainly told
you the Gospel message and I have expostulated with those of you who
have not considered it. I wish that, by the Grace of God, even before
this night passes away, you would come and rest yourselves on Christ.
The Holy Spirit is here, blessedly working upon some hearts. If He is
not yet working upon others of you, I pray that He may now begin to do
so. Remember, my dear Hearers, that you are all mortal and some of you
may soon be gone from the earth. During the past week I personally have
lost some very choice friends who died quite suddenly. There was a
young friend, who was here a Sabbath or so ago. He was taken ill last
Sunday afternoon and he was gone in a few hours. His sorrowing friends
are absent, today, for he was laid in Norwood Cemetery yesterday
afternoon, almost to the breaking of the hearts of his parents and
other relatives.
I had a dear old friend with whom I have often stayed at Mentone. On
Monday last she seemed as well as ever, but on Wednesday she, too, was
dead. Last Friday week I had a letter from a friend at Plymouth, saying
that he was coming up to see me and asking at what hour I could meet
him? I said, "Five in the afternoon." It was our honored friend, Mr.
Ser-pell. He did not come, but I received a note to say that he was not
quite well. On Monday he addressed the Chamber of Commerce and while he
was speaking, he fell back, apparently in a fainting fit, and so died.
I have, therefore, lost some who have always been good helpers and kind
friends to me. And I seem to feel more than ever I did that I am living
in a dying world. It might have been any one of you! It might have been
myself. Come, then, and let us all seek the Lord at once! Let us each
one seek Him, now. "If you seek Him, He will be found of you." God
grant it, for Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM 12; JEREMIAH 8; 9:1. Psalm 12:1.
Help, LORD; for thegodlyman ceases; for the faithful fail from among
the children ofmen. The Psalm speaks of a very discouraging time and
records a very dreary fact, but the Psalmist is wise and turns to God
with that short, sententious prayer, "Help, Lord."
2. 3. They speak vanity, every one, with his neighbor: with flattering
lips and with a double heart do they speak The LORD shall cut off all
flattering lips, and the tongue that speaks proud things. They will not
be able to continue speaking falsely and proudly forever–a shovelful
of earth from the grave-digger's spade will silence them–and a
terrible display of God's Justice will make them speechless forever.
4, 5. Who have said, With our tongue will weprevail; ourlips are our
own: who is lord over us?For the oppression of the poor, for the
sighing of the needy, now will I arise, says the LORD; I will set him
in safety from him that puffs at him. That is all it is, only a
puff–the biggest brag of the wicked, the most tremendous threat
against the Lord's people is but a puff, after all, and God will set
His people high above all those who puff at them.
6-8. The Words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace
of earth, purified seven times. You shall keep them, O LORD, You shall
preserve them from this generation forever. The wicked walk on every
side when the vilest men are exalted. Now let us read in Jeremiah's
prophecy, Chapter Eight. Remember, dear Brothers and Sisters, that
Jeremiah had the very sorrowful task of warning a people who would not
give heed to his warnings. He prophesied evil–evil which began to come
upon the people even while he prophesied, yet they would not turn to
God! I sometimes think Jeremiah was the greatest of all the Prophets
because, in the teeth of perpetual opposition, with no measure of
success whatever, he continued to be faithful to God and to deliver the
message with which he was sent, weeping all the while over people who
would not weep for themselves.
Jeremiah 8:1, 2. At that time, says the LORD, they shall bring out the
bones ofthe kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes, and the bones
ofthe priests, and the bones ofthe Prophets, and the bones ofthe
inhabitants of Jerusalem, and of their graves: and they shall spread
them before the sun and the moon, and all the host of Heaven, whom they
have loved, and whom they served, and after whom they have walked, and
whom they have sought, and whom they have worshipped: they shall not be
gathered, nor be buried; they shall be for dung upon the face ofthe
earth. This is an awful picture. Here is a nation that would worship
the sun, and the moon, and the stars, instead of worshipping God. Here
they are, and their bones lie exposed to the sun and moon and stars
which they had worshipped–dead people before lifeless gods! This is
all that idolatry produces for the ruined people who have turned away
from their true Friend and Helper– their bones lie exposed in the
presence of the things that they made to be their gods! How dreadful is
the result of sin! No matter what modern preachers say, a sinful course
must be a disastrous one. It is in the very nature of things that we
cannot go the wrong road and yet be happy. Wrong must end in wrong, it
cannot be otherwise–the universal conviction in the conscience of man
teaches us this fact.
3. And death shall be chosen rather than life by all the residue of
them that remain of this evil family, which remain in all the places
where I have driven them, says the LORD of Hosts. These people would
not have God. They cast Him off and now He casts them so far off that
they feel that it would have been better for them if they had never
been born, and they would rather die than live–"Death shall be chosen
rather than life."
4. Moreover you shall say to them, Thus says the LORD; Shall they fall,
and not arise? Shall he turn away, and not return? The old proverb
says, "It is a long lane that has no turning." So the Lord seems to
ask, "Will these men always go on in sin? Will they always turn away
from Me? They change from bad to worse; will they never change from
worse to better?"
5. Why, then, is this people of Jerusalem slid back by a perpetual
backsliding? They hold fast deceit, they refuse to return. Perseverance
in evil is the very venom of evil. When men not only backslide, but
continue to perpetually backslide, they are doubly staining their
garments in the scarlet of iniquity! When men "refuse to return" to the
Lord and continue to refuse to return, surely they are digging their
own graves exceedingly deep.
