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Jeremiah
Chapter Seventeen
Jeremiah 17
Chapter Contents
The fatal consequences of the idolatry of the Jews. (1-4)
The happiness of the man that trusts in God; the end of the opposite character.
(5-11) The malice of the prophet's enemies. (12-18) The observance of the
sabbath. (19-27)
Commentary on Jeremiah 17:1-4
(Read Jeremiah 17:1-4)
The sins which men commit make little impression on their
minds, yet every sin is marked in the book of God; they are all so graven upon
the table of the heart, that they will all be remembered by the conscience. That
which is graven in the heart will become plain in the life; men's actions show
the desires and purposes of their hearts. What need we have to humble ourselves
before God, who are so vile in his sight! How should we depend on his mercy and
grace, begging of God to search and prove us; not to suffer us to be deceived
by our own hearts, but to create in us a clean and holy nature by his Spirit!
Commentary on Jeremiah 17:5-11
(Read Jeremiah 17:5-11)
He who puts confidence in man, shall be like the heath in
a desert, a naked tree, a sorry shrub, the product of barren ground, useless
and worthless. Those who trust to their own righteousness and strength, and
think they can do without Christ, make flesh their arm, and their souls cannot
prosper in graces or comforts. Those who make God their Hope, shall flourish
like a tree always green, whose leaf does not wither. They shall be fixed in
peace and satisfaction of mind; they shall not be anxious in a year of drought.
Those who make God their Hope, have enough in him to make up the want of all
creature-comforts. They shall not cease from yielding fruit in holiness and
good works. The heart, the conscience of man, in his corrupt and fallen state,
is deceitful above all things. It calls evil good, and good evil; and cries
peace to those to whom it does not belong. Herein the heart is desperately
wicked; it is deadly, it is desperate. The case is bad indeed, if the
conscience, which should set right the errors of other faculties, is a leader
in the delusion. We cannot know our own hearts, nor what they will do in an
hour of temptation. Who can understand his errors? Much less can we know the
hearts of others, or depend upon them. He that believes God's testimony in this
matter, and learns to watch his own heart, will find this is a correct, though
a sad picture, and learns many lessons to direct his conduct. But much in our
own hearts and in the hearts of others, will remain unknown. Yet whatever wickedness
there is in the heart, God sees it. Men may be imposed upon, but God cannot be
deceived. He that gets riches, and not by right, though he may make them his
hope, never shall have joy of them. This shows what vexation it is to a worldly
man at death, that he must leave his riches behind; but though the wealth will
not follow to another world, guilt will, and everlasting torment. The rich man
takes pains to get an estate, and sits brooding upon it, but never has any
satisfaction in it; by sinful courses it comes to nothing. Let us be wise in
time; what we get, let us get it honestly; and what we have, use it charitably,
that we may be wise for eternity.
Commentary on Jeremiah 17:12-18
(Read Jeremiah 17:12-18)
The prophet acknowledges the favour of God in setting up
religion. There is fulness of comfort in God, overflowing, ever-flowing
fulness, like a fountain. It is always fresh and clear, like spring-water,
while the pleasures of sin are puddle-waters. He prays to God for healing,
saving mercy. He appeals to God concerning his faithful discharge of the office
to which he was called. He humbly begs that God would own and protect him in
the work to which he had plainly called him. Whatever wounds or diseases we
find to be in our hearts and consciences, let us apply to the Lord to heal us,
to save us, that our souls may praise his name. His hands can bind up the
troubled conscience, and heal the broken heart; he can cure the worst diseases
of our nature.
Commentary on Jeremiah 17:19-27
(Read Jeremiah 17:19-27)
The prophet was to lay before the rulers and the people
of Judah, the command to keep holy the sabbath day. Let them strictly observe
the fourth command. If they obeyed this word, their prosperity should be
restored. It is a day of rest, and must not be made a day of labour, unless in
cases of necessity. Take heed, watch against the profanation of the sabbath.
Let not the soul be burdened with the cares of this world on sabbath days. The
streams of religion run deep or shallow, according as the banks of the sabbath
are kept up or neglected. The degree of strictness with which this ordinance is
observed, or the neglect shown towards it, is a good test to find the state of
spiritual religion in any land. Let all; by their own example, by attention to
their families, strive to check this evil, that national prosperity may be
preserved, and, above all, that souls may be saved.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Jeremiah》
Jeremiah 17
Verse 1
[1] The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with
the point of a diamond: it is graven upon the table of their heart, and upon
the horns of your altars;
Graven — Nor is it a thing done in secret, but it is engraven
upon the horns of their altars. God's altar was four-square, and at each corner
there was a rising part made of brass, these were called the horns of the
altar. Now their sin is said to be engraven upon the horns of the altar,
because the blood of the sacrifices which they offered to idols was sprinkled
there, or because their altars had some inscription upon them, declaring to
what idol that altar was consecrated.
Verse 2
[2] Whilst their children remember their altars and their
groves by the green trees upon the high hills.
Their children — This shewed how inveterate they
were in this sin of idolatry, that they taught it their children.
Verse 3
[3] O my mountain in the field, I will give thy substance
and all thy treasures to the spoil, and thy high places for sin, throughout all
thy borders.
My mountain — Jerusalem stood at the foot of an
hill, and part of it on the side of it, upon the top of which hills, were many
pleasant fields.
Verse 4
[4] And thou, even thyself, shalt discontinue from thine
heritage that I gave thee; and I will cause thee to serve thine enemies in the
land which thou knowest not: for ye have kindled a fire in mine anger, which
shall burn for ever.
For ever — For a long time; so the word ever is often taken.
Verse 9
[9] The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately
wicked: who can know it?
The heart — There is nothing so false and
deceitful as the heart of man; deceitful in its apprehensions of things, in the
hopes and promises which it nourishes, in the assurances that it gives us;
unsearchable by others, deceitful with reference to ourselves, and abominably
wicked, so that neither can a man know his own heart, nor can any other know
that of his neighbour's.
Verse 11
[11] As the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not;
so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of
his days, and at his end shall be a fool.
Hatcheth them not — Having lost them,
either by some man that has taken them from her, or by some vermin or wild
beast.
A fool — Shall lose it again before he dies, and then shall
understand what a fool he was.
Verse 13
[13] O LORD, the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall
be ashamed, and they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because
they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living waters.
Depart — From what I have revealed to them as thy will, shall
have no portion beyond the earth.
Verse 14
[14] Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed; save me, and I
shall be saved: for thou art my praise.
For thou art — He whom alone I have reason to
praise for mercies already received.
Verse 15
[15] Behold, they say unto me, Where is the word of the LORD?
let it come now.
Where — Daring the vengeance of God.
Verse 16
[16] As for me, I have not hastened from being a pastor to
follow thee: neither have I desired the woeful day; thou knowest: that which
came out of my lips was right before thee.
I hastened not — As I did not seek the office of a
prophet, so when thou wast pleased to call me to it, I did not decline.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Jeremiah》
17 Chapter 17
Verses 1-27
The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point
of a diamond.
The deep seated character of sin
I. What is sin? If
you ask the Pharisee of old what sin was--“Well,” he said, “it is eating
without washing your hands; it is drinking wine without having first of all
strained out the gnats, for those insects are unclean, and if you should
swallow any of them they will render you defiled.” Many in these days have the
same notion, with a variation. We have read of a Spanish bandit, who, when he
confessed before his father confessor, complained that one sin hung with
peculiar weight upon his soul that was of peculiar atrocity. He had stabbed a
man on a Friday, and a few drops of the blood of the wound had fallen on his
lips, by which he had broken the precepts of holy Church, in having tasted animal
food on a fast day. The murder did not seem to arouse in his conscience any
feeling of remorse at all--not one atom--he would have done the same tomorrow;
but an accidental violation of the canons of mother Church excited all his
fears. Singular, indeed, are the ideas which many men have of transgression.
But such is not God’s view of sin. Sin is a want of conformity to the will of
God; sin is disobedience to God’s command; sin is a forgetfulness of the
obligations of the relation which exists between the creature and the Creator.
This is the very essence of sin. Injustice to my fellow creature is truly sin,
but its essence lies in the fact that it is sin against God, who constituted
the relation which I have violated. It is a great and intolerable wrong that,
being created by God, we yet refuse to yield to His will. It is right that He
who is so good to us should have our love: it is sin that, living upon God’s
goodness, we do not return to Him our heart’s affection. It is right that,
being sustained by Divine beneficence from day to day, we should give to Him
constant thankfulness; but, being so sustained, we do not thank Him, and herein
lies the very soul of sin. Now, in the light of this truth, let me ask the
believer to humble himself very greatly on account of sin. That I have not
loved my God with all my heart; that I have not trusted Him with all my
confidence; that I have not given to Him the glory due unto His name; that I
have not acted as a creature should do, much less as a new creature is bound to
do; that, receiving priceless mercies, I have made so small a return--let me
confess this in dust and ashes, and then bless the name of the Atoner who, by
His precious blood, hath put even this away, so that it shall not be mentioned
against us any more forever.
II. How is the
fixedness of sin which is declared in the text proved? The prophet tells us
that man’s sinfulness is as much fixed in him as an inscription carved with an
iron pen in granite. How is this fixedness proved? It is proved in two ways in
the text, namely, that it is graven upon the table of their heart, and
secondly, upon the horns of their altar. It clearly proves how deeply evil is
fixed in man, when we reflect that sin is in the very heart of man. When a sin
becomes intertwisted with the roots of the affections, you cannot uproot it;
when the leprosy eats deep into the heart of humanity, who can expel it? It
becomes henceforth a hopeless case, so far as human power is concerned. Since
sin reigns and rules in man’s affections, it is deep ingrained indeed. The
second proof the prophet gives of the infixedness of human sin is, that it was
written on the horns of their altars. These people sinned by setting up idols
and departing from Jehovah: we sin in quite another way. When you get the unconverted
man to be religious--which is a very easy thing--what form does the religion
take? Frequently he prefers that which most gratifies his taste, his ears, or
his sight. If your heart is touched, that is the worship of God; if your heart
is drawn to God, that is the service of God; but if it is the mere ringing of
the words, and the falling of the periods, and the cadence of the voice that
you regard, why, you do not worship God, but on the very horns of your altars
are your sins. You are bringing a delight of your own sensuous faculties and
putting that in the place of true faith and love, and then saying to your soul,
“I have pleased God,” whereas you have only pleased yourself. When men become
serious in religion, and look somewhat to the inward, they then defile the
Lord’s altar by relying upon their own righteousness. Man is much like a
silkworm, he is a spinner and weaver by nature. A robe of righteousness is
wrought out for him, but he will not have it; he will spin for himself, and
like the silkworm, he spins, and spins, and he only spins himself a shroud. All
the righteousness that a sinner can make will only be a shroud in which to wrap
up his soul, his destroyed soul, for God will cast him away who relies upon the
works of the law. In other ways men stain the horns of their altars. Some do it
by carelessness. Those lips must be depraved indeed which even in prayer and
praise still continue to sin. The horns of our altars are defiled by hypocrisy.
You may have seen two fencers practising their art, and noticed how they seem
to be seeking each other’s death; how they strike and thrust as though they
were earnestly contending for life; but after the show is over, they sit down
and shake hands, and are good friends. Often so it is in your prayers and
confessions; you will acknowledge your sins, and profess to hate them, and make
resolutions against them, but it is all outward show--fencing, not real
fighting--and when the fencing bout is over, the soul shakes hands with its old
enemy, and returns to its former ways of sin. Oh, this foul hypocrisy is a
staining of the horns of the altar with a vengeance!
III. What is the
cause of this? First, we must never forget the fall. We are none of us today as
God made us. The human judgment is out of balance, it uses false weights and
false measures. “It puts darkness for light and light for darkness.” The human
will is no longer supple, as it should be, to the Divine will; our neck is
naturally as an iron sinew, and will not bow to Jehovah’s golden sceptre. Our
affections also are twisted away from their right bent. Whereas we ought to
have been seeking after Jesus, and casting out the tendrils of our affections
towards Him, we cling to anything but the right, and climb upon anything but
the true. “The whole head is sick, and the whole heart is faint.” Human nature
is like a magnificent temple all in ruins. In addition, however, to our natural
depravity, there come in, in the second place, our habits of sin. Well may sin
be deeply engraven in the man who has for twenty, forty, fifty, or perhaps
seventy years, continued in his iniquity. Put the wool into the scarlet dye,
and if it lie there but a week, the colour will be so ingrained in the fabric
that you cannot get it out; but if you keep it there for so many years, how
shall you possibly be able to bleach it? You must recollect, in addition to
this, that sin is a most clinging and defiling thing. Who does not know that if
a man sins once, it is much easier to sin that way the next time, nay, that he
is much more inclinable towards that sin? I may add that the prince of the
power of the air, the evil spirit, takes care, so far as he can, to add to all
this. He chimes in with every suggestion of fallen nature. He will never let
the tinder lie idle for want of sparks, nor the ground lie waste for want of
the seeds of thorns and thistles.
IV. What is the
cure for all this? Sin thus stamped into us, thus ingrained into our nature,
can it ever be got out? It must be got out, or we cannot enter heaven, for
there shall by no means enter within those pearly gates anything that defileth.
We must be cleansed and purified, but how can it be done? It can only be done
by supernatural process. Your only help lies in Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
who became the Son of Man that He might lift the sons of men up from their
natural degradation and ruin. How does Jesus Christ then take away these
deeply-inscribed lines of sin from human nature? I answer, He does it first in
this way. If our heart be like granite, and sin be written on it, Christ’s
ready method is to take that heart away. “A new heart also will I give you, and
a right spirit will I put within you.” Next to that, inasmuch as the guiltiness
of sin is as permanent as sin itself, Jesus Christ is able to take our guilt
away. His dying upon the Cross is the means by which the blackest sinner out of
hell can be made white as the angels of God, and that, too, in a single
instant. The Holy Spirit also comes in: the new nature being given and sin
being forgiven, the Holy Ghost comes and dwells in us, as a Prince in his
palace, as a God in his temple. Do I hear any say, “Then, I would to God that I
may experience the Divine process--the new nature given, which is regeneration,
the washing away of sin, which constitutes pardon and justification, and the
indwelling of the Holy Ghost, which insures final perseverance and complete
sanctification. Oh, how can I have these precious things?” Thou mayst have
them, whoever thou mayst be, by simply believing in Jesus. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The iron pen recording sins
When Bishop Latimer was on trial for his life, a trial which ended
in his being burned at the stake, he at first answered without duly considering
how much a single unguarded word might cost him. Presently he heard the pen of
a secretary, who was seated behind the tapestry, taking down every expression
which fell from his lips. It would be well for us all to remember that there is
a pen now recording behind the curtain of the skies, our every evil deed and
word and thought and that for all these things God will bring us into judgment.
The iron pen suggests two thoughts.
1. The record which it makes is deep and indelible. So, also, with
the items which are filling up page after page in the book of God’s
remembrance. A wealthy English landlord was once guilty of an act of tyrannical
injustice to a poor, helpless widow, who rented a small cottage from him. The
widow’s son, whose blood boiled with indignation when he witnessed this, grew
up to be a distinguished painter, and he portrayed the scene, and placed it
where the eye of the cruel landlord must rest upon it. When the hard-hearted
oppressor saw it, he turned pale, and trembled, and offered any sum for it,
that the terrible picture might be destroyed.
