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Jeremiah
Chapter Thirteen
Jeremiah 13
Chapter Contents
The glory of the Jews should be marred. (1-11) All ranks
should suffer misery
An earnest exhortation to repentance. (12-17) An awful
message to Jerusalem and its king. (18-27)
Commentary on Jeremiah 13:1-11
(Read Jeremiah 13:1-11)
It was usual with the prophets to teach by signs. And we
have the explanation
verses 9-11. The people of Israel had been to
God as this girdle. He caused them to cleave to him by the law he gave them
the prophets he sent among them
and the favours he showed them. They had by
their idolatries and sins buried themselves in foreign earth
mingled among the
nations
and were so corrupted that they were good for nothing. If we are proud
of learning
power
and outward privileges
it is just with God to wither them.
The minds of men should be awakened to a sense of their guilt and danger; yet
nothing will be effectual without the influences of the Spirit.
Commentary on Jeremiah 13:12-17
(Read Jeremiah 13:12-17)
As the bottle was fitted to hold the wine
so the sins of
the people made them vessels of wrath
fitted for the judgments of God; with
which they should be filled till they caused each other's destruction. The
prophet exhorts them to give glory to God
by confessing their sins
humbling
themselves in repentance
and returning to his service. Otherwise they would be
carried into other countries in all the darkness of idolatry and wickedness.
All misery
witnessed or foreseen
will affect a feeling mind
but the pious
heart must mourn most over the afflictions of the Lord's flock.
Commentary on Jeremiah 13:18-27
(Read Jeremiah 13:18-27)
Here is a message sent to king Jehoiakim
and his queen.
Their sorrows would be great indeed. Do they ask
Wherefore come these things
upon us? Let them know
it is for their obstinacy in sin. We cannot alter the
natural colour of the skin; and so is it morally impossible to reclaim and
reform these people. Sin is the blackness of the soul; it is the discolouring
of it; we were shapen in it
so that we cannot get clear of it by any power of
our own. But Almighty grace is able to change the Ethiopian's skin. Neither
natural depravity
nor strong habits of sin
form an obstacle to the working of
God
the new-creating Spirit. The Lord asks of Jerusalem
whether she is
determined not be made clean. If any poor slave of sin feels that he could as
soon change his nature as master his headstrong lusts
let him not despair; for
things impossible to men are possible with God. Let us then seek help from Him
who is mighty to save.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Jeremiah》
Jeremiah 13
Verse 5
[5] So I
went
and hid it by Euphrates
as the LORD commanded me.
So — Most think Jeremiah
did this in a vision
for it was a very long journey from Anathoth to
Euphrates.
Verse 12
[12] Therefore thou shalt speak unto them this word; Thus saith the LORD God of
Israel
Every bottle shall be filled with wine: and they shall say unto thee
Do we not certainly know that every bottle shall be filled with wine?
Do we not know —
This is no strange thing.
Verse 13
[13] Then
shalt thou say unto them
Thus saith the LORD
Behold
I will fill all the
inhabitants of this land
even the kings that sit upon David's throne
and the
priests
and the prophets
and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem
with drunkenness.
Behold —
There is a wine of astonishment and confusion
Psalms 60:3. With that wine
saith God
I will
fill all orders of persons
kings
priests
prophets
and all the inhabitants
of Jerusalem.
Verse 16
[16] Give
glory to the LORD your God
before he cause darkness
and before your feet
stumble upon the dark mountains
and
while ye look for light
he turn it into
the shadow of death
and make it gross darkness.
Give glory — Glorify
God
by an humble confession of your sins
by submitting yourselves to God
humbling yourselves under his word
and under his mighty hand
before God
brings upon you
his great and heavy judgments.
Verse 19
[19] The cities of the south shall be shut up
and none shall open them: Judah
shall be carried away captive all of it
it shall be wholly carried away
captive.
The cities —
The cities of Judah lay southward from Chaldea.
Verse 20
[20] Lift
up your eyes
and behold them that come from the north: where is the flock that
was given thee
thy beautiful flock?
Where —
The prophet speaks to the king
or to the rulers. In the multitude of the
people is the king's honour.
Verse 21
[21] What
wilt thou say when he shall punish thee? for thou hast taught them to be
captains
and as chief over thee: shall not sorrows take thee
as a woman in
travail?
What wilt thou say —
Thou wilt have nothing to say
but be wholly confounded when God shall visit
thee with this sore judgment
for by thy so often calling them to thy
assistance
thou hast taught them to be captains over thee.
Verse 22
[22] And
if thou say in thine heart
Wherefore come these things upon me? For the
greatness of thine iniquity are thy skirts discovered
and thy heels made bare.
Thy skirts —
Probably these phrases are fetched from the usual practice of soldiers when
they have conquered a place and taken prisoners
to strip them. By skirts is
meant the lower part of their bodies covered with the lower part of their
garments.
Verse 26
[26]
Therefore will I discover thy skirts upon thy face
that thy shame may appear.
Therefore — I
will expose thee to shame and contempt.
Verse 27
[27] I
have seen thine adulteries
and thy neighings
the lewdness of thy whoredom
and thine abominations on the hills in the fields. Woe unto thee
O Jerusalem!
wilt thou not be made clean? when shall it once be?
Thy whoredom —
Thy idolatries.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Jeremiah》
13 Chapter 13
Verses 1-27
Verses 1-11
Then I went to Euphrates
and digged
and took the girdle from the
place where I had hid it: and
beheld
the girdle was marred
it was profitable
for nothing.
The cast-off girdle
In many instances the prophets were bidden to do singular things
and among the rest was this: Jeremiah must take a linen girdle and put it about
his loins
and wear it there till the people had noticed what he wore
and how
long he wore it. This girdle was not to be washed; this was to be a matter
observed of all observers
for it was a part of the similitude. Then he must
make a journey to the distant river Euphrates
and take off his girdle and bury
it there. When the people saw him without a girdle they would make remarks and
ask what he had done with it; and he would reply that he had buried it by the
river of Babylon. Many would count him mad for having walked so far to get rid
of a girdle: two hundred and fifty miles was certainly a great journey for such
a purpose. Surely he might have buried it nearer home
if he must needs bury it
at all. Anon
the prophet goes a second time to the Euphrates
and they say one
to another
The prophet is a fool: the spiritual man is mad. See what a trick
he is playing. Nearly a thousand miles the man will have walked in order to
hide a girdle
and to dig it up again. What next will he do? Whereas plain
words might not have been noticed
this little piece of acting commanded the
attention and excited the curiosity of the people. The record of this singular
transaction has come to us
and we know that
as a part of Holy Scripture
it
is full of instruction. Thousands of years will not make it so antique as to be
valueless. The Word of the Lord never becomes old so as to lose its vigour; it
as still as strong for all Divine purposes as when first of all Jehovah spoke
it.
I. In our text we
have an honourable emblem of Israel and Judah: we may say
in these days
an
emblem of the Church of God.
1. God had taken this people to be bound to Himself: He had taken
them to be as near to Him as the girdle is to the Oriental when he binds it
about his loins. The traveller in the East takes care that his girdle shall not
go unfastened: he girds himself securely ere he commences his work or starts
upon his walk; and God has bound His people round about Him so that they shall
never be removed from Him “I in them” saith Christ
even as a man is in his
girdle. “Who shall separate us?” saith Paul. Who shall ungird us from the heart
and soul of our loving God? “They shall be Mine
saith the Lord.”
2. But Jeremiah’s girdle was a linen one: it was the girdle peculiar
to the priests
for such was the prophet; he was “the son of Hilkiah
of the
priests that were in Anathoth.” Thus the type represents chosen men as bound to
God in connection with sacrifice. We are bound to the Most High for solemn
priesthood to minister among the sons of men in holy things. The Lord Jesus is
now blessing the sons of men as Aaron blessed the people
and we are the girdle
with which He girds Himself in the act of benediction by the Gospel.
3. The girdle also is used by God always in connection with work.
When Eastern men are about to work in real earnest they gird up their loins.
When the Lord worketh righteousness in the earth it is by means of His chosen
ones. When He publishes salvation
and makes known His grace
His saints are
around Him. When sinners are to be saved it is by His people when error is to
be denounced
it is by our lips that He chooses to speak. When His saints are
to be comforted
it is by those who have been comforted by His Holy Spirit
and
who therefore tell out the consolations which they have themselves enjoyed.
4. Moreover
the girdle was intended for ornament. It does not appear
that it was bound about the priest’s loins under his garments
for if so it
would not have been seen
and would not have been an instructive symbol: this
girdle must be seen
since it was meant to be a type of a people who were to be
unto God “for a people
and for a name
and for a praise and for a glory.” Is
not this wonderful beyond all wonder
that God should make His people His
glory? But now
alas! we have to turn our eyes sorrowfully away from this
surpassing glory.
II. These people
who might have been the glorious girdle of God displayed in their own persons a
fatal omission. Did you notice it? Thus saith the Lord unto Jeremiah
“Go and
get thee a linen girdle
and put it upon thy loins
and put it not in water.”
1. Ah
me! there is the mischief: the unwashed girdle is the type of
an unholy people who have never received the great cleansing. No nearness to
God can save you if you have never been washed by the Lord Jesus. No official
connection can bless you if you have never been washed in His most precious
blood. Here is the alternative for all professors
--you must be washed in the
blood of Christ
or be laid aside; which shall it be?
2. The prophet was bidden not to put it in water
which shows that
there was not only an absence of the first washing
but there was no daily
cleansing. We are constantly defiling our feet by marching through this dusty
world
and every night we need to be washed. If you suffer a sin to lie on your
conscience
you cannot serve God aright while it is there. If you have
transgressed as a child
and you do not run and put your head into your
Father’s bosom and cry
“Father
I have sinned!” you cannot do God’s work.
3. The more this girdle was used the more it gathered great and
growing defilement. Without the atonement
the more we do the more we shall
sin. Our very prayers will turn into sin
our godly things will gender evil. O
Lord
deliver us from this! Save us from being made worse by that which should
make us better. Let us be Thy true people
and therefore let us be washed that
we may be clean
that Thou mayest gird Thyself with us.
III. Very soon that
fatal flaw in the case here mentioned led to a solemn judgment. It was a solemn
judgment upon the girdle
looking at it as a type of the people of Israel.
1. First
the girdle
after Jeremiah had made his long walk in it
was taken off from him and put away. This is a terrible thing to happen to any
man. I would rather suffer every sickness in the list of human diseases than
that God should put me aside as a vessel in which He has no pleasure
and say
to me
“I cannot wear you as My girdle
nor own you as Mine before men.”
2. After that girdle was laid aside
the next thing for it was hiding
and burying. It was placed in a hole of the rock by the river of the captivity
and left there. Many a hypocrite has been served in that way.
3. And now the girdle spoils. It was put
I dare say
where the damp
and the wet acted upon it; and so
when in about seventy days Jeremiah came
back to the spot
there was nothing but an old rag instead of what had once
been a pure white linen girdle. He says
“Behold the girdle was marred; it was
profitable for nothing.” So
if God were to leave any of us
the best men and
the best women among us would soon become nothing but marred girdles
instead
of being as fair white linen.
4. But the worst part of it is that this relates undoubtedly to many
mere professors whom God takes off from Himself
laying them aside
and leaving
them to perish. And what is His reason for so doing? He tells us this in the
text: He says that this evil people refused to receive God’s words. Dear
friends
never grow tired of God’s Word; never let any book supplant the Bible.
Love every part of Scripture
and take heed to every word that God has spoken.
Next to that
we are told that they walked in the imagination of their heart.
That is a sure sign of the hypocrite or the false professor. He makes his
religion out of himself
as a spider spins a web out of his own bowels: what
sort of theology it is you can imagine now that you know its origin. Upon all
this there followed actual transgression
--“They walked after other gods to
serve them and to worship them.” This happens also to the base professor. He
keeps up the name of a Christian for a little while
and seems to be as God’s
girdle; but by and by he falls to worshipping gold
or drink
or lust. He turns
aside from the infinitely glorious God
and so he falls from one degradation to
another till he hardly knows himself. He becomes as a rotten girdle “which
profiteth nothing.” (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Nearness to God destroyed by sin
I. Nearness to
God.
1. These Jews were like a girdle bound upon the loins. Should have
entwined themselves around God. So nations may be near--
2. Man is near God.
II. His nearness
destroyed by sin.
1. Sin is the destroyer of nations as well as individuals. The Jews
destroyed by idolatry
lust
selfishness
pride.
2. As of nations
so of individuals: sin will destroy them
unless
resisted and cast out.
3. This destruction is voluntary. The sinner is a suicide.
4. God is represented as active in this destruction.
5. This destruction will consist in--
Learn--
1. The terrible power of sin.
2. To guard against it as our chief enemy. (E. Jerman.)
Good reasons for singular conduct
Good Words contains an excellent story about Professor Blackie by the editor
Dr. Donald Macleod:--“Professor Blackie frequently stayed at my house when
lecturing in Glasgow. He was always at his best when one had him alone. One
night we were sitting up together
he said in his brusque way: ‘Whatever other
faults I have
I am free from vanity.’ An incredulous smile on my face roused
him. ‘You don’t believe that: give me an instance.’ Being thus challenged
I
said: ‘Why do you walk about flourishing a plaid continually? ‘I’ll give you
the history of that
sir. When I was a poor man
and when my wife and I had our
difficulties
she one day drew my attention to the thread-bare character of my
surtout
and asked me to order a new one. I told her I could not afford it just
then; when she went
like a noble woman
and put her own plaid shawl on my
shoulders
and I have worn a plaid ever since in memory of her loving deed!’”
The prophet Jeremiah must often have been looked upon as a man of eccentric
conduct. But like Professor Blackie with his plaid shawl
he was not actuated
by whims
fancy
or vanity. Jeremiah’s warrant for the singular use to which he
put his girdle was the authority and mandate of the Lord.
Verse 10
This evil people which refuse to hear My words.
Rejecters of God’s word
I. Sensational
preaching: in what sense to be approved. The style of this teaching of Jeremiah
looks sensational. He is bidden to take a fine
new linen girdle--a most
important and ornamental part of an Oriental gentleman’s garments--and bury it
for a time near the Euphrates. Taking it up afterwards
he was to exhibit it to
the people of Judah and Jerusalem
with all the marks of injury and decay upon
it
as a sign and type of the decline and decay that the Lord would bring on
them in Babylon
when
parted from Him to whom they had been bound as a girdle
to a man’s body
they should be buried under the oppression and contempt of
their proud and domineering captors.
II. Rejection of
the divine word.
1. Even the most highly favoured persons may reject God’s Word.
2. The transgressors in such cases prefer their own imagination to
God’s revelations. Religion says to God
“Thy will be done.” The natural heart
says
“My will be done”--“Who is the Lord that I should obey Him?”
3. The moral influence of such perverseness is bad
progressively
bad. Having cast off God
the human nature cannot stand up alone. It needs a
support. It must worship. So it goes after other
and of course false
gods.
Every sin has three distinct effects
apart from the punishment of the future:
4. The effect of rejecting God’s Word is lamentable in the extreme.
If the fire of Divine anger burnt up that vine which He had planted
how will
it be with the common tree of the forest?
III. By whom is the
word of the Lord rejected?
1. In a certain strict and literal sense every unbeliever is an
infidel
i.e. he is without faith. But many are without faith who yet
assent to the general truths of God’s Word. Many infidels have made it their
own interest to impugn and deny Divine revelation. A man has broken its
precepts--perhaps suffered socially in consequence--has not repented
but only
been embittered
begins to count those who censure or condemn him first
bigoted
narrow-minded
then pharisaical
and hypocritical or fanatical. They
justify their action by the Scriptures
and he begins to transfer his dislike
to the Scriptures
feels a pleasure in any doubt cast on them
flatters himself
that to weaken them is to strengthen his case
and that contempt poured on them
is respect won back for him. Hence the bitterest scoffers have often been the
religiously trained sinners.
2. Sceptics are included among the rejecters of God’s Word. Not that
they are necessarily irreligious
or deniers of a Divine Being and of
obligation to Him; but they deny the Scriptures as an authoritative revelation
from Him and make nature a sufficient teacher.
3. If I include Romanism among the rejecters of God’s Word
it must
be with a qualification. That system admits the inspiration
Divine origin
and
partial authority of God’s Word
and so far as it can appeal to Scripture does
so. Its sins in this regard are:
4. The indifferent and unbelieving reject God’s Word. You have heard
it explained
read it
had it urged on you by beloved ones
now praising God in
the rest of the saints. Have you believed it? Received Christ? Are you resting
on Him? Doing His will? For if not
your condemnation is doubly sure. (John
Hall
D. D.)
God’s girdle
I. Israel and
Judah clave unto Jehovah as a girdle to the loins of a man.
1. Unto His person for favour.
2. Unto His Word for direction and teaching.
3. Unto His promise for encouragement.
4. Unto His worship for devotion.
II. Israel and
Judah were then a praise and glory to Jehovah. A girdle of strength and honour
before the nations.
1. As opposed to the idolatries of the world.
2. As expressing obedience to Divine law.
3. As exhibiting the beneficial effects of true religion.
III. Israel and
Judah became faithless and disobedient.
1. An evil people refusing to hear the Word.
2. A stubborn people going their own way.
3. A deluded people in vain imaginations.
4. An idolatrous people
like the nations less favoured
going after
other gods to serve and worship them.
IV. Israel and
Judah becoming faithless
became also weak and worthless. Went from prominence
to obscurity
from freedom to captivity
from privilege to punishment. (W.
Whale.)
Cleaving unto God
In Trinidad there are small oysters to be found that grow upon
trees
or rather cluster round the roots of trees
in the river mouths. The
little bivalves are so firmly attached that it is usual to saw down the trees
in order to obtain the oysters
and such an attachment is typical of the ideal
life of a Christian. He should love the Lord his God
and obey His voice
that
he may cleave unto Him. God
who is the source of all life
will indeed be his
life and the light of his days. As the strength of the tree is placed at the
disposal of the oyster
so is the omnipotence of God offered to all who will
trust Him. (Christian Commonwealth.)
Which is good for nothing.
Good for nothing
I. Dwell upon a
painful fact. All was done for them that could be
and yet good for nothing.
II. Point out the
cause of their sad condition.
1. They refused to hear the Word of the Lord.
2. They followed the imagination of their hearts.
3. They became idolaters.
III. Show what they
might have been as a people.
1. Separated from the nations as peculiarly the people of God.
2. Before the nations for the glory of Jehovah
as opposed to idols.
3. Among the nations as witnesses and examples.
IV. Proclaim some
universal truths.
1. Refusing to hear God’s Word is proof that the people are all evil
people.
2. An evil people will substitute a false worship for that which is
true.
3. A false worship will produce and foster an erroneous religious
life.
4. A people walking according to the imagination of their own hearts
must be useless to themselves
to the world
to the Church
or to God. (W.
Whale.)
The unprofitableness of a sinful life
I heard the other day a Sunday school address which pleased me
much. The teacher
speaking to the boys
said
“Boys
here is a watch; what is
it for?” “To tell the time.” “Well
” said he
“suppose my watch does not tell
the time
what is it good for? Good for nothing
sir.” Then he took out a
pencil. “What is this pencil for?” “It is to write with
sir.” “Suppose this
pencil won’t make a mark
what is it good for?” “Good for nothing
sir.” Then
he took out a pocket knife. “Boys
what is this for?” They were American boys
so they shouted
“To whittle with
”--that is
to experiment on any substance
that came in their way
by cutting a notch in it. “But
” said he
“suppose it
will not cut
what is the knife good for?” “Good for nothing
sir.” Then the
teacher said
“What is the chief end of man?” and they replied
“To glorify
God.” “But suppose a man does not glorify God
what is he good for?” “Good for
nothing
sir.” (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Verses 12-14
Do we not certainly know that every bottle shall be filled with
wine?