6. I hearkened and heard.–It is God who is speaking–"I hearkened and
heard."–
6. But they spoke not aright. ' 'I tried to discover whether there was
any good in them. I listened to hear them offer a prayer. I watched to
mark anything like repentance in them."
6. No man repented of wickedness, saying, What have I done? Everyone
turned to his course, as the horse rushes into the battle. See how God
described these people? When He might have expected that some of them
would relent and, in their thoughtful moments turn to a better mind,
they did not do so. But, as the horse, when he hears the war trumpet,
rushes into the midst of the fray, so did these people go headlong into
sin with desperate resolve. Careless of wounds and death, they rushed
to their destruction! I hope that this is not the case with any of my
hearers at this time. I pray God that it may not be so!
7. Yes, the stork in the heavens knows her appointed times; and the
turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming;
but My people know not the judgment of the LORD. The birds take wing
across the sea when the dampness of autumn comes and, by-and-by, when
spring returns, they twitter about our roofs, again, punctual to the
appointed time. But men come not to God in their season–they fly not
from their sins, they return not to the Lord. The crane and the swallow
rebuke the foolishness of men who know not the time to return to God,
and know not their way back to Him.
8. 9. How can you say, We are wise, and the Law of the LORD is with us?
Lo, certainly in vain made he it; the pen of the scribes is in vain.
The wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken: lo, they have
rejected the Word of the LORD; and what wisdom is in them?This test may
serve as a motto for some, in these days, who believe themselves to be
wiser than Scripture and who fancy that, in their great wisdom, they
are able to correct this Inspired Book! Many set up in the trade of
"Bible makers" nowadays–they profess to be the revealers of
Revelation, the improvers of this blessed Book of God. Ah, but this
passage still stands true, "They have rejected the Word of the Lord;
and what wisdom is in them?"
10, 11. Therefore will I give their wives to others, and their fields
to them that shall inherit them: for everyone from the least even to
the greatest is given to covetousness, from the Prophet even to the
priest everyone deals falsely. For they have healed the hurt of the
daughter of My people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no
peace. This is a very mischievous thing. For the preacher of Christ to
be honest and fearless, and to speak unpalatable Truth is right in
God's sight. But to gloss over the great facts about sin and judgment,
and to say to the ungodly, "Oh, do not trouble yourselves! 'Peace,
peace; when there is no peace'"–this is to murder the souls of men!
And I doubt not that the blood of multitudes will be upon the skirts of
those teachers who have tried to make everything pleasant to the
wicked, and to suit the age in which they lived. The Lord Himself says
of the Prophet and priest who have dealt falsely, "They have healed the
hurt of the daughter of My people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when
there is no peace."
12. Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No, they
were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush. What a striking
expression is this! To what a condition of shameless obstinacy have
men's minds been brought when it can be said of them, "They were not at
all ashamed, neither could they blush." The very power to be ashamed
was taken from them. Surely, almost the last ray of any hope of
salvation must be gone from the man who cannot blush at the thought of
his own iniquity!
12-18. Therefore shall they fall among them that fall: in the time of
their visitation they shall be cast down, says the LORD. I will surely
consume them, says the LORD: there shall be no grapes on the vine, nor
figs on the fig tree, and the leaf shall fade; and the things that I
have given them shall pass away from them. Why do we sit still?
Assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the defended cities, and let
us be silent there: for the LORD our God has put us to silence, and
given us water to drink, because we have sinned against the LORD. We
looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of health, and
behold trouble! The snorting of his horses was heard from Dan: the
whole land trembled at the sound of the neighing of his strong ones;
for they are come, and have devoured the land, and all that is in it;
the city, and those that dwell therein. For, behold, I will send
serpents, cockatrices among you, which will not be charmed, and they
shall bite you, says the LORD. When I would comfort myself against
sorrow, my heart is faint in me. Because the people refused this
testimony, because they seemed set on mischief and resolved to die,
therefore the Prophet's heart was faint within him.
19, 20. Behold the voice of the cry of the daughter of My people
because of them that dwell in a far country: Is not the LORD in Zion?
Is not her King in her? Why have they provoked Me to anger with their
engraved images, and with strange vanities? The harvest is past, the
summer is ended, and we are not saved. I will read that 20th verse
again–"The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not
saved." This may be the lament of some of my present hearers–and if it
is, may they now bow before the Lord in true penitence of heart, and
may He, in pity, save them this very hour! The harvest is past, the
summer is ended, but, oh, may they soon be saved!
21. For the hurt ofthe daughter of my people am I hurt; I am black;
astonishment has taken hold on me. That is the man to be God's Prophet,
the man who makes the sorrows of his people to be his own sorrows, who
does not perform the duties of his office as a mere matter of
profession, but enters into his service with a weeping heart, longing
to be made a blessing to men.
22. Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there?No, there
is none. There is balm in Christ, there is a Physician who once hung on
Calvary's Cross–but there is no balm and no physician in Gilead. If
there were–
22. Why then is not the health ofthe daughter of my people recovered?
Jeremiah 9:1. Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of
tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain ofthe daughter of
my people! This is how God's servants feel about the dying and
perishing souls all around them. They cannot bear the thought of the
sinner's awful doom–it brings continuous heartbreak and heaviness of
spirit upon them. That men should eternally perish–that they should
bring on their own heads the doom of their own sin is no small thing
and, therefore, the Lord's servant mourns over those who mourn not for
themselves! God save every one of us, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake!
Amen.