Two Arguments Against Sin
(No. 2684)
A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORDS-DAY, JULY 22, 1900.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, MAY
29, 1881.
"However I sent unto you all My servants the Prophets, rising early and
sending them, saying, Oh, do not do this abominable thing that I hate!"
Jeremiah 44:4.
THIS verse portrays what a minister should be and the picture is a
burden upon my heart and conscience, for it shows that the true
preacher, or Prophet, or man of God, should be one whom God sends early
to do His work. It is, as it were, as though his Master were up early
in the morning, bidding him make haste to go to His service and not let
the grass grow under his feet, for men are sinning–and to suffer them
to continue in sin unrebuked, even for an hour, is truly dreadful. It
is as though one were to leave a house burning without giving an alarm
and calling the firemen, or to see a person in imminent peril in the
street without immediately attempting to do something for his rescue.
Notice that in this verse God represents Himself as rising early, to
show how He realized the greatness of man's danger and the importance
of his being speedily delivered from it. The Lord said that He rose
early in order that He might send His Prophets–of course that
theymight go early, that they might go at once and waste no time–but
be instant in season and out of season to warn men not to do the
abominable thing which God hated! A minister, then, is one who should
be diligent in his Master's business, fervent in spirit, serving the
Lord by endeavoring to warn men of the terrible nature and consequences
of sin.
He is also to be one who speaks as God's representative. Not only
speaking God's Truth, but, as it were, speaking it with God's mouth,
for these Prophets were not to say, "Oh, do not this abominable thing
that God hates," but they were to personify'God, to put themselves into
His place and to say as though He said it, "Oh, do not this abominable
thing that Ihate!" What a responsible and privileged position is this
for any man to occupy, to have to speak for God in this fashion! Paul
referred to it when he wrote to the Corinthians, "Now then we are
ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray
you in Christ's stead, be you reconciled to God." It is a high honor
but a tremendous responsibility to have to do Christ's pleading, to be
intercessors for the Intercessor, and to stand up and speak God's
thoughts as though He had set us to be His spokesmen for a time–to
plead with the sons of men on His behalf. As I have realized this
responsibility, I have sometimes dreaded my office with an unutterable
dread, though I would not change it to become ruler of all the empires
of earth, or even to be an archangel in Heaven, for I reckon that to be
even first among the angels is nothing compared with being an
instrument, in the hand of God, of saving the souls of men! Yet how
awful and how solemn a thing it is for any man to be called to stand
and speak as though God did speak by him and say, "Oh, do not this
abominable thing that I hate!"
There is another lesson to be learned from this picture–not only that
the minister should rise up early to meet an early God, and should
speak in God's name, but he is also to speak in God's style–that is,
pleadingly and pathetically. I count it an easy thing to proclaim the
Truth of God as one might do it from the desk of a classroom, or to be
oratorical and to wax eloquent over the great themes we have to make
known. But it is quite another matter to plead with men, to be pathetic
and to speak as God does here, "Oh, do not this abominable thing that I
hate!" This is the work and this is the difficulty which often burdens
our spirits. You remember that the disciples said to Christ, on one
occasion, "Lord, teach us to pray," for they felt as if the strong
desires that burned within His heart might well burn in theirs, and
that
they had even greater necessities than He had. But when they heard Him
preach, they felt at once that He outsoared them all. When they saw the
tears of pity stream from His eyes and listened to His lament over the
doomed city of Jerusalem, then they realized that He overmatched them
and they felt, if they did not say it, "Never man spoke like this Man!"
And they did not cry, "Lord, teach us to preach as You do!"