Drunk with evil
They are supposed to think that the prophet is merely stating what
was the plain meaning of the words
and
under that impression
to reply
What
great matter is this
to tell us that bottles which are made to be filled with
wine should be filled with wine?--not seeking for any deeper meaning in the
Lord’s Word. But
“thus saith the Lord
Behold I will fill all the inhabitants
of this land.” These were the bottles truly spoken of
“even the kings that sit
upon David’s throne
” etc. Now the drunkenness wherewith they were to be filled
was not drunkenness with wine
but drunkenness with an evil spirit
with a mad
spirit
with a spirit of discontent
a breaking up of all the bonds of society
a spirit of contempt of God
and of all God’s ordinances. This was the
drunkenness wherewith they were to be filled--in consequence of which they were
to be falling against
and crushing each other
as happens to a nation in which
all subordination disappears
and all is anarchy and confusion
and the people
are
as it were
dashed against each other. And this is said to be the Lord’s
judgment upon them. It is after the manner of God that
when men refuse the
Spirit of God
they should be given up to the spirit of Satan; that
when men
refuse to be dwelt in of the Holy Spirit
they should be dwelt in by the spirit
of madness and of fury; and this was the judgment threatened upon the Jews
that they should be dashed one against another
even the fathers and the sons
together; and then
as if he would say
Do not think that I am not in earnest;
do not think that
because judgment is my strange work
it is a work in which I
will not engage: be assured that it shall be as I say
“I will not pity
nor
spare
nor have mercy
but destroy.” Three times God declares that He will not
show mercy
but
on the contrary
destroy; because there is a voice which God
has put within us to testify that God is merciful; and because there is a bad
use which men are apt to make of the suggestions of that voice; and they are
apt to feel as if a good and merciful God could not find it in His heart to put
forth His hand to judgment. Oh
if men but knew God’s tender mercy
they would
indeed feel that that must be a strong reason which could move Him to pluck His
hand from His bosom and rise up to wrath. It is as if God were saying--I have
so proved My love to you
My unwillingness that you should perish
that ye may
be slow to believe that I
even I
will punish. But be not deceived; there are
reasons strong enough to prevail--to shut up even My compassions. I will not
pity
nor spare
nor have compassion
but destroy. (J. M. Campbell.)
The wine of the wrath of God
1. Every man is being fitted a vessel to honour or dishonour
to good
or evil.
2. Every man will ultimately be filled to his utmost capacity by good
or evil
according to his spiritual state.
3. The process of adaptation is being carried on by loyalty or
disobedience to truth and God.
4. Where all are evil
everyone will be injurious to the others. This
will make a hell. The reverse of this is true also.
5. God
who is love
has a time for severity as well as a time for
mercy.
6. If God help not
none can aid effectually. (W. Whale.)
I will dash them one
against another
even the fathers and the sons together
saith the Lord.--
Divine punishments
These words should be spoken with tears. It is a great mistake in
doctrine as well as in practice to imagine that the imprecations of Holy
Scripture should be spoken ruthlessly. When Jesus came near the city He wept
over it.
I. Divine
punishments are possible. If we are not destroyed
it is not for want of power
on the part of the offended Creator. The universe is very sensitively put
together in this matter; everywhere there are lying resources which under one
touch or breath would spring up and avenge an outraged law. Now and then God
does bring us to see how near death is to every life. We do not escape the rod
because there is no rod. It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed.
Think of that. Do let it enter into our minds and make us sober
sedate--if not
religious and contrite.
II. Divine
punishments are humiliating (Jeremiah 13:13). Some punishments have a
kind of dignity about them: sometimes a man dies almost heroically
and turns
death itself into a kind of victory; and we cannot but consent that the time is
well chosen
and the method the best for giving to the man’s reputation
completeness
and to his influence stability and progress. God can bring us to
our latter end
as it were
nobly: we may die like princes; death may be turned
into a kind of coronation; our deathbed may be the picture of our life--the
most consummately beautiful and exquisite revelation of character--or the Lord
can drive us down like mad beasts to an unconsecrated grave. How contemptuous
He can be! How bitter
how intolerable the sarcasm of God! “I also will laugh
at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh.” The Lord seems now and
again to take a kind of delight in showing how utterly our pride can be broken
up and trampled underfoot. He will send a worm to eat up the harvest: would He
but send an angel with a gleaming sickle to cut it down we might see somewhat
of glory in the disaster. Thus God comes into our life along a line that may be
designated as a line of contempt and humiliation. Oh
that men were wise
that
they would hold themselves as God’s and not their own
as Divine property
rather than personal possession! Then would they walk soberly and recruit
themselves in many a prayer
and bring back their youth because they trust in
God.
III. Divine
punishments when they come are complete. “I will destroy them.” We cannot tell
the meaning of this word; we do not know what is meant by “destruction”; we use
the term as if we knew its meaning
--and possibly we do know its meaning
according to the breadth of our own intention and purpose; but the word as used
by God has Divine meanings upon which we can lay no measuring line. We cannot
destroy anything: we can destroy its form
its immediate relation
its
temporary value; but the thing itself in its substance or in its essence we can
never destroy. When the Lord says He will take up this matter of destruction we
cannot tell what He means; we dare not think of it. We use the word “nothing
”
but cannot tell what He means by the nothingness of nothing
by the
negativeness of negation
by the sevenfold darkness
by the heaped-up midnight
of gloom. My soul
come not thou into that secret:
IV. Divine
punishments are avoidable (Jeremiah 13:16). The door of hope is set
open
even in this midnight of threatening; still we are on praying ground and
on pleading terms with God; even now we can escape the bolt that gleams in the
thundercloud. What say you
men
brethren
and fathers? Why be hard? why
attempt the impossible? why think we can run away from God? and why
remembering that our days are but a handful
will we not be wise and act as
souls that have been instructed? (J. Parker
D. D.)
Verses 15-17
Hear ye
and give ear; be not proud: for the Lord hath spoken.
Jehovah hath spoken: will ye not hear?
I. There is a
revelation. “For the Lord hath spoken.”
1. The voice which we are bidden to hear is a Divine voice
it is the
voice of Him that made the heavens and the earth
whose creatures we are.
2. It is a word most clear and plain
for Jehovah hath spoken. He
might have taught us only by the works of His hands
in which the invisible
things of God
even His eternal power and Godhead are clearly seen. What is all
creation but a hieroglyphic scroll
in which the Lord has written out His
character as Creator and Provider? But since He knew that we were dim of sight
and dull of comprehension
the Lord has gone beyond the symbols and
hieroglyphs
and used articulate speech such as a man useth with his fellow:
Jehovah hath spoken!
3. Moreover
I gather from the expression in the text that the
revelation made to us by the Lord is an unchangeable and abiding word. It is
not today that Jehovah is speaking
but Jehovah hath spoken: His voice by the
prophets and apostles is silent now
for He hath revealed all truth which is
needful for salvation.
4. This revelation is preeminently a condescending and cheering word.
The very fact that the great God speaks to us by His Son indicates that mercy
tenderness
love
hope
grace
are the burden of His utterance.
II. Since there is
a revelation
it should be suitably received.
1. If Jehovah hath spoken
then all attention should be given; yea
double attention
even as the text hath it
“Hear ye
and give ear.” Hear
and
hear again: incline your ear
hearken diligently
surrender your soul to the
teaching of the Lord God; and be not satisfied till yea have heard His
teaching
have heard it with your whole being
and have felt the force of its
every truth. “Hear ye
” because the word comes with power
and “give ear
”
because you willingly receive it.
2. Then it is added
as if by way of directing us how suitably to
hear this revelation--“Give glory to Jehovah your God.”
III. Pride in the
human heart prevents such a reception.
1. In some it is the pride of intellect. They do not wish to be
treated like children. Things that are despised
hath God chosen
and things
that are not
to bring to naught the things that are: that no flesh may glory
in His presence. Oh
let none of us be so proud as to lift up ourselves in
opposition to that which Jehovah hath spoken!
2. In some others it is the pride of self-esteem. It is a dreadful
thing that men should think it better to go to hell in a dignified way than to
go to heaven by the narrow road of a childlike faith in the Redeemer. Those who
will not stoop even to receive Christ Himself and the blessings of eternal life
deserve to perish. God save us from such folly!
3. Some have a pride of self-righteousness. They say “we see
” and
therefore their eyes are not opened: they cry “we are clean
” and therefore
they are not washed from their iniquity.
4. In some
too
it is the pride of self-love. They cannot deny their
lusts.
5. The pride of self-will also works its share of ruin among men. The
unrenewed heart virtually says--“I shall not mind these commands. Why should I
be tied hand and foot
and ruled
and governed? I intend to be a free thinker
and a free liver
and I will not submit myself.”
IV. Hence there
comes an earnest warning. “Give glory to the Lord your God
before He cause
darkness
and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains.” Listen
thou
who hast rejected God and His Christ till now. Thou art already out of the way
among the dark mountains. There is a King’s highway of faith
and thou hast
refused it; thou hast turned aside to the right hand or to the left
according
to thine own imagination. Being out of the way of safety
thou art in the path
of danger even now. Though the sunlight shines about thee
and the flowers
spring up profusely under thy feet
yet thou art in danger
for there is no
safety out of the King’s road. If thou wilt still pursue thy headlong career
and choose a path for thyself
I pray thee remember that darkness is lowering
around thee. The day is far spent! Around thy soul there are hanging mists and
glooms already
and these will thicken into the night-damps of bewilderment.
Thinking but not believing
thou wilt soon think thyself into a horror of great
darkness. Refusing to hear what Jehovah has spoken
thou wilt follow other
voices
which shall allure thee into an Egyptian night of confusion. Upon whom
wilt thou call in the day of thy calamity
and who will succour thee? Then thy
thoughts will dissolve into vanity
and thy spirit shall melt into dismay.
“Thus saith the Lord
Behold
I will make thee a terror to thyself
and to all
thy friends.” Thou shalt grope after comfort as blind men grope for the wall
and because thou hast rejected the Lord and His truth
He also will reject thee
and leave thee to thine own devices. Meanwhile
there shall overcloud thee a
darkness bred of thine own sin and wilfulness. Thou shalt lose the brightness
of thine intellect
the sharp clearness of thy thought shall depart from thee
professing thyself to be wise thou shalt become a fool. Thou shalt be in an
all-surrounding
penetrating blackness. Hence comes the solemnity of this
warning
“Give glory to the Lord your God
before He cause darkness.” For after
that darkness there comes a stumbling
as saith the text
“before your feet
stumble upon the dark mountains.” There must be difficulties in every man’s way
even if it be a way of his own devising; but to the man that will not accept
the light of God
these difficulties must necessarily be dark mountains with
sheer abysses
pathless crags
and impenetrable ravines. He has refused the
path which wisdom has cast up
and he is justly doomed to stumble where there
is no way. Beware of encountering mysteries without guidance and faith
for you
will stumble either into folly or superstition
and only rise to stumble again.
Those who stumble at Christ’s Cross are like to stumble into hell. There are
also dark mountains of another kind which will block the way of the wanderer
mountains of dismay
of remorse
of despair.
V. there remains
for the friends of the impenitent but one resort. Like our Lord in later times
the prophet beheld the city and wept over it: he could do no less
he could do
no more. Alas
his sorrow would be unavailing
his grief was hopeless. Observe
that the prophet did not expect to obtain sympathy in this sorrow of his. He
says
“My soul shall weep in secret places for your pride.” He would get quite
alone
hide himself away
and become a recluse. Alas
that so few even now care
for the souls of men! This also puts a pungent salt into the tears of the
godly
that the weeping can do no good
since the people refuse the one and
only remedy. Jehovah has spoken
and if they will not hear Him they must die in
their sins. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Attention to God’s Word
I. How should we
attend to it?
1. With reverence.
2. In faith.
3. Diligently
earnestly.
4. Intelligently.
5. Intending to be governed by it.
6. Prayerfully.
II. There is here
an implied neglect.
1. Men are filled with other things.
2. They do not know its worth.
3. They do not apprehend the bearing it may have on their well-being.
4. They are not willing to submit to its teachings.
III. Why should we
attend?
1. The dignity and glory of the Lord.
2. His wisdom and knowledge.
3. His beneficence
interest
and love.
4. He speaks to us of matters in which we have the deepest interest.
Learn--
1. To read the Bible regularly.
2. To treasure it in the heart.
3. To honour it in your life. (E. Jerman.)
Be not proud.--
Pride
I. Different kinds
of pride.
1. Race pride--pride in ancestors.
2. Face pride--pride in outward appearance.
3. Place pride--pride in social position.
4. Grace pride--pride in godliness.
II. The warning. Be
not proud--
1. Because we have nothing to be proud of.
2. Because it is abhorrent to God.
3. Because it is unlike Christ.
4. Because it is ruinous.
Apply--
The warning against pride
Many of the inhabitants of the valleys that lie between the Alps
in Switzerland have large swellings
called goitres
which hang down from the
sides of their necks
like great bags. They are horrible things to look at. And
yet
strange as it may seem
the Swiss get to be proud even of these dreadful
deformities. They look down with contempt on their neighbours who do not have
these terrible swellings
and call them the “goose-necked” people. And so we
see that pride is a sin into which we are all in danger of falling. And here we
have God’s warning against pride.
I. Pride brings
with it unhappiness. The fable says
that there was a tortoise once
that was
very unhappy because he could not fly. He used to look up and see the eagles
and other birds spreading out their wings and floating through the air. He said
to himself
“Oh
if I only had wings
as those birds have
so that I could rise
up into the air
and sail about there as they do
how happy I should be!” One
day
he called to an eagle
and offered him a great reward if he would only
teach him how to fly. The eagle said--“Well
I’ll try what I can do. You get on
my back
and I’ll carry you up into the air
and we’ll see what can be done.”
So the tortoise got on the back of the eagle. Then the eagle spread out his
wings and began to soar aloft. He went up
and up
and up
till he had reached
a great height. Then he said to the tortoise: “Now
get ready. I’m going to
throw you off
and you must try your hand at flying.” So the eagle threw him
off; and he went down
down
down
till at last he fell upon a hard rock and
was dashed to pieces. Now here you see
it was the pride of the tortoise which
made him so unhappy
because he couldn’t fly. And it was trying to gratify his
pride which cost him his life.
II. Pride brings
with it trouble. We never can set ourselves against any of God’s laws without
getting into trouble. Two masons were engaged in building a brick wall in front
of a high house. One of them was older and more experienced than his companion.
The younger one
whose name was Ben
placed a brick in the wall which was
thicker at one end than at the other. His companion noticed it
and said--“Ben
if I were you I wouldn’t leave that brick there. It’s not straight
and will be
likely to injure the wall by making it untrue.” “Pooh!” said Ben
“what
difference will such a trifle as that make? You are too particular.” “My mother
used to teach me
” said his friend
“that truth is truth; and that ever so
little an untruth is a lie
and that a lie is no trifle.” Now Ben’s pride was
offended by what his friend had said to him. So he straightened himself up
and
said in an angry tone--“Well
I guess I understand my business as well as you
do. I am sure that brick won’t do any harm.” His friend said nothing more to him.
They both went quietly on with their work
laying one brick after another
and
carrying the wall up higher
till the close of the day. Next morning they went
back to go on with their work again. But when they got there they found the
wall all in ruins. The explanation of it was this: that uneven brick had given
it a little slant. As the wall got up higher
the slant increased
till at
last
in the middle of the night
it tumbled over and fell down to the ground.
And here we see the trouble which this young man brought on himself by his
pride. If he had only learned to mind this Bible warning against it
that wall
would not have fallen down
and he would have been saved the trouble of
building it up again.
III. Pride brings
with it loss. The apostle tells us that “God resisteth the proud
but giveth
grace to the humble.” So if we give way to pride
we are in a position in which
God is resisting us
and then it is certain
that we can expect nothing but
loss in everything that we do. When we begin to love and serve God
He says to
each of us
“from this day will I bless thee.” And are told that “the blessing
of the Lord maketh rich
and He addeth no sorrow.” The way in which God’s
blessing makes His people rich is in the peace
joy
happiness He gives them; the
sense of His favour and protection which they have in this world
and the hope
of sharing His presence and glory forever in heaven. But if we give way to
pride we cannot love and serve God; and then we must lose His blessing--the
greatest loss we can ever meet with in this world. (R. Newton
D. D.)
God glorified in the fall of pride
I. What is it
which stops people from hearing the voice of God?
1. One form of pride is shame. Many kept from Christ because ashamed
to come and give themselves up to Him. For fear of the paltry scorn
the
momentary ridicule
the soul will risk eternity!
2. There is the pride of respectability and social position. Hold
apart from religion
because in the one way all must go without distinction.
Yet what can justify in a lost sinner any high and vain thoughts of self?
3. There is the pride that conceals a wound. God’s Word has stricken
the heart; healing and joy could be had if we humbly go to God
yet hide the
grief and unrest within
from man and Heaven.
4. There is the pride of self-righteousness. What say when before the
Throne--that you were too good to accept the Gospel?
II. Human pride
must effectually be broken down.
1. When pride humbled and man crushed
God speaks. What say? “Give
glory to the Lord your God.” “Your” God still
though turned back on Him and
grieved Him.
2. The contrite soul cannot realise its inability to glorify God.
Broken down
powerless
self-despairing
cast yourself on His salvation.
3. There is a desperate alternative: that you “will not hear.” By and
by your feet will “stumble on the dark mountains.” The day of disease will
come; life will grow dim; the thin grandeur of a fading world will begin to
pass away; all around the gloom will thicken
and on a dying world “gross
darkness” of unrelieved despair will cover you. Then the last moment arrives;
one terrified “look for light
” but in vain; the soul is “carried away into
captivity.” (W. H. M. H. Aitken
M. A.)
Verse 16-17
Give glory to the Lord your God.
I. Counsel. “Give glory to the Lord.”
1. Because the Lord’s glory is man’s good.
2. Because in them that glory might appear.
3. Because by them that glory might be obscured.
II. Warning
“Before He cause darkness
” etc.
1. Fading light. No clear vision when God is not glorified.
2. Stumbling feet. No power of progress unless for God’s glory.
3. Bewildering night. Captivity. All lost.
III. Pleading. “But
if ye will not hear
” etc.
1. The counsel of tender love.
2. The counsel of utter unselfishness. (J. Fatten.)
God glorified by His people
I. An exhortation.
What is meant by giving glory to God? To ascribe glory to His name
to worship
the Lord in the beauty of holiness
to show forth His glory
to confess Him
before men
not only with our lips but in our lives
to believe on Him
to fear
Him
to put our whole trust in Him
to call upon Him
to honour His holy Name
and His Word
and to serve Him truly all the days of our life. But all these
can be traced to two fountains.
1. By faith in Christ we glorify God.
2. By repentance we glorify
or bring glory to God. The evidence or
characteristic mark of this true repentance is holiness; we give glory to God
by a holy spirit
--“Glorify Him
” says the apostle
“in your bodies and
spirits
which are His.” We give glory to God by a holy life--“Let your light
so shine before men
” etc. We give glory to God by holy lips
for the Spirit
speaking by the Psalmist
says
“Whoso offereth praise glorifieth Me.”