2. The iron pen with its diamond point does not wear out. Be the
record of one’s sins as long as it may, that record will assuredly be made. It
is a moment of profound interest in the life of an antiquarian, when he drags
forth from the sands of Egypt some ancient obelisk, on which the iron pen has
engraved, so many ages ago, the portraits of those who, in the shadowy past,
acted their part on the crowded theatre of a bustling world. This, however, is
as nothing, compared with the disclosures of that day, when, from the stillness
and silence of the grave, shall be brought out into the dazzling light of noon,
tablets covered with the sculptured history of the soul; a history which no
power nor skill can then erase. And thus the prophet would teach us, by the
striking figure of the iron pen with its diamond point, that sin is no trifling
thing; that one single violation of the Divine law does not pass unnoticed; and
that they who die with the guilt of sins unrepented of, and unpardoned, resting
on their souls, have nothing to expect but the outpouring of God’s terrible
wrath. Vainly do we apologise for our shortcomings, on the ground of our
natural bias to sin; or that the power of temptation proved too strong for us
to resist. Forewarned, we ought to have been forearmed. Alas! who can
contemplate his own sins against light and knowledge, against the strivings of
conscience and the earnest pleadings of the Holy Spirit; who can count up his
broken vows, and his contradictions of solemn confessions before God, and not
tremble at the thought of the black catalogue which the iron pen has been
writing down against him! When the great plague raged in London, in 1666, it
was common to write over every infected house, “Lord, have mercy upon us!”
Should the same inscription now be made over every abode where the plague of
sin has entered, which of our habitations would not require to be thus
labelled? (J. N. Norton, D. D.)
The inward registrar
Manton says: “If conscience speaketh not, it writeth; for it is
not only a witness, but a register, and a book of record: ‘The sin of Judah is
written with a pen of iron, and the point of a diamond’ (Jeremiah 17:1). We know not what
conscience writeth, being occupied and taken up with carnal vanities, but we
shall know hereafter, when the books are opened (Revelation 20:12). Conscience keepeth a
diary, and sets down everything. This book, though it be in the sinner’s
keeping, cannot be razed and blotted out. Well, then, a sleepy conscience will
not always sleep; if we suffer it not to awaken here, it will awaken in hell;
for the present it sleepeth in many, in regard of motion, check, or smiting,
but not in regard of notice and observation.” Let those who forget their sins
take note of this. There is a chiel within you taking notes, and he will
publish all where all will hear it. Never say, “nobody will see me,” for you
will see yourself, and your conscience will turn king’s evidence against you.
What a volume Mr. Recorder Conscience has written already! How many blotted
pages he has in store, to be produced upon my trial. O Thou who alone canst
erase this dreadful handwriting, look on me in mercy, as I now look on Thee by
faith. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Sin ineradicable
The mind of man has been compared to a white sheet of paper. Now
it is like a white sheet of paper in this, that whatever we write upon it,
whether with distinct purpose or no, nay, every drop of ink we let fall upon
it, makes an abiding mark, a mark which we cannot rub out, without much injury
to the paper; unless, indeed, the mark has been very slight from the first, and
we set about erasing it while it is fresh. In one of the grandest tragedies of
our great English poet, there is a scene which, when one reads it, is enough to
make one’s blood run cold. A woman, whose husband had made himself King of
Scotland by means of several murders, and who had been the prompter and partner
of his crimes, is brought in, while in her sleep, and continually rubbing her
hands, as though she were washing them, crying ever and anon, “Yet here’s a
spot . . . What! will these hands ne’er be clean?. . .here’s the smell of blood
still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.” In these
words there is an awful power of truth. We can stain our souls; we can dye
them, and double dye them, and triple dye them; we can dye them all the colours
of hall’s rainbow; but we cannot wash them white. All the perfumes of Arabia
will not sweeten them, all the fountains of the great deep will not wash one
little spot out of them. The usurping Queen of Scotland had been guilty of
murder; and the stain of blood, it has been very generally believed, cannot be
washed out. But it is not the stain of blood alone; every stain soils the soul;
and none of them can be washed out. Every little speck of ink eats into the
paper; every sin, however small we may deem it, eats into the soul. If we try
to write over it, we make a deeper blot; if we try to scratch it out, the next
letters which we write on the spot are blurred. Therefore is it of such vast
importance that we should be very careful of what we write. In the tragedy
which I was quoting just now, the queen says, “What’s done cannot be undone.”
This amounts to the same thing as what I have written, in the sense in which I
am now calling upon you to consider these words. What’s done cannot be undone.
You know that this is true. You know you cannot push back the wheels of time,
and make yesterday come again, so as to do over afresh what you did wrongly
then. That which you did yesterday, yesterday will keep: you cannot change it;
you cannot make it less or greater; if it was crooked, you cannot make it
straight. You cannot turn back the leaves in the book of life, and read the
lesson you have grabbed over again. That which you have written, you have
written: that which you have done, you have done; and you cannot unwrite or
undo it. (J. C. Hare.)
Sin leaves its marks
Even pardoned sins must leave a trace in heavy self-reproach. You
have heard of the child whose father told him that whenever he did anything
wrong a nail should be driven into a post, and when he did what was good he
might pull one out. There were a great many nails driven into the post, but the
child tried very hard to get the post cleared of the nails by striving to do
right. At length he was so successful in his struggles with himself that the
last nail was drawn out of the post. The father was just about to praise the
child, when, stooping down to kiss him, he was startled to see tears fast
rolling down his face. “Why, my boy, why do you cry? Are not all the nails gone
from the post? Oh yes! the nails are all gone, but the marks are left.” That is
a familiar illustration, but don’t despise it because of that. It illustrates
the experience of many a grey old sire, who, looking upon the traces of his old
sins, as they yet rankle in his conscience, would give a hundred worlds to live
himself back into young manhood, that he might obliterate the searing imprint
of its follies. Have you never heard of fossil rain? In the stratum of the old
red sandstone there are to be seen the marks of showers of rain which fell
centuries and centuries ago, and they are so plain and perfect that they
clearly indicate the way the wind was drifting, and in what direction the
tempest slanted from the sky. So may the tracks of youthful sins be traced upon
the tablet of the life when it has merged into old age,--tracks which it is
bitter and sad remorse to look upon, and which call forth many a bootless
longing for the days and months which are past. (A. Mursell.)
Cursed be the man that
trusteth in man.
The difference between
trusting in the creature and the Creator
I. The folly and evil of trusting in man. To “trust in man,” in the
sense of our text, is to expect that from creatures which can only come from
the Creator: to confide in them, not as mere instruments, but as efficient
causes; to look to them so as to look off from God; to cleave to them so as to
depart from Him.
1. Idolatrous in its principle.
2. Grovelling in its aim. It looks no higher than present good, and
things altogether unworthy of an immortal spirit.
3. Unreasonable in its foundation. It supposes that man can do what
God cannot.
4. Destructive in its issue. “He shall be like the heath in the
desert,”--worthless, sapless, fruitless; “he shall not see when good
cometh,”--shall not enjoy it; “but he shall inhabit the parched places,” etc.
He shall prosper in
nothing.
II. The wisdom and benefit of trusting in the Lord. Jehovah is his
hope. He seeks and expects his all from Him. To know, love, and enjoy
Him,--behold his chief good,--the object of his hopes,--his highest and
ultimate end. Now this conduct is the complete contrast of the other.
1. It is pious in its principles.
2. Elevated in its aim.
3. Rational in its foundation.
4. Glorious in its issue.
“Blessed is the man,” etc.
“For he shall be like a tree,” etc.
Application--
1. It is a great mistake to suppose the rich and gay happy; the poor
and pious miserable.
2. An entire renunciation of creature confidence, and an unreserved
dependence on God, can alone secure the Divine favour and our own felicity. (Sketches
of Four Hundred Sermons.)
Trust-right and wrong
I. Man, as a ground of trust.
1. In what consists this dependence upon man for the salvation of the
soul?
2. See the consequences of trusting in man. “Cursed,” etc. He that
does so shall be--
II. Jehovah, as a ground of trust.
1. What is meant by trusting Jehovah? With the light of this
dispensation, we may safely say it embraces dependence on the atonement of
Christ; and implies--
2. The blessedness of trusting in Jehovah.
The blessing and the curse
Two contrasted types of
experience, or laws of life, are brought before us--the one a life of trust in
man, and the other a life of trust in God. These two types of experience are
contrasted with each other--not primarily, with respect to their outward moral
characteristics. The thought that our attention is first of all called to is,
that these two lives stand in a contrasted relation to God. The man who lives
the first of the two lives that are described here is represented as assuming
and maintaining an attitude of independence of God; and the man who leads the
second of these two lives is represented as living in a state of consciously
recognised dependence upon God. The one finds his resources in self; the other
finds his resources in Deity. Now these two lives are not only contrasted with
each other, first of all, as to this their essential characteristic, but they
are also contrasted as to their result in respect to the personal happiness and
enjoyment which belongs to each. The one is represented as a life lived under a
curse, and the other as a life lived under a blessing. Either your experience
may be described, in the words of Paul, “The life that I live in the flesh I
live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me”; or
else you are living a life of which nothing of the kind can be affirmed, and,
therefore, a life in which you are practically cut off from all direct
communication with your Maker by sin and unbelief. And if the latter be your
condition, you are at this moment, in spite of all your privileges, actually
under the ban of God’s curse and the frown of His wrath: one or other of these
two cases you may be sure is yours. You will observe that in the first sentence
of our text the prophet utters a curse on the man that trusteth in man; and he
says this before he goes on to speak of the heart departing from the living
God. This trust in man renders it impossible for the man who entertains it to
trust in the living God; and it is, I am persuaded, just because, before we can
really and honestly trust in the Father through the Son, it is absolutely
necessary for us to turn our back upon all other forms of confidence, that so
many lose the enjoyment of this blissful life of faith, and make proof in their
own miserable experience of the blight and desolation of a life of practical
unbelief. We are not prepared to strip ourselves of our false supports and of
our fatal self-confidence, and thus we are not in a position to trust ourselves
to the living Father through the Son. Consider some of these various forms of
false confidence which it is absolutely necessary for us to abandon before we
can enter upon the enjoyment of this life of faith. First, if I am to live by
faith in God, I must make up my mind to have done with living by faith in the
world. If I am to trust God at all, my trust in God must be exclusive of all
other confidence. Or, again, it is possible that our confidence is reposed upon
human systems--perhaps it may even be religious systems--which, practically, are
allowed to take the place that belongs to God in the heart. How many a man one
meets with who will tell us that he has opinions of his own. That may be, my
brother, but the point is whether those opinions of yours coincide with God’s
facts; for opinions of our own may be the cause of mortal injury to us, if it
should so happen that those opinions of our own are in direct opposition to
facts. Or perhaps it is that we base our confidence on the opinions of other
people. Some will tell you that they are earnest Church folks, others will
state that they are conscientious Nonconformists; some that they are strong
Catholics; some that they are decided Evangelicals. God calls upon us to trust
to Himself, and to nothing but Himself; and when we substitute for personal
trust in the living God confidence in any kind of system, whatever that system
may be, or in any mere doctrine, whatever that doctrine may be, we are cut off
by that attitude of heart from the possibilities of the life of faith. Perhaps
you will ask, “Well, but why should my trust in doctrine, or my trust in
ritual, or my trust in churchmanship, preclude me from trusting in God too?”
Just because these things are not God; and, as I said a few moments ago, you
cannot trust God and not-God at the same time. But we must consider yet another
and still more frequent ease. There are a large number of persons who are
strangers to the life of faith--not so much because they are wedded to any
particular system on which they have based their confidence, as because they
are reluctant to renounce their confidence in themselves. Now, we never really
begin with God till we come to an end of ourselves. A considerable number of
persons trust in their own quiet, even respectability. They really cannot see
that they do anything to be distressed or alarmed about. What means all this
hue and cry--this red-hot excitement or attempt to get up a red-hot
excitement--these frequent services going on hour after hour all day
long--these after meetings--these invitations to earnest inquirers? What does
it all mean? The explanation of it all lies in the fact that you ask for an
explanation. Let a man be dissatisfied with himself, let a man have a low
opinion of himself, and then he will be ready to receive good from any kind of
instrumentality, and a very commonplace sort of instrumentality will probably
be used to bring that man to the attainment of that spiritual benefit which his
ease requires. But let a man be sunk in the sleep of self-complacency--let a
man be going on leading a calm, quiet, easy, regular life; but, observe, a life
which is not a life of conscious, personal faith in God, but, on the contrary,
a life of self-reliance, and therefore a life of self-complacency; and he is as
much under the power of the great deceiver as it is possible for a man to be.
And of all the undertakings which lie before the Divine Spirit, it seems to me
that the very hardest undertaking which even God Himself can engage in is that
of penetrating this impervious armour of self-complacency, and of bringing such
an one to feel his need of salvation, and to seek and to find that salvation on
God’s own terms. If these, then, are some of the barriers to our leading a
bright and happy life of faith, we shall perhaps, by God’s blessing, be the
more disposed to avoid or have done with them as we dwell for a little on the
contrast offered between these two forms of life. Let us look at these
pictures. “Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the
Lord is; for he shall be like a tree planted by the waterside, that spreadeth
out her roots by the river.” Observe, the tree is dependent, not upon a chance
shower, but upon a perennial supply. The river is always flowing, and the tree
has stretched out its roots beside the river, and so is in a position
continuously to draw for itself from the river all the sustenance and all the
moisture which it requires. Christian, if thou art a real Christian, here is
thy picture. Thy roots are struck down into God. Thou art dependent upon no
mere casual visitation of Divine mercy. It may be very advisable, from time to
time, that extraordinary efforts should be made to reach the careless and to
awaken the unconcerned, but thou, true child of God, art not dependent upon
these for thy life and health. Thou hast struck down thy roots into the river,
and there thou standest--uninjured by prevalent drought, unscathed by the fiery
rays of the sun, thy leaf green, thy fruit never failing. Is this your ease!