They could not hope to rise to that great height and we feel just as
they did. Oh, that these lips could use language borrowed from the lips
of the Well-Beloved! Oh, that these eyes could run with tears like
those that welled up from the great heart of the loving Savior of
sinners! His sermons show us what true preaching is–it should be the
highest form of persuading, it should be really, only in a better sense
than that in which the term is generally used, peilpleading–a pleading
with men, by weighty arguments, that they would leave their sins and
turn to God! Christ's sermons show us a pleading in which God the Holy
Spirit exercises His own supreme office and works upon the minds of the
hearers through the utterances of Him who speaks to them. As this is
what a minister ought to be, may God help us poor creatures to attain
to this high standard! You who are His people can also help us by your
prayers, which we greatly need.
Now, turning from my text as it especially related to the Jews in
Jeremiah's day, I want to apply it to you, dear Friends, who are still
unconverted. In this verse God tells certain people that He had risen
early and sent unto them His servants, the Prophets, one after another,
to plead with them on His behalf. Will you, if you can, kindly
recollect when your consciences were first touched? Can you remember
when that happened? It is highly probable that the sweet tones of your
mother's voice were associated with your first religious thoughts, or,
perhaps, there was a godly man–your father–since passed into the
skies, who pleaded with you, his son, in Christ's name. These were your
Prophets sent from God–could there be any better messengers from Him
than a gracious mother or grandmother, or a godly father?
Why, some of you were plied with the Gospel almost before you knew
anything else! Before you had committed any overt act of sin, you heard
of Jesus' wondrous Grace and dying love! And, since then, you have not
been without messengers from Heaven who have brought you loving
entreaties and invitations. How have you treated them? If you are still
unconverted, I am sure that you have not dealt with them as they ought
to have been received–you have turned a deaf ear to the voice of love
and mercy, or else you would not now be without God, without Christ and
without hope! So I come once more, in my Master's name, as His
messenger–will you slight me and reject my message? If you do, I must
sorrowfully endure it and cry, with others of my Master's servants,
"Who has believed our report?" Yet I pray you, do not do it, for,
though I speak but feebly, no man more sincerely or more heartily
desires the good of his hearers than I do. And I ask you who do know
the Lord to join me in pleading that God, the Holy Spirit, will bless
the message I am about to deliver in Christ's name.
In our text there are two arguments against sin. What God has to say to
unconverted men is here put in very few words–"Oh, do not this
abominable thing that I hate." This short sentence contains the two
arguments against sin upon which I am going to speak. The first is,
from the nature of sin itself–this abominable thing." and the second
is, from the feeling of God towards sin–"this abominable thing that I
hate."
I. The first argument in our text against sin is DERIVED FROM THE
NATURE OF SIN ITSELF–"this abominable thing."
The particular sin of which the Prophet was speaking was that of
idolatry. Those Jewish people would make idol gods in some form or
other and they would bow down before them and neglect the worship of
the one invisible Jehovah. And God calls their idolatry "this
abominable thing." It is rightly so called, for it is abominable
ingratitude. That a man should not worship his Maker, that he should
refuse obedience to his Creator, that he should say to Him who made the
heavens and the earth, and who also made him and keeps him in being, "I
will not worship You! I refuse to bow down before You. I choose to
adore another god–Baal, Ashtaroth, Venus, Bacchus, anything but the
one true God–and I will not worship You, O Jehovah, the Creator of all
worlds!" This, I say again, is shameful ingratitude!
It is also an abominable thing because it is so degrading and debasing.
Everybody ought to be able to see that for a man with intellect and
mind to bow himself down before a carved image is most degrading. That
he should worship that which is made of wood, or stone, or metal is
practically to make himself inferior to the dead thing which he
worships! I know of no act in which a man seems to bring himself lower
than when he prostrates himself before a material object and says,
"This is my god," or, "This is what I worship." So God truly calls
idolatry an "abominable thing." And it will appear to you all the more
so when you recollect the kind of gods that these people's images
represented. They did, in effect,
say to Jehovah, the Maker of Heaven and earth, the good and gracious
God, "We will not worship You, but we will worship that golden calf, or
those images that have eyes but see not, and hands but feel not, and
ears but hear not. We would sooner bow down to these dull dead blocks
of wood than worship You." Oh, this is abominable! I know no more
appropriate word than that which God has here used–"this abominable
thing." An immortal being prostrating himself before a piece of wood! A
man, created by Jehovah, bowing down before an image which he has,
himself, made! This is indeed loathsome! It is insulting to God and
provokes Him to the highest degree.