II. The motive. God
never positively causes darkness
for He is not the author of evil--He does so
negatively. The clouds and mists ascending from the earth obscure the light of
the sun’s beams from our sight
nevertheless
far above those mists and
shadows
though invisible to us
that glorious orb is shining as undimmed and
unbroken as before. Thus it is with God and His sinful people--our iniquities
go up as a thick mist from the face of the earth
and our transgressions as a
thick cloud
and separate between us and our God. What then is this darkness?
1. There is a spiritual darkness in man’s soul--of despair.
2. There is a mental darkness caused by disease of the body affecting
and effacing the mind.
3. There is a mortal darkness--the darkness of death. To a believer death
has no sting
for Christ has plucked it away--to a believer death has no gloom
for Christ has passed through its dark vaults and left a track of light behind
Him; but who can paint the darkness that settles round the deathbed of an
ignorant or unbelieving sinner
who dies knowing nothing
fearing nothing
hoping nothing!
4. There is an immortal darkness--the darkness of hell. (R. S.
Brooke
M. A.)
Giving glory to God by repentance
God is the eternal fountain of honour and the spring of glory; in
Him it dwells essentially
from Him it derives originally; and when an action
is glorious
or a man is honourable
it is because the action is pleasing to
God
in the relation of obedience or imitation
and because the man is honoured
by God
and by God’s vicegerent: and therefore God cannot be dishonoured
because all honour comes from Himself; He cannot but be glorified
because to
be Himself is to be infinitely glorious. And yet He is pleased to say that our
sins dishonour Him
and our obedience does glorify Him. He that hath
dishonoured God by sins
that is
hath denied
by a moral instrument of duty
and subordination
to confess the glories of His power
and the goodness of His
laws
and hath dishonoured and despised His mercy
which God intended as an instrument
of our piety
hath no better way to glorify God than
by returning to his duty
to advance the honour of the Divine attributes
in which He is pleased to
communicate Himself
and to have intercourse with man. He that repents
confesses his own error
and the righteousness of God’s laws; and
by judging
himself
confesses that he deserves punishment; and therefore
that God is
righteous if He punishes him; and
by returning
confesses God to be the
fountain of felicity
and the foundation of true
solid
and permanent joys.
And as repentance does contain in it all the parts of holy life which can be
performed by a returning sinner
so all the actions of a holy life do
constitute the mass and body of all those instruments whereby God is pleased to
glorify Himself.
1. Repentance implies a deep sorrow
as the beginning and
introduction of this duty: not a superficial sigh or tear
not a calling
ourselves sinners and miserable persons: this is far from that “godly sorrow
that worketh repentance”: and yet I wish there were none in the world
or none
amongst us
who cannot remember that ever they have done this little towards
the abolition of their multitudes of sins: but yet
if it were not a hearty
pungent sorrow
a sorrow that shall break the heart in pieces
a sorrow that
shall so irreconcile us to sin
as to make us rather choose to die than to sin
it is not so much as the beginning of repentance. But I desire that it be
observed that sorrow for sins is not repentance; not that duty which gives
glory to God
so as to obtain of Him that He will glorify us. Repentance is a
great volume of duty; and godly sorrow is but the frontispiece or title page;
it is the harbinger or first introduction to it: or
if you will consider it in
the words of St. Paul
“Godly sorrow worketh repentance”:--sorrow is the
parent
and repentance is the product. Let us
therefore
beg of God
as
Caleb’s daughter did of her father: “Thou hast given me a dry land
give me
also a land of waters
” a dwelling place in tears
rivers of tears; “that
” as
St. Austin’s expression is
“because we are not worthy to lift up our eyes to
heaven in prayer
yet we may be worthy to weep ourselves blind for sin.” We can
only be sure that our sorrow is a godly sorrow
when it worketh repentance;
that is
when it makes us hate and leave all our sin
and take up the cross of
patience or penance; that is
confess our sin
accuse ourselves
condemn the
action by hearty sentence: and then
if it hath no other emanation but fasting
and prayer for its pardon
and hearty industry towards its abolition
our
sorrow is not reprovable.
2. No confession can be of any use
but as it is an instrument of
shame to the person
of humiliation to the man
and dereliction of the sin; and
receives its recompense but as it adds to these purposes: all other is like
“the bleating of the calves and the lowing of the oxen
” which Saul reserved
after the spoil of Agag; they proclaim the sin
but do nothing towards its
cure; they serve God’s end to make us justly to be condemned out of our own
mouths
but nothing at all towards our absolution. Our sin must be brought to
judgment
and
like Antinous in Homer
laid in the midst
as the sacrifice and
the cause of all the mischief.
3. Well
let us suppose our penitent advanced thus far
as that he
decrees against all sin
and in his hearty purposes resolves to decline it
as
in a severe sentence he hath condemned it as his betrayer and his murderer; yet
we must be curious that it be not only like the springings of the thorny or the
highway ground
soon up and soon down: for some men
when a sadness or an
unhandsome accident surprises them
then they resolve against their sin; but as
soon as the thorns are removed
return to their first hardness
and resolve
then to act their first temptation. They that have their fits of a quartan
well and ill forever
and think themselves in perfect health when the ague is
retired
till its period returns
are dangerously mistaken. Those intervals of
imperfect and fallacious resolution are nothing but states of death: and if a
man should depart this world in one of those godly fits
as he thinks them
he
is no nearer to obtain his blessed hope than a man in the stone-colic is to
health
when his pain is eased for the present
his disease still remaining
and
threatening an unwelcome return. That resolution only is the beginning of a
holy repentance
which goes forth into act
and whose acts enlarge into habits
and whose habits are productive of the fruits of a holy life.
4. Suppose all this be done
and that by a long course of strictness
and severity
mortification and circumspection
we have overcome all our
vicious and baser habits; suppose that we have wept and fasted
prayed and
vowed to excellent purposes; yet all this is but the one half of repentance
so
infinitely mistaken is the world
to think anything to be enough to make up
repentance. But to renew us
and restore us to the favour of God
there is
required far more than what hath yet been accounted for (2 Peter 1:4-5). We must not only
have overcome sin
but we must
after great diligence
have acquired the habits
of all those Christian graces
which are necessary in the transaction of our
affairs
in all relations to God and our neighbour
and our own persons. It is
not an easy thing to cure a long-contracted habit of sin. Let any intemperate
person but try in his own instance of drunkenness; or the swearer
in the
sweetening his unwholesome language: but then so to command his tongue that he
never swear
but that his speech be prudent
pious
and apt to edify the
hearer
or in some sense to glorify God; or to become temperate
to have got a
habit of sobriety
or chastity
or humility
is the work of a life. (Bishop
Jeremy Taylor.)
Give glory to God
I. The command.
One way in which we may obey this command is by confession of sin
the humbling
of self before God on account of general unworthiness
and also on account of
particular acts of sin. Our natural hearts think but little of sin in this
light
as dishonouring to God; they are accustomed and inured to sin; and hence
it excites no feeling of aversion
unless exhibited in its grosser forms. By
the confession of sin
therefore
God is to be glorified
and how full the
promises which God has connected with it! (Proverbs 28:13; Psalms 32:5; 2 Samuel 12:13.) Closely connected
with this confession of sin there is a way in which we are called upon to “give
glory to the Lord our God
” and that is
by receiving God’s offered salvation.
The public means of grace have been afforded this year as usual. And yet the
fact forces itself upon us
as painful as it is obvious
that there may be an
outward participation in these privileges
and at the same time no glory given
to God. There is nothing so dishonouring to God as unbelief
for in the solemn
words of inspiration
“He that believeth not God hath made Him a liar
” etc. We
may observe
also
that when there is this exercise of faith
receiving God’s
offered salvation
its tendency is not to exalt the pride of man
but to ascribe
all the glory to God: see
for example
Ephesians 1:1-23
where the grace of God
is so fully set forth
and three times in that one chapter the expression
occurs that every step of that salvation is “to the praise of His glory.” But
again
we may obey the command to give glory to the Lord our God by aiming to
live according to His will. This can be effected by those only who are obeying
the invitations of the Gospel; others have various aims in life
but if Christ
is not received into the heart
they cannot live according to God’s will. The
Lord has a right to look for obedience in His professing people. We give glory
to God
by simple childlike confidence in Him and in His providential care and
love
by the discharge of the ordinary duties of life
conscientiously as in
His sight
and by thus acting up to the spirit of that command
“Whether
therefore ye eat or drink
” etc. So
also
by submission to His will we are to
give glory to God
that which is so easy when God’s will runs parallel
so to
speak
with our own--so hard when it runs counter to our natural desires. Then
to glorify God in the fires
amid the various trials which every year brings in
its course
trials which have to do with health
or circumstances
or
bereavements; to sin not
nor charge God foolishly; like Aaron to hold our
peace in mute submission when the heart is too full for utterance; to receive
the gracious assurance given by the lips of our Divine Master
“Said I not unto
thee
that if thou wouldest believe
thou shouldest see the glory of God?” to
know the loving sympathy of Him who has said
“I am He that comforteth you”;
one whom his mother comforteth
so will I comfort thee.” The various other ways
in which we are to give glory to God
and live according to His will
may be
summed up in the one expression
fruitfulness in good works.
II. The time for
yielding this obedience is limited. “Before He cause darkness
” etc. In this
figure the present time is compared to the day--the time for work
and for
obedience
and for giving glory to God
--the time for guiding us safe through
the narrow path that leads to heaven and home. Oh
how solemn is the thought of
the uncertainty of life. How fearful that darkness must be when it overtakes
the sinner groping about in life’s byways
instead of being at the gates of the
heavenly city
where all is light forever; life’s work undone
and no more the
call heard to glorify God
but the cry which excludes hope
“He that is
unjust
” etc. (J. H. Holford
M. A.)
Giving glory to God
There are two ways of giving glory to God.
I. By giving Him
back His own glory. There are three mirrors in which God’s glory is seen. Now
of these mirrors
some are broken and some stained. The first mirror was
stained by the sin of man--creation was stained and lost its glory and its
beauty by the first stain on it. Oh! the breath of Adam’s corruption comes as a
thick fog on the face of the glass
and until that thick fog is removed
we
shall not see God’s glory in the creation. The second mirror is the Word. The
Word is stained
the steam of our own corruption goes forth
our darkened
understandings
our stubborn will
our adulterous affections
our perverse
imaginations send forth a filthy effluvia
and the filthy effluvia gathers into
a thick and impenetrable mist
and that covers the glass. Besides that
there
is the darkness of hell. But when the Holy Spirit removes the cloud and enables
you to look into the mirror--into the cleansed and polished mirror
--then you
behold the glory of God. Again
there is a third glass
the glass of the
Church. This glass is broken
the visible Church now is not presenting the
glory of God; the visible Church now is as a mirror shattered into a thousand
fragments
and until the Holy Ghost comes and joins together these shattered
fragments of the mirror
we never shall see God in the Church. The principal
glory of the Church is holiness--there is no glory like that! but there is
another glory which the Church has lost--and she ought not to have lost it--she
has lost it
however
through unbelief--I mean the glory of power from God. We
ought to have the gifts of the Spirit among us now as well as His graces; and I
do believe
when you shall be brought to pray for the same--when you shall be
brought to expect the promise of the Father
the Lord will respond to your
prayer
and all creation shall testify in a moment that He is a prayer-hearing
and prayer-answering God.
1. Now
to come more closely
we give glory to God when we see Him as
He is--when we see Him as a Father--when we do not see the doctrine about Him
as a Father
but see Himself as a Father.
2. We give glory to God when we behold His love in Christ
and are
delighted with that love.
3. We give glory to God in a third particular
when we yield
ourselves to His Spirit.
II. We give glory
to God when we give God created glory. The first thing is to catch His own
glory and send it back
and the second
to give Him created glory. In giving
God created glory
begin with your own heart--that is the centre nearest to
you
begin with the hearts of your brethren
the heart of your wife
the heart
of your child
the heart of your father
the heart of your servant
the heart
of your neighbour
the heart of your landlord
the heart of your tenant
endeavour to get all their hearts given to God
as His throne and dwelling
place
and then have the hearts of all you can speak an affectionate word unto
given unto God. Then go out over all creation
and endeavour to give all creation
to God; endeavour to take the gold of the world
endeavour to take the fruits
and the flowers of the world
and give them to God. You behold the religion of
God like the famed river of Grecian song which cannot come to any land without
irrigating that laud with golden sands
and you desire to send the stream of
God’s religion
which restrains evil and cherishes virtue
which rescues man
from sin
and enstamps on him holiness
you endeavour to mend that over the
length and breadth of the moral world
that it may go as a stream of richness
a stream of fertilisation
a stream of refreshing and beauty over every part of
the wide world. (N. Armstrong.)
God glorified by repentance
I. The repentance
demanded of us in Scripture differs widely from a mere transient regret at
having done wrong
and a passing resolve
that we will abstain for the future
from certain grosser misdoings. The repentance which conducts to salvation is a
thorough change of the whole man
commencing with new views of the nature of sin
and of its character as committed against a God of unbounded loving kindness
and gradually overspreading the life and conversation
till all around
recognise that fresh creation which undeniably attests Divine interference.
1. Take the sense which a true penitent has of the nature of sin
and
the confession
as well by action as by word
which that sense will dictate.
There is nothing which more strikingly distinguishes man in his natural state
from man in his renewed state
than the difference in the estimates which the
two form of sin. The wonder with the natural man is
why sin should be
everlastingly punished; the wonder with the renewed man is
how a thing so
heinous can ever find pardon. Then if from the present we pass to the future
and observe the alleged consequences of transgression extending themselves like
lines of fire through all the spreadings of man’s after existence
why
more
than ever the stranger to repentance will be sensible of that recoil and jar of
feeling which indicates suspicion that God is not just in thus taking
vengeance. But how different is it with the renewed--that is
with the penitent
man! God appears righteous in taking vengeance; this is the discovery
this the
unhesitating conviction of the individual in whose mind are the workings of
genuine repentance. But if it be true
according to these showings
that to
exhort a man to repent is to exhort him to pass from the condition in which his
notions of sin obscure all God’s dealings
to one in which they illustrate and
vindicate those dealings--from the entertainment of the suspicion that the
Creator may do wrong
to entertaining the assurance that the Creator does right
in exacting everlasting penalties; if this be true
then surely repentance
as
including a right sense of sin
may be identified with glorifying God.
2. Consider the confession
as well by action as by word
which a
true penitent will make of his sin
and see whether such confession will not
give glory to God. “My son
give
I pray thee
glory to the Lord God of Israel
and make confession unto Him.” Making confession
you observe
is associated
or rather identified
with the giving God glory. When Achan owned that he had
taken of the accursed thing
he publicly proclaimed that God had shown Himself
omniscient as having brought to light what no eye but his own had observed. The
acknowledgment
moreover
was proof to the nation
that God had not smitten
without cause
and that His threatenings always take effect; thus witnessing
so that the whole congregation would understand the testimony
to the justice
authority
and holiness of Jehovah. For he who
moved by the workings of a
righteous contrition
falls before his Maker
and confesses himself a sinner
owns to the having forsaken the fountain of living waters
and hewn out to
himself cisterns
broken cisterns that can hold no water. When he uses the
tongue which is emphatically described as the best member which we have
in
testifying to the evil of departure from God
in asserting the truth of what
God hath uttered in regard of man’s fallen estate
and the necessity that we
return unto holiness if we would attain unto happiness
this confession of sin
carries with it an announcement to all who here try the Word by the test of
experience
as it would hereafter to the breathless onlookers as the strange
work of judgment goes forward
that there is an ascertained righteousness in
God’s dealings with unrenewed men as with traitors to that government which
extends wheresoever there is moral accountableness. In acknowledging myself a
sinner
I acknowledge myself a rebel against the Almighty
and thus out of my
own mouth the eternal justice would be vindicated if there were pronounced upon
me that sentence of banishment which is yet to be heard by an impenitent multitude;
and certainly if that confession of sin which is a fruit or element of
repentance can in any degree cause God to be justified when He speaks
and
clear when He judges
there can be no debate that in this very degree it brings
honour to God; in other words
it explains what is done in the text
where
summoning men to repent
the prophet summons them to give glory to God. And oh!
there is a confession which is far stronger
and more productive of glory than
that of the lip
even that of the life. Repentance
whatever its internal
workings
amounts in its outward demonstration
which is known and read of all
men
to a complete change of conduct.
II. The prophet
lays down a limitation as to time. “Before.” There is a whole volume of
intelligence
and that
too
startling and touching intelligence
in this one
word. It is as much as to say
You cannot avoid giving it at one time or
another; you must give it after if you refuse to give it before. Give it
therefore
while it may be accepted as an offering
and defer it not until it
be exacted as a penalty. And certainly it is a truth which but little reasoning
would suffice to establish
that glory will finally be won to God from every
section of the universe
and from every member of that intelligent family with
which its spreadings are peopled. The power of refusing to give God glory will
expire with death
when the day of probation has been followed by the day of
condemnation; and beyond all doubt
in the punishment of the reprobate as in
the happiness of the righteous
there shall be a perpetual harvest of honour
unto God. Hell
as well as heaven
must be the scene for the display of the
Divine attributes; and wherever these attributes have place of development
there undoubtedly the Almighty is glorified. And therefore
I do not say of the
dying sinner
going hence in his ungodliness
that he has outlived all
opportunity of giving glory to God; we rather say of him that he has just
reached the necessity of giving glory to God. A moment more--oh! even in that
moment he might grasp the Cross; but let that moment be another and the last of
dishonour done to God
and infinity is before him
paved with the burning
tribute which has here been withheld
so that to die in rebellion is only to
transfer to eternity arrears which eternity cannot exhaust. We leave the
combination in its inexplicable awfulness: we have no language for a state
where the fire is unquenchable
and yet the darkness is impenetrable. We thank
God we may yet all give glory before our feet stumble
and before the day
closes. We are not yet on the dark mountains; it may be
we are approaching
them. The old must be approaching them--the young may be approaching them; but
if we seem to behold them on the horizon--the gloomy
frowning masses--still the
Sun of Righteousness hath not yet gone down on our firmament; still there needs
nothing but the looking in faith unto Jesus
“delivered for our offences
and
raised again for our justification
” and the beams of that Sun shall edge
as
with a line of gold
the dark and dreaded rampart
or rather throw a
transparency into the stern barrier
so that it shall seem to us to melt into
the garden of hope
the land where the river of life is ever flowing
and the
tree of life is ever waving. (H. Melvill
B. D.)
The suspension of Divine judgments
“Give glory to the Lord your God before.” We may see a rough image
of the suspension of Divine vengeance against sin
and of the real terrors of
that suspension
which only a timely repentance can avert
in the mountain torrent
swollen by the melting of the winter’s snow. At first a sudden fuller flow
announces to the inhabitants of the valley that the thaw has commenced. But the
increasing of the waters suddenly ceases
not to the contentment but to the
alarm of the inhabitants of the valley below. It inspires their fear and
arouses their energies. Instantly they sally out with axe and hook and cord.