Are you drawing your life supplies from God? There are two ways in which the
Christian grows. He grows in personal holiness of life and conversation, but he
only grows in outward conduct, because he also grows in the knowledge mad love
of God. Upon the depth and reality of his relation with God, his moral and religious
character will depend. As God becomes more and more to him “a living, bright
reality,” so his personal life and character become more fully developed, and
the beauty of the Lord will be exhibited in his conduct. As the result of the
establishment of these relations with God, the supply of all the necessary
wants of the soul is insured, and it has nothing to fear from the trials and
disappointments of life: the tree planted by the waters shall not see when heat
cometh. Observe, the prophet does not say that it shall be exposed to no heat,
but that it shall not be injured by it. Let us ask ourselves, Are we growing in
the knowledge of God? Are we getting fresh revelations of His character and His
ability to meet and satisfy our every spiritual need? Oh, how vast is our
spiritual wealth in Him, and how many a fear and misgiving might not be saved,
if we would only acquaint ourselves with Him and be at peace. And this leads us
on to the second feature mentioned here, “it shall not be careful in the year of
drought.” Happy the Christian man who realises his full privileges in this
respect, and lives in the enjoyment of them! Happy the man of business on our
own Stock Exchange, who, in the midst of all the vicissitudes of a commercial
life, can leave himself calmly in the hands of God, and while the year of
drought which has so long been affecting our own and other lands fills others
with despair, enjoy a blessed immunity from anxiety, because he knows that he
is planted by the waterside. Happy the mother who can cast all the cares of her
family upon Him who careth for her, and leave them there, not fretting and
fuming when things do not go as she would wish them, not cankered by cares or
worried by troubles, but trusting Him in whom she finds the true calm of life
to draw her ever the nearer to Himself by all its changeful circumstances! But
further, the leaf of such a tree is described as being always green. The leaf
of the tree shows the nature of the tree, and just so the profession we make
should show what our religious character is. Now, it is a grand thing to have a
fresh and green profession, so to speak! Once again we read, “Neither shall
cease from yielding fruit.” The Christian will always be a fruitful tree,
because he is planted by the water. There will be no lack of fruitfulness when
living in full communion with God. Some of us, perhaps, have had an opportunity
of looking at that wonderful and famous vine at Hampton Court. A more beautiful
sight you can scarcely see in all England than that vine when it is covered all
over with the rich, luscious clusters of the vintage. Report attributes its
extraordinary fertility to the fact that the roots, extending for a very
considerable distance, have made their way down to the Thames, from whence it
draws continuous moisture and nourishment. Such a sight is presented to the
eyes of God by the Christian who lives in God, planted by the riverside. The
fruits of good works will manifest themselves, not one here and another there,
but in a rich and lifelong vintage that will not fail. God Himself reaps a
harvest from such a life which redounds to His own glory, and is productive of
blessed consequences to mankind. Such is the one picture; now let us glance at
the other. “Cursed is the man that trusteth in man.” We have left the grapes of
Eshcol behind us now--we have turned our backs upon the land that flows with
milk and honey. We are making our way towards the bare stretch of arid, desert
waste. The smile of God’s favour rests no longer upon the miserable being, but
the frown of His wrath broods over him; and the thunder of God’s curse is
sounding in his ear, “Cursed is the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh
his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord.” Departeth from God! Ah, it
all lies there! As the satisfaction of the saint arises from the closeness of
his relations with God, so the want and wretchedness of the sinner arise from
his separation from Him. The wilderness begins where conscious fellowship with
God ceases. “He shall be like the heath in the desert.” As you wander over the
dreary waste of barren sand, your eye falls upon a poor, miserable-looking,
half-withered, half-dead thing, that still struggles to maintain its woe-begone
and sickly existence. There it lingers on wretchedly, cut off from all
surrounding vegetation, scarcely living and yet not finally dead, but devoid of
all the freshness and luxuriance of life, shrivelled and parched and desolate
looking in a salt land and not inhabited. Tar away in the distance there you
can see the green tree that is planted by the waterside only just in sight; but
here there is no kindly river, no kindred forms of vegetation, in solitude and
drought it measures out its dreary existence. In this miserable object, man of
the world, see a picture of yourself. Solitude and thirst! in those two
characteristics of this woeful picture, you have faithfully represented to you
the characteristic elements of your own present experience, and the dread
foreshadowing of what its end must be. Thirst and solitude, yes, thou knowest
something of that even now, for is there not already within thee a desire that
nothing earthly can satisfy--a sense of inanity and want? Verily thou dwellest
in a parched and salt land. A mighty famine reigns within thy soul, and thou
hast begun to be in want. An irrepressible, an urgent desire now goads thee on
from one effort to another, if, haply, thou mayest escape from thy own
miserable self-consciousness and lose the sense of thy own want amidst the
excitements of thy life. But it is there all the time--this inward thirst, and
thou canst not escape from it; and remember the salt land which thou now
inhabitest is but the way to, and the dread anticipation of, that salt land of
doom to which the sinner is to be banished; and the thirst which even now
tortures thy agonised heart is but the prelude to the thirst of hell. Thirst
and solitude! yes, and thou knowest something of this last also. How solitary
and lonesome already is that poor heart of thine. The plain, simple truth is,
that in his inner life the man of the world is always alone--the solitude which
sin brings with it has already commenced, and already you are shut out from the
true enjoyments of social intercourse; you are lonely, even in the very midst
of numbers, and desolate even in the very heart of your family. And in that
loneliness you have a prelude to the utter loneliness which lies beyond--the
desolation, the solitude, the loss of all, when he who has wandered from the
love of God is shut out from the world of love, and given over to that dark
region where love cannot come; the loneliness of him who leaves the society of
heaven behind him, and finds instead only the weeping and the wailing and the
gnashing of teeth. (W. Hay Aitken, M. A.)
The sin of trusting in man
I. When we may be charged with this.
1. When we fortify ourselves in sin, by human refuges and supports (Isaiah 28:15-16; Isaiah 30:1, etc.; Obadiah 1:3-4).
2. When we look for that rest in the creature, which is only to be
found in God (Jeremiah 9:23-24).
3. When we seek to please men more than God. Not as Moses, Daniel,
Peter.
4. When we use unlawful means to rid ourselves of trouble (Jonah 1:2-3).
5. When we form our religion by the opinions of men instead of God’s
Word (Matthew 15:1-9; Galatians 2:11-13).
6. When we lean on ourselves instead of Jesus Christ (Philippians 3:3-7).
II. The wretchedness of such a disposition and conduct.
1. God will take out the enjoyment of what he possesses (Ecclesiastes 6:1-2).
2. The object of his hope shall be removed, or turned against him (Psalms 41:9).
3. God will leave him to his own corruptions and Satan’s temptations
(Hosea 4:17).
4. Guilt shall make him a torment to himself. Judas.
5. When blessings come, he shall not perceive them (Luke 19:41-44; Acts 13:38-41).
6. Death shall snatch him from his enjoyments (Luke 12:1, etc.; Acts 12:1, etc.) (H. Foster.)
The danger of trusting in
man
1. He that trusts in man is cursed in the weakness on which he
relies. “The strong shall be as tow.” In general, God employs weak and
inconsiderable ones to break the arm of flesh; thus, the shouts of the
Israelites, and the blowing of horns, brought down the walls of Jericho, and
reduced it to the dust: the Midianites, and the Amalekites, and the children of
the east, lay along the valley of More like grasshoppers for multitude, and yet
the sudden display of only three hundred lamps, and the sounding of as many
trumpets, put them all to flight: the champion of the Philistines defied the
whole army of Israel, yet a shepherd boy overcame him with a sling and stone.
So with all earthly strength on which man builds himself up; the moment God
speaks the word it melts away.
2. He that maketh flesh his arm is cursed also in the short-lived
nature of his ground of confidence. How often does man, in the very noonday of
his journey through life, feel his heart sink within him on finding that the
distant places, which in the morning of life he had looked forward to as fresh
and beautiful, are but as the parched heath or thirsty sand; he thinks of the
days of boyhood, when an untried world promised happiness and security, and
sighs on learning the hard lesson, that neither is to be had on this side of
the grave.
3. Deceitfulness is moreover part of that curse which those may
expect to reap, and that abundantly, who trust in man and make flesh their arm.
Put God out of the question; let there be no recognition of any other than
human obligations, and you have no security in the faithfulness of the nearest
or dearest friend.
4. There is a curse also in the bitterness of disappointment. This is
what makes the wretched old worldling like the parched heath; friends, or
children, or other relatives, have either died or forsaken him, or his riches
have slipped out of his hands and flown away; all his worldly plans and schemes
have failed; he has no love of God in his heart to bear him up against so many
cruel disappointments, and the bitterness of his spirit has therefore increased
day by day, till he is completely soured; he feeds on his morose temper, and in
turn it preys upon him; the curse eats into his vitals, drying up every little
show of better feeling which would have kept his heart still green and salt; he
hates and suspects everyone; the world is looked upon by him as one great lie,
and of the truth he knows nothing; or the things wherein he foolishly expected
to find happiness, have proved incapable of affording it, even while he had
them in his possession. (C. O. Pratt, M. A.)
The folly of trusting in
any creature
As a traveller overcome by
a storm, having sought the shelter of some fair-spread oak, finds relief for
some time, till suddenly, the fierce wind tears some strong branch, which,
falling, hurts the unsuspecting traveller; so fares it with not a few who run
for shelter to the shade of some great man. “Had I served my God,” said poor
Wolsey, “as faithfully as I served my king, He would not have forsaken me now.”
He shall be
like the heath in the desert.
The heath in the desert
I. Against whom this curse is denounced.
1. Those who do not realise their dependence on God for all true
happiness, but think it lies in worldly gain.
2. Those who trust in man and make flesh their arm, and neglect to
fix all dependence on Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
3. Those who depend on a form of godliness without the power, and,
excepting a little animal sympathy, remain cold as ever.
II. How these resemble the heath in the desert.
1. In barrenness and deformity.
2. In being desolate, forsaken, and unblest.
3. While the holy land is refreshed with dew from heaven, the desert
remains parched as before.
4. Showers falling on desert heath only promote the growth of
deformed shrubs; and the influence of heaven falling on this class calls forth
a more fatal resistance of the Holy Spirit.
5. The heath cannot be made fruitful; and all God’s visitations fall
unregarded on many.
6. It is plain that, while many obey the Gospel call, others remain
desolate and uncheered by any heavenly influence. (E. Griffin, D. D.)
The heath in the desert
and the tree by the river
The prophet puts before us
two highly-finished pictures. In the one, the hot desert stretches on all
sides. The fierce “sunbeams like swords” slay every green thing. Here and there
a stunted, grey, prickly shrub struggles to live, and just manages not to die.
But it has no grace of leaf, nor profitableness of fruit; and it only serves to
make the desolation mere desolate. The other carries us to some brimming river,
where everything lives because water has come. Dipping their boughs in the
sparkling current, and driving their roots through the moist soil, the
bordering trees lift aloft their pride of foliage and bear fruits in their
season. So, says Jeremiah, the two pictures represent two sets of men; the one,
he who diverts from their true object his heart capacities of love and trust,
and clings to creatures and to men, “making flesh his arm and departing from
the living God”; the other, a man who leans the whole weight of his needs and
cares and sins and sorrows upon God. We can make the choice which shall be the
object of our trust, and according as we choose the one or the other, the
experience of these vivid pictures will be ours.
I. The one is in the desert; the other by the river. The poor little
dusty shrub in the desert, whose very leaves have been modified into prickles,
is fit for the desert, and is as much at home there as the willows by the water
courses with their rush vegetation in their moist bed. But if a man makes that
fatal choice, of shutting out God from his confidence and his love, and
squandering these upon earth and upon creatures, he is as fatally out of
harmony with the place which he has chosen, and as much away from his natural
soil as a tropical plant amongst the snows of Arctic glaciers, or a water lily
in the Sahara. You, I, the poorest and humblest of men, will never be right,
never feel in native soil, with appropriate surroundings, until we have laid
our hearts and our hands on the breast of God, and rested ourselves on Him. Not
more surely do gills and fins proclaim that the creature that has them is meant
to roam through the boundless ocean, nor the anatomy and wings of the bird
witness more surely to its destination to soar in the open heavens, than the
make of your spirits testifies that God, none less or lower, is your portion.
As well might bees try to get honey from a vase of wax flowers as we to draw
what we need from creatures, from ourselves, from visible and material things.
Where else will you get love that will never fail nor change nor die? Where
else will you find an object for the intellect that will yield inexhaustible
material of contemplation and delight? Where else infallible direction for the
will? Where else shall weakness find unfailing strength, or sorrow adequate
consolation, or hope certain fulfilment, or fear a safe hiding place?
II. The one can take in no real good; the other can fear no evil. (See
R.V., verse 8.) “He cannot see when good comes.” God comes, and I would rather
have some more money, or some woman’s love, or a big business. So I might go
the whole round. The man that cannot see good when it is there before his nose,
because the false direction of his confidence has blinded his eyes, cannot open
his heart to it. You are plunged, as it were, in a sea of possible felicity,
which will be yours if your heart’s direction is towards God, and the
surrounding ocean of blessedness has as little power to fill your heart as the
sea to enter some hermetically sealed flask dropped into the middle of the
Atlantic. Turn to the other side. “He shall not fear when heat cometh,” which
is evil in these Eastern lands, “and shall not be careful in the year of
drought.” The tree that sends its roots towards a river that never fails does
not suffer when all the land is parched. And the man who has driven his roots
into God, and is drawing from that deep source what is needful for his life and
fertility, has no occasion to dread any evil, nor to gnaw his heart with
anxiety as to what he is to do in parched times. Troubles may come, but they do
not go deeper than the surface. It may be all cracked and caked and dry, “a
thirsty land where no water is,” and yet deep down there may be moisture and
coolness.
III. The one is bare; the other clothed with the beauty of foliage. The
word translated “heat” has a close connection with, if it does not literally
mean, “naked,” or “bare.” Probably it designates some inconspicuously leaved
desert shrub, the particular species not being ascertainable or a matter of any
consequence. Leaves, in Scripture, have a recognised symbolical meaning.
“Nothing but leaves” in the story of the fig tree meant only beautiful outward
appearance, with no corresponding outcome of goodness of heart, in the shape of
fruit. So I venture, here, to draw a distinction between leafage and fruit, and
say that the one points rather to a man’s character and conduct as being lovely
in appearance, and in the other as being morally good and profitable. This is
the lesson of these two clauses--Misdirected confidence in creatures strips a
man of much beauty of character, and true faith in God adorns soul with a leafy
vesture of loveliness. “Whatsoever things are lovely, and of good report” lack
their supreme excellence, the diamond on the top of the royal crown, the
glittering gold on the summit of the Campanile, unless there be in them a
distinct reference to God.
IV. The one is sterile; the other fruitful. The only works of men
worth calling “fruit,” if regard be had to their capacities, relations, and
obligations, are those done as the outcome and consequence of hearts trusting
in the Lord. The rest of the man’s activities may be busy and multiplied, and,
from the point of view of a godless morality, many, may be fair and good; but
if we think of him as being destined, as his chief end, “to glorify God, and
(so) to enjoy Him forever,” what correspondence between such a creature and
acts that are done without reference to God can there ever be? At the most they
are “wild grapes.” And there comes a time when they will be tested; the axe
laid to the root of the trees, and these imperfect deeds will shrivel up and
disappear. Trust will certainly be fruitful. There we are upon pure Christian
ground which declares that the outcome of faith is conduct in conformity with
the will of Him in whom we trust, and that the productive principle of all good
in man is confidence in God manifest to us in Jesus Christ. (A. Maclaren, D.
D.)
Blessed is the
man that trusteth in the Lord.--
The felicity of Divine
trustfulness
I. He is blessed with a vital connection with the fountain of life.
His soul is rooted in the fountain of life.
1. His intellect is rooted in God’s truths.
2. His sympathy is rooted in God’s character.
3. His activity is rooted in God’s plan.
II. He is blessed with moral freshness at all times. He has permanent
beauty. There are two reasons why the most beautiful evergreen tree in nature
must fail.
1. Because it is limited in its own essence. No tree has unbounded
potentialities; though it live for centuries it will grow itself out, exhaust
all its latent force. Not so with the soul. It has unending powers of growth.
2. Because it is limited in its supplies. The river at its roots may
dry up; the nutriment in its soil it may exhaust. Not so with the soul; its
roots strike into the inexhaustible fountain of life. Its leaf shall be
green,--ever green.
III. He is blessed with moral calmness in trying seasons. The position
of such a tree is independent; its roots have struck deep into the eternities,
and it defies the storms of time.
IV. He is blessed with moral fruitfulness without end (Galatians 5:22). A good man is ever useful, an ever productive tree to the
hungry, an ever welling fountain to the parched, an ever burning lamp to the
benighted. (Homilist.)