"We are all agreed about that," you say. I am glad to hear you say so,
yet you may be idolaters, for all that. Have you never heard of those
concerning whom Paul wrote to the Philippians, "whose God is their
belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things"? Did
you ever hear of "the self-made man who worships his creator"? I have
heard of him and seen him, too! And I confess that I have more respect
for a man who worships a god shaped out of the filth of the kennels
than for the one who worships himself because, to worship one's own
self seems to me to be the nethermost depth of degradation! For the
Israelites to say of the golden calf, "These are your gods, O Israel,
who brought you up out of the land of Egypt," was degrading–horribly
so! But for a man to say to himself, practically, if not in so many
words, "I am my own god"–surely this sinks him still lower!
There are some who worship strong drink and who offer themselves as a
sacrifice at its shrine. There are many who immolate upon the altar of
Bacchus, wife, children, home, character and life itself–and they go
down to their dishonored graves, not burnt in the arms of Moloch, but
drowned in their own cups. When you talk of idolaters and abominable
things, is there any worse form of idolatry than this? Then look at the
various forms of covetousness which the Apostle Paul says, "is
idolatry." Think of the guilt of the men who grind the faces of the
poor and, perhaps, even pinch themselves so that they may amass more
gold and have it written concerning them at the last, "He died worth so
much," when he was really utterly worthless! He who worships the little
round images of the Queen is as gross an idolater as the man who bows
down before Juggernaut or Baal! The sin of idolatry is still abundant
everywhere and it is always, in its nature and essence, a degrading
thing to man and an insult to God and, therefore, He continues to say
to all idolaters, "Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate!"
There are many other sins, besides idolatry, which are abominable in
the sight of God. And there is one point about them that hampers a
preacher very much. That is, he cannot bear witness against them,
because even to speak of some sins is to help to spread them. It is
dangerous work to handle gunpowder and, even when we need to move it
from the magazine, we feel that we must do it with great fear and
trembling. Alas! Alas, there are abominable sins that are terribly
common in this awfully guilty London–sins of unchastity that defile
the body and pollute the mind. I fancy that I can see God standing by
some young man who is about to go into this kind of sin and I seem to
hear Him say, "Oh, do not this abominable thing!" I think I also hear
God crying out to some woman who has turned aside from the paths of
purity– "Oh, do not this abominable thing!" It may not appear at the
time, when the mind is under the spell of the serpent's fascination, to
be so abominable as it really is, but, soberly thought of, what a curse
it is to this city and what a curse it is to each individual who is
contaminated by it! Young man, keep far away from the house of the
strange woman–yes, I must say it plainly–God would have me say it,
for He, Himself, says, "Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate!"
There are other abominable sins besides these fleshly lusts which war
against the soul, such as the tempting of others to sin. It is an awful
fact that there are some people who seem to set themselves deliberately
to instruct others in vice and transgression. They will defile the
imagination and the heart of children and of growing young men and
women–this is a dreadful thing. If any of you are in the habit of
singing low songs, or of talking ill-savored language, I would have you
hear my God say to you through my lips, "Oh, do not this abominable
thing that I hate," for it is a horrible evil for you to be spoiling
these fair flowers while yet they are in the bud! Then there is the
habit of using profane and filthy language which is so common in this
city–I think more prevalent than ever it was. It is a most senseless
as well as wicked practice. There is nothing to gain in it. George
Herbert quaintly and wisely wrote–
"Take not His name, who made your mouth, in vain– It gets you nothing,
and has no excuse. Lust and wine plead a pleasure, avarice gain– But
the cheap swearer, through his open sluice, Lets his soul run for
naught, as little fearing. Were Ian Epicure, I could bate swearing."