Mark how eagerly they climb the rugged slippery hill. They know that the
present quietude of the torrent tells of future disaster. It is a plain
indication to them that some tree has floated down the current
and by the
whirling of the waters in a narrow channel has been forced athwart the stream;
that there is being rapidly constructed a natural dam
behind which the flood will
gather
and seethe and swell and rage with ever-increasing fury
until it
carries all before it
and bursts with devastating volume and force on the
farms and fields below; and the purpose of these men who are hastening upwards
is to let out the flood before it assumes these dangerous proportions. In like
manner the guilty and impenitent have as little reason to be at ease “because
sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily.” On the contrary
that
very fact should arouse them to an instantaneous repentance; for while in mercy
the long-suffering of God as a mighty dam obstructs the forth flowing of His
righteous vengeance
when in judgment it is at length removed
the terrors of
wrath will be in exact proportion to the space in which they were treasured up.
(R. A. Bertram.)
Before your feet stumble
upon the dark mountains.
Darkness and the dark mountains
It is difficult to imagine a more perilous situation than that of
a man overtaken by darkness among the mountains of the East. The face of the sky
has become suddenly blackened with clouds; the serene light of the stars guides
his feet no more; the warring elements threaten his immediate destruction; and
without guide to conduct or friend to comfort him
he can do nothing but
anticipate ruin. Should he sit down
he may perish under the cold; should he
advance
rocks and precipices rise everywhere around; and
to increase his
horror
the wild beasts of the forest fill up with their prolonged roar the
pauses of the storm. But if he has himself rushed causelessly upon his fate;
if
notwithstanding that
toward evening’s close
he had been assured
by those
who knew them well
that all the prognostics of an immediate storm were
gathering in the sky
he gave an incredulous ear to the intimation; if
notwithstanding
that there were offered to him the hospitalities of a cheerful dwelling; if he
still persisted in his own determination; and if
on finding that his purpose
was inflexible
an experienced guide was offered to conduct him
whose services
he sullenly rejected;--then
indeed
can we easily understand how the
remembrance of these things will occasion only additional agony at every moment
when his “feet stumble on the dark mountains
” and that
to the other horrors
of his perilous state
there will be superadded the bitterest self-reproach for
his own infatuation. Yet all this
as the metaphor under consideration suggests
to us
is but a faint emblem of the sinner’s wretchedness. To him there is a
day of grace; but it too
if unimproved
is succeeded by a night of darkness
and thick gloom. If uncovered by that pavilion which God has erected
he must
wander as an outcast on the mountains
uncheered by heaven’s mercy. Hence the
earnest counsel of the prophet
“Give glory to the Lord your God
” etc.
I. The darkness of
affliction.
1. You are now happy
let us suppose
beyond many around you in the
world. Your health is unimpaired
and your strength fails not. But where is
your security that this state of things shall continue? May not the pestilence
that walks in darkness creep silently into your midnight bed? Give now
then
glory to God ere health is taken from you
and you wander on the dark mountains
of disease.
2. Or
it may be
your friendships and connections are all blessed of
heaven. Now
then
give glory to God; for
sooner than you apprehend
the days
of darkness may fall
and your happiness vanish as a dream. Those little ones
who now cheer your dwelling may soon go to swell the congregation of the dead;
or
worse even than that
some of them
fair as is now their early promise
may
fall in temptation’s hour into follies
or crimes
which shall make you wish
rather that they had never been born.
3. Or
once more
your worldly circumstances are fair and
flourishing. You have
if not great wealth
what is better
a competent portion
of good things; and
while many cry for bread when there is none to give them
you have enough and to spare. But soon
perhaps
your substance shall be
dissolved as snow
and your riches take to themselves wings as eagles. Now
then
“give glory to God
” ere your feet stumble on the mountains of
destitution.
II. The darkness of
insanity. Ye whose reason is now sober
whose judgments are now clear
whose
understandings are now acute and comprehensive
--are you sure that so they
shall continue to the end? Did you never know any instance of a human creature
once as calm and rational as you
hurried as by a whirlwind into the vortex of
insanity? Did you never know a case
where neither hereditary transmission
nor
constitutional temperament
nor evil habits
could have made way for reason’s
loss? And where
then
is the security that yours shall not be the lot of those
who call truth error
and error truth? That would be darkness indeed
yea
gross darkness
and the very shadow of death. Is it not wise
then
now to give
glory to God
lest haply your feet should stumble on that dark mountain?
III. The darkness of
despair. It is an awful condition that of a human creature at once apprehensive
of judgment and incredulous of mercy. Sometimes this mental depression is a
constitutional infirmity
and results more from a finely sensitive nature than
a habitually depraved heart. Sometimes
too
it is owing to a gloomy system of
theology
which would ordain those to be sorry whom God has not commanded to
make sad. And sometimes it is the fruit of educational seeds
growing up at
length even as the grapes of Sidon. But in the great majority of instances
the
cause of the distemper is previous impenitence. The soul
having at length become
alive to a sense of its guiltiness and danger
sinks into the depths of
despair
says of itself
“No hope
no hope”; and to those who would administer
comfort if they could
replies only
“Miserable comforters are ye all!” That
which a philosopher has remarked concerning the earthquake
is eminently true
of such a state as this. One may escape from pestilence
from famine
and from
sword. The storm and tempest may be run from. The cloud that is as yet no
bigger than the hand of a man may be seen afar off
and
when discerned
a
refuge may be sought from it. The inundation of waters may be escaped by a
timely flight; and even the lightning of heaven may be conducted by a safe
passage from our dwellings. But the motions of the earthquake arise in a
moment
and surprise one into an agony of alarm. Even thus it is with despair
“that worst enemy of the sinner’s soul.” The desponding spirit sits down at the
gate of death
and refuses to be comforted. “Give glory then to God
before
your feet stumble on the dark mountains.”
IV. The darkness of
death and the grave. Between that darkness and you there may be only a single
step. The eleventh hour may be about to sound its solemn knell
and the
sentence may go forth
“This night thy soul shall be required of thee.” The
lamp of life may be well supplied with oil
and yet it may burn only for a
brief season. An unexpected breath of wind may extinguish it in a moment; and
you know that
in the grave
that cannot be done which has been left undone.
Now
therefore
give glory unto God before your feet stumble on the dark
mountains. Do bug think how unworthy an offering to Him would be the “relies
and refuse” of a wicked life; and consider that
even although the night of
death may
in your case
be preceded by an evening of sickness
it is most
perilous to delay commencing the work of religion to a season when the memory
may have become treacherous
the moral feelings blunted
and the conscience
seared. Think
too
even should you retain the use of all your mental faculties
to the last
how difficult it will be for you to assure yourselves that your
repentance is of the right sort
--that which is unto salvation
and needeth not
to be repented of.
V. The darkness of
hell. The future torments of the wicked
as well as the felicities of the just
it is far beyond the power of imagination to comprehend. The most calamitous
condition in which a human being may be placed on earth admits of some relief:
let a man be ever so much afflicted
desolate
or forsaken
there is commonly
some comfort to be had. The sympathy of others at least may be extended to him;
or
if even this be wanting
he has the prospect of getting his sufferings
terminated by death. But in regard to the torments of the wicked in a future
life
it is not so. There the misery is unmingled
and the pain undiverted by
any soothing application. The fountains of sympathy are there dried up;
compassion is unknown; nor can even death itself be looked forward to. Add to
this
that all the tormenting passions will then be let loose upon the guilty
soul And if even one of these passions
when brought into full action
is
maddening here
what shall not the effect be there
when all that is fierce and
malignant in its own nature shall war against the soul? Only think what shame does--what
sorrow
what despair
what hatred do--in the present life; and then conceive
if you can
what all of them together will do for a condemned spirit in the
future state. If this be the end of the ungodly (and that it is so the God who
cannot lie has solemnly assured us)
give glory to God before your feet stumble
on the dark mountains. (J. L. Adamson.)
The dark mountains
I. Contemplate the
wanderers. Darkness is used in Holy Scripture to denote that repugnance to God
and spiritual things which sin produces in the mind (Isaiah 9:2; Romans 1:21). Talk to them of these
things
and their sealed lips and cold indifference will prove that they have
not been taught the way of righteousness by the Spirit of truth. And no wonder
(1 Corinthians 2:14). But this
condition is not forced upon men by any irresistible power. It is true that
they are all born in sin and “shapen in iniquity” (Psalms 51:5); but the remedy for their
blindness is ever at hand
if they would but receive it. Here
then
we see the
culpability of their state; it is willing ignorance; they refuse to be
enlightened (John 3:20). No wonder
therefore
that
they prefer the dark mountains of sin in order that they may pursue
as they
list
the forbidden works of darkness (Job 24:13). And this rebellion against
the light may be traced up to the depravity of their hearts. They are not only
willingly ignorant
and therefore criminally guilty
but their affections are
corrupted. Here
again
we have another idea suggested by the term darkness
It
implies the moral pollution of human nature
which is opposed to that inward
purity which the light of the Holy Spirit communicates. The heart of the wicked
is actually depraved and vitiated; and from that source
as from a contaminated
fountain
flow the copious streams of ungodliness and worldly lust.
II. Expose their
danger.
1. As we dwell attentively on the scene thus brought before us
we
discover that these mountains are overspread with many rough places and
pitfalls. No wonder
then
that
encompassed as they are with darkness
without
a light or a truthful guide
we see many of those wanderers continually
falling. We picture to ourselves that young man
just released from the
parental restraints of home
wandering up the side of yonder dark mountain in
the depth of night. He does not mean to wander far
and he thinks he can easily
retrace his steps at will. But although to those whose eyes are spiritually
opened it is dark and sterile ground
it possesses for him a secret and
seductive attraction
which leads him on and farther still he goes.
2. They were not happy when they began the dismal journey
and they
have never been happy since; but we see them stumbling into greater miseries at
every step they take.
3. As we gaze upon these wanderers
we see by the light of the text a
thicker darkness overspreading the mountains
and some are rapidly lost to our
sight in the impenetrable gloom. At first we see but a comparatively light
cloud
the cloud of affliction. That poor wanderer has squandered his health in
the service of sin; and now he is brought low
he can enjoy sin no longer. As our
vision is still resting on the dark mountains
another cloud arises; see it
shooting forth the forked lightnings of God’s judgments
and many are the
victims it brings low.
III. Enforce the
expostulation of the text. To give glory to God is to honour Him
and God is
honoured when we turn to Him with hearty repentance
and submit ourselves in
obedience to His authority. (W. D. Brock
B. A.)
Dark mountains
I. In the onward
way of your life dark mountains lie before you
which you must cross for your
further progress. We may travel for a time along the pleasant greensward of
youth
but as we advance to our middle life and ripest years
we must expect to
ascend acclivities
and clamber up steeps unknown to our earlier career. By and
by
if we have not before met with them
we shall espy mountainous heights
right across our road
and there will be no avoidance of them. These we must
traverse
and they will tax all our strength to the utmost. “Man is born to
trouble
as the sparks fly upwards.” One of these mountains may be that of
worldly adversity
an obscure position in society
the want of a suitable
opening
and the toil and sadness connected with insufficient means. Or it may
be
whilst you are happily exempt from this
you have a more mountainous
obstacle in your delicate and precarious health. Disappointments
too
reverses
losses
may trouble you as they trouble others
and make your life
way uphill
stony
and rugged. You may find yourself
moreover
ere you are
aware
clambering up to the top of a long and toilsome height
and when you
gain the summit there yawns beneath you
on the other side
a terrific
precipice
down which
if you fall
your destruction is inevitable. This is the
hilltop of temptation
and to each of us there comes at intervals an evil day
when a solitary false step on our part will ruin us for this life and the
future. We climb
too
a sharp mountain of sorrow when we stand by the bedside
of those whom
though we love
we shall see them here no more
and presently
follow the form that embodied them in its passage to the grave that shall hide
it. Some
and it may be many
of these mountainous acclivities you will have to
traverse. Look
and you will see them; then make ready for the steep ascent.
There is one mountain height to which I have not referred
up which
if you
have not yet crossed it
sooner or later you must travel. You are a stoner. Sin
involves punishment. As surely as you have sinned
so surely you must reap the
consequences. There will come a time to you
if it has not yet come
when your
sin will cause you grief. This mountain
whether of repentance or remorse
may
likely prove a steep and high one. It will be hard work for your soul to get up
over it. It is these mountain ranges of our way that invest our life here with
such awful solemnity and grandeur. The big sorrows that beset us
give a solid
reality to our existence
and stamp it with dignity and worth. God’s will is
that each of us shall he equal and superior to the life obstacles He has
adapted to us. You must climb them; you can’t help yourself; you must move
onward.
II. The natural
darkness of these mountains will be alleviated or intensified by our
relationship to God. If you are right with God
and are giving Him glory in
your life
God will be a light to you as you ascend your difficult way. And
that light
too
will give you strength. You will see where you are
and
whither you are going; the hilltop will not be so far off
the path
thitherward
though meandering and tortuous
will be discernible
and the track
of footsteps before you will give you cheer. Ay
and with the light of heaven
around you
there will be the strength of heaven within you; and as the natural
darkness of the mountain will be swallowed up in the light of heaven
so the
weakness of your heart will be forgotten in the strength that is imparted. The
Holy Spirit will testify that you are a child of God
an heir of the kingdom of
heaven
for what son is he a father chasteneth not? And if
for a moment
you
should fail
you will feel a hand helping you upward
and hear a voice cheering
you onwards; and should it come almost to the worst
as with Jesus in
Gethsemane
there will be an express angel from heaven to strengthen you.
Should you
I say
when you come to these mountain troubles of your way
be in
close relationship to God
giving glory to Him in your life
you will prove His
presence and His help; you will see His light and His favour
and will find
needful strength to enable you to prosecute your course. But should this not be
so; should you
apart from God and alienate from His love
be pursuing your
life career merely by the natural force which is derived from your animal and
mental vigour; should you unexpectedly find yourself at the base of a
mountainous trouble
whose steep sides ascend with a frightful incline
on
whose summit
overhangs a portentous cloud
casting its deep shadows all along
your appointed way--your situation will be deplorable indeed.
III. How may these
evils be avoided? “Give glory to the Lord your God.” The Lord is your God
your
Creator
your Proprietor
your Sustainer
your Provider
your Defender
your
Helper
your Governor
your Guide. On Him you depend
and in Him you live.
Without Him you are nothing; in Him you are complete and full. You are so
constituted by Him
and have such capacities given you
that you can know Him
admire Him
love Him
and serve Him. He expressly made you that you should do
this. It is the design of His creation
the intent of your existence. If you
achieve this
you answer His purpose and satisfy His mind. If you fail in this
you thwart His intention and disappoint His expectation. (W. T. Bull
B. A.)
Verse 20
Where is the flock that was given thee
thy beautiful flock?
A question for parents and pastors
Here is a flock that is being inquired about
not a flock only
but a beautiful flock.
1. The question comes into our family life
and asks us where all the
children are
those lovely children
that banished the silence of the house and
made it ring with music. They were fair
they were charming
they were
affectionate; what a sweet
merry little fellowship they made!--where are they?
Have they been spoiled into evil
flattered into self-idolatry
neglected into
atheism? Have they been over-instructed
over-disciplined
wholly overborne
so
that the will has not been only broken but shattered? He is no shepherd
but a
tyrant
who does not cooperate with his children
lure them
fascinate them
and give them sacred instruction without appearing to do so
and who when
offering religious privileges offers them as if offering coronation
yea
and
all heaven.
2. The question enters also into our Church life
saying to every
pastor
“Where is the flock that was given thee
thy beautiful flock?”--not
large
perhaps
but so expectant
so sympathetic
so cooperative. What the
flock wants is pastoral preaching. The difficulty is to overcome the temptation
to preach to somebody who is not there. The preacher must always know himself
to be set for the healing and nurture of men. In every congregation there am
the broken-hearted
those who are shattered in fortune
feeble in health
spiritually-minded; women who have great home cares; souls that cannot thrive
on criticism; lives that need all nourishment and comfort and loving sympathy.
(J. Parker
D. D.)
God’s claim on parents
I. What is here
shown us respecting the flock.
1. It is not yours in proprietorship
only in charge. Children are
peculiarly and specially God’s. Authority over them is God’s gift to parents
but He has a claim prior to yours. He continues His work of creation in every
child born. Its existence is wonderful. Much more so its capacities--physical
mental
social
spiritual.
2. Christ highly estimates the flock. Christian hospitality to a
child is homage to God.
II. The
responsibility of parents to whom God has entrusted His flock.
1. They have to impart religious ideas. At home the first principles
are instilled: indeed
the child’s mind is there made acquainted with the germ
of all truth--sin
forgiveness
righteousness
salvation
love human and
Divine: all the ideas involved in religion.
2. Parents represent to their children the character of the Invisible
God. The Gospel is a declaration of the paternal love.
3. The inquiry for the flock will be addressed to parents.
III. The way in
which this responsibility should be met. If you would prepare to answer
joyfully this question
set it before you as--
1. A distinct purpose. The wish for your children’s salvation is not
enough. Register a purpose in the sight of God.
2. Intense devotion is necessary. To have converting power over your
own children you must love their souls
and hold them fast for God. (A.
Davies.)
Where are you
What a question this for ministers and for people! For ministers.
Where are the few sheep whom He has put under our care? What have we done for
them? And for the flock likewise
God’s people and children. What a question
for them! Where are you?
I. You are God’s
flock. “The people of His pasture
and the sheep of His hand.” He acknowledges
you as His sheep
and like the Good Shepherd
He knows you every one. He looks
at you as you are
and thinks of the difference between one and another.
II. His flock is
“beautiful.”
1. For what He has made them. Look how beautiful He has made us all
in body
mind
and soul.
2. Because of what they are capable of. Look at the wonderful things
which man has been enabled to do
and then think what more God may intend him
to do. Look at him sailing over the sea
and travelling over land by means of
fire and water! And then think what may not man’s mind and body be capable of
doing. But look at man sanctified by the Holy Ghost
his soul filled with
grace
and bringing forth fruits of righteousness. How beautiful is a
Christian
when he is gentle
forgiving
loving
forgetting himself
and
seeking to help others
bearing trials without murmurs
and rejoicing even in
sorrow!
3. Because of what they are intended for. You
poor creatures that
you are
disappointed and disappointing yourselves so constantly
promising
yourselves so much and performing so little--God intends you to be lights in
this world
to show the way to those around you
and to be His companions in
heaven.
III. “Where are
you?” “Where am I?”
1. We are here
whilst so many others have been called away.
2. Judge yourselves where you are in spiritual things.
Christian responsibility
To the minister of Christ
when looking back on the irremediable
past
and forward on the dim future
the thought must naturally arise
--How
much have we to answer for
and what answer shall we make? But let all
seriously minded Christians consider how great is the responsibility of us all
with respect to children and young persons
that they be brought up in the
nurture and admonition of the Lord. Everyone knows that example is more
forcible than precept
and especially evil example than good precept. When
grown-up persons then
whether parents or others
use themselves to violent and
intemperate language
swearing
or indecent expressions
or slander
it is as
if they took pains to instruct children in the language of lost spirits. Or
to
glance at another case; many there are who
while they preserve a decent
exterior of conduct
yet leave their children
or other young persons for whom
they are in any manner responsible
to shift for themselves; I mean in
religious matters
take no personal care or trouble to give them an education
substantially Christian. But I ask
Is not that which is true and good for the
parent
true and good for the child? Must not fathers and mothers be answerable
for the bringing up of their little flock
the children whom God has given
them
in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? And can this be true Christian
nurture and admonition
to habituate them to those unfixed and unprincipled
notions and ways in the great matter of Divine worship
and communion with
Christ’s Church here militant
but in heaven triumphant? This responsibility
lies on us all--all grown-up persons--all have an influence either for good or
evil on the younger; and happy will they be
who shall be found to have exerted
this influence to the honour of our Almighty Lord and Master
and the
edification of that flock which He purchased with His own blood. Such persons
if parents
have made it a principal matter of their thoughts and cares that
their children should be also God’s children. (Plain Sermons by Contributors
to the “Tracts for the Times.”)