The blessedness of trust
I. Look at man as fitted for trust. He is simply the most dependent
creature in the world. In a hundred ways man is more dependent than any other
animal that lives. Of all creatures he comes into the world the most utterly
helpless, as if his weakness should be impressed upon his earliest being. By
far the greater part of all other living things are at once able to take their
place and care for themselves. See the child in its mother’s arms unable to do
anything for itself, needing continual care and tenderest pity and constant
provision. See, too, how in the case of man this dependence is prolonged
immensely beyond that of any other being. The child of three or four years is vastly
more helpless than any other creature of three or four months, and for many
years after that the child needs to be provided for in a thousand ways. It is
not too much to say that of the allotted span of human life one-quarter is
spent in complete dependence upon others for food and clothing and shelter and
teaching. Again, in the case of every other creature this dependence is quickly
forgotten. Nature makes haste to sever the tie that binds the parent to the
offspring, but in the case of the man it is prolonged until the reason can
perceive it and the memory of it is made imperishable. Why this helplessness?
Does it not involve a heavy burden upon the busy and toiling? Where, then, is
the compensation? It is this, that out of this dependence grows the Divine
relationship of father, mother, and child,--that blessed trinity in unity. So
out of his littleness is born his nobility; and he is fashioned in helplessness
that he may learn the blessed mystery of trust. Look at a further unfolding of
this truth. The dependence of which we have spoken does not end with childhood.
Strange as it may seem, yet it would be true to say that the man is more
dependent than the child. Increased knowledge brings increased care. Greater
strength brings greater need. The dependence of the child becomes the
dependence of the man upon his brothers. Contrast man for a moment with the
other creatures in his need of organisation, combination, cooperation. What
thousands of hands must toil for us that our commonest wants may be met. To how
many am I debtor for a crust of bread! And here again, let us ask, What is the
purpose of this dependence? Is not man often hampered by it? Does it not open
the door for arrogance and pride, for cruel bondage and slavery? But do you not
see how by this very dependence man is to learn further the mystery and
blessedness of trust? And dependence is to develop the further nobleness that
binds men into a brotherhood. But the needs of childhood which are met by the
parents, and the needs of man which are met by his fellow man, are not all nor
even most of all. Besides these are a thousand wants, deep, mysterious, and
pressing more heavily than any others. No other creature has a future. Of all
else a present want is the only suffering; a present supply is the
satisfaction. But to us the future is ever most of all. The past is gone away
behind us; the present is ever slipping from us; the future only seems to be
ours. For the very food he eats man is compelled ever to be looking forward.
What is reason but a clearer sight of our helplessness? The forward-looking
creature, looking whither? Who can help him here? Only man has a sense of
death. All roads lead to the grave. Here no parent can help the child: no man
can help his neighbour. What then can he make his trust? Again, only man has a
consciousness of sin. A whole world’s altars and temples and sacrifices are its
doleful confession: we have sinned! Now for these greater needs, is there no
remedy,--no rest? What is the good of all else if here the man is to be
forsaken?
II. And here is God revealed that He may be trusted. “Blessed is the
man that trusteth in the Lord.” Does trust need power? Here is the Almighty.
Lo, He sitteth upon the throne of the universe and all things serve Him. Does
trust demand the unchanging, the everlasting? Does trust need wisdom? Here is
all that my want can ever desire. But these attributes, whilst trust demands
them all and whilst they make trust blessed, do not win my trust. My heart
needs more. And blessed be God, a great deal more is given. Trust needs love.
And yet one thing more is needful to perfect trust. Trust is born of fear: and
fear is born of sin. How can I who have sinned against God draw near to Him?
Till that question is answered God is but a terror to me. Love may pity: love
may weep: but true love cannot hush up and hide my sin. Behold the Lamb of God
which taketh away the sin of the world. My sin is not hidden. It is brought out
into the very face of heaven and hell: and there its penalty is met and
satisfied. Have you found this blessedness? (M. G. Pearse.)
Trusting in the Lord
I. What it is.
1. The object.
2. The disposition of the heart toward this object. “Trusteth Me,” i.e.--
II. The blessedness, or privileges, of such a man.
1. He shall lay faster hold on God and religion.
2. He shall not feel the weight of trials.
3. He shall hold fast his profession when others drop off.
4. He shall be sustained in old age and death.
5. He shall not cease from yielding fruit--
Trust in God
I. Trust in God is an honour we owe to the supremacy of the Divine
nature, and it is a degree of idolatry to place it on any other being.
1. This duty implies positively an entire resignation to the wisdom,
a dependence on the power, and a firm assurance of the goodness and veracity of
God.
2. Negatively this duty implies that we should withdraw our
confidence from all inferior beings; and in order to this we must begin at
home, put off all trust in ourselves, our parts, abilities or acquisitions, how
great or how many soever they may be.
II. Consider when this trust is grounded as it ought to be, or what
conditions are required on our part to assure our confidence in the favour and
protection of God. The most important qualification for a successful
performance of these duties, is a sincere obedience to the laws of God, an
unfeigned devotion of the heart to His service, a steady adherence to the
faith, and a purity and holiness of life agreeable to the precepts of our
religion.
III. The blessedness of him who can thus trust and hope in the Lord. He
relies on a wisdom who sees the utmost consequence of things, on a power which
nothing can obstruct, on a goodness of infinite affection to his happiness, and
who has bound Himself by promise never to fail these who trust in Him. If this
God be with us, who or what can be against us? But if He be angry, all our
other dependencies will profit us nothing, our strength will be but weakness,
and our wisdom folly; every other support will fail under us when we come to
lean upon it, and deceive us in the day when we want it most. (John Rogers,
D. D.)
On trust in God
I. What is a just confidence in God? This duty implies an humble
dependence on Him for that protection and those blessings which His supreme
perfections both enable and incline Him to bestow on His creatures; a full
conviction of His goodness and mercy; and a steady hope, that that mercy will,
on all occasions, in all our dangers and necessities, be extended to us, in
such a manner as to His wisdom appears most conducive, if not to our tranquillity
in this life, to our everlasting felicity in the next. This duty can hardly be
so far misapprehended as to repress the efforts of industry, or be supposed to
supersede the necessity of due care and application to the employment and
duties of our respective stations. For we have no grounds to expect that God
will provide for our interests, if we are improvident ourselves; or that he
will, by a particular interposition, favour the idle and the negligent. Let the
duty and business of today be our concern; the event of tomorrow we may trust
to God.
II. When our confidence in God is well grounded. Our confidence must
rise or fall, according to the progress or defects of our obedience. Conscious
of right intentions, and approved by our own heart, we may approach the throne
of grace with superior assurance. If our heart in some degree condemn us, we
may have our intervals of diffidence and apprehension; but, if, unreclaimed, we
go on still in wickedness, and persist in determined disobedience; should we
then trust in God, it were, in the most literal and criminal sense, to hope
against hope. Till we repent, and return to duty, we can have no expectations
of favour, no confidence in our Maker; nor can we lift up our eyes to heaven
with any hopes of mercy and forgiveness there.
III. The happiness resulting from a well-grounded dependence on God. He
whose conscience speaks consolation, and bids him confide in his God, confides
in a wisdom which sees the remotest issues of all events, on a power which
ordereth all things, and on a goodness which ever consults the well-being of
His creatures. And though this gives him no absolute insurance against evils,
no privilege of exemption from calamities and afflictions; yet he feels the
weight of them much abated by internal consolations. He acquiesces in all the
dispensations of heaven, submits with humble resignation to the severities of
providence; assured that God alone can know what is best, what is most
expedient in his present circumstances, and what most instrumental to his
future felicity. In the darkest night of affliction, some light will spring up,
some beam of joy dart upon his mind, from this consideration, that the God whom
he serves is able to deliver, and in His own good time will deliver him out of
all his troubles, or reward him with joys unspeakable in His own blissful
presence. (G. Carr.)
Making God our trust
I. The soul’s right and only trust.
1. We owe it to the supremacy of the Divine nature.
2. Entire resignation to God’s wisdom and will.
3. Entire withdrawal of our trust from all inferior things.
4. Sincere acceptance of Christ as our Saviour.
5. Sincere effort to live a holy and pious life.
II. The blessedness with which godly trust is crowned. This may be
seen by contrast with the unbeliever.
1. The objects of the unbeliever’s trust are uncertain and
insignificant; the believer’s, certain and glorious.
2. The one inadequate and perishing; the other, all-sufficient and
abiding.
3. The one bears a burdened conscience and a character ill at ease;
the other enjoys peace and rest.
4. The one regards God as his foe, and resembles the inferior objects
of his trust; the other regards God as his friend, enjoys His protection and
fellowship and resembles Him.
Learn--
1. Not to be deluded by inferior things.
2. Seek this blessing by submission to God’s will in a crucified
Saviour. (E. Jerman.)
Shall not God be trusted
Manton says, “If a man
promise, they reckon much of that; they can tarry upon man’s security, but
count God’s Word nothing worth. They can trade with a factor beyond seas, and
trust all their estate in a man’s hands whom they have never seen; and yet the
Word of the infallible God is of little regard and respect with them, even then
when He is willing to give an earnest of the promised good.” It is noteworthy
that in ordinary life small matters of business are transacted by sight, and
articles valued by pence are paid for over the counter: for larger things we
give cheques which are really nothing but pieces of paper made valuable by a
man’s name; and in the heaviest transactions of all, millions change from hand
to hand without a coin being seen, the whole depending upon the honour and
worth of those who sign their hands. What then? shall not the Lord be trusted?
Ay, with our whole being and destiny. It ought to be the most natural thing in
all the world to trust God; and to those who dwell near Him it is so. Where
should we trust but in Him who has all power and truth and love within Himself?
We commit ourselves into the hands of our faithful Creator and feel ourselves
secure. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Verse 8
Shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green.
Verdure in the midst of desolation
I. The fact
itself. Meets us everywhere in the natural world. So also in the kingdom of
grace. Spiritual health depends not only or mainly on our circumstances, but on
the temper and state of our souls. In cottage, in palace; in want, in
affluence; in retirement, on busy Exchange; in youth, in age; in health, in
disease and sickness, God’s Enochs have “walked with God.” Look, then, within
for source of weakness, decay, low spiritual state.
II. The
explanation.
1. He lives in constant believing communion with God.
2. He improves what advantages he possesses.
3. He retains the good he receives.
4. He sedulously improves and turns to account the grace he has. (Islay
Burns.)
The continuousness of true progress
True religion takes such a thorough hold upon all the deeply
seated principles of our nature--so fastens itself upon the entire soul, that
the high probability is, that where it has once commenced it will continue.
I. The principle
of inquiry is an influential force in human nature and true religion is suited
to maintain a master hold upon that. Does religion proscribe any field of
thought? Does it bolt any of the golden gates of science? No; it throws open
the whole domain of truth, and spreads it forth, not only in all its amplitude
to the mind, but in lights and colours of special fascination and charm. The
mere speculative theist “looks through nature up to nature’s God”; but the
truly religious thinker feels that God is both philosophically and emotionally
nearer to him than nature, and he looks through God down upon nature’s mighty
realms, and thus increases the charms of nature a thousandfold. Does not the
picture appear in new beauties, after love for the artist has risen in the
heart of the spectator? And does not the universe burst into new glories upon
the vision of that man in whose heart supreme love for the Creator has been
produced? But it may be said, granting that religion lays open all the realms
of science, and heightens, incomparably, its charms; may it not be, that in the
course of time the intellect may become so conversant with all truth, as to
have neither need nor motive for future inquiry, and thereby religion would
lose this master hold upon man? We think not. Who shall count the number of
God’s works, or describe the vastness of His universe?
II. The principle
of love is a mighty power in human nature and true religion is suited to
maintain a master hold upon that. Love is the spring and spirit of the
universe. And, thank God, it is, notwithstanding our depravity, the strongest
force in our nature still. Now, religion calls out this powerful element in our
nature in its two most powerful forms, namely, gratitude and admiration. How
powerfully does gratitude bind us to our benefactors. The language of the heart
to such is, “entreat me not to leave thee, nor to return from following after
thee.” Kindness is might of the highest order; by it we can take hold of men’s
strength grasp their very souls and bind them to us by indissoluble bonds Nor
is love, in the form of admiration, a weaker force. When it is directed to
artistic beauty, it is powerful; when it is directed to natural beauty, it is
more powerful still; but when it is directed to moral beauty, it is most
powerful of all. Beauty carries captive the soul. The fine painting is
attractive; the magnificent landscape more attractive still; the true hero, the
embodiment of the highest moral qualities, is most attractive of all. So long,
therefore, as the supreme love of gratitude and admiration are directed to God,
the soul must, from its very nature, be vitally allied to Him. And is not this
love, where it has once been awakened, likely to continue?
III. The principle
of rightness is a powerful force in human nature and true religion is suited to
maintain a master hold upon that. Men under the influence of conscience have
voluntarily braved the greatest perils, endured the greatest sufferings, and
made the greatest sacrifices. Looking at the power and history of this element
of our nature, there is a high probability that those attachments and
enterprises will be lasting which secure its entire sympathy and sanction. And
are not such preeminently the attachments and enterprises of a truly religious
life? Does not conscience, this monarch energy of the soul, not only sanction
supreme love to God, and entire consecration to His service, but imperiously
demand it?
IV. The principle
of hope is a strong force in human nature and true religion is suited to
maintain a master hold upon that. The best and choicest blessings are ever in
the region of hope--a region all flowers and fruit, and sunshine; across whose
beauteous landscapes there never sweeps the withering blight or the furious
storm, and whose suns and stars are never dimmed by cloud nor mist. Now, the
probability of a man’s continuance in any enterprise, depends greatly upon its
connection with hope. Half the working world toil on in their respective lines
of action, not for the sake of present results, but for the sake of what hope
has promised them in the future What connection has the religious life with this
hope? Does the religious enterprise hold out any bright prospect? If in
connection with religion there should ever come a time when there was nothing
more to expect, religion would lose much of its power over man, and there would
be a strong probability of a relapse. But if the prospect widened and
brightened as the man advanced, would not the chances of a retrogression
decrease with every” successive step? This is just the fact in a religious
life; the more actually attained, the more prospectively appears.
V. The principle
of habit is a powerful force in human nature and true religion is suited to
maintain a master hold upon that. The power of this principle is universally
acknowledged, and in some eases is felt invincible. In the history of sin its
force is the most striking. All the crimes in the long black narrative of human
guilt you may trace, in a great measure, to habit. Every sinful act is another
cord woven into that mighty cable of habit, which binds the spirit to the
throne of darkness--a fresh momentum added to the falling soul. Now, if habit
is so powerful in binding to sin, our position is, that it becomes more
powerful in binding to holiness.
1. Because, in the one case, the man’s conscience--the very root of
his spiritual nature.
is
in favour of his present course, and against change; in the other case, the
whole force of his conscience perpetually against the present mode of life, and
is demanding reformation.
2. Because, in the one case, Divine influence is ever present to
stimulate and to cheer the spirit on; but in the other, the whole tide of this
influence rolls in powerful opposition.
3. Because, in the one case, there are no unquestionable instances of
change; in the other, instances abound on every hand; every conversion to God
is an example. (Homilist.)
The triumph of trust
The laurel, saith King, is never thunderstruck. Sure it is that he
who trusteth in God taketh no hurt; his heart is fixed and immovable to endure
things almost incredible. True trust will certainly triumph at length. (John
Trapp.)
Fruit expected from the Church
A church is like a great tree in the desert which holds out the
promise of fruit, and towards which all the spiritually hungry turn. There can
be few sadder things in this world than a church, promising by its very name,
by its spire pointing to heaven, by its open doors, by its songs and services,
by its bells of invitation, to give food to the hungry, refreshment to the
weary, comfort to the sorrowing, and then failing to keep its promises to the
souls that come expecting. (J. H. Miller.)