There are many who sin greatly by slandering others. They lie against
their neighbors' characters and they are never better pleased than when
they can, by exaggeration, make some little flaw into a grave fault.
God says to all who slander, and lie and speak not the truth, "Do not
this abominable thing that I hate!" Then there is hypocrisy which is
always far too rife–the making of a profession when there is nothing
at the back of it–the pretending to be gracious when there is no Grace
in the heart, and to be faithful when there is no faith in the soul. O
Sirs, if you will be lost, I pray you, do not be lost as hypocrites! If
you are determined to perish, choose some other way of perishing than
that which Judas took when he joined himself to the Apostles and yet
sold his Master for 30 pieces of silver. God says to you, with a
special emphasis, "Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate!"
Another aspect of the abominable character of sin will be apparent if I
remind you that there are some persons in whom sin–any sin–is
peculiarly abominable. If you were privileged, as I was, to be born
into a Christian family, having had a grandfather and a
great-grandfather and other ancestors all walking in the ways of God,
and having a father and a mother whose first and chief desire was to
train you in the fear of God, you know that for you to do wrong under
such circumstances is, indeed, an abominable thing! Poor gutter
children and persons who dwell in the worst dens and slums of
London–and who have never been taught as you and I were–cannot sin to
the same extent as we can who have so long known better and who have
been trained aright from our earliest days. O you children of godly
parents, I pray you look well to your walk and hear the Lord say
especially to you, "Do not this abominable thing that I hate!"
There are also some persons who are gifted by Nature, or by that Grace
which God sometimes intertwines with Nature, with a tender conscience.
Some seem, from the very first, to be more callous and hardened than
others, but there are some of us who, from our very childhood, remember
how we could not sleep unless we had said our prayers, or, if we had
told a lie, we could not rest till we had confessed it. And if we had
disobeyed our parents, we were tormented with remorse even though they
did not know what we had done! Chastening was not needed to bring us to
repentance, for we chastened ourselves. It is a great mercy to have a
tender conscience–but to sin against it is a peculiarly abominable
thing.
Mind, my young Friend, you who are sorely tempted just now, I charge
you not to do violence to your conscience! Whatever you do, be sure to
keep it tender, for it is one of your best friends and it will, by
God's Grace, be the means of guiding you to Heaven! Do not trifle with
its warnings. Do not sear it with the hot iron of even an occasional
transgression, but, at once, obey the Savior's call and trust to Him
for the salvation only He can give! It is an abominable thing for any
man to sin, but it is a hundred times worse in some than it is in
others because they have clearer light and a plainer perception of what
sin really is.
And, sometimes, sin becomes an especially abominable thing to a man who
has previously committed it and smarted from it, and who has escaped as
by the skin of his teeth–and yet goes back to indulge in it again.
Have you ever tried to save a poor moth, on a summer's evening, when
you have been sitting at work or reading by the light of the gas or a
candle? It comes dashing towards the light and singes its wings–and
there it lies, helpless, on the table. You have taken it up very
tenderly and put it away from the light in the hope that it might,
perhaps, escape. But the very first thing it has done, when it has
recovered even the partial use of its wings, has been to fly back into
the flame again! You have said, "There is no saving you, poor silly
thing, for you are determined to die by your own folly. You will not
let me rescue you." And it is just so with some sinners whom we try to
rescue–they will go back to the very thing that has already burnt
them!
Perhaps I am addressing one who, but a little while ago, was on a bed
of sickness and, as you were lying there looking into eternity, you
cried, "Lord, save me. If You will but spare me, I will turn from sin
and I will seek the Savior until I find Him." Yet you are not doing
anything of the kind though the Lord did spare you! Peter's solemn
words might be repeated to you, "You have not lied unto men, but unto
God." Remember what happened to Ananias and Sapphira when they sinned
thus. I pray God not to visit you in judgment, but, in His great mercy,
to lay all your sin as a heavy burden upon your conscience that you may
feel the evil of having broken your vows and your promises, for this
is, indeed, an abominable thing in the sight of God–and also an
abominable thing in the judgment of all honest, right-thinking men!