Verse 21
What wilt thou say when He shall punish thee?
A question to the impenitent
It was in view of certain threatened calamities that were to come
on Judah from the hand of the Lord
that this question is asked of her. I put
this question to each individual who is not obeying the Gospel of Christ. What
wilt thou say
dying as thou art living
appearing before God in judgment as
thou appearest to Him now
continuing impenitent
persisting in disobedience to
the Gospel
if the character thou carriest into eternity be that which you are
now forming for it? But perhaps you have no faith in future punishment; perhaps
you do not believe that you
or any sinner will ever be brought into these
circumstances. Then you have no faith in the veracity of God
or in the Bible
as His Word. You are fulfillers of prophecy
for it is said (1 Peter 3:1-22) there should be such
as you. But you say
the belief is unreasonable; it conflicts with all our
ideas of benevolence and justice. What! that a righteous moral Governor should
punish incorrigible offenders
rebels that refuse to be reconciled to Him
though often invited
and the meanwhile most kindly dealt with by their injured
Sovereign
and when the terms of reconciliation are easy as they could be made
and the whole expense of bringing it about is borne by God! The question is
not
what now you have to say
for now you imagine you have a great deal to
say. And some can speak long and fluently in a strain of self-exculpation; but
then
when confronted with your Maker and Judge; and when all things are seen
by the clear and searching light of eternity; then
what wilt thou say?
1. You will not be able to say that you were ignorant of the
existence of the law
for the transgression of which you are condemned.
2. Nor can you say that this law is unintelligible. Whatever
obscurity attaches to the doctrines of the Bible
none rests on its precepts.
3. Nor
again
can you reasonably complain of the character of this
law. “The law is holy
and the commandment holy
lust
and good.” Its spirit is
love; its tendency happiness.
4. Nor can you complain of any want of adaptation in this law; that
it transcends your capacities
exceeds your natural powers of performance. No;
you want no new faculty to obey it perfectly. You want only a rectified heart.
You want but the will.
5. You cannot plead ignorance of its penalty. You cannot say that you
were not warned of the consequences of disobedience; and that God strikes
before He speaks. What has not been done to deter you from sinning? What
obstructions have not been thrown in your way to destruction! But you surmount
them all. What then wilt thou say
when He shall punish thee? That you have
never transgressed this law
or only once
or but seldom
and then
inadvertently
through infirmity? This you will not say; you cannot. Who has
not sinned many times
and deliberately? Will you say that your sin did no
harm
injured no one
no one but God? But you must allow the Lawgiver to be the
judge of that. The consequences of a particular sin He alone is able to trace
out. Will you be able to say
that
when you had sinned
God hastened the
execution of the sentence against you; waited not for a second offence
and
gave you no opportunity to evade the stroke; that as soon as you found you had
sinned
you were sorry
and penitently sought His face
but was spurned away;
and that
seeing your case to be hopeless
you went on sinning in despair? What
will you say? That there was an irreversible Divine decree that stood an
insurmountable obstruction in your way to heaven
and even impelled you in the
downward direction? You will see by the light of eternity that that was not the
case
nor indeed the doctrine of those who were supposed to hold it. What then
wilt thou say
when He shall punish thee? I can think of nothing
nothing
exculpatory
nothing extenuating. You will be speechless
not through
intimidation
but from conviction
not as unable to speak
but as having
nothing to say; self-condemned
as well as condemned by your Judge; conscience
confirming the decision against you
and your own self through all eternity
reproaching you
and thus nourishing a worm gnawing within worse than the fire
that shall burn about you. And shall it come to this? Shall this be the issue
of life? (W. Nevins
D. D.)
Future punishment
I. The punishment
supposed.
1. Sometimes it commences in the present world.
2. It will assuredly be inflicted after death.
3. It will be consummated at the judgment day.
4. It will be proportionate (Matthew 19:27; Romans 2:6; Revelation 2:23).
5. That it will be everlasting.
II. The
interrogation presented.
1. Will you say it is unrighteous?
2. Will you say it is severe?
3. Will you say that you were not warned?
4. Will you plead for a further period of trial?
5. Will you confess your guilt
and seek mercy?
6. Will you endeavour to resist the almighty arm? (Isaiah 27:4; Nahum 1:5)
7. Will you endeavour to meet your doom with firmness? (Proverbs 1:27; Revelation 6:17.)
Application--
1. Future punishment may be averted. Bless God that you are favoured
with time and opportunities; with mercy
and with gracious invitations.
2. Timely repentance
and sincere faith in the Lord Jesus Christ
will infallibly preserve you from the wrath to come. (J. Burns
D. D.)
The justice of future punishment
I. Offer three
general remarks.
1. All the afflictions to the wicked have the nature of punishment:
they are not salutary. Grace turns the serpent into a rod; but sin turns the
rod into a serpent. The former turns poison into a remedy; the latter
the
remedy into poison.
2. Punishment is the natural and necessary consequence of sin. If we
drink of the cup of abominations
God will give us the cup of trembling (Psalms 75:8).
3. Whoever are the immediate instruments of inflicting punitive
evils
God is the author of them.
II. Consider the
solemn inquiry in our text. “What wilt thou say when He shall punish thee?”
1. Wilt thou charge God with injustice
or say that the punishment is
undeserved? To admit such a thought betrays the greatest insolence and pride
as well as an entire ignorance of all the principles of truth and righteousness
(Romans 3:5-6; Revelation 15:3; Revelation 16:7).
2. Wilt thou say that God is severe and that though punishment be
deserved
yet it is too great for the offence? (2 Thessalonians 1:6-10.)
3. Wilt thou say that thou wast taken by surprise
without being
warned; and that
therefore
judgments came unlooked for? The very heathens
cannot say this; for as the creatures instruct them
so conscience warns them.
4. Wilt thou desire a further time of trial
that judgment may be
deferred
and a longer season of probation be afforded thee? Instead of wishing
for a greater extension of Divine forbearance
God might say to the dying and
desponding sinner
The measure of thine iniquities is already full
and further
forbearance would only make it run over. “Put in the sickle
for the harvest is
ripe.”
5. Wilt thou say that thou hast sinned by an inevitable necessity
and that thy ruin was predetermined? But if this be the language of sinners in
this world
it will not be so in the world to come. They will then know that if
they were the slaves of sin and Satan
they were so voluntarily
and by choice;
that if they were sold to commit iniquity
like Ahab
they sold themselves; and
that if any spiritual blessing were withheld
it was that to which they had no
claim and for which they had no desire (Jeremiah 7:10; Isaiah 63:17; Matthew 23:37
John 5:40; Acts 2:23; John 12:39; John 15:22; Romans 9:19-20).
6. The question proposed in the text implies that the sinner will
have nothing to say when he falls into the hands of God. (B. Beddome
M. A.)
A serious question
I. The punishment
referred to. A freethinker once said
“I am seventy years old
and have never
seen such a place as hell
after all that has been said about it.” A child at
once replied
“But have you ever been dead yet?”
1. The punishment itself. This is brought before us--
2. Its infliction.
II. The persons on
whom it will be inflicted.
1. Atheists.
2. Unbelievers.
3. Hypocrites.
4. Persecutors.
5. Backsliders.
III. The question
“What wilt thou say?” Many can talk now
revile
question
sneer. What will you
say then? (Homiletic Magazine.)
No appeal
Advert to the time when
in the order of the Divine government
ungodly sinners will be punished according to law. What wilt thou say in
extenuation of thy guilt
and against the justice of the punishment that He
shall inflict upon thee?
1. Will you say that you did not know the law which you had broken?
Whose fault was that? Had you not a Bible as your own? Had you not a law in
your conscience which acquitted or accused you in the actions of life?
2. That you meant no wrong in what you had done? Then why do wrong?
For pleasure? For profit? Was this any justification of wrong-doing?
3. That your sins had not done such evil as to deserve such
punishment? Can you be a judge in this?
4. That God might have prevented you sinning
and the results of your
sins
if He had been so disposed? Yes
had He destroyed your free agency. But
did not God use means to prevent you
and you would not?
5. That you sinned only a short time in comparison with the duration
of your punishment? Punishment is not given in its duration according to the
time taken in the act of transgression. The act of murder
and its punishment.
6. That you have only done as others have done? A thousand doing
wrong is no justification or extenuation of one doing a similar or the same
wrong that they have committed.
7. That you have not been so bad as others? The law knows nothing of
degrees in crime
so far as exempting from punishment. Besides
he that offends
in one point is guilty of all.
8. That while you have done many things that have been wrong
you
have done others that have been right? Doing a right will not save you from the
punishment of doing a wrong.
9. That you had great temptations to do as you have done? But there
were at your command resources of help sufficient to keep you from their power.
10. That you were led into sin by bad examples? There were good examples
to follow as well as bad
why did you not follow them?
11. That you were never educated? Education has nothing to do with
moral principles and actions.
12. That you were never warned or admonished against sin? Can this be
true? If you were not
whose fault was it? Had you not warnings and admonitions
of conscience and of the Spirit of God?
13. That the Spirit of God never strove with you? This is false
or
God’s Word is
and human experience. Perhaps you so quenched the Spirit as to
harden your heart.
14. That you were born into the world with a sinful nature
and could
not help sinning? But God made every provision to meet your case in this
respect.
15. That the inconsistencies of Christians were a stumbling block to
you? If one man walk awry
or if he stumble
is that any reason why you should
do so
16. That you were preordained by God to do as you have done? This is
false
both in reason and in Scripture.
17. That your punishment is too severe? It is no wonder you should say
this. Is it undeserved? Is it against law and justice?
18. That your punishment is more than you can bear? You should have
thought of this before. Did you in committing sin think of how others could
bear the wrong you were doing them? How God could bear your sins? (Local
Preacher’s Treasury.)
Verse 23
Can the Ethiopian change his skin
or the leopard his spots?
The Ethiopian
I. The question
and its answer.
1. The difficulty in the sinner’s case lies--
2. For all these reasons we answer the question in the negative:
sinners can no more renew themselves than Ethiopians can change their skins.
II. Another
question and answer.
1. All things are possible with God (Matthew 19:26).
2. The Holy Spirit has special power over the human heart.
3. The Lord Jesus has determined to work this wonder
and for this
purpose He came into this world
and died
and rose again (Matthew 1:21).
4. Many such jet-black sinners have been totally changed: among
ourselves there are such
and in all places such may be found.
5. The Gospel is prepared with that end.
6. God has made His Church long for such transformations
and prayer
has been offered that they may now be wrought. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Evil habits a great difficulty to reformation of life
Habit may be looked on--
1. As a necessary law.
2. As a beneficent law. It is because acts grow easier and generally
more attractive the oftener they are performed
that men advance in the arts
the sciences
the morality
and the religion of life.
3. As an abused law. The text is a strong expression of its abuse.
The words of course are not to be taken in an absolutely unqualified sense. The
idea is great difficulty. Our subject is the difficulty of converting old
sinners
men “accustomed to do evil.”
I. It is a
self-created difficulty.
1. Habit is but an accumulation of acts
and in each of the aggregate
acts the actor was free.
2. The sinner himself feels that he has given his moral complexion
the Ethiopian stain
and painted his character with the leopard spots. This
fact shows--
II. It is a
gradually augmenting difficulty. Habit is a cord. It is strengthened with every
action. At first it is as fine as silk
and can be broken with but little
effort. As it proceeds it becomes a cable strong enough to hold a man of war
steady amidst boisterous billows and furious winds. Habit is a momentum. It
increases with motion. At first a child’s hand can arrest the progress. As the
motion increases it gets a power difficult for an army of giants to overcome.
Habit is a river
at its headspring you can arrest its progress with ease
and
turn it in any direction you please
but as it approaches the ocean it defies
opposition
and rolls with a thunderous majesty into the sea.
1. The awful condition of the sinner.
2. The urgency for an immediate decision Procrastination is folly.
3. The necessity of the special prayers of the Church on behalf of
aged sinners.
III. It is a
possibly conquerable difficulty.
1. The history of conversions shows the possibility of overcoming
this difficulty.
2. The mightiness of Christ shows the possibility of overcoming this
difficulty
He saves to the uttermost.
Uttermost in relation to the enormity of the sin--uttermost in
relation to the age of the sinner. (Homilist.)
Evil habits and their cure
If we compare together these words of Jeremiah with other words on
the same subject by Isaiah we arrive at a more complete view of the force of
evil habits than is presented to us by this single text. “Come
now
let us
reason together
though your sins
” etc. This is the essential message of
Christ
that there is forgiveness of sins--that the transgressions of the past
can be blotted out and he who has done evil learn to do good. This doctrine was
very early objected to. It was one of the arguments that the educated heathen
in the first ages of the Christian Church brought against Christianity that it
declared that possible which they believed to be impossible. “It is manifest to
everyone
” writes Celsus
the first great polemical adversary of Christianity
who flourished in the second century
“that those who are disposed by nature to
vice
and are accustomed to it
cannot be transformed by punishment
much less
by mercy
for to transform nature is a matter of extreme difficulty
” but our
Lord has taught us that what is impossible with men is possible with God
and
Christianity proved again and again its Divine origin in accomplishing this
very work which
according to men
was impossible. Against the sweeping
assertion of Celsus to the contrary
we may place the living examples of
thousands upon thousands who through the Gospel have been turned from darkness
to light and from the power of Satan unto God. To trace the steps of such a
change in any particular case is one of the most fascinating studies in
biography; but no study will ever explain all
for in the work of a soul’s
regeneration there is a mystery which can never be brought into the mould of
thought. “The wind
” said Christ
“bloweth where it listeth
and thou hearest
the sound thereof
but canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth; so
is everyone that is born of the Spirit
” but man’s part in the work can be
conceived
and this is what we should strive to understand
so that we may work
with God
and there are three chief ways in which we may do so:
1. There is resistance. As every yielding to temptation strengthens a
bad habit
so every act of resistance weakens it. It was the belief of the
North American Indians that the strength of the slain foe passed into the body
of the slayer; and in the moral world it is so
for not only does resistance
take from the force of habit
it strengthens the will against it
so that in a
double way acts of resistance undermine the force of habit.
2. Then there is education. Every man who is not wholly lost to a
sense of right-doing feels every time he gives way to an evil habit a silent protest
working in his breast
something that tells him he is wrong
that urges him to
do differently
that interferes with the pleasure of the sin
mingling with it
a sense of dissatisfaction. This protest will generally take the form of urging
us towards the good which is opposite to the evil in which we are indulging.
And by educating
by drawing out the desire after this good more and more
the
evil is more and more put to flight. Thus the way to overcome inattentiveness
of the mind is not so much to fix our attention on the fault
as to cultivate
and educate its opposite
concentration of mind.
3. Once again
there is prayer. It has been said that to labour is to
pray
and that is true in a measure; and those who labour in resisting evil
habits and in cultivating good ones are
in a sense
by such actions praying to
God; but anyone who has ever prayed knows that that definition does not exhaust
the meaning or force of prayer. Prayer is more than labour--it is having
intercourse with God. It is one of the chief means by which we are made
conscious that we are not alone in the battle of life; but that there is One
with us who is our unchangeable Friend
who looks down upon us with an interest
that never flags
and a love that never grows cold. (Arthur Brooke
M. A.)
Inability to do good arising from vicious habits
I. To explain the
nature of evil habits
particularly the tendency of them
to render men
indisposed to moral goodness. No habit leaveth a man in a state of
indifference
it putteth a strong bias upon his mind to act according to its
direction
as experience showeth in innumerable instances
and in the most
ordinary affairs
and even amusements of life; how naturally and easily do we
fall into the beaten track
and hold on the accustomed course
though our
reason discerneth no importance in it at all! Nay
by the influence of habit
trifles are magnified into matters of great moment
at least they engage the
desire
and determine the active powers as if they were
so that we find it
very difficult to break them off. Again
the only rational way of reclaiming
men from ill practices is
by convincing them that they are ill
and that they
must be attended with unhappy consequences to themselves: but the effect of
habits is to darken the understanding
to fill the mind with prejudices
and to
render it unattentive to reason. How then shall they that are accustomed to do
evil learn to do well
since they are biassed against it
being expert in the
contrary practice
and since they have made themselves in a great measure
incapable of instruction?
II. Consider
particularly how we are to understand that disability to do good which is
contracted by being accustomed to do evil.
1. That the impotence is not total nor equal to that which is
natural
will appear from the following considerations.
2. You see then where the difference lieth
that it is in ourselves
and what that impotence is which ariseth from habits
that it is no more than
irresolution which is properly the fault of the mind
and to be charged wholly upon
it.
3. God waiteth to be gracious to them
unwilling they should perish
if they are disposed on their part to submit to the remedy which His mercy hath
provided. (J. Abernethy
M. A.)
Habits
1. Everyone remembers how much of his discipline as a child was
connected with points of manner; how often he was reproved for little
rudenesses
etc. And if by the neglect of others or by his own he formed any
such habit
does he not remember too how much pain and effort it cost him to
get rid of it
however little pleasure there might be in indulging it
or
however easy it might appear
in prospect
to part with it at any moment when
it might become troublesome? And I need not remind any of you of the force of
habit as shown
in an opposite way
in matters which
though they occupy much
of your time and thoughts elsewhere
must yet be regarded as trifling in
comparison with the graver subjects which ought to fill our minds here; I mean
in those exercises of bodily strength and skill which form so large a part of our
youthful training.
2. But now go one step farther
and observe the effect of habit
for
good or evil
upon the mind. If language be your chief subject of study
the
repeated sight of certain symbols
which were at first entirely strange and
unintelligible to you
makes them familiar
and associates them forever in your
mind with the ideas which they symbolise; and the repeated formation for
yourselves of words and sentences in that foreign language
according to
certain rules
gives you at last an almost intuitive and instantaneous
perception of what is right and beautiful in it. This is the reward of the
diligent; their reward in proportion to the original gift of mind for which
they are not responsible
and to their diligence in the use of it for which
they are. And if this be
in intellectual matters
the force of habit for good
need I speak of its influence for evil? Those repeated neglects which make up
the school life of an idle or presumptuous boy; the little separate acts
or
rather omissions of act
which seem to him now so trifling; the postponements
half-learnings
or total abandonments of lessons; the hours of inattention
vacancy
or wandering thoughts
which he spends in school; the shallowness and
looseness and slovenliness--still worse
the too frequent unfairness--of his
best preparations of work; these things too are all going to form habits.
3. The soul too is the creature of habit. Have you not all found it
so? When you have for two or three days together forgotten your prayers
has it
not become
even in that short time
more easy to neglect
more difficult to
resume them? When you have left God out of sight in your daily life; when you
have fallen into an unchristian and irreligious state of mind and life
how
soon have you found this state become as it were natural to you; how much less
day by day
did the idea of living without God alarm you; how much more
tranquil
if not peaceful
did conscience become as you departed farther and
farther in heart from the living God! But there is another
an opposite
habit
of the soul
that of living to God
with God
and in God. That too is a habit
not formed so soon or so easily as the other
yet like it formed by a
succession of acts
each easier than the last
and each making the next easier still.