The heart is deceitful above all things.
The deceitfulness of the human heart
I. We are to
consider what is implied in sinners knowing their own hearts. They know that
they have hearts, which are distinct from perception, reason, conscience, and
all their intellectual powers and faculties. But this knowledge of their hearts
is not that which is intended in the text. For in this sense they may perfectly
know their own hearts, while they remain entirely ignorant of them in other
important respects.
1. Their knowing their hearts in the sense of the text, implies the
knowledge of their selfishness. Saints love those who do not love them; but
sinners love those only who do love them; and all the criminality of their
hearts consists in their partial, interested affections. They may love all the
objects that saints love, and hate all the objects that saints hate; and yet
all their affections be different, in their nature, from the affections of
saints. Whether they love or hate good or bad objects, still their love and
hatred are entirely sinful, because they are altogether selfish. This they are
not apt to know, nor believe.
2. The knowledge of their hearts implies the knowledge of their
desperate, incurable wickedness. There is no hope of their ever becoming better
from any motives that can be set before them, or from any means which can be
used with them. And until sinners see their hearts in this light, they are
unacquainted with them, and know not the nature and depth of their own
depravity.
3. Their knowing their own hearts implies their knowing their extreme
deceitfulness.
II. Why it is so
extremely difficult for them to gain this knowledge.
1. They are unwilling to know their own hearts. This is true of all
sinners. “He that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light,
lest his deeds should be reproved.”
2. Another thing which renders it still more difficult for them to know
their own hearts, is what the Scripture calls the deceitfulness of sin. All sin
is selfishness, and all selfishness is deceitful. They love or hate all
objects, just as they view them as having a favourable or unfavourable aspect,
in respect to themselves. In particular--
Improvement--
1. We learn that there is but one way for men to know their own
hearts; and that is, to inquire why they love or hate, rejoice or mourn, hope
or fear, or why they exercise submission, patience and confidence.
2. We learn that saints may more easily ascertain their true
character, than sinners can theirs. They sincerely desire to know their own
hearts; and they are willing to take the only proper way to discover their true
character.
3. It appears that all the changes that mankind meet with in the
course of life, are trials of the heart. All changes in men’s circumstances,
whether great or small, whether from prosperity to adversity, or from adversity
to prosperity, try their hearts, and give them opportunity every day to know
whether they are in a state of nature, or in a state of grace.
4. It appears from the wickedness and deceitfulness of the human
heart, that it is not strange that religious apostasy has prevailed so much in
the world.
5. It appears that those are unwise who trust in their own hearts.
6. We learn that sinners are never under genuine convictions until
they see the desperate wickedness and deceitfulness of their hearts. (N.
Emmons, D. D.)
The deceitfulness of the heart
The ancients supposed the soul to reside in the heart; and when
they spake of the heart, they meant the soul which resided there. In the
passage before us the prophet means the thoughts, the will, the desires, the
affections of the soul of man.
I. The inconstancy
of the heart. To a certain extent, the inconstancy of the heart is perhaps
natural and unavoidable. Everything around us is shifting, changing. Our
judgment, our views, our feelings, our passions seem subject to perpetual
vicissitude. A good resolution has been formed; but the fervour has soon
abated; and the poor heart, which loves to change, has but too quickly followed
its natural inclination. This propensity may be referred, in a measure, to the
union of the soul with the body. But the chief reason is to be found in the
darkness and uncertainty of the mind as to its real good.
II. The
unfaithfulness of the heart. Eagerly do we make promises in the hour of
affliction--but we forget them in prosperity! In sickness we have made a
thousand resolutions--in health, we have forgotten them all!
III. The self-love
which our hearts exhibit. Here a man is full of what he calls zeal for
religion, and sees not that his supposed zeal for religion is only zeal for his
own party, and that it is only exercised from a wish to gain attention and
respect from men. Another is full of zeal for correctness of opinion and sees
not that it is the manifestation of unholy passions. But oh, who can say by how
many various methods men cover themselves from themselves!
IV. The illusions
the heart is capable of practising on itself. It imposes on the understanding:
it embellishes the scene around: it arrays every object in deceptive charms.
The interest of man sways his understanding, and every object assumes a
different shape and colour. And is it not so in religion? (T. F.
Denham.)
Deceitfulness of the human heart
I. The extreme
deceitfulness of the human heart.
1. Its misrepresentation to us of outward objects. The seductive
influence of the world around us is felt by all, and complained of by many; but
yet it is to be remembered that this influence is nothing more than the feeling
which we entertain in regard to it; it is nothing less, nor more, than our
loving these outward things, our delighting in them, as though they were a real
good. Now, is such a mew just and right? The influence that is grafted so deep
upon us is after all nothing more than a delusion as to the sentiments which we
hold in reference to the whole world, its fashions, its pleasures, its joys,
and its gains.
2. Its perversion of the truth. How is it that there can be such
different sentiments in respect to the Deity of the Messiah; in respect to the
reality of free and sovereign grace as the only source and means of salvation;
in regard to the truth and reality and necessity of the atonement; of our
acceptance before God--the Holy and the Just? Who does not see that there must
somewhere lurk some secret wish that the truth should be either as the mind
imagines it, or perceives it to be? Who is not aware that there is deception at
the bottom?
3. The false estimate which it teaches us to form of ourselves. You
need not to be informed how it will magnify our excellences to our own view,
and how it will diminish our defects.
4. Its repeatedly enticing us to that which we have so many times
condemned and seemed to abhor. The heart may still be in love with that sin
from which the conscience recoils. Oh, how sin will undermine the conscience;
how sin will dissipate all our holy resolutions and desires!
II. The wickedness
of the human heart. Let it be remembered that the deceitfulness of the heart,
of which we have before been speaking, is a part of its wickedness. The
wickedness of the human heart is here spoken of as being desperate. It is a
disease which has gone to the last degree, which has spread itself through all
the powers of the mind, through all the vitals of the soul. Its desperateness,
then, is extreme, and its hopes of improvement from any human remedy, desperate
also. As it grows older it will not necessarily grow better; but, if left to itself,
it will rather become worse. Nature seems to have some self-rectifying
provision within her, so as to subdue some partial disorders of our
constitution; but this is not the case in radical defects and fatal diseases.
So it is here. There may be some propensities even in human character which may
go to counteract the operation of certain others, yet these do not reach the
innate character of the heart, and never will they tend to purify it. We shall
not, therefore, be improved merely as we advance in knowledge--as we receive
merely the chastisements of Divine providence--as we merely come under the
instruction of the Word of God. No affliction would sanctify, no outward means
would purify--the grace of God alone is adequate to the work.
III. Let us endeavour
to answer the question, “who can know it?” This is merely a strong negative in
regard to human knowledge. No human being knows the heart of his fellow man,
nor his own heart. He knows not the deep recesses of iniquity which are there.
Much has been developed through the history of life, but there remains much
more. “None can know it.” We dwell not on this, but we answer according to the
intimation of the next verse, God only knows it. God knows it, and He has His
eye upon it. All your thoughts have been known to Him, and the effect of all
your wilful perversions of the truth, all your attempts to put away from you
the power and the effect of the impressions of His Holy Word, all your trifling
with the obligations under which you have been laid, the feelings with which
you have come to His house, and been listening to His Word; whether there has
been a resolution to turn to God, or whether there has still been a wilful
continuance in estrangement from Him. He has seen it all; and if He has seen it
all, He knows it, and He will deal with it as it deserves. Oh, what an awful
consideration, that sinners are in the hands of an Omnipotent Being, who will
give to every man according as his work has been! But there is another
thought--that is, He can deal with us according to the necessity of the case.
He has grace in abundance, and he is able to do exceeding abundantly above all
that we can ask or think. (J. Griffin.)
Deceitfulness and wickedness of the heart
I. The heart is
deceitful.
1. The heart denotes the inner man, his thoughts, his will, his
inclinations, and his affections; or the human soul with its faculties and
operations.
2. Many causes may be assigned for it.
II. The heart of
man is desperately wicked. To be sensible how men in general are depraved, we
need only consult history, and consider the common state of the world. These
will give us a hideous representation of human disorders and iniquities, both
public and private, national and personal. The desperate wickedness of many is
such, that nothing but rigour, nothing but jails and gibbets can keep civil
society in tolerable order. Who can number up the sins which men are
perpetually committing? and all these proceed from an evil heart, as our
Saviour says. To give some check to this inundation of evil, the providence of
God hath provided various remedies; as the voice of conscience, the advantages
of education, the instructions of the wise, the assistance of human laws, the
example of the good, the desire of reputation, the fear of infamy, the light of
reason, the profitableness of virtue, the pernicious nature of vice, and,
lastly, the revealed Word of God. Yet, notwithstanding these correctives, we
see and feel how moral evil abounds, even where the Gospel is professed.
III. The heart of
man is inscrutable. Who can know it? says the prophet. That is; No man can know
it; or rather, It is no easy matter to know it. There is a general knowledge
which we have of the human heart, and a way of judging concerning it, which in
the main is tolerably sure. The tree, says our Lord, is known by the fruits;
and, in like manner, the heart is known by the actions. When a man’s behaviour
is vile, and his conversation profane, we may pronounce his heart to be bad;
and we are not obliged to put out our own eyes, and renounce our own senses,
and to call evil good, and good evil, rather than to censure such a person, or
entertain a bad opinion of him. Yet in judging of others much caution and
candour are requisite. But the discernment which each person should have of his
own heart is the most important. And here one would think that such skill is
easily acquired, and doth in a manner obtrude itself upon us. And yet it is
certain that in a religious sense it is often hard to know one’s self. There
are two sorts of self-knowledge, the one a knowledge of feeling and perceiving,
the other a knowledge of reflection and discernment. As to the first, we all of
us have it without question. It informs us only of what we are thinking or
doing, but not of the nature, causes, and effects of our thoughts and deeds. As
to the second and true kind of self-knowledge, which is the result of
consideration and examination, we have it seldom, and we cannot acquire it
without attention and care. It is strange how little we know practically either
of our body, or of our understanding, or our heart. As to the body, its defects
are usually overlooked by us, unless they be very remarkable, or painful. As to
our understanding, we flatter ourselves that we have a due share of it, and
observe how deficient our neighbours are in that respect; how one is stupid and
silly, another ignorant, a third prejudiced, injudicious, and conceited. Thus
he who hath a wrong judgment and a heated imagination decides upon every point
with more confidence than persons of a far greater capacity. He who is rough,
peevish, and intractable, knows nothing of it, whilst others can hardly tell
how to bear with him. So true it is that we know not ourselves. A man owns
himself guilty of this or that fault, but, however, he says that his heart is
good and honest at the bottom. Weak illusion I since it is from the evil which
lurks in the heart that these irregular actions proceed. The difficulty of
knowing our hearts appears from those repeated commands in Scripture to
consider and search our ways. And, indeed, it is no small task to review our
knowledge, our opinions, our judgments, and our beliefs; to recollect our past
actions, and the use which we have made of God’s blessings, and to compare our
practice with our duty. This difficulty also appears from the character which
God gives to Himself, that He alone is the searcher of hearts. But observe that
God, when He calls Himself the searcher of hearts, means two things; that He
alone knows the hearts of all creatures, and that He alone knows them without
any mixture of error. We know but little of the heart of other men, and,
therefore, should be cautious in judging of them; and as to our own, though we
shahs never know it exactly, with all our endeavours, yet as far as we can, we
are obliged to acquaint ourselves with it. Inferences--
1. We should entertain a sober diffidence of ourselves.
2. We should not be much surprised or concerned when men use us ill,
or disappoint us. We cannot rely upon ourselves, much less upon others.
3. We should take care to give good principles and a good example to
those young persons whom Divine or human laws have placed under our guidance
and protection.
4. We should be ready to confess our offences to God, and be as
strict in censuring our own defects as we often are in condemning those of
others.
5. Since the heart of man is deep and close, we should betimes
endeavour to get acquainted with our own. But if it be hard to know ourselves,
how can we acquire such skill in a tolerable degree? By humility and consideration,
by consulting the Holy Scripture, that lamp of God which will give us light in
searching into the recesses of the heart; and by imploring the Divine
assistance. (J. Jortin, D. D.)
Deceitfulness of the heart
That is properly called deceitful which presents objects in a
false light, or leads to a misconception of the nature of things within us and
around us. And that is properly called deceitful which conceals its own true
character, and assumes the appearance of what it is not.
1. One of the ways in which the deceitfulness of the heart manifests
itself is in its tendency to blind the understanding in regard to religious
truth. To have the mind darkened with ignorance, or perverted by error, is
inconsistent with the exercise of holiness, or the practice of true virtue.
Evidence is always on the side of truth; but that evidence may be overlooked,
or so distorted, that the truth may not be perceived, and instead of it error
may be embraced and defended as truth. The reason why the minds of men reject
the truth is, the depravity of the heart. Infidelity, and every species of
dangerous error, may be traced to the deceitfulness of the heart. If men
possessed good and honest hearts, they would search diligently for the truth,
and would be disposed to judge impartially of its evidence; and, as was said,
evidence being on the side of truth, and the truth congenial with the moral
feelings of the upright mind, it would always be embraced. Atheism itself is a
disease rather of the heart than of the head. And idolatry, which darkens with
its portentous shadows a large portion of our globe, owes its origin to the
deceitfulness and wickedness of the human heart.
2. The exceeding deceitfulness of the heart appears in the delusive
promises of pleasure, which it makes, in the indulgence of sinful desires. This
is so uniformly the fact, that it is a common remark that men enjoy more
pleasure in the pursuit of the objects of the world, than in their possession.
This delusion of pleasure in prospect, particularly affects the young. With
them experience is wanting, which serves to correct this error of the
imagination; but even experience is insufficient to cure the disease. In this
matter, the world does not become wiser by growing older. There is another
deception of the heart which has relation to the indulgence of natural desires.
The person may be apprehensive at first, from former experience, that some evil
to soul or body may arise from unlawful indulgence. A pause is produced, and
hesitation is felt; but appetite, when strong, pleads for indulgence, and is
fruitful in pleas; among which none is more false and deceitful, than that if
gratified in this instance, it will never crave indulgence any more. And this
false promise often prevails with the vacillating sinner; and he plunges into
the gulf, which is open to receive him.
3. Under the influence of an evil heart, everything appears in false
colours. Not only does error assume the garb of truth, but piety itself is made
to appear odious. Indeed, there is nothing upon earth which the carnal mind
hates so truly as holiness. But as that which appears good cannot be hated, one
art of the deceitful heart is, to misrepresent the true nature of piety and
devotion. The fairest face when caricatured, becomes deformed, and appears
ludicrous.
4. The deceitfulness of the heart is also exceedingly manifest in the
false pretensions which it makes, and the delusive appearances which it
assumes. And this deceitfulness not only imposes upon others, but upon the
person himself. Under this delusion, men persuade themselves that they are not
wicked, but that their hearts are good. Their virtues, or semblance of virtues,
are magnified, when seen through the false medium of self-love; and their vices
are so diminished, that they are either not seen, or appear as mere
peccadilloes, scarcely deserving notice. Such persons are also deceived as to
their own wisdom. But the most dangerous form of this deceit is, when persons,
never converted or renewed, are induced to believe that they are saints.
5. The deceitfulness of the heart is manifest in the good which we
promise ourselves that we will do in future. But the true test of character is,
what we are actually doing at the present time. Do we now, from day to day, do
all the good which is in our power? Do we now improve our time and talents to
the utmost? If we do not, then does our heart deceive us, as to its own real
disposition?