Thus might I continue to point out various circumstances which increase
the guilt of sinners, but I will only say one more thing and then I
shall have finished the consideration of this first part of our
subject. The observation I wish to make is this. There are some of us
to whom sin has become such an abominable thing that we can honestly
say we would
sooner suffer every pain of which the body is capable than we would
willfully commit sin. There are various things in this world which are
loathsome to all our tastes, but we would be willing to have them all
around us, however distasteful they might be, rather than be in the
presence of moral evil. It grates upon our ears, it galls our mind, it
frets our heart, it aggravates all our spiritual senses to be brought
into contact with sin! Sin is to us more horrible than death, more
diabolical than the devil, more hellish than Hell, itself, for the
pains of Hell would lose their sharpness if it were not that sin is the
undying worm that causes them. Sin, transgression, iniquity, evil in
all its forms, untruth, every violation of God's Law–all this is an
abominable thing which every right-minded man is bound to hate, to
loathe, to detest with all the energy of his being! One great reason
why we implore men to forsake sin, and pray the Holy Spirit to enable
them to do so, is because it is an abominable thing.
"Oh," someone says, "sin is a sweet thing!" No, no, it is an abominable
thing! "It is a delightful thing," says another. No, it is an
abominable thing! "Oh, but it is a fashionable thing–you can see it in
courts of kings and princes– and the great men of the earth love it."
Even though they do, it is an abominable thing! Though it should crawl
up to a monarch's throne and spread its slime over crown jewels, it
would still be an abominable thing. It once entered Heaven, itself, and
befouled and defiled a mighty angel and all who followed him–and you
can see what an abominable thing it is when you realize how it degraded
them and cast them down from their high estate to be, "reserved in
everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day."
II. Now, for a little while, I will speak to you upon the second reason
why sin should be repented of and forsaken. That is because of THE
FEELING WHICH GOD HAS TOWARDS IT. Note how strongly He puts it. "Oh, do
not this abominable thing that I hate!"
God hates all evil, all injustice, all wrong-doing, all immorality, all
sin of every kind. He hates it! He is not indifferent to it, nor
tolerant of it, but His whole soul goes out in righteous indignation
against it. And He hates it, first, because He is infinitely pure. If
He were not, Himself, perfectly pure, He might tolerate or excuse sin,
but the delicate, matchless purity of His Nature causes His holy anger
to burn with a fierce flame against everything that is unrighteous. A
pure and holy God must hate sin.
He hates it, too, because it is such an injury to you, His creatures,
and, therefore, He says to you, "Oh, do not this abominable thing that
I hate!" He hates it because it so grievously mars what He made
perfect. Sin has spoiled all the beauty of God's highly-favored
creature, man. I cannot tell what a perfectly lovely being Adam was
before he fell, but I am sure that both Adam and Eve, in their unfallen
state, must have had about them a matchless grace to which their
loveliest sons or most beautiful daughters cannot now attain. And this
also I know, that if you have a face most exquisitely fashioned and
well proportioned, yet when evil passions rage behind it, it looks
positively diabolical! On the other hand, a man who is truly converted
to God and living to bless his fellow men, even though he has only
ordinary features, has real beauty about him which we can all perceive.
I have seen a very plain woman who has been full of love to Christ and
who has consecrated herself to His service, look quite lovely when the
Grace of Christ has shone through her face and illuminated her whole
life.
But God hates sin because it spoils men and women, not only in face,
but especially in heart. Men and women, as God sees them, are rendered
ugly through sin. Any beauty that the sinner may possess is marred in
the sight of the Most High and He cannot look upon it except with
abhorrence. Besides, where does the sweat on our brow come but from our
sin? Where do these aches and pains come but from our sin? Where do the
thorns and thistles come, which we must dig up with hard toil, but from
our sin? Where do yon hillocks in the churchyard come, those graves
that cause so many hearts to break, but from our sin? And because sin
works such havoc upon the creatures He has made, God hates it.