4. I have spoken separately of habits of the body
the mind
and the
soul. It remains that we should combine these
and speak a few serious words of
those habits which affect the three. Such habits there are
for good and for
evil. There is a devotion of the whole man to God
which affects every part of
his nature. Such is the habit of a truly religious life; such a life as some
have sought in the seclusion of a cloister
but which God wills should be led
in that station of life
whatsoever it be
to which it has pleased or shall
please Him to call us. One day so spent indeed
is the earnest
and not the
earnest only hut the instrument too
of the acquisition of the inheritance of
the saints in light. How can we
after such thoughts
turn to their very
opposite
and speak of habits affecting for evil conjointly the body
the mind
and the soul? Yet such habits there are
and the seed of them is often sown in
boyhood.
5. It is the fashion with some to undervalue habits. The grace of
God
they say
and say truly
can change the whole man into the opposite of
what he is. It is most true: with God--we bless Him for the word
it is our one
hope--all things are possible. But does God give any encouragement in His Word
to that sort of recklessness as to early conduct
which some practically
justify by their faith in the atonement? Is it not the whole tenour of His Word
that children should be brought up from the first in the nurture and admonition
of the Lord?
6. I have spoken
as the subject led me
of good habits and evil:
there is yet a third possibility
or one which seems such. There is such a
thing
in common language at least
as having no habits. Yes
we have known
such persons
all of us; persons who have no regularity and no stability within
or without; persons who one day seem not far from the kingdom of God
and the
next have drifted away so far from it that we wonder at their inconsistency. As
you would beware of bad habits
so beware also of having no habits. Grasp
tenaciously
and never let go
those few elements at least of virtuous habit
which you acquired in earliest childhood in a Christian home. You will be very
thankful for them one day. (Dean Vaughan.)
Importance of the rigid formation of habits
I. How far the
influence of habit extends. Habit extends its influence over the body
the
mind
and the conscience The body
considered merely as an animal frame
is
much under the influence of habit. Habit inures the body to cold or heat;
renders it capable of labour
or patient of confinement. Through habit the
sailor rides upon the rocking wave without experiencing that sickness which the
unaccustomed voyager is almost sure to feel. I might now proceed from the body
to the mind
only there are some cases which are of a mixed nature
partaking
both of body and mind
in which we neither contemplate the body apart from the
mind
nor the mind apart from the body; and habit has its influence upon both.
Such is the pernicious use of strong liquors
habit increases the desire
diminishes the effect of them. So all undue indulgence of the body increases
the desire of further indulgence. The appetite by constant gratifications
becomes uncontrollable; and the mind also grows debauched
is rendered
incapable of purer pleasures
and altogether unfit for the exercises of
religion. Nor is it only through the body that habit has its effect upon the
mind. There are habits purely mental
as well as habits purely bodily.
Profaneness may become a habit; a man may contract a habit of swearing
a habit
of speaking irreverently of sacred things. So the anger of a passionate man is
often called constitutional. Further
the Apostle Paul speaks of those whose
mind and conscience is defiled. Habit has its effect on the conscience also.
One would think that the more frequently a man had committed a fault
the more
severely would his conscience upbraid him for it. But the very contrary is the
case: his conscience has become familiar with the sin
as well as his other
faculties of mind or body.
II. The difficulty
of overcoming habits. Even in the case of those who have been soberly and
virtuously brought up
and whose life is unstained by a course of profane or
licentious conduct
there is a principle of evil which keeps them far from God.
They have no love to Him
no delight in Him
no communion with Him. How much
more palpably impossible is it for the wretched sinner to break his chains
when sin by long indulgence has become habitual; when the body itself has been
made subject to it
the mind polluted by it
and the conscience seared as with
a red-hot iron! Does experience teach you to expect that these men will correct
themselves! It may be that such men may change one sin for another
a new bad
habit
as it acquires strength
may supplant an old one
the sins of youth may
give way to the sins of age. But this is not ceasing to do evil
and learning
to do well. It is only altering the manner of doing evil. With men it is
impossible
but not with God; for with God all things are possible. Divine
grace can not only take away the greatest guilt; it can also enlighten the
darkest understanding
and sanctify the most corrupt heart.
III. Address two
descriptions of characters.
1. Those who are still walking in their accustomed way of evil.
2. Those who have been delivered from it. (J. Fawcett
M. A.)
Habits
The formation of habits goes on in part by conscious volition or
purpose. Men set themselves at work in certain directions to acquire
accomplishments and various elements of power. Thus are habits formed. And the
same process goes on under a more general schooling. We are living in society
at large. Not only are we influenced by that which goes on in our households
but there is the reflection of a thousand households in the companionship into
which we are thrown day by day
which influences us. The world of most persons
is a microcosm with a small population; and they reflect the influence of the
spheres in which they have had their training and their culture. The influences
which surround them
for good and evil
for industry or indolence
are
well-nigh infinite in number and variety. Every man should have an end in view;
and every day he should adopt means to that end
and follow it from day to day
from week to week
from month to month
and from year to year. Then he is the
architect of
and he is building
his own fortune. Out of a careless and
unarmoured way spring up mischievous habits which at first are not very
striking
nor very disastrous. Prominent among them is the habit of
carelessness respecting the truth--carelessness in respect to giving one’s word
in the form of a promise. Never make a promise without a distinct and
deliberate thought as to whether you can fulfil it; or not; and having made a
promise
keep it at all hazard
even though it be to your damage. Do not break
your word. Then
aside from that mode of falsifying
men fall into the habit of
uttering untruths. The love of truth is not in them. They do not esteem truth
for itself’s sake. They regard it as an instrument
as a coin
as it were; and
when it is profitable they speak the truth
but when it is not profitable they
are careless of it. Multitudes of persons by suppression falsify and they use
so thin and gauzy a veil as this: “Well
what I said was strictly true.” Yes;
but what you did not say was false. For you to tell the truth so that no one
shall suspect the truth
and so that it shall produce a false and illusory
impression--that has an evil effect upon others
and a still more evil effect
upon your own character. The desire to conform your speech to Yea
yea
and
Nay
nay; the desire for simplicity of truth; the desire to state things as
they are
so that going from your mind they shall produce pictures in another’s
mind precisely as they lie in your own--that is manly. Still more likely are
men by extravagance to fall from strict habits of truth. We live in an age of
adjectives
Nothing is natural. The whole force of adjectives is exhausted on
the ordinary affairs of life
and nothing is left for the weightier matters of
thought and speech. Men form a habit in this direction
Frequently it is formed
because it is very amusing. When a man has a good reputation for speaking the
truth
and he speaks in a back-handed way
at first it is comical; as
for
instance
where a man speaks of himself as being a dishonourable fellow when he
is known to be the very pink of honesty and scrupulousness; or
where a man
speaks smilingly of trying with all his might to live within his income
when
he is known to roll in riches. Such extravagances have a pleasing effect once
or twice; and not only individuals
but families and circles fall into the
habit of using extravagant words and expressions
because under certain
conditions they are amusing; but they cease to be so when they are applied to
the common elements of life
and are heard every day. They become altogether
distasteful to persons of refinement
and are in every way bad. The same is
true of bluntness. Now and then the coming in of a blunt expression from a
good
strong
honest man is like a clap of thunder in a hot
sultry day in
summer--and we like it; but when a man makes himself disagreeable under the
pretence that bluntness of speech is more honest than the refined expressions
of polite society
he violates good taste and the true proportions of things.
Nor is it strange
under such circumstances
that a man feels himself easily
led to the last and worst form of lying--deliberate falsification; so that he
uses untruth as an instrument by which to accomplish his ends. Closely
connected with this obliteration of moral delicacy there comes in a matter of
which I will speak
reading from Ephesians
the 5th chapter--“All uncleanness
or covetousness
let it not be once named among you
” etc. Where men tip their
wit with salacious stories; where men indulge in double entendre; where
men report things whose very edge is uncomely and unwholesome; where men talk
among themselves in such a way that before they begin they look around and say
“Are there any ladies present?” where men converse with an abominable indecorum
and filthiness in repartee
jesting with things that are fine
and smearing
things that are pure
the apostle says
“It is not convenient.” The original
is
It is not becoming. In other words
it is unmanly. That is the force of the
passage. And we are forbidden to indulge in these things. Yet very many men run
through the whole of them
sink into the depths of pollution
and pass away. I
scarcely need say that in connection with such tendencies as I have reprobated
will come in the temptation to a low tone of conduct socially; to coarse and
vulgar manners
and to carelessness of the rights of others. By good manners I
mean the equity of benevolence. If you will take the 13th chapter of 1st
Corinthians
and
though it be perverting the text a little
substitute for “charity”
the word politeness
you will have a better version of what true politeness is
than has ever been written anywhere else. No man has any right to call himself
a gentleman who is oblivious of that equity of kindness which should exist
under all circumstances between man and man. I have noticed a want of regard
for the aged. Grey hairs are not honourable in the sight of multitudes of young
men. They have not trained themselves to rise up and do obeisance to the
patriarch. I have observed that there was a sort of politeness manifested on
the part of young men if the recipient of it was young and fair; but I have
noticed that when poor women come into a car
sometimes bearing their babes in
their arms
young men
instead of getting up and giving them their places
are
utterly indifferent to them. The habits of our times are not courteous
and you
are not likely to learn from them the art of good manners
which means kindness
and equity between man and man in the ordinary associations of life; and if you
would endow yourself with this Christian excellence you must make it a matter
of deliberate consideration and assiduous education. I will mention one more
habit into which we are liable to fall
and toward which the whole nation seems
to tend: I mean the habit of loving evil. I refer not to the love of doing
evil
but to the love of discussing evil. True Christian charity
it is also
said in the 13th of 1st Corinthians
“rejoiceth not in iniquity.” A man ought
to be restrained from any commerce with that which is evil--evil news
evil
stories
evil surmises
evil insinuations
innuendoes
scandals
everything
evil that relates to society. Set yourselves
then
as Christian men and women
to abhor evil and to rejoice not in iniquity
but in the truth. I will speak of
one other habit--namely
the growing habit of profanity. Men accustom
themselves to such irreverence in the use of words which are sacred
that at
last they cease to be words of power to them. Men swear by God
by the
Almighty
by the Lord Jesus Christ
in a manner which shocks the feelings and
wounds the hearts of truly conscientious people. And they who thus addict
themselves to rudeness of speech violate the law of good society. Not only
that
but; they do it uselessly. You do not give weight to what you are saying
in conversation by the employment of expletives. There is no statement which is
more forcible than that which is expressed in simple language. And in giving
way to the habit you are doing violence to the Word of God
to your best moral instincts
and to your ideal of the sanctity of your Ruler and your Judge; and I beseech
of you who are beginning life to take heed of this tendency
and avoid it. We
are all building a character. What that character is to be it doth not yet
appear. We are working in the dark
as it were; but by every thought and action
we am laying the stones
tier upon tier
that are going into the structure; and
what it to be the light of the eternal world will reveal. It is
therefore
wise for every man to pray
“Search me
O God; try me and see if there be any
evil way at me.” It is worth our while to go back to the Old Testament again
and say
“Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto
according to Thy Word.” The cleanest Book
the most honourable Book
the most
manly Book
the truest
the simplest
and the noblest Book that ever was
written or thought of is this Book of God. In the Psalms of David
in the
Proverbs of Solomon
in the whole New Testament
you cannot go amiss. Them is
not one place where you will be led down morally
where the ideal is not noble
and where it does not ascend higher and higher
till you stand in Zion and
before God. (H. W. Beecher.)
Of the difficulty of reforming vicious habits
I. The great
difficulty of reforming vicious habits
or of changing a bad course
to those
who have been deeply engaged in it and long accustomed to it. This will fully
appear--
1. If we consider the nature of all habits
whether good
or bad
or
indifferent. A rooted habit becomes a governing principle
and bears almost an
equal sway in us with that which is natural. It is a kind of a new nature
superinduced
and even as hard to be expelled
as some things which are
primitively and originally natural.
2. This difficulty ariseth more especially from the particular nature
of evil and vicious habits. These
because they are suitable to our corrupt
nature
and conspire with the inclinations of it
are likely to be of a much
quicker growth and improvement
and in a shorter space
and with less care and
endeavour
to arrive at maturity and strength
than the habits of grace and
goodness.
3. The difficulty of this change ariseth likewise from the natural
and judicial consequences of a great progress and long continuance in an evil
course.
II. The case of
these persons
though it be extremely difficult
is not quite desperate; but
after all
there is some ground of hope and encouragement left
that they may
yet be reclaimed and brought to goodness.
1. There is left
even in the worst of men
a natural sense of the
evil and unreasonableness of sin; which can hardly be ever totally extinguished
in human nature.
2. Very bad men
when they have any thoughts of becoming better
are
apt to conceive some good hopes of God’s grace and mercy.
3. Who knows what men thoroughly roused and startled may resolve
and
do? And a mighty resolution will break through difficulties which seem
insuperable.
4. The grace and assistance of God when sincerely sought
is never to
be despaired of. (J. Tillotson
D. D.)
The difficulty of repentance
I. From the nature
of habits in general of vicious habits in particular. Concerning habits
we may
observe that there are many things which we practise at first with difficulty
and which at last
by daily and frequent repetition
we perform not only
without labour
but without premeditation and design. Thus it is with the
habits of memory. By frequent practice and slow degrees we acquire the use of
speech: we retain a surprising variety of words of arbitrary sounds
which we
make the signs of things. Thus it is in the habits of the imagination. When we
accustom our minds to certain objects
when we call them often before us
these
objects
which at first were perhaps as indifferent as any other
become
familiar to us
they appear uncalled and force themselves upon us. Thus it is
with the habits of sin. They are acquired like other habits by repeated acts;
they fix themselves upon us in the same manner
and are corrected with the same
difficulty. A sinner by long offending contracts an aversion from his duty
and
weakens his power of deliberating and choosing upon wise motives. By giving way
to his passions he has made them ungovernable; they rise of themselves
and
stay not for his consent
and by every victory over him they gain new strength
and he grows less able to resist them. His understanding and reason become
unserviceable to him. At first
when he did amiss
he was ashamed of it; but
shame is lost by long offending. Add to this
that vicious habits make a deeper
impression and gain faster upon us than good habits. Sin recommends itself to
our senses by bringing present profit or pleasure
whilst religion consists
frequently in renouncing present profit or pleasure for a greater interest at a
distance
and so recommends itself
not to our senses
but to our reason; upon
which account it is more difficult to be good than to be bad. One being asked
what could be the reason why weeds grew more plentifully than corn? answered
Because the earth was the mother of weeds
but the stepmother of corn; that is
the one she produced of her own accord
the other not till she was compelled to
it by man’s toil and industry. This may not unfitly be applied to the human
mind
which on account of its intimate union with the body
and commerce with sensible
objects
easily and willingly performs the things of the flesh
but will not
bring forth the spiritual fruits of piety and virtue
unless cultivated with
assiduity and application.
II. From
experience. There are few who forsake any vice to which they are remarkably
addicted. The truth of this may be easiest observed in those faults where the
body seems not to be much concerned
such as pride
conceit
levity of mind
rashness in judging and determining
censoriousness
malice
cruelty
wrath
moroseness
envy
selfishness
avarice. These bad dispositions seldom forsake a
person in whom they are fixed. Besides
many of them are of so deceitful a
nature
that the mind entertains them and knows it not; the man thinks himself
free from faults which to every other person are most visible.
III. Scripture
concurs with reason and experience. When the Scriptures speak of evil habits
they make use of figures as strong and bold as language can utter and the
imagination conceive
to set forth their pernicious nature. Persons in that
condition are said to be enclosed in a snare
to be taken captives
to have
sold themselves to work wickedness
to be in a state of slavery. Even those
passages which contain great encouragement and favourable promises to
repentance
inform us at the same time of the difficulty of amending. Our
Saviour gives a plain and familiar representation of it. A shepherd
says He
rejoices more over one sheep which was lost and is found
than over
ninety-and-nine which went not astray. Why so? For this
amongst other reasons
because he could not reasonably expect such good fortune
and had little hopes
of finding a creature exposed to a thousand dangers
and unable to shift for
itself.
IV. Reflections
useful to persons of all ages and of all dispositions.
1. If the words of the text were to be taken rigorously and in the
strictest sense
it would be a folly to exhort a habitual sinner to repentance
and an unreasonable thing to expect from him a natural impossibility; but it is
certain that they mean no more than an extreme difficulty.
2. There are persons who sincerely profess the Christian religion
who fear God and desire to be in His favour
but whose lives are not so
conformable to their belief as they ought to be
who are sorry for their faults
and fall into them again
who make not the progress in goodness which they
acknowledge to be justly expected from them
and who have not that command over
their passions which by a little more resolution and self-denial they might
acquire. Such persons should seriously consider the difficulty of reforming bad
habits
and the extreme danger of that state: for though it be not their
present condition
yet if they use not timely caution
sad effects may ensue.
3. These sad examples should be a warning to those whose obedience is
so incomplete and sullied with so many defects
whose love of virtue is not
equal and uniform
and whose affections are placed sometimes on God and
religion
and sometimes on the follies and vanities of the world.
4. There are Christians who abstain from known and deliberate
transgressions
who strive to make a daffy progress in goodness
and to perform
an acceptable service to God. The difficulty of reforming vicious habits may
warn them to be upon their guard
that after they have set out well and
proceeded well
they fail not at last
nor lose a reward near at hand.
5. They who have wisely and happily preserved themselves from evil
habits ought to be very thankful to God
by whose blessing they are free from
that heavy bondage
and strangers to the sad train of evils which attend it. (J.
Jortin
D. D.)
The sinner’s helplessness
I. If man cannot
turn himself to happiness and God
why not?
1. Because of the force of sinful habit. The man who has his arm
paralysed cannot use it for his own defence; and sin deprives the soul of
power
it paralyses the soul. The man thinks he can pray
but when the time
comes
he finds that sinful habits are so strong upon him that he cannot. I
well recollect
one winter night
when the storm was raging and the wind was
howling
being called up to attend one who was in the agonies of death
and who
had long been living an avowed life of sin
but he became anxious at the last
to know if it were possible for him to find a place of safety; and never shall
I forget the answer which that poor man made to me
when I directed him to
pray: “Pray
sir! I cannot. I have lived in sin too long to pray. I have tried
to pray
but I cannot
I know not how; and if this be all
I must perish.” A
long continued life of sin had paralysed that man’s soul; and it does so
consciously or unconsciously
in every case.
2. Because of the fault of his sinful nature. You know well
that if
the glorious sun in the heavens were to shine upon the face of a man who is
naturally dead he would neither see it nor feel its warmth. If you were to
present to that man all the riches of the world he would have no eye to look at
them
no heart to wish for them
no hand to put forth to grasp them. And so
with the man who is unconverted. He may be all alive to sin
he may have all
the powers of his mind in full exercise
but his heart is alienated from God;
he has no wish for “the unsearchable riches of Christ”; he has no desire to
become enriched with those treasures which shall endure forever.
3. Because of the enmity of Satan. Do you see that poor man who has
been toiling in all the heat of a summer’s day with a heavy burden upon him?
His strength is now gone
and he has fallen into the ditch; and when he tries
to raise himself
do you see that tyrant who has got his foot upon his back
and who plunges him again into the ditch and keeps him down? You have them a
picture of the enmity and power of Satan.
II. If man cannot
turn himself
if he be like the Ethiopian who cannot change his skin
why tell
him of it? Is it not to pour insult upon his miserable and abject condition? Oh
no! It is necessary to tell him of his helplessness.