6. Another way in which our hearts deceive us is, by leading, us to
judge of ourselves, not by a strict scrutiny into our real motives, but by
viewing our character through the medium of public opinion, or through the
favourable sentiments of our partial friends.
Reflections--
1. If the heart be so exceedingly deceitful and wicked, we should be
deeply humbled before God that we have hearts so evil.
2. If the heart be so deceitful, we should place no confidence in it.
3. If the heart be so deceitful, it should be watched with care.
4. From the state and character of the heart here given, we may infer
the necessity of a change of heart; and everyone should be led to cry to God
for renewing grace.
5. We should come often to the fountain which is opened for sin and
uncleanness
6. If any of us have been made sensible of the deceitfulness and
wickedness of our hearts, and have, in some degree, been delivered from this
great evil of our nature, this change, we are sure, has not proceeded from
ourselves. (A. Alexander, D. D.)
The deceitfulness of the heart
Unless we are affected, permanently and practically, with the
corruption of our nature, all other points of Christian doctrine connected with
it, supposing we even admit their truth, must be mere speculation, unaffecting
in their influence, unprofitable in their results.
I. The
unparalleled deceitfulness, and desperate wickedness of the heart. This appears
from the following considerations: That it is able to evade the most pointed
applications of Divine truth, to resist the most powerful convictions of the
Divine Spirit, and to violate the most serious resolutions of the awakened conscience.
1. One might imagine that the unprofitableness and danger of living
in a spirit and temper so much below the spirit and temper of real Christians
would, when faithfully disclosed, have the effect of awakening solicitude in
the minds of those persons whose everlasting condition is so deeply involved.
But how often would these expectations be disappointed! Every person makes the
application for his neighbour, saying, “Thou art the man”; and with great
dexterity evades it himself.
2. When the devotional spirit, the heavenly temper, the holy conduct
of the Christian are faithfully described; when his motives and principle, his
affections, his objects, and his aims, are disclosed, it is natural to suppose
that worldly men, by contrasting all this with their own spirit and temper and
conduct, with their own motives and principles and affections, with their own
objects and aims so directly the reverse, would be humbled and confounded. But
how often are men satisfied with admiring the beauty of holiness, without
imitating it; or with pronouncing holiness impracticable, without endeavouring
to practise it!
3. In order to give power and efficacy to the Gospel, the Holy Spirit
accompanies it to the heart and conscience, and causes men to see its vast
importance, and to feel its mighty influence on the soul. Who can think of
death, judgment, and eternity; of heaven and hell; of glory, honour, and
immortality; and of the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched;
in connection with his own sins; with redemption; with that newness of heart
and newness of life which are taught as necessary to prepare him for the
inheritance of the saints in light, without either believing that all these are
idle speculations, or concluding that religion is no vain thing? Who has not
had the conviction so natural, so true, and so awful, that if he is not
prepared to come to the table of the Lord, he is not prepared to meet his God?
Have you not the conviction that your life is inconsistent with the piety
required of communicants? But how deceitful is the heart which is able to
resist these convictions, and to allow you from time to time to go on in the
same course of negligence, disobedience, and ingratitude!
4. How little the heart is to be trusted in the things that belong to
our peace, is evident from the many resolutions to serve God, which almost
every heart has violated, that has been influenced by the truth as it is in
Jesus. When we are most determined against iniquity, most shocked with the idea
of committing it, and most persuaded that we are stedfast, then we are most in
danger. “Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?” is language which
is seldom used without being followed by the commission of the very sin of
which we thought ourselves utterly incapable.
II. The necessity
of being aware of its deceitfulness and wickedness.
1. It is the most difficult knowledge. There are so many mixtures in
the motives of the heart, so many windings, so much duplicity and insincerity,
so much false profession and false appearance, that it is impossible thoroughly
to comprehend it. Not only can no man trust the heart of another, but no man
can trust his own.
2. It is the most disagreeable knowledge. Nothing is so mortifying to
our pride. Hence, instead of searching for the deceitfulness and wickedness of
our hearts, we feel a strong temptation to let it lie concealed, to shut our
eyes against the light, and to avoid the disquietude arising from the discovery
of what is so humbling.
3. It is the most desirable knowledge which we can obtain. It is the
knowledge of our own deceitful and desperately wicked hearts that renders us
careful of our own souls; that humbles us; that leads us to the Saviour; that
makes Jesus Christ precious to us; that constrains us to seek the sanctifying
influences of the Holy Spirit; that sends us to our Bible, to the throne of
grace, and to the table of the Lord. (M. Jackson.)
The central principle in man
Few men are acquainted with themselves. With the principles of
commerce, political economy, scientific investigation, classical criticism,
theologic research, ecclesiastical history, they are more familiar than with
the secrets of their own nature, and features and motives of their own
character. The source of every evil, the secret of all felicity, is not touched
until the heart is reached and scrutinised.
I. Unregenerate
human nature is entirely untrustworthy. “Deceitful above all things.”
1. It distorts the character of God. “God is merciful”--often a plea
for continuance in sin.
2. It misrepresents the means of human felicity. Young persons
flatter themselves that they have but to drink fully of the cup of earthly
pleasure to be really happy. No greater mistake. Others seek it in the
acquisition of wealth, settling it in their mind that he who has most gold has
most happiness.
3. It perverts the way of salvation. Rites, penances, frames, and
conditions are piled up until the Saviour is either hid or barely seen.
4. It misrepresents the nature and excellence of true religion. Does
religion include humbleness of mind? The deceitful heart declares that it is “a
silly weakness.” Does religion include meekness of disposition? The deceitful
heart stigmatises it as foolish fastidiousness. A spirit of forgiveness is
despised as unmanly. Tenderness of conscience is condemned as ridiculous
precision. Spirituality of mind is designated canting hypocrisy, and purity of
heart and life a thing impossible.
5. It disguises the true character of sin. “Vice is first pleasing,
then delightful, then frequent, then habitual, then confirmed; then the sinner
is independent, then obstinate, then he resolves never to repent; then he dies,
then he is damned.”
6. It deceives itself and endeavours to deceive God (Malachi 1:14).
7. It surpasses in treachery everything else. The mossy swards, the
ocean, the desert mirage, the morning bright with sunshine, are all deceitful;
but not more so than the human heart. Inconstant as the wind, uncertain as
riches, ever betraying and betrayed, who would trust it?
II. Unrenewed human
nature is fearfully depraved--“desperately wicked.”
1. Its corruption is desperate. “Wicked to desperation.” Hence the
deeds of violence and despair which prevail.
2. Its corruption is unsearchable. “Who can know it?” Think of
Pharaoh insolently rejecting the commands of Jehovah, in spite of plagues and
pestilence. Think of Manasseh, Saul, and Peter boasting, then denying his
Saviour with oaths and curses. Learn--
1. The necessity of regeneration. Nothing but “a new heart” will meet
the requirements of the case, Hence David: “Create in me a clean heart, O God.”
Hence the promise in Ezekiel: “A new heart will I give unto you.”
2. The necessity for self-distrust. “He that trusteth his own heart
is a fool.” Treat it as you would a man who had deceived you in every possible
way. Always act upon the supposition that it is concealing something wrong.
“Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.” (W.
H. Booth.)
The deceitfulness of the heart
I. Men impose on
themselves respecting their own character. The human heart is a great deep: a
deep so turbid by sin and agitated by passion that we cannot look into it far;
a deep which no line yet has been long enough to fathom. The account in the
history of the Bible of the depravity of man is not more humiliating than is
the account in Tacitus and Sallust, in Hume and in Gibbon; the account in the
Sacred Poets is substantially the same as in Shakespeare and Byron; the account
given by Paul is the same that you will find in the books of every traveller
who has penetrated the dark regions of the heathen world. You admit the account
to be true of the world at large, of other men; you take securities of others;
you put padlocks and bolts on your stores; you guard your houses, as if you
believed it were true. Others believe the same of you; and the Bible holds all
to be substantially alike--all fallen and ruined. And yet it is evident that
men do not by nature attribute to themselves the character which is given of
the human heart in the Bible. Who will bear to be told, though you may go with
all the influence of the tender relations of friendship, and all the influence
that you can take with you from any official relation, that his mind is “enmity
against God”; that “in his flesh there dwelleth no good thing”; that he “is a
hater of God”; that he is a “lover of pleasure more than a lover of God”; that
he is “living without God and without hope”; that his “heart is deceitful above
all things, and desperately wicked”? You will hear it from the desk--for you
believe that it is our official duty to make the statement; and the statement
is of necessity so general that no one feels himself particularly intended. But
would you hear it from me, if I should come to you alone, and if I should make
the statement with all the tenderness that I could assume? Is it not possible
that your heart has deceived you on this point? Let me suggest few things for
your consideration. One is, that if the Bible be true, there is no such native
excellence of character as you suppose you possess; for in the most solemn
manner the Bible declares the whole race to be guilty, and ruined, and lost;
and the Bible has such evidences of its truth and its Divine origin as should
lead you to suppose it possible that its account of the human character is
correct. Another consideration is, that multitudes of men who once had the same
view of themselves which you have, have been convinced of their error, and have
been led to accord with the account in the Bible. I allude to those who are now
Christians. Another consideration is, that there is nothing easier than to
deceive ourselves in this matter. You have certain traits of character which
are in themselves well enough, and which may be commendable, and you exalt them
in the place of others which God requires. You have a disposition that is
naturally amiable and inoffensive. So has a lamb and a dove. Is this the love
of God? Is that what the law requires? You are honest and upright towards men.
Is this the love of the Creator, and is this to be a substitute for repentance
and faith? Are you not deceived in your estimate of your own character in
regard to the love of virtue? Let me ask a few plain questions. You say you
love truth. Why then resist the truth as designed to bear on your own heart and
to show you what you are? You are amiable. Why not then love the Lord Jesus
Christ? Has there been anyone among men more amiable or lovely than He? You
love purity. Why not then love God? Is there anyone more pure than He? You are
aiming to do right. Why then do you not pray in the closet, and in the family,
as you know you ought to do?
II. Men deceive
themselves in regard to their real attachments. You think you have no undue
attachment to a child. When the great Giver of life takes this child back to
Himself, are you willing to part with it? You think you have no undue
attachment to wealth. How do you feel when you are embarrassed and when others
are prospered? When wind, and tide, and fire, and tempest are against you, and
when others grow rich? When your property takes to itself wings and flees away,
while others are enjoying the smiles of Heaven? You think you have no undue
attachment to the world, and that in the influence which that world has over
you, you are showing no disrespect to the commands of God. Let me ask you, is
any pleasure abandoned because He commands it? Is any place of amusement
forsaken because He wills it? You suppose you have some attachment to
Christians, and to the Christian religion. You admit the Bible to be true, and
mean to be found among the number of those who hold that its doctrines are from
Heaven. Yet does the heart never deceive you in this? Is not this the
truth--for I make my appeal to your own consciousness? You admit the doctrines
of the Bible to be true in general; you deny them in detail. You think you have
no particular opposition to the duties of religion. But is not this the truth?
You admit the obligation in general; you deny it in detail.
III. The heart is
deceitful in regard to its power of resisting temptation. In the halcyon days
of youth and inexperience, we think that we are proof against all the forms of
allurement, and we listen with no pleasurable emotions to those who would warn
us of danger. We flatter ourselves that we are able to meet temptation. We
confide in the strength of our principles. We trust to the sincerity of our own
hearts. Professed friends meet us on the way and assure us that there is no
danger. The gay, the fashionable, the rich, the beautiful, the accomplished,
invite us to tread with them the path of pleasure, and to doubt the suggestions
of experience and of age. We feel confident of our own safety. We suppose we
may tread securely a little farther. We see no danger near. We take another
step still, and yet another, thinking that we are safe yet. We have tried our
virtuous principles, and thus far they bear the trial. We could retreat if we
would; we mean to retreat the moment that danger comes near. But who knows the
power of temptation? Who knows when dangers shall rush upon us so that we
cannot escape? There is a dividing line between safety and danger. Above
thundering Niagara the river spreads out into a broad and tranquil basin. All
is calm, and the current flows gently on, and there even a light skiff may be
guided in safety. You may glide nearer and nearer to the rapids, admiring the
beauty of the shore, and looking on the ascending spray of the cataract, and
listening to the roar of the distant waters, and be happy in the consciousness
that you are safe. You may go a little farther, and may have power still to ply
the oar to reach the bank. But there is a point beyond which human power is
vain, and where the mighty waters shall seize the quivering bark and bear it on
to swift destruction. So perishes many a young man by the power of temptation.
IV. The heart
deceives itself in its promises of reformation and amendment. Permit me to ask
of you, how many resolutions you have formed to repent and be a Christian--all
of which have failed! How many times have you promised yourself, your friends,
and God, that you would forsake the ways of sin and live for heaven--all of
which have failed? How often have you fixed the time when you would do this?
And yet that time has come and gone unimproved. At twenty, at thirty, at forty,
at fifty years of age you may have resolved to turn to your Maker should you
reach those periods--but on some of you the snows of winter have fallen, and
yet a deceitful and a deceived heart is pointing you to some future period
still. It deceived you in childhood; it deceived you in youth; it deceived you
in manhood; it deceives you in old age. It has always deceived you as often as
you have trusted it, in all circumstances of life--and yet you trust it still.
It has deceived you oftener than you have been deceived by any and all other
things--oftener than we are deceived by the false friend; oftener than the
traveller is deceived by his faithless guide; oftener than the caravan is
deceived by the vanished brook; oftener than the bow deceives the hunter;
oftener than you have been deceived by any and all other men. There is no man
whom you have not trusted more safely than your own heart; no object in nature
that has been as faithless as that:--and I appeal to you if it is not deceitful
above all things. Conclusion:
1. There is danger of losing the soul.
2. The heart of man is wicked. You have a heart which you yourself
cannot trust. It has always deceived you. You have a heart which your fellow
men will not trust. They secure themselves by notes, and bonds, and mortgages,
and oaths, and locks, and bolts;--and they will not trust you without them. You
have a heart which God regards as deceitful and depraved, and in which He puts
no confidence, and which He has declared to be “desperately wicked.” I ask
whether that heart in which neither God nor man, in which neither we nor our
friends can put confidence, is a heart that is good and pure? Is it such a
heart as is fitted for heaven? I answer no--and you respond to my own deep
conviction when I say it must be renewed.
3. I would conjure you to wake from these delusions to the reality of
your condition. I would beseech you to look at truth, and be no longer under
the control of a deceived and a deceitful heart. (A. Barnes, D. D.)
The deceitfulness of the heart
It appears--
I. From men’s
general ignorance of their own character. They think, and reason, and judge
quite differently in anything relating to themselves,’ from what they do in
those cases in which they have no personal interest. Accordingly, we often hear
people exposing follies for which they themselves are remarkable, and talking
with great severity against particular vices, of which, if all the world be not
mistaken, they themselves are notoriously guilty. In vain do you tender to them
instruction or reproof, for they turn away everything from themselves, and
never once imagine that they are the persons for whose benefit these counsels
and admonitions are chiefly intended. If we trace this self-ignorance to its
source, we shall find that it is in general owing, not only to that partiality
and fondness which we all have for ourselves, but to the prevalence of some
particular passion or interest, which perverts the judgment in every case where
that particular passion or interest is concerned. And hence it happens that
some men can reason and judge fairly enough, even in cases in which they
themselves are interested, provided it does not strike against their favourite
passion or pursuit. Thus the covetous man will easily enough perceive the evil
of intemperance, and perhaps condemn himself if he has been guilty of this sin
in a particular instance. But he is altogether insensible to the dominion of
his predominant passion, the love of money. It has become habitual to him. His
mind is accustomed to it, so that in every case, where his interest is
concerned, his judgment is warped, and in these instances he plainly discovers
that he is totally unacquainted with his own character. The same observation
applies to other particular vices.
II. From men’s
general disposition on all occasions to justify their own conduct. If we cannot
justify the action itself, we attempt to extenuate its guilt from the peculiar
circumstances of the case. We were placed in such and such a particular
situation, which we could not avoid; our temptations were strong: we did not go
the lengths that many others would have gone in similar circumstances; and the
general propriety of our conduct is more than sufficient to overbalance any
little irregularities with which we may sometimes be chargeable. Men even learn
to call their favourite vices by softer names. Intemperance is only the desire
of good fellowship; lewdness is gallantry, or the love of pleasure; pride, a
just sense of our own dignity; and covetousness, or the love of money, a
prudent regard to our worldly interest. Besides these single determinate acts
of wickedness, of which we have now been speaking, there are numberless cases
in which the wickedness cannot be exactly defined, but consists in a certain
general temper and course of action, or in the habitual neglect of some duty,
whose bounds are not precisely fixed. This is the peculiar province of
self-deceit, and here, most of all, men are apt to justify their conduct,
however plainly and palpably wrong. To give an example: There is not a word in
our language that expresses more detestable wickedness than oppression. Yet the
nature of this vice cannot be so exactly stated, nor the bounds of it so
determinately marked, as that we shall be able to say, in all instances, where
rigid right and justice end, and oppression begins. In like manner, it is
impossible to determine how much of every man’s income ought to be devoted to
pious and charitable purposes: the boundaries cannot be exactly marked; yet we
are at no loss in the ease of others to perceive the difference betwixt a
liberal and generous man, and one of a hard-hearted and penurious disposition.
III. From the
difficulty with which men are brought to acknowledge their faults, even when
conscious that they have done wrong. We wish always to entertain a favourable
opinion of ourselves and of our own conduct, and are displeased with those who
endeavour in any instance to change this opinion, though it be done with the
best, and most friendly intention. But how unreasonable is this degree of
self-love! Were we alive to our true interests, we would wish to become better
acquainted with our follies and our faults, and would esteem our faithful
reprovers our best friends.
IV. From the disposition
which men discover to rest in notions and forms of religion, while they are
destitute of its power. Hence it is that so many are hearers of the Word only,
and not doers also, deceiving their own selves. Hence it is that so many shew
great zeal about small and unimportant matters in religion, who are shamefully
deficient in some of its plainest and most essential duties; that so many are
punctual in their observance of religious institutions, who are unjust and
uncharitable in their conduct towards their fellow creatures. Hypocrisy in all
its forms and appearances flows from the deceitfulness of the heart for in
general men deceive themselves before they attempt to deceive others.
V. When men
overlook the real motives of their conduct, and mistake the workings of their
own corruptions for the fruits of the Spirit of God. We are greatly shocked
when we read of the dreadful persecutions which in different ages have been
carried on against the faithful servants of Christ; yet these men pretended
zeal for the glory of God: nor is it improbable, but that many of them might so
far deceive themselves as to imagine that they were doing God service, while
shedding the blood of His saints. This is indeed the highest instance of the
extreme deceitfulness and desperate wickedness of the human heart, and the most
awful proof of being given up of God to a reprobate mind. But, in a lesser
degree, men frequently practise this kind of deceit upon themselves, ascribing
to the Word and to the Spirit of God what is evidently the effect of their own
ignorance, wickedness, and depravity. (D. Black.)
The natural characteristics of the heart
I. The
unparalleled deceitfulness of the heart.
1. The false views which it leads men very generally to adopt
respecting the safety of their state.
2. The delusions which it practises upon us in reference to those
sins to which we are most prone.
II. Its desperate
wickedness.
1. Every part of it, every one of its faculties, partakes of this
depravity.
2. The seeds at least of every evil are invariably found there.
3. Its wickedness will further appear, if we reflect on the
aggravating circumstances under which it will prompt to the commission of our
darling sin.
III. Inscrutable.
“Who can know it?”
1. But when we speak of the impossibility of thoroughly penetrating
the inmost recesses of the heart, we speak in reference to created beings only.
With regard to the omniscient God, He is one who “searcheth all hearts, and
understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts” (1 Chronicles 28:9): nay, He
understandeth our thoughts “afar off” (Psalms 139:2), knows them before they are
conceived.
2. Neither, when we say that the heart is inscrutable, do we mean to
deny that a very considerable knowledge of it, a knowledge which is sufficient
for all practical purposes, is attainable by man. With regard to merely worldly
characters, indeed, however they may boast of their penetration into the
schemes and designs of others, they commonly have scarcely taken the first step
in the knowledge of the unparalleled deceitfulness and desperate wickedness of
their own hearts: on this subject they know next to nothing.
3. It is the real Christian alone who attains any adequate and useful
knowledge of this kind: and who makes this attainment by means of the
influences of that Spirit, who was promised by our Lord for the purpose of
convincing the world of sin; by means too of the diligent and humble study of
that Worn of God which, when accompanied by that Spirit, proves itself to be
“quick and powerful,” etc.
4. Yet even the measure of knowledge which he is thus enabled to
attain, is not acquired without the greatest difficulty: a difficulty which
arises from the nature of that deceitfulness which he is endeavouring to
detect; and from the power of that self-love which would still lead him to view
his own heart with a partial eye.
IV. Inferences.
1. How great the folly of trusting to our own hearts!
2. How important the duty of watchfulness!
3. The necessity of earnest prayer.
4. In what urgent need we stand of God’s mercy in Christ.
5. The indispensable necessity of that great change of heart, which,
under a variety of appropriate images, is so repeatedly insisted on in the
Bible: which is represented at one time as a being born again; at another as a
new creation; at a third, as a spiritual resurrection to a life of holiness. (John
Natt, B. D.)
The deceitfulness of the heart
1. Man discovers this corrupt principle by adopting or maintaining a
profession of religion hypocritically. Those who are conscious of hypocrisy may
adopt and maintain a religious profession merely in some degree to pacify
conscience. When this is alarmed by a sense of sin, they are fain to lull it,
if possible, by the semblance of holiness. Others may assume a cloak of
religion, that in this way they may display their natural abilities, and gain
the affection or admiration of the religious: or they may design the
advancement of their temporal interests. They use religion just as it serves
their own purposes. Some throw aside the cloak of a profession as being too
cumbersome, as soon as their purposes are served by it; or perhaps when they
find themselves disappointed in their expectations. Others continue to wear it
to the end, and will never be discovered, till the Son of Man shall send His
angels to separate the precious from the vile.
2. The deceitfulness of the heart appears when men discover greater
zeal about matters of indifference, or, at least, of comparatively less
importance than about those of the greatest moment. They are perhaps regular in
the observation of secret, private, and public ordinances, but in a great
measure negligent of relative duties. They are undutiful husbands or wives,
parents or children, masters or servants. You can have little dependence on
their word, or confidence in their uprightness in civil dealings. Perhaps they
carry on a practice of deceit, extortion, and oppression in so secret a manner,
that although suspected by all around, no one can prove it. There are others
who go still farther. They place the greatest part of their religion in
scrupulosity about matters of mere indifference. The smallest deviation from a
common form, which has no other sanction than that of custom, and it may be,
not even that of common sense, will be esteemed a grievous defection. The most
innocent and necessary recreations will be reckoned unlawful freedoms.
Notwithstanding all this warmth of zeal, you may perhaps find some of this
character, if carefully watched, almost strangers to a principle of common
integrity. They will make conscience a plea for all their impositions on
others. But they more generally arise from the deceitfulness of the heart than
from any tenderness of conscience.
3. The short continuance of religious impressions, whether on saints
or sinners, is another evidence of this deceitfulness.
4. This deceitfulness appears by the many delusions of the
imagination, in forming great hopes of earthly riches, honour, or pleasure. How
often does the poor man build himself up, and regale his fancy with the empty
prospect of great riches. How often does the mean man amuse his imagination
with the delusive hope--we can scarcely call it hope, for it hath not
probability sufficient to constitute hope--with the idea, with the supposition
of honour and dignity, to which it is possible he may yet be advanced. If one
of his acquaintance has been unexpectedly exalted in his situation in fife, he
will consider this as a strong argument for the probability of his own
advancement. And is not this vanity of imagination, which all must feel in some
degree, because of the natural folly of all, a decisive proof of the
deceitfulness of the heart?
5. The extreme reluctance of the heart to believe its own
deceitfulness, is a great evidence of its power. So great is this reluctance,
that sinners, instead of crediting what they hear from the law and testimony,
are apt to take offence at the servants of Christ, when they insist on the
evils of the heart; as if they had a pleasure in magnifying the wickedness of
man, and in representing human nature as vastly worse than it really is.
At any rate, they deny the applicableness of the doctrine to
themselves, and proudly say, with the vain-glorious Pharisees, Are we blind
also? Learn:
1. The origin of hypocrisy in a religious profession. Of this the
natural deceitfulness of the heart is the parent.
2. The only cure of hypocrisy. This is the destruction of the
principle of deceit.
3. The danger of this course. (J. Jamieson, M. A.)
Self-cheating
The greatest cheat a man has is his own heart.
I. His heart
cheats him of a true estimate of himself. It tells him that he is morally what
he is not, that he is rich, “increased in goods,” and needeth nothing; whereas
he is “poor, blind, and naked.”
II. His heart
cheats him by false promises of the future.
1. It promises him a longer life than he will have.
2. It promises him greater enjoyments than he will ever have. To all
it paints a Canaan; but most find it, not a Canaan but a painful pilgrimage in
the wilderness.
3. It promises him greater opportunities of improvement than he will
ever have. It always holds out to him a “more convenient season”; but the
“convenient season” seldom comes. (Homilist.)
The heart’s deceitfulness towards itself
I. It abounds in
contradictions, so that it is not to be dealt with on any constant rule.
1. The frame of the heart is ready to contradict itself every moment.
Facile now, then obstinate; open, then reserved; gentle, then revengeful.
2. This ensues from the disorder wrought upon our faculties by sin.
II. Its deceit lies
in its full promisings upon the first appearance of things.
1. Never let us think our work in contending against indwelling sin is
ended. The place of its habitation is unsearchable. There are still new
stratagems and wiles to be dealt with. Many conquerors have been ruined by
their carelessness after a victory.
2. The fact that the heart is inconstant calls for perpetual
watchfulness. An open enemy, that deals by violence only, always gives some
respite; but against adversaries that deal by treachery nothing but perpetual
watchfulness will give security.
3. Commit the whole matter, therefore, to Him who searcheth the
heart. Here lies our safety. There is no deceit in our hearts but He can
disappoint it. (John Owen, D. D.)
The deceitfulness of man’s heart
I. A difficult
subject to deal with.
1. The examination is made by the guilty party into his own
character.
2. Nothing more humiliating and painful to man’s pride.
II. No deception
like that of the heart.
1. It is the fountain of deceit.
2. It deceives its owner and best friends often.
3. Its deceit is in a large measure voluntary.
4. Its deceitfulness is insidious in its growth.
5. Will be terrible in its consequences.
III. The examples of
scripture bear this out (1 Kings 13:11-18; 2 Kings 5:22-27; 2 Kings 8:7-15; Acts 5:5-10).
IV. The heart
deceives its possessor continually. With regard to--
1. Its motives.
2. Its inclinations.
3. Its safety amidst temptations.
4. Its power of reformation.
Learn:
1. To distrust and watch it.
2. To trust in Christ and His Word. (E. Jerman.)
And desperately wicked.--
Wickedness of the heart
1. The universal prevalence of wickedness in the world, in all
countries, and in all ages. A great part of the business of the world has
relation to the existence and prevalence of crimes; either to prevent, to guard
against, or to punish them. Our laws, our courts, our prisons and
penitentiaries, our locks and bars, our munitions of war on sea and land, are
all evidences of the wickedness of man. No nation legislates on the principle,
or with the expectation, that men will not be found wicked. Indeed, civil
government itself owes its origin to the necessity which exists of guarding
against and coercing the wickedness of the people. Heathen writers, as well as
Christian, give testimony to the fact that men are desperately wicked. What is
history, but a record of the crimes of men? And not only historians, but poets
and satirists among the heathen, paint the depravity of man in the most
frightful colours. And all modern travellers of veracity, and especially
missionaries, unite in testifying that the picture of human nature, drawn by
Paul in his epistles, is an accurate delineation of the present condition of
the whole pagan world. And alas! nominal Christians are but little better.
Indeed, considering their light and privileges, their guilt is much greater.
2. The desperate wickedness of the heart will appear also, if we
consider its aversion to God and holiness. Do men, generally, who have the
opportunity of knowing the true character of God, love it as the angels do in
heaven? Do they love it at all? If they do, would they not all be found
zealously engaged in glorifying God by worshipping Him in His earthly temples?
Would they not be found in constant and cheerful obedience to His will?
3. Another evidence of the desperate wickedness of the human heart
is, that it never grows better, or makes any true reformation of itself; but,
on the contrary, grows worse and worse, as long as it is left to the influence
of its own corrupt principles.
4. The heart of man, left to itself, not only never grows better,
but this disease may well be called “desperate,” because it yields not to the
most powerful remedies which human wisdom has ever invented; but increases in
virulence under them all.
5. When the heart appears to be converted, and a visible reformation
takes place in the life, after a while these promising appearances, which, like
blossoms in the spring, gave ground to hope for abundant fruit, are nipped by
the severe frost, or blasted by the chilling wind, and all our hopes are
disappointed. The soul was impressed by Divine truth, and the affections for a
season warmly excited, but the bitter root of iniquity was not eradicated.
6. No severity nor continuance of pain will ever conquer or remove
the depravity of the heart. Many have resorted to self-inflicted tortures, as
great as human nature can endure, and have spent their lives in crucifying the
desires of the flesh; and they may have, to a certain degree, succeeded in
diminishing the ardour of those passions which are connected with the animal
frame, by emaciating the body; but this did not reach the real seat of the
malady. It lies far deeper than the flesh.
7. Another argument of the desperate wickedness of the human heart is
the power of indwelling sin in the regenerate. (A. Alexander, D. D.)
Sin
To know our sin is the first lesson that a child of God must
learn. Salvation is sweet, because of the danger in which sin puts us. The
Saviour lived, and bled, and died, to atone for it.
I. The nature of
sin is twofold--as it exists in the heart, and as it is seen in the act.
II. The effects of
sin are twofold, as the nature of sin was; there is the guilt of sin, and there
is its power.
III. The cure of sin
is twofold likewise; its guilt is washed away in the blood of Christ, and its
power is broken down by the Holy Ghost. Why, then, should we be afraid to look
at our sin, when we have a perfect cure for it? Have you learned to hate sin?
It is not enough to hate the sins of others; but you must learn to hate your
own, however pleasant they may be to you, and however long you may have practised
them. Nor is it enough to fear the punishment of sin, unless you mourn under
its guilt, and seek to be freed from its power (E. Garbett, M. A.)
The heart is a grand impostor
It is like a cheating tradesman who will put you off with bad
wares; the heart will put a man off with seeming grace, instead of saving. A
tear or two shed is repentance, a few lazy desires is faith; blue and red
flowers that grow among the corn look like good flowers, but they are beautiful
weeds. The foolish virgins’ lamps looked as if they had had off in them, but
they had none. Therefore to prevent a cheat, that we may not take false grace
instead of true, we had need make a thorough disquisition and search of our
hearts. (T. Watson.)
The heart deceitful
The dank, mossy sward is deceitful; its fresh and glossy carpet
invites the traveller to leave the rough moorland tract, and at the first step
horse and rider are buried in the morass. The sea is deceitful; what rage, what
stormy passions, sleep in that placid bosom and how often, as vice serves her
used-up victims, does she cast the bark that she received into her arms with
sunny smiles a wreck upon the shore. The morning is oft deceitful; with bright
promise of a brilliant day it lures us from home; the sky ere noon begins to thicken;
the sun looks sickly; the heavily laden clouds gather upon the hill tops; the
lark drops songless into her nest; the wind rises moaning and chill; and at
last tempest storm and rain thicken on the dying day. The desert is deceitful;
it mocks the traveller with its mirage. Deceitful above sward, or sea, or sky,
or enchanting desert, is the heart of man; nor do I know a more marked or
melancholy proof of this than that afforded by our light treatment of such
weighty matters as sin and judgment. (T. Guthrie.)
The impurity of the heart
In a vessel filled with muddy water the thickness visibly subsided
to the bottom, and left the water purer and purer until it became perfectly
limpid. The slightest motion, however, brought the sediment again to the top; and
the water became thick and turbid as before. “Here,” said Gotthold, when he saw
it, “we have an emblem of the human heart. The heart is full of the mud of
sinful lusts and carnal desires; and the consequence is, that no pure
water--good holy thoughts--can flow from it. Many a one, however, is deceived
by it, and never imagines his heart half so wicked as it really is, because
sometimes its lusts are at rest, and sink to the bottom. But this lasts only so
long as he is without opportunity or incitement to sin. Let that occur, and
worldly lusts rise so thick that his whole thoughts, words, and works show no
trace of anything but impurity.”
The difficulty of knowing the heart of man
“Who can know it?” The heart is deep, and, like Ezekiel’s vision,
presents so many chambers of imagery, one within another, that it requires time
to get a considerable acquaintance with it, and we shall never know it
thoroughly. It is now more than twenty-eight years since the Lord began to open
mine to my own view; and from that time to this almost every day has discovered
to me something which, till then, was unobserved; and the farther I go the more
I seem convinced that I have entered but a little way. A person that travels in
some parts of Derbyshire may easily be satisfied that the country is cavernous;
but how long, how deep, how numerous, the caverns may be, which are hidden from
us by the surface of the ground, and what is contained in them, are questions
which cannot be fully answered. Thus I judge of my heart, that it is very deep
and dark and full of envy; but as to particulars, I know not one of a thousand.
(John Newton.)
I the Lord search the heart.
God, the inspector of the heart
I. The description
given of the human heart.
1. “The heart is deceitful above all things.” There is scarcely a
truth, for instance, revealed in the Bible, which it has not, at one time or
other, led some men to call in question. But the deceitfulness of the heart
appears nowhere, perhaps, so striking as in the case of many who sit under the
faithful ministry of the Gospel, or are visited with some severe attack of
sickness. How many are there who, in these circumstances, form the most serious
resolutions of repentance and reformation! Their goodness is as a morning
cloud, and as the early dew it passeth away.
2. The heart is desperately wicked. We must take the heart as it is
to the Physician of souls, or remain forever without a cure.
3. “Who can know it?” Its deceitfulness is an ocean which we cannot
fathom, its wickedness a worm which we cannot explore.
II. The Divine
conduct in reference to the heart.
1. He “searches the heart, and tries the reins.” He is acquainted
with our principles and motives, our dispositions and affections. However small
the measure of good, or the measure of evil, which may be lurking within, He
must instantly see it. Though it should be only as a grain of mustard seed sown
in a garden, or as a grain of wheat sown in a field, His piercing eye cannot
fall to discover it.
2. The object which He has in view in doing this, or the important
reason which He assigns for thus searching the heart and trying the
reins;--“even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the
fruit of his doings.”
Conclusion--
1. If the heart is deceitful above all things, let us learn to
distrust it for evermore.
2. If the heart is desperately wicked, let us see the necessity of
having a new heart created within us.
3. Though we cannot fathom all the depths of deceit and wickedness
contained in the human heart, we may yet obtain a much more extensive knowledge
of these things than we generally possess.
4. Since God searches the heart, and tries the reins of the children
of men, let us know the utter impossibility of imposing upon Him.
5. Since God will give every man according to his ways, and according
to the fruit of his doings, what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy
conversation and godliness! (D. Bees.)
God searching the human heart
Taken by the gardener into a gentleman’s garden, I saw long rows
of beautiful chrysanthemums, preparing for a flower show. “Each one of those
has to be examined every day, said he, lest earwigs get into the tender tops
and eat out the young buds.” And while I watched I saw the under-gardener going
from one to another, gently opening the top shoots, and seeing that no hidden
evil lurked within. “Behold, Thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in
the hidden part Thou shalt make me to know wisdom” (Psalms 51:6). What earwigs of thought,
desire, imagination get into the heads of the Lord’s plants, their best parts!
How jealous Paul was of young converts, lest earwigs of false doctrine, or evil
practice, should destroy his labour. The head Gardener sees to this. “I the
Lord search the heart” (Jeremiah 17:10). (Footsteps of Truth.)
To give every man according
to his ways.--
God’s rule of judgment
I. The preparation
God is making for the future judgment.
1. He continually marks the ways of men.
2. He records everything in the book of His remembrance.
II. The rule by
which the judgment shall be determined.
1. The sentence will be according to every man’s works (Galatians 6:7-8; 2 Corinthians 9:6).
2. Rightly understood, this strongly declares the equity of God’s
future judgments. Everything that can affect the quality of an action will be
taken into account. (C. Simeon, M. A.)
As the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not; so he
that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his
days.
Riches gotten not by right
The illustration is taken from natural history. Some think it
refers to an ancient practice still maintained amongst the Arabs, of driving
the mother birds from place to place till they become exhausted, and are easily
captured: in which case, of course, the poor partridge never has the joy of
seeing her own progeny. Patiently has she sat for weeks in her nest, over eggs
which another than herself is to hatch. I do not think this is the intended
idea at all. On looking into the Septuagint, I find the rendering of the verse
somewhat different, but practically the same as many of you will find in the
margin of your Bibles. “As the partridge gathereth young which she has not
herself brought forth.” That is more plain and natural. The partridge is in the
habit of stealing eggs from the nests of other birds of a different species,
and of sitting upon them: and then, shortly after these eggs are hatched, the
young, forsaking their false parent, and associating with birds of their own
order, make the old partridge look very foolish, as all her promising brood
desert her.
I. The Bible has
nothing to say against a man’s getting rich by just and honourable means. A
fine healthy sight it is we may see every morning in London, the thousands of
young men pressing in to the city on bus or car, or better still, on their own
two feet, eager for business, and determined to get on. Diligence in business
is one of the prime virtues of human life upon the earth, but the motive power
which impels it is the expectation of gain. To be altogether indifferent to
material profit, so far from being a recommendation, betokens an unmanly and
defective character. It is all very well to moralize on the duty of being
contented with our lot, bug there is a certain “contentment with our lot” that
simply means indolence, and stupidity, and the lack of enterprise. The wish to
get riches is not a sinful wish; nay, it may be a most laudable one, and, as I
have said, a useful stimulus to industry. Hence, it is by no means a good thing
for a man to have been “born with a silver spoon in his mouth”; it may, indeed,
make him the envy of others, but his moral dangers are enormously increased
thereby. I don’t pity you in the least, my young brothers, if you have had to
begin life without a halfpenny; so long as you have good brains, sound health,
high principle, and a fair opening, I have no fear of you; stick to your work;
push on; go ahead; and may God prosper you!
II. Riches
unrighteously gotten are no blessing. “There are many ways in which you may
violate the spirit of the eighth commandment, without robbing the till, or
forging a cheque, or making a false entry in the cashbook. Do let me entreat
you to be straightforward and open in everything; let your conduct and
character be above the shadow of suspicion; let truthfulness and honesty be a
very law of your being; condescend to nothing which conscience does not
thoroughly approve; have an instinctive horror of everything approaching
duplicity or equivocation; hate a lie as you hate death; and let your whole
action in business be such that you can invite the eye of God to search you
through, confident that all is straight and right. Ah! believe me, such a
character is the grandest capital in the long run: as John Bright wrote to a
young man who applied to him for advice:--“In my judgment the value of a high
character for strict honour and honesty in business can hardly be estimated too
highly and it will often stand for more in the conscience, and even in the
ledger, than all that can be gained by shabby and dishonest transactions.” It
seems to the rogue, wrote Thomas Carlyle, that he has found out a short
northwest passage to wealth, but he soon discovers that fraudulence is not only
a crime but a blunder. Sin never pays. Said a pawky Scotch farmer to his son,
“John, honesty’s the best policy; I’ve tried both ways mysel’.” There is a
great deal of money made in trade, which, it must be confessed, is gotten not
by right. Too often there is one code of virtue for the home circle, and
another code for the factory or shop. One system of morals for the Sunday,
another for the weekday. Violations of rectitude, which would be severely
condemned in the family, are winked at in business. When we come to the strict
standard of God’s law, we shall find a vast deal more unrighteousness in the
mercantile world than most of us are willing to allow. Strange as it may seem,
thousands of men are far more ready to be benevolent than just. Mr. Gladstone,
in one of his speeches, sagaciously observed, “I would almost dare to say there
are five generous men for one just; man. The passions will often ally themselves
with generosity, but they always tend to divert from justice.” I am quite in a
line with the text when I advise you to practise frugality. Don’t spend all our
earnings; cultivate thrift. However small the sum, it will grow; and the
tendency will be to develop in you self-denial, economy, and forethought. Then
I would also suggest to you the wisdom, nay, the duty, of effecting, at as
early a date as possible, an insurance on your life. When Jacob was bargaining
with Laban about terms, he showed the sagacity that has ever been
characteristic of his posterity; he was not going to remain in Laban’s service
without fair wages; “and now,” he added, “when shall I provide for mine own
house also?” I would almost go so far as to say that the small yearly sum it
will now involve is not your own; if you spend it on unnecessary comforts, you
may “leave them in the midst of your days, and at your end may be a fool.”
III. The penalty on
the acquisition of unrighteous gain generally follows even in this life. Perhaps
this does not hold so markedly in our times as under the old dispensation,
because immortality, with its just retribution, is now more clearly revealed.
Still, no thoughtful person can fail to see how often a terrible Nemesis
pursues the fraudulent man, even “in the midst of his days,” and how, “at his
end,” even the world styles him “a fool.” Some unexpected turn comes, some
monetary crisis, some commercial disaster, and lo! all his hoarded gains take
wing and fly away, and the unprincipled man is left like the silly partridge,
to sit disconsolate in an empty nest! But though the money abide with him,
there may be wretchedness untold, and he is ready to curse the gold that
promised so much happiness, and now yields so little. Ill-gotten wealth will
never make its owner really happy. There are plutocrats in this city whose
tables are covered with silver plate, who drink their sparkling champagne, and
roll along the streets in their sumptuous carriages, whose lives are
unutterably miserable. A worm is gnawing at the root. Their fortune has been
built upon a basis of deception, bringing with it deep, unutterable remorse;
and though friends may flatter, an upbraiding voice from the unseen is ever
whispering in their ear one little word of four letters--and two of them the
same--“Fool!” Do not forget that your best possessions, even now, are things
which cannot be weighed in a scale, nor measured by a rule; they are treasures
which rust cannot tarnish, nor thieves carry away. It was a noble declaration
of Marcus Aurelius, “My dominions are greater within than without”; and if this
was the utterance of a heathen monarch, what ought a Christian to feel? Only
let a living faith in the Lord Jesus Christ put you into connection with the
riches of His grace, and let there burn within you the hope of a glorious
immortality; then, I hesitate not to say, your fortune is made; you have the
guarantee of peace and plenty here, and the promise of a blessed inheritance
hereafter! (J. T. Davidson, D. D.)
Riches that escape from a man
Allusion is here made to a well-known fact in natural history. If
a partridge or a quail or a robin brood the eggs of another species, the young
will not stay with the one that happened to brood them, but at the first
opportunity will assort with their own species. Those who have been brought up
in the country have seen the dismay of the farmyard hen, having brooded aquatic
fowls, when after a while they tumble into their natural element--the water. So
the text suggests that a man may gather under his wings the property of others,
but it will after a while escape; it will leave the man in a sorry predicament.
(T. De Witt Talmage.)
Commercial morality
I. There are many
wrong ways of getting riches, or seeking, at least, to get them, even where
there is no violation of right or equity in a man’s transactions with his
fellow men.
1. What right-minded man would rush into the strife and scramble for
them in the headlong way that many do?
2. Can that man be said to be getting riches rightly who is scraping
them together, and hoarding them up, without regarding the urgent necessities,
not to say anything of the desirable comforts, of others?
3. Is it right to get riches in an irreligious way, by habitually
neglecting God and putting our duty to Him out of the account altogether?
4. It is one thing to get riches in a way that is not right--that is,
unworthily, hard-heartedly, and irreligiously--and another thing to get them
“and not by right,”--that is, unrighteously, by downright dishonesty, by the
violation of the law of equity, by the rupture of the bond of uprightness in
the conduct of man to man. It is this latter way of getting riches which is
expressly mentioned here, emphatically condemned, and threatened with an
inevitable and appropriate punishment.
II. There is a
remarkable connection between what is said about the human heart in verse 9,
and what immediately follows. “The heart is deceitful,” etc. Here is a
challenge. Fathom the depth of depravity, obscured and complicated by the
deceitfulness, who can. There is only One who can accept the challenge; and He
does. “I the Lord search,” etc. His judgment is ever according to truth. He
stamps all human character with its proper die; calls all human conduct by its
proper name; and will infallibly lead all human conduct, be it good or bad, to
its appropriate issue. Not by right are riches gotten--
1. If by the deceptions of merchandise.
2. By the unfair remuneration of labour.
3. By the artifices of commerce.
Conclusion--Be industrious: seeking, by the hand of diligence, if
it be God’s will, even to be rich. But beware of being carried away from moral
principle, from a religious life, by the prevailing furor of business, the
almost terrific money rage. “One thing is needful.” All things are ours, if we
are Christ’s, for Christ is God’s. (H. Angus, D. D.)
A glorious high throne
from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary.
Our sanctuary
This book of Jeremiah is a
very thorny one--it might be called, like his smaller work, “The Book of
Lamentations.” Our text is as a lily among thorns, as a rose in the wilderness;
the solitary place shall be glad for it, and the desert shall rejoice. The
words sound like sweet music amid the crash of tempest. The bitter tree yields
us sweet fruit. The weeping prophet wipes away our tears.
I. The true place
of our sanctuary. It is not at Jerusalem, nor yet at Samaria; it is not at
Rome, nor yet at Canterbury. The place of our sanctuary is our God Himself.
“God is our refuge and strength.” “Lord. Thou hast been our dwelling place in
all generations.”
1. He is viewed under the aspect of a sovereign reigning in
majesty--“A glorious high throne is the place of our sanctuary.” Many refuse to
worship God as reigning: they have not yet grasped the idea that the Lord is
King, so that they cannot understand the song, “The Lord reigneth: let the
earth rejoice.” For that includes, first, Divine sovereignty, and some men grow
black in the face with rage against that truth; they cannot endure it. He will
make His own election, and He will distribute His mercy as seemeth good in His
sight. Now this