God hates it, too, because it drives Him to do what He dislikes doing.
Isaiah tells us that judgment is, "His strange work," a work at which
He is not so much at home as in His works of mercy and Grace. and His
own words confirm the Prophet's testimony–"As I live, says the Lord
God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked." Though He must
smite the guilty, it is, as it were, with His left hand that He smites,
for He would far rather that they turned to Him and lived. Yet God must
be just, for He would cease to be God if He were not just–and if He
did not punish sin. But, in effect, it is sin that has put the sword
into God's hand and made the chains that men must wear forever, and lit
the eternal fires that never can be quenched. O Souls, God hates sin
for your sakes and He cries to you, "Oh, do not this abominable thing
that I hate!"
To me, the most touching thing in my text is God's pleading with
men–"Oh, do not do it; do not do it. Do not live any longer in sin.
'Do not this abominable thing that I hate!'" It is such wondrous
condescension on God's part to thus plead with sinners. It is the act
of a king to command, but here it is more like a father who persuades,
expostulates, implores, entreats. "Oh, do not this abominable thing
that I hate!" It is God solemnly dealing with men in earnest–a
Suppliant to them, as it were, saying to them, "Oh, do not this
abominable thing!" This kind of language is suitable for us to use
towards God. We may well cry, "Oh, do not smite me! Do not condemn me!"
But, here, God takes the Suppliant's place and cries to us, "Oh, do not
destroy yourselves! Do not force Me to punish you! Do not reject My
love! Do not despise My Son! Do not refuse My mercy! Do not neglect My
call! Do not continue in sin–'this abominable thing that I hate!'"
It is as though God had such sympathy with men that He stood and
pleaded with them, as a man's own mother or father might with him. Have
you ever heard a mother or a father, when a child has seemed to be
determined to follow an evil course, saying, "Do not so, my child! I
pray you, do not so"? Will such wrong-doing hurt the father? Not
personally. Will it injure the mother? No, not in her own person, but,
somehow, parents so identify themselves with their children that they
suffer when their children sin–and they say to them, "Do not so! Oh, I
beg you, do not so, lest, in injuring yourselves, you also bring my
gray hairs with sorrow to the grave." It is amazing that God, whose
thunders shake the heavens, should say to His fallen, rebellious
creatures, "Do not so." I wish I knew how to repeat these words, but my
tongue may not even attempt the impossible task, for I cannot speak as
God did when He said, "'Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate!'
I hate it for your sake. I hate it for its own sake. Do not grieve Me.
Do not vex Me. I grieve because it injures you and I am vexed because
of the misery and woe it will surely bring upon you unless you repent."
The greatest wonder of it all is–and with this I must close–that God
not only pleaded thus with men, once, but He did it many times, for He
sent Prophet after Prophet and this was always the message He gave to
each of them, "Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate!" I can
conceive of a prince, in very great pity to an erring subject, saying
to him, "Do not so! Do not so!" But I cannot conceive of a great
potentate again, and again, and again, and again, and again, with
tears, coming to a subject and saying, "Oh, do not break my law! Do not
this abominable thing!"
But hear it, O you heavens, and be astonished, O earth, as this strange
story is told to you! God has pleaded with some here for 20
years–twenty years of patience–twenty years of rejected love! Twenty
years, did I say? With many of you it is thirty, or even 40 years! You
know it is so. Forty years was the Lord tried by the children of Israel
in the wilderness and 40 years has He been tried by many who are still
alive! Would you have had patience with anybody who had vexed you for
40 days Some of you cannot keep your tempers for 40 seconds! Certainly
you boil over in less than 40 hours! Yet God has had patience with you
for 40 years! Yes, and all that while some of you have been hearers of
the Gospel or, if you have not regularly gone to hear it, you might
have done so, for it has been preached quite close to you. The most of
you have been living in a city that is well provided with the means of
Grace. I said 40 years, but in some cases it is 50 years–and there is
one, over yonder, with whom it is now 60 years of slighted love and
Divine compassion. Is there one with whom it is 70 years? Seventy-five
years? Eighty years? Perhaps it is even so and yet you are still
despising your God and neglecting your own soul!