1. Because God commands it. His eye is upon the poor prodigal in all
his wanderings: He knows the desperate wickedness and deceitfulness of his
heart; He
the Lord
searches the heart; He knows what it is best for fallen
man to know and to be made acquainted with; and He tells those whom He sends to
be His ambassadors to preach the Word
to proclaim the whole counsel of God
to
keep back nothing whatsoever that is contained in the revealed will of God.
2. Because there must be a sense of need before deliverance can be
experienced. If a man were to have an idea
when he was in a building
surrounded by danger
that whenever he pleased he could get up and take the key
out of his pocket and unlock the door and walk out
then he might indeed sit
still and laugh at those who would fain arouse him to a sense of his danger;
but if you can tell the man that the key which he fancies he possesses he has
lost--if you can get him to feel for it
if you can once bring him to the
conviction that he has lost it
and that he cannot get out of the building in
which he is
then you rouse him from his state of apathy
then you bring him to
the point at which he is ready to welcome the hand of any deliverer.
3. God has promised to give us His Holy Spirit. Here the sinner’s
objections are met. If he has no power
yet if he has the wish to be delivered
from his dreadful state
God promises to pour out His Spirit; and that Spirit
leads to Jesus
convinces of sin
and then takes of the things of Jesus and
applies them to the sinner’s soul
III. Inferences.
1. Without Christ men must perish.
2. Is there not a danger of delay in this matter?
3. Think of the responsibility of this present moment. (W. Cadman
M. A.)
Custom in sin exceeding dangerous
I. The defilement
of sin.
1. Its inherence.
2. Its monstrousness.
3. Its multiplication. A beast of divers colours
marks
and spots (Galatians 5:19).
4. Its universality. A deformity in all parts and members (Isaiah 1:5; Genesis 6:5).
II. The
entanglements of sin.
1. The qualification or condition of the persons accustomed to do
evil. More correctly
“taught to do evil.” Taught--
2. The invincible necessity which follows upon custom in sin: they
“cannot do good.”
Conclusion--
1. Take heed of having anything to do with sin at first.
2. If any should fall into sin
do not stay in it
but hasten out of
it with speed (Romans 6:1).
3. Take heed of relapses
and falling back to sin again (2 Peter 2:20). (T. Herren
D. D.)
The alarming power of sin
I. The habits of
men are strengthened and confirmed by indulgence. Even habits which relate to
matters of indifference become inveterate
and are with great difficulty
modified and overcome. The longer a man continues in sinful courses
the more
fully his mind becomes trained in these habits of resistance to all that is
good. He is insensibly led on from one course of wickedness to another
till he
is under a sort of necessity of sinning. He has taken so many steps in this
downward road
and his progress has become so accelerated and impetuous that he
cannot resist it.
II. The influence
of this world
as men advance in life
usually becomes more perplexing
and a
greater hindrance to their conversion. While the eye is pleased
the ear
regaled
and all the senses delighted
there is everything to corrupt and
destroy. A man in middle life may
now and then
feel powerful inducements to
become pious; the grasp of the world may
for a short season
be partially
relaxed; and he may withdraw himself for a little from his old companions
to
think of the scenes of that invisible world to which he is hastening; but soon
his courage and self-denial fail him
and he is soothed or frightened away from
his purpose. Some golden bait
some earnest entreaty
some subtle stratagem
some unhallowed influence disheartens him
and he goes back again to the world.
The world is still his idol. The concerns of time absorb the attention and
exhaust the vigour of his mind. Having thrown himself into the current
he
becomes weaker and weaker
and though the precipice is near
he cannot now stem
the tide and reach the shore.
III. As years
increase
men become less interested in the subject of religion
and more
obdurate and averse to any alteration in their moral character. The season of
sensitiveness and ardent affection is gone by. The only effect which the most powerful
instructions or the best adapted means of grace are apt to have upon such a
mind
is increasing insensibility and hardness
and greater boldness in
iniquity. They cannot endure to be disturbed in their sins. When you urge the
claims of piety upon them
they treat the whole matter with neglect and
contempt. They have made up their minds to run the hazard of perdition
rather
than be roused to the severe and dreadful effort of forsaking their sins. Here
too
is the danger of men accustomed to impenitence. The scenes of eternity to
such men have a melancholy and direful aspect. Everything is conspiring to
harden
deceive
and destroy them; and there is little probability that these
augmented obstacles to their conversion will ever be removed.
IV. The thought of
multiplied and long-continued transgression is very apt to discourage all
attempts at repentance. Not unfrequently they will tell you
“Once the work
might have been performed
but it is now too late; the favourable opportunity
is past; human life is but a dream
and the day of hope is gone by!” It is a
dark--very dark problem
whether persons of this description will ever repent
and believe the Gospel. It is true that God’s mercies are infinite; that those
who seek Him shall find Him; that the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth
from all sin; and that while there is life there may be hope; and yet a more
hopeless condition this side eternity cannot easily be conceived
than the
condition of such a man.
V. There is awful
reason to apprehend that God will leave men of this description to perish in
their sins. If we look into the Bible
we shall find that most of the prophets
and apostles
as well as those who were converted through their
instrumentality
were called into the kingdom of God in childhood
or youth
or
in the dawn and vigour of manhood. One of the distinctive features of all
revivals of religion is
that they have prevailed principally among the young.
It has also been remarked
that in ordinary seasons
the individuals who have
occasionally been brought into the kingdom of Christ
with few exceptions
have
been from those not habituated to impenitence. Almost the only exception to
this remark is found in places where men have never sat under faithful
preaching
and never enjoyed a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit
until
late in life. In such places I have known persons brought into the vineyard at
the eleventh hour. And this is also true of heathen lands. But even here
there
are comparatively few instances of conversion from among those who have grown
old in sin. Conclusion--
1. Admonition to the aged. What the means of grace could do for you
they have probably clone; and that your day of merciful visitation has well
nigh reached its last limits. God still waits that He may be gracious. And He
may wait till the last sand of life has fallen. But
oh
how ineffably
important to you is the present hour! Your hoary hairs may be even now “a crown
of glory
if found in the way of righteousness.” Let not another hour be lost!
This very call rejected may seal our destiny.
2. Our subject addresses those who are in middle life. The period
most auspicious to the interests of your immortality is gone. You are now in
the midst of your most important designs and pursuits
and probably at the zenith
of your earthly glory. Everything now conspires to turn away your thoughts from
God and eternity. Better leave every other object unattained than your eternal
salvation. Better give up every other hope
than the hope of heaven. Oh
what a
flood of sorrows will roll in upon you by and by
when you see that “the
harvest is past
the summer is ended
and you are not saved!”
3. Our subject addresses the young. Yours is the season of hope. If
you become early devoted to God
you may live to accomplish much for His cause
and kingdom in the world; your influence and example may allure multitudes
around you to the love and practice of godliness; and you may be delivered from
the guilt of that destructive influence
which will plant thorns in your dying
pillow. (G. Spring
D. D.)
Habit
When in a vacant hour we fall into reverie
and the images of the
past come pouring out of the storehouse of memory at their own sweet will
how
arbitrary appears the succession of our thoughts! With a rapidity greater than
that of seven-leagued boots
the mind passes from country to country
and from
century to century. This moment it is in Norway
the next in Australia
the
next in Palestine
the next in Madagascar. But this apparent arbitrariness is
not real. In reality thought is linked to thought
and for the wildest leaps
and most arbitrary turns of the fancy there is in every ease a sufficient
reason. You are thinking of Norway; but that makes you recall a friend who is
now in Australia
with whom you visited that picturesque country; and so your
thought flies to Australia. Then
being in Australia
you think of the Southern
Cross
because you have been reading a poem in which that constellation was
described as the most remarkable feature of the southern hemisphere. Then the likeness
of the name of the cross makes you think of the Cross of Christ
and so you
pass over centuries and find yourself in Palestine; and the Cross of Christ
makes you think of the sufferings of Christians
and your mind is in
Madagascar
where the missionaries have recently been exposed to suffering.
Thus
you see
beneath the phenomena apparently most arbitrary
there is law;
and even for the most apparently unaccountable flights and leaps of the mind
there is always a good reason.
I. The origin of
habit. Habit may be conceived to arise in this way. When
in the revolution of
time--of the day
or the week
or the month
or the year
--the point comes
round at which we have been thinking of anything
or have done anything
by the
law of the association of ideas we think of it again
or do it again. For
instance
when day dawns we awake. We get out of bed because we have done it at
that time before. At a later hour we take breakfast
and go away to business
for the same reason; and so on through the day. When Sunday morning comes our
thoughts turn to sacred things
and we make ready to go to the house of God
because we have always been accustomed to do that. The more frequently anything
has been done
the stronger is habit
and frequency acts on habit through
something else. Frequency gives ease and swiftness to the doing of anything. We
do anything easily and swiftly which we have done often. Even things which
seemed impossible can not only be done
but done with facility
if they have
been done often. A celebrated character tells that in a month he learned to
keep four balls up in the air and at the same time to read a book and
understand it. Even tasks that caused pain may come to be done with pleasure
and things that were done at first only with groans and tears may at last
become a source of triumph. It is not only the mind that is involved in habit.
Even the body is subdued to its service. Do we not recognise the soldier by his
gait
the student by his stoop
and the merchant by his bustle? And in the parts
of the body that are invisible--the muscles and nerves--there is a still
greater change due to habit. Hence the counsel of the philosopher
and I think
it is a very profound counsel: “Make your nervous system your ally instead of
your enemy in the battle of life.”
II. Excessive
habit. Habit
even good habit
may be excessive. It tends to become hide-bound
and tyrannical. There is a pharisaical sticking to opinions once formed
and to
customs once adopted
which is the principal obstacle to human progress. Yet
on the whole
there is no possession so valuable as a few good habits
for this
means that not only is the mind pledged and covenanted to good
but the muscles
are supple
and even the very bones are bent to what is good.
III. Desirable
habits. I should be inclined to say that the most desirable habit which any
young person can seek to have is self-control; that is the power of getting
yourself to do what you know you ought to do
and to avoid what you know you
ought to avoid. At first this habit would be exceedingly difficult to acquire
but there is an enormous exhilaration when a man can do the thing he knows he
ought to do. It is moral strength that gives self-respect
and it will very
soon win the respect of others. The second habit I would like to name is the
habit of concentration of mind. I mean the power of withdrawing your thoughts
from other subjects
and fixing them for long at a time on the subject in hand.
I am sure many of you know how difficult that habit is to acquire. If you attempt
to think on any particular subject
immediately you will think of other things;
but by perseverance your mind will become your servant
and then you are on the
way to being a thinker
for it is only to people who begin to think in this way
that the secret and joy of truth unfold themselves. I mention
as the third
desirable habit
that of working when you are at work. I do not care what your
work is
whether work of brain or hand
whether well-paid or ill-paid; but what
I say is
do it as well as it can be done for its own sake
and for your own
sake. Do it so that you can be proud of it. There is one other habit that I
should like to mention that is very desirable
and that is prayer. Happy is
that man who at some hour or hours every day--the time which he finds to be
most suitable for himself--goes down on his knees before his Maker. I say happy
is that man
for his heavenly Father who seeth in secret will reward him
openly.
IV. The tyranny of
evil habit. Evil habits may be acquired through simply neglecting to acquire
good ones. Like weeds
they grow up wherever the field is uncultivated and the
good seed is not sown. For example
the man who does not work becomes a
dissipated loafer. The young man who does not keep up the habit of going to
church loses spiritual instinct--the instinct for worship
for fellowship
for
religious work
and becomes a prey to sloth on the Sabbath. The tyranny of evil
habit is proverbial. The moralists compare it to a thread at the beginning
but
as thread is twisted with thread
it becomes like a cable which can turn a
ship. Or they compare it to a tree
which to begin with is only a twig which
you can bend any way
but when the tree is fully grown
who can bend it? And
apart altogether from such illustrations
it is appalling how little even the
most strong and obvious motives can turn aside the course of habit. This truth
is terribly expressed in our text: “Can the Ethiopian
” etc. I suppose we all
have contracted evil habits of some kind
and therefore for all of us it is an
important question
Can these be unlearned and undone?
V. How to break
bad habits. Moralists give rules for undoing evil habits. Here are some of
them.
1. “Launch yourself on the new course with as strong an initiative as
possible.” I suppose he means
do not try to taper your evil habit off
but
break it off at once. Give it no quarter; and pledge yourself in some way; make
some public profession.
2. “Never suffer an exception to occur till the new habit is rooted
in your life.”
3. “Seize the very first possible opportunity to act on every
resolution you make
and on every emotional prompting you may experience in the
direction of habits you aspire to gain.”
4. “Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous
exercise every day.” This writer strongly recommends that every one who seeks
moral strength should every day do something he does not want to do
just to
prove to himself he has the power of doing it. He would not mind very much
whether it was an important thing or not
but he would say
“Every day do
something deliberately that you do not want to do
just that you may get power
over yourself--the power of getting yourself to do anything you want.”
5. I do not disparage rules like these. We have to work out our own
salvation with fear and trembling
but the other half of that maxim is equally
true
“It is God that worketh in you both to win and to do His good pleasure.”
(James Stalker
D. D.)
Habit
1. To form a vicious habit is one of the easiest processes in nature.
Man comes into a world where sin is
in many of its various forms
originally
pleasant
and where evil propensities may be gratified at small expense.
Nothing is required but to leave man to what is called the state of nature
to
make him the slave of habitual sensuality. But even after the mind is
in some
degree
fortified by education
and reason has acquired a degree of force
the
ease with which a bad habit can be acquired is not less to be lamented. Vice
gains its power by insinuation. It winds gently round the soul
without being
felt
till its twines become so numerous
that the sinner
like the wretched
Laocoon
writhes in vain to extricate himself
and his faculties are crushed at
length in the folds of the serpent. Vice is prolific. It is no solitary
invader. Admit one of its train
and it immediately introduces
with an
irresistible air of insinuation
the multitude of its fellows
who promise you
liberty
but whose service is corruption
and whose wages is death.
2. The effects of sinful indulgence
which make its relinquishment so
difficult
are
that it perverts the moral discernment
benumbs the sensibility
of conscience
destroys the sentiment of shame
and separates the sinner from
the means and opportunities of conversion. The moral discernment is perverted.
As the taste can be reconciled to the most nauseous and unpleasant impressions
the eye familiarised to a deformed object
the ear
to the most grating and
discordant noises
and the feeling
to the most rough and irritating garment
so the moral taste becomes insensible to the loathsomeness of vice. Another
effect of habitual transgression is
to banish the sentiment of shame. It is
the tendency of habit to make a man regardless of observation
and at length of
censure. He soon imagines that others see nothing offensive in what no longer
offends himself. Besides
a vicious man easily gathers round him a circle of
his own. It is the society of numbers which gives hardihood to iniquity
when
the sophistry of the united ingenuity of others comes in aid of our own
and
when
in the presence of the shameless and unblushing
the young offender is
ashamed to blush. The last effect of vicious habits
by which the reformation
of the sinner is rendered almost desperate
is
to separate him from the means
of grace. He
who indulges himself in any passion
lust
or custom which openly
or secretly offends against the laws of God or man
will find an insuperable
reluctance to those places
persons
or principles by which he is necessarily
condemned. One means of recovery yet remains
the reproof and example of the
good. But who will long bear the presence of another
whose very looks reprove
him
whose words harrow up his conscience
and whose whole life is a severe
though silent
admonition?
3. Do you ask when education should commence? Believe me
it has
begun. It began with the first idea they received--the insensible education of
circumstances and example. While you are waiting for their understandings to
gain strength
vice
folly
and pleasure have not waited your dilatory motions.
While you are looking out for masters and mistresses
the young immortals are
under the tuition of innumerable instructors. Passion has been exciting
and
idleness relaxing them
appetite tempting
and pleasure rewarding them
and
example
example has long since entered them into her motley school. Already
have they learned much
which will never be forgotten: the alphabet of vice is
easily remembered. Is it not time to examine
whether there be not in you some
vicious habit
which
notwithstanding your caution
frequently presents itself
to their greedy observation
thus recommended by all the weight of parental
authority? But
though the doctrine of the early operation of habit be full of
admonitions
it presents consequences
also
full of consolation and pleasure.
God hath set the evil and the good
one over against the other; and all His
general laws are adapted to produce effects ultimately beneficial. If the love
of sensual pleasure become inveterate by indulgence
the pure love of truth and
goodness
also
may
by early instillation and careful example
become so
natural and constant
that a violation of integrity
and offence against
gratitude
a breach of purity or of reverence toward God
may prove as painful
as a wound. (J. S. Buckminster.)
The force of habit
I. The nature of
our habits generally. As we become accustomed to the performance of any action
we have a proneness to repeat it on like occasions
the ideas connected with it
being always at hand to lead us on and direct us; so that it requires a
particular effort to forbear it
but to do it demands often no conscious act of
the will at all. Habits of body are produced by repeated external acts
as
agility
gracefulness
dexterity in the mechanical arts. Habits of mind are
formed by the repeated exertion of the intellectual faculties
or the inward
practical principles. To the class of mental habits belong the moral virtues
as obedience
charity
patience
industry
submission to law
self-government
the love of truth. The inward practical principles of these qualities
being
repeatedly called into exertion
and acted upon
become habits of virtue: just
as
on the other hand
envy
malice
pride
revenge
the love of money
the
love of the world
when carried into act
gradually form habits of vice. Habit
is in its own nature therefore indifferent to vice or virtue. If man had
continued in his original righteousness
it would have been
what the merciful
Creator designed it to be
a source of unspeakable moral strength and improvement.
Every step in virtue would have secured further advances. To what point man
might at length have reached by the effect of use and experience thus acting on
faculties made for enlargement
it is impossible to say
and it is vain to
inquire. For we are lost creatures. We are prone to commit sin
and every act
of it only disposes us to renewed transgressions. The force of these evil
habits lies much in the gradual and almost imperceptible manner in which they
are acquired. No man becomes reprobate at once. The sinner at first has
difficulties. Shame
conscience
education
motives of religion
example
the
unreasonableness of vice
the immediate evil consequences of it in various
ways
God’s judgments on sinners
alarming events in His providence
the admonitions
of friends and the warnings of ministers
are all barriers to the inundation.
But habits
insensibly formed
sap the embankment. The powerful current works
its way
and all opposing hindrances are carried before it. It is
indeed
true
that habit
in many cases
diminishes the enjoyment derived from sin. The
sense of vicious pleasure is palled by indulgence. But
unhappily
the same
indulgence which lessens the pleasure increases the vicious propensity. A
course of debauchery
for example
deadens the sense of pleasure
but increases
the desire of gratification. The passive principle is in some degree worn away
but the active principle is invigorated. Drunkenness
again
destroys the
sensibility of the palate
but strengthens the habit of intemperance. A
continued course of impiety and profaneness lessens the lamentable pleasure
which the scoffer originally felt in insulting religion
but confirms him in
the practical rebellion against its laws. A continued course of worldliness and
irreligion takes off from the zest and relish of worldly pursuits
but augments
the difficulty of renouncing them. They are become joyless; but are still
followed from a sort of sad necessity.
II. The
consequences arising from corrupt habits
in our fallen state. Any one transgression
if habitual
excludes from the kingdom of heaven
and every transgression is in
the way of speedily becoming so: here lies the danger. Look at yonder criminal
whose hands have violated the property
and perhaps been imbrued in the life
of his fellow creature. His conscience is seared as with a hot iron. Is he
ashamed when he commits abomination? Nay
he is not at all ashamed
neither can
he blush. What has brought him hither? What has transformed the meek and decent
and reputable youth into the fierce and vindictive ruffian? Evil habits. He
began with breaking the Sabbath; this led to wicked company; drunkenness
followed
and brought every other sin in its train--lust
passion
malice
desperation
cruelty
bloodshed. The road
dreadful as it seems to us
was easy
to him. One bad habit prepared for the following. But my design is
not to
dwell on a picture too shocking for a calm consideration; but to point out the
danger of the same principle in cases by far more common and less suspected; and
where the fatal effects of sinful customs in hardening the heart against the
calls of grace and duty are less conspicuous perhaps at first sight
but not
less fatal to the conversion and salvation of the soul. For what can account
for that sober and measured system of sensual indulgence in which the great
mass of mankind live
but habit working on the fallen state of mind? How is it
that an immortal creature
gifted with reason and destined for heaven
can go
insecure
in gratifying
all those earthly passions
which he once well knew to
be inconsistent with a state of grace; but which he now pursues
forgetful of
God and religion? What has made him morally insensible to the obligations of
holiness
purity
and the love of God? The habit to which he has resigned
himself. The effect has not been brought about at once. The desire for indolent
and sensual gratification has increased with indulgence. Every day his
resolutions for serving God have become weaker
and his practical subjugation
to an earthly life has been confirmed. He has lost almost all notions of
spiritual religion and self-government. He moves mechanically. He has little
actual relish even for his most favourite pleasures; but they are necessary to
him. He is the slave of the animal part of his frame. He vegetates rather than
lives. Habit has become a second nature. If we turn from this description of
persons
and view the force of habit in multitudes of those who are engaged in
the affairs of trade and commerce
or in the prosecution of respectable
professions
we need only ask what can account for the practical object of
their lives? Why are nefarious or doubtful practices so frequently
countenanced? Why are precarious speculations so eagerly embraced? Why are the
aggrandisement of a family
the amassing of riches
the gratification of
ambition
so openly pursued? And how does it arrive that this sort of spirit
pervades so many thousands around us? It is their habit. It is the force of
custom and the influence of the circle in which they move. They came by degrees
within the magic charm
and are now fixed and bound to earth and its concerns.
Again
notice for a moment the intellectual habits of many of the scholars and
philosophers of our age. The world by wisdom knows not God. The pride of our corrupted
hearts readily forms the properly intellectual or reasoning part of our nature
to habits
as ensnaring and as fatal
as any which have their seat more
directly in the bodily appetites. If once the inquisitive student resigns
himself to a daring curiosity
applies to the simple and majestic truth of
revelation the sort of argumentation which may safely be employed in natural
inquiries
he is in imminent peril of scepticism and unbelief. The mind comes
within a dangerous influence. A young and superficial reader once fixed in a
habit of this sort
comes at last either tacitly to explain away the
fundamental doctrines of the Holy Trinity
of the Fall
of human corruption
of
redemption
and the work of the Holy Ghost
or openly to sacrifice them to the madness
of infidelity
or to the scarcely less pernicious errors of the Socinian
heresy. And whence is all this? Habit
working on a corrupt nature
has
produced it
confirmed it
riveted it. Habit is as fruitful and as fatal a
cause of intellectual disorder as of merely animal or sensual depravation.
What
again
seduces the mere external worshipper of God to withhold from his
Maker him heart
whilst he insults Him with a lifeless service of the lips?
What
but the surprising and unsuspected influence of evil habit? He knows that
the Almighty sees everything. He cannot but acknowledge that outward
ceremonies
if destitute of fervent and humble devotion
are nothing less than
a mockery of God
and abominable in His sight. And yet he proceeds in a
heartless round of religious duties
--a mere lifeless shadow of piety. This he
has so long allowed himself to offer to the Almighty
that at last his mind is
unconscious of the impiety of which he is guilty. A habit of formality and
ceremonial observance
with a practical
and perhaps at length an avowed
opposition to the grace of true religion as converting and sanctifying the
whole soul
has darkened even his judgment. Nor can I forbear to add that the
general indifference to practical religion
which prevails in our age
may be
traced back in a great measure to the same cause. Men are so accustomed to put
off the concerns of their salvation
and to disregard really spiritual
religion
that they at length learn to draw a regular and well-defined line
between merely decent and reputable persons
and those who lead a seriously
religious life; and to proscribe the latter as extravagant and hypocritical.
III. The extent and
magnitude of that conversion to God which is therefore necessary. A state of
sin and a state of holiness are not like two ways running parallel by each
other
and just parted by a line
so that a man may step out of the one into
the other; but like two diverging roads to totally opposite places
which
recede from each other as they go on
and lead the respective travellers
farther and farther apart every step. What
then
is to bring man back to God?
What to break the force of custom? What is to stop him in his rushing down the
precipice? What to awaken him in his profound lethargy? What to be the starting
post of a new race? What the principle of a new life? What the motive
the
master motive
of a thorough and radical moral alteration? There never was
there never can be
any other effectual method proposed for these high purposes
but that which the Scriptures reveal
an entire conversion of the whole soul to
God by the mighty operation of the Holy Spirit. God alone that created the
heart can renew it after His image. When the soul receives this new and holy
bias
then the evil habits in which men formerly lived will resolutely be
relinquished
and other and better habits will succeed. They will then repent
of sin and separate from it. They will watch and pray against temptation. They
will believe in the inestimable promises of life in Jesus Christ
trusting
alone in His merits
and renouncing their imagined righteousness which was of
the law. They will depend exclusively on the graces and influences of the Holy
Spirit for every good thought and every holy action. Thus they will stop at
once in the course of their former habits
and begin to form new ones. They
will now enter on a life of humility and fear
of conscientiousness and
circumspection
of mortification and purity
of meekness and temperance
of
justice and charity; all springing from faith in the atonement of Christ
and
from a genuine love to His name. (D. Wilson
M. A.)
On vicious habits
I. There is in
human nature so unhappy an inclination and propensity to sin
that attention
and vigilance are always requisite to oppose this inclination
and maintain our
integrity. The power and influence of habit is the subject of daily
observation. Even in matters merely mechanical
where no attention of mind is
required
custom and practice give
we know
an expertness and facility not
otherwise to be acquired. The case is the same
however unaccountable
in the
operations of the mind. Actions frequently repeated form habits; and habits
approach near to natural propensions. But if such be the influence of habits in
general
vicious ones are still more peculiarly powerful. If the power of
custom be on all occasions apt to prevail
we shall have still less inclination
to oppose it where the object to which we accustom ourselves is naturally
agreeable and suited to our corruption. Here all the resolution we can summon
to our assistance will be requisite
and perhaps ineffectual. We may form an
idea of the unhappy situation of an habitual offender from the difficulty we
find in conquering even an indifferent custom. What was at first optional and
voluntary
becomes by degrees in a manner necessary and almost unavoidable. And
yet
besides the natural force of custom and habit
other considerations there
are
which add to the difficulty of reforming vicious manners. By vicious
habits we impair the understanding
and our perception of the moral distinction
of actions becomes less clear and distinct. Smaller offences
under the
plausible pretext of being such
gain the first admittance to the heart: and he
who has been induced to comply with one sin
because it is a small one
will be
tempted to a second
from the consideration that it is not much worse. And the
same plea will lead him on gradually to another
and another
of still greater
magnitude. Every new sin is committed with less reluctance than the former; and
he endeavours to find out reasons
such as they are
to justify and vindicate
what he is determined to persist in
and to practise: and thus
by habits of
sinning
we cloud the understanding
and render it in a manner incapable of
distinguishing moral good and evil. But further: As
by long practice and
perseverance in sin
we lose or impair the moral discernment and feeling of the
mind; so
by the same means
we provoke the Almighty to withdraw His assisting
grace
long bestowed in vain.
II. Yet
notwithstanding this difficulty and danger
the sinner may have it in his power
to return to duty
and reconcile himself to God. When once the sinner feels his
guilt
--feels just impressions of his own disobedience
and of the consequent
displeasure and resentment of heaven; if he is serious in his resolutions to
restore himself by repentance to the favour of his offended God; God
who is
ever ready to meet and receive the returning penitent
will assist his
resolution with such a portion of His grace
as may be sufficient
if not
totally
at once to extirpate vicious habits
yet gradually to produce a
disposition to virtue; so that
if not wanting to himself
he shall not fail to
become superior to the power of inveterate habits. In this case
indeed
no
endeavours on his part ought to be neglected
--no attempts left unessayed
to
recommend himself to the throne of mercy. Never
therefore
think of postponing
the care of your salvation to the day of old age; never think of treasuring up
to yourselves difficulties
sorrows
repentance
and remorse
against an age
the disorders and infirmities of which are themselves so hard to be sustained.
Let not these be the comforts reserved for that period of life which stands
most in need of consolation. What confusion must cover the self-convicted
sinner
grown old in iniquity! How reluctant to attempt a task to which he has
always been unequal; and to travel a difficult road
which opens to him
indeed
happier prospects
but has hitherto been found impracticable! But if
any of us have unhappily lost this first
best season of devoting ourselves to
God
--and have reserved nothing but shame
sorrow
and remorse
for the
entertainment of riper years;--let the review of former transgressions be an
incitement to immediate repentance. (G. Carr.)
The power of evil habits
I. The power of
sin
as inherent in our nature.
1. It pervades all our faculties
whether of mind or body.
2. It finds in us nothing to counteract its influence.
3. It receives aid from everything around us.
4. It conceals its influence under specious names. Amusement
conviviality
good breeding
etc.
II. Its power
as
confirmed and augmented by evil habit.
1. Its odiousness is diminished.
2. Its power is strengthened.
3. Its opportunities for exercise are multiplied.
4. The powers whereby it should be resisted are destroyed.
5. Everything good is by it put at an unapproachable distance. (C.
Simeon
M. A.)
The force of habit
It is
as Mr. Darwin says
notorious how powerful is the force of
habit. The most complex and difficult movements can in time be performed
without the least effort or consciousness. It is not positively known how it
comes that habit is so efficient in facilitating complex movements; but
physiologists admit that the conducting power of the nervous fibres increases
with the frequency of their excitement. This applies to the nerves of motion
and sensation as well as to those connected with the act of thinking. That some
physical change is produced in the nerve cells or nerves which are habitually
used can hardly be doubted
for otherwise it is impossible to understand how
the tendency to certain acquired movements is inherited. That they are
inherited we see with horses in certain transmitted paces
such as cantering
and ambling
which are not natural to them; in the pointing of young pointers
and the setting of young setters; in the peculiar manner of flight of certain
breeds of the pigeon
etc. We have analogous cases with mankind in the
inheritance of tricks or unusual gestures. As to the domination which evil
habit acquires over men
that needs not even a passing allusion. It is
remarkable that the force of habit may affect even caterpillars. Caterpillars
which have been fed on the leaves of one kind of tree have been known to perish
from hunger rather than to eat the leaves of another tree
although this
afforded them their proper food under a state of nature. Their conduct might
suggest reflection to men who are tempted by habit to risk death by adherence
to debauched courses rather than return to a natural mode of living. (Scientific
Illustrations and Symbols.)
Effects of habit
While shaking hands with an old man the other day we noticed that
some of his fingers were quite bent inward
and he had not the power of
straightening them. Alluding to this fact
he said
“In these crooked fingers
there is a good text. For over fifty years I used to drive a stage
and these
bent fingers show the effect of holding the reins for so many years.”
How habits are formed
A writer describing a stalactite cave says
“Standing perfectly
still in the cavernous hall I could hear the intense silence broken by first
one drop of water and then another
say one drop in each half minute. The huge
rock had been formed by the infinitesimal deposit of lime from these
drops--deducting the amount washed away by the same water--for the drops were
not only building
they were wasting at the same time. The increase was so
minute that a year’s growth could hardly be estimated. It is a powerful
illustration of minute influences. A man might stand before it and say
‘It is
thus my habits have all been formed. My strong points and my weaknesses all
come from influences as quiet
minute
and generally as secret as these water
drops.’”
No substitute for spiritual renewal
No earthly change whatever can be a substitute for the change
which comes from above; any more than the lights of earth will suffice for the
sun
moon
and stars; any more than all the possible changes through which a
potter may pass a piece of clay can convert it into the bright
pure
stamped
golden coin of the realm. (J. Bates.)
Moral suasion cannot renew the soul
All mere outward declarations are but suasions
and mere suasions
cannot change and cure a disease or habit in nature. You may exhort an
Ethiopian to turn himself white
or a lame man to go; but the most pathetic
exhortations cannot procure such an effect without a greater power than that of
the tongue to cure nature; you may as well think to raise a dead man by blowing
in his mouth with a pair of bellows. (S. Charnock.)
Washing an Ethiopian
Then the shepherds led the pilgrims to a place where they saw one
Fool and one Want-wit washing an Ethiopian
with an intention to make him
white; but the more they washed him the blacker he was. Then they asked the
shepherds what this should mean. So they told them saying
“Thus it is with the
vile person: all means used to get such a one a good name
shall in conclusion
tend but to make him more abominable.” Thus it was with the Pharisees; and so
it shall be with all hypocrites. (J. Bunyan.)
A change of heart should be immediately sought after
The longer you stay
the more leisure you give the devil to
assault you
and to try one way when he cannot prevail by another
and to
strengthen his temptations: like a foolish soldier who will stand still to be
shot at
rather than assault the enemy. And the longer you delay
the more your
sin gets strength and rooting. If you cannot bend a twig
how will you be able
to bend it when it is a tree? If you cannot pluck up a tender plant
are you more
likely to pluck up a sturdy oak? Custom gives strength and root to vices. A
blackamoor may as well change his skin
or a leopard his spots
as these who
are accustomed to do evil can learn to do well. (R. Baxter.)
The Divine and human element in conversion
There is produced in a telescope an image of a star. There is
produced in the soul an image of God. When does the image of the star start up
in the chamber of the telescope? Only when the lenses are clear and rightly
adjusted
and when the axis of vision in the tube is brought into exact
coincidence with the line of the rays of light from the star. When does the
image of God
or the inner sense of peace and pardon
spring up in the human
soul? Only when the faculties of the soul are rightly adjusted in relation to
each other
and the will brought into coincidence with God’s will. How much is
man’s work
and how much is the work of the light? Man adjusts the lenses and
the tube; the light does the rest. Man may
in the exercise of his freedom
as
upheld by Divine power
adjust his faculties to spiritual light
and when
adjusted in a certain way God flashes through them. (Joseph Cook.)
O Jerusalem I wilt thou not he made clean?
The necessity of holiness
I. The question.
1. It is of great importance to be cleansed from the filth of sin
and is what should be sought after with the utmost seriousness (Ezekiel 36:25).
2. Cleansing the heart from sin is the work of God. He that cleanses
from guilt
must also cleanse us from corruption; and Christ is made unto us
sanctification
as well as righteousness and redemption (Titus 3:4-6).
3. God has much at heart the sanctification of His people (Isaiah 48:18).
4. Our own unwillingness is the great hindrance to our
sanctification. When the will is gained
the man is gained; and those who will
be made clean are in part made so already.
5. Yet the obstinacy of the will shall not prevent the purposes of
grace: God’s design shall be accomplished
notwithstanding all.
II. The various
answers which will be made.
1. Some are willing to be delivered from the punishment of sin
but
not from its power. Those who would have the former without the latter
are
likely to have neither.
2. Others would be cleansed outwardly
but not inwardly. No prayers
lastings
pilgrimages
penances
nor any other external performances
can
supply the want of internal holiness. The sepulchre
however painted and
adorned
is but a sepulchre still.
3. Some would be made partly clean
but not wholly so.
4. Some would be made clean
but they do not like God’s way of doing
it
or the means He uses for this purpose.
5. There are some who would be made clean
but it must be hereafter.
Like Saint Austin
who prayed to be delivered from his easily besetting sin
but added
“Not yet
Lord!”
6. More awful still: some speak out and say
they will not be
cleansed at all. They prefer sin and hell to holiness and heaven.
7. Put this question to the real Christian
or the truly awakened
sinner
whose conscience has been filled with remorse for his past
transgressions
and who has found a compliance with the call of every lust to
be the severest bondage Wilt thou be made clean? “Yea
Lord
” says he
with all
my heart! “When shall it once be?” This very instant
if I might have my wish.
It is what I pray for
wait for
and strive after; nor can I have a moment’s
rest till I obtain it. (B. Beddome
M. A.)
God is desirous of saving men
I. The woes which
impenitent sinners have reason to expect. The punishment that awaits sinners is
most tremendous. The loss of heaven is one part of it: and who shall declare
how great a loss this is?
II. How unwilling
God is to inflict them. He complains of men’s obstinacy in rejecting the
overtures of His mercy. Long has He waited to no purpose: yet still “He waiteth
to be gracious unto us.” “He stands at the door of our hearts
and knocks.”
Address--
1. Those who imagine that they have no need of cleansing. Let none
entertain such proud conceits. The best amongst us
no less than the worst
need to be washed in the blood of Christ and be renewed by His Spirit; and
without this cleansing
must inevitably perish.
2. Those who are unwilling to be cleansed.
3. Those who desire the cleansing of their souls. It is the blood of
Christ alone that can cleanse from the guilt of sin; and the Spirit of Christ
alone that can cleanse from the power and pollution of sin. To apply these
effectually
we must embrace the promises
and rest upon them
trusting in God
to accomplish them to our souls. (Theological Sketchbook.)
Soul cleansing
1. The great need of the soul.
2. The great helplessness of the soul.
3. The great grace of God.
4. The great drawback on our part.
5. The great work of the ministry.
God’s desire to bless the sinner
I. Man’s uncleanness--
1. In heart;
2. In life;
3. In religion.
II. God’s desire
that he should be clean.
III. His
expostulation with s.
IV. Our refusal.
V. God’s
condemnation. (H. Bonar
D. D.)
A hopeful question
It would seem as if the prophet were speaking the language of
despair; but a little rearrangement of the translation will show that the
prophet is really not giving up all hope: Woe unto thee
O Jerusalem! wilt thou
not be made clean? Shall there not at the very end be a vital change in thee?
When the day is drawing to a close shalt thou not feel the power of the Holy
One
and respond to it? Shalt thou not be born as a child at eventide? So the
spirit of the Bible is a spirit of hopefulness. It will not lose any man so
long as it can keep hold of him. It is a mother-like book
it is a most
shepherdly book
it will not let men die if they can be kept alive. Here is the
Gospel appeal: “Wilt thou not be made clean?” Here is no urging upon Jerusalem
to clean herself
to work out her own regeneration
to throw off her own skin
and to cleanse her own characteristic spots and taints and stains. These words
convey an offer
point to a process
preach a Gospel. Hear the answer from the
leper: “Lord
if Thou wilt
Thou canst make me clean.” There is a river the
streams whereof receive all our diseases
and still the river flows like
crystal from the throne of God. We know what the great kind sea is. It receives
all the nations
gives all the empires a tonic
and yet rolls round the world
an untainted blessing. The question addressed to each heart is
“Wilt thou not
be made clean? when shall it once be?” Shall it not be at once? Shall it not be
at the very end? Shall not the angels have yet to report even concerning the
worst
last of men
the festers of moral creation
“Behold
he prayeth!” The
intelligence would vibrate throughout heaven
and give a new joy to eternity. (J.
Parker
D. D.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》