How I wish that I knew how to say to you, in God's name, "Oh, do not
this abominable thing that I hate!" Come, Friend, give up your sin!
Renounce your folly! Trust in Christ–ask God to receive you. Say, "I
will arise and go to my Father and will say to Him, Father, I have
sinned." If you go to Him with that confession, you may be sure that He
will receive you! Otherwise He would never have sent you tonight's
pleading message. He would not have spared you to be here if He had not
meant to accept you when you seek His face! Remember, the way of
salvation is by trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ. You trust Him and
then, by His Grace, He helps you to overcome sin! He gives you a new
nature and you become saved. Trust Him now! The service is almost over
and the clock has struck the hour for closing, but Mercy's hour has not
yet struck. God still waits to be gracious! "Believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and you shall be saved." Trust Him now. May He enable you to do
so by His infinite mercy! Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JEREMIAH 1.
Verses 1-3. The words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah, of the priests
that were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin: to whom the word of the
LORD came in the days of Josiah, the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the
thirteenth year of his reign. It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the
son of Josiah king of Judah, unto the end of the eleventh year of
Zedekiah the son of Josiah king of Judah, unto the carrying away of
Jerusalem captive in the fifth month. Jeremiah was a young man when he
was called to the prophetic office and he was sent of God, as a young
Prophet, to help the young king, Josiah. His public life, therefore,
opened somewhat happily. But, after the death of Josiah, wicked kings
sat upon the throne and it was the painful lot and yet, in some
respects, the choice privilege, of this weeping Prophet to be sent upon
his Master's errand, time after time, to a disobedient and gainsaying
people who repaid him only evil while he sought their good. The Holy
Spirit, you see, is careful to note important dates in the history of
God's servants–and you and I should also keep a record of the times
when God sets us to work and when He gives us special Grace for the
service to which He has called us.
4-6. Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Before I formed
you in the belly I knew you; and before you came forth out of the womb
I sanctified you, and I ordained you a Prophet unto the nations. Then
said I, Ah, Lord GOD! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child. He was
but young and, when young men are called to be ambassadors for God, it
behooves them to feel the weight of the responsibility that rests upon
them–and to be conscious of their lack of experience and of their need
of fitness for the work. In that consciousness of unfitness, there
often lies the evidence of their fitness for the task entrusted to
them! Perhaps out of weakness they shall be made strong, but if they do
not feel their weakness, they are not likely to cry to God for help, or
to receive it from Him. "Ah, Lord God!" said young Jeremiah, "behold, I
cannot speak: for I am a child."
7. But the LORD said unto me, Say not, I am a child: for you shall go
to all that I shall send you, and whatever I command you, you shall
speak. Now, even a child can often speak anything that has been said to
him. To repeat what he is told to say is not beyond his capacity and,
after all, this is a Christian minister's principal work! Somebody
says, "We need thinkers." Yes, so we do, but we need men whose thoughts
shall be subordinate to the thoughts of God–ministers who do not come
to utter their own thoughts, but to deliver their Master's message–to
tell to us what He has told them. Is that sermon merely what you think,
Sir? Then, what do I care what you think? What is that to me anymore
than what I thinkmay be to you? If, however, you can come to me and
say, "Thus says the Lord," I will give diligent heed to your message
and I am bound to receive it–but woe be to that minister whose word
shall be other than this!
8. Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with you to deliver you, says
the LORD. When a king sends an ambassador to a foreign court, he cannot
usually go with him, but God's ambassador always has his King with him.
Oh, what courage he ought to have with such a Companion!
9. Then the LORDput forth his hand and touched my mouth. For you young
Brothers who are to be preachers of the Gospel, I cannot wish anything
better than that the Lord may touch your mouth in this way. In the old
times that some of us remember, godly men used to pray that the Holy
Spirit would be "mouth, matter and wisdom" to the preachers of the
Word. It was not at all a bad prayer, for it was a petition that He
would give to His servants the right subject, the right spirit and the
right utterance–that He would teach them howto speak, whatto speak and
in what spirit to speakit.
9. And the LORD said unto me, Behold, I have put My words in your
mouth. That is a true picture of a Spirit-sent preacher of the
Gospel–a man who has God's words in his mouth. I said before that the
minister must not utter his own thoughts, but here we see that he must
not even utter his own words! God's thoughts are best delivered in
God's words– and the more of Scripture there is in our teaching, the
more true, the more Divine and the more powerful will it be.
10. See, Ihave this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms,
to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to
build, and to plant What a mysterious power rested on this God-sent
messenger! Poor Jeremiah was often in prison, frequently at death's
door, yet he was the master of nations and kingdoms and the Lord gave
him authority to root them up or to plant them, to throw them down or
to build them up! What wondrous power God gives to those who faithfully
preach His Word! Well might Mary, Queen of Scots, say that she was more
afraid of John Knox's preaching than of all the armies that came
against her!
11-14. Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Jeremiah,
what do you see? And I said, I see a branch of an almond tree. Then
said the LORD unto me, You have seen well: for I will hasten My word to
perform it. And the
word of the LORD came unto me the second time, saying, What do you see?
And I said, I see a boiling pot; and the face thereof is toward the
north. Then the LORD said unto me, Out of the north an evil shall break
forth upon all the inhabitants of the land. The Chaldeans and the
Babylonians were like a great cauldron, boiling and seething, sending
forth smoke and steam over the nations and ready to scald Jerusalem to
its destruction!
15, 16. For, lo, I will call all the families ofthe kingdoms of the
north, says the LORD; and they shall come, and they shall set,
everyone, his throne at the entering of the gates of Jerusalem, and
against all the walls thereof round about, andagainst all the cities of
Judah. And I will utter Myjudgments against them touching all their
wickedness, who have forsaken Me, and have burned incense unto other
gods, and worshipped the works of their own hands. God tells Jeremiah
that He was about to destroy Jerusalem because of the people's sin.
Jeremiah was not merely to foretell their doom, but he was also to tell
the reason of it–that it was the result of their sin and especially of
the sin of idolatry, to which mankind is always exceedingly prone. It
is most difficult to keep men to pure spiritual worship–the worship of
the unseen God in spirit and in truth. They will get away, if they can,
to some outward form or another. They will take the very bread of
communion and worship it! Or the image of the bleeding Savior and make
an idol of that. Somehow or other, they will have something visible, or
tangible, as the object of their adoration. Men will fall into idolatry
of one kind or another even to this day–and this is a God-provoking
offense from which may the Lord, in His mercy, graciously preserve all
of us perfectly clear!
17. You, therefore, gird up your loins. ' 'You have a hard task before
you, Jeremiah, a stern life's work cut out for you–'therefore gird up
your loins.'"
17. And arise. "There must be no waiting, no idleness–'Arise.'"
17. And speak unto them all that I command you. "Do not trim it at all,
or pare it down, or omit distasteful portions, but, 'speak unto them
all that I command you.'"
17. Be not dismayed at their faces, lest I confound you before them. We
ought to be so afraid of God that we are afraid of nobody else–
"Fear Him, you saints, and you will then Have nothing else to fear."
Send all your fears to Heaven and there let them stay there!
18, 19. For, behold, Ihave made you this day a fortified city, andan
ironpillar, and bronze walls against the whole land, against the kings
of Judah, against the princes thereof, against the priests thereof, and
against the people of the land. And they shall fight against you; but
they shall not prevail against you; for I am with you, says the LORD,
to deliver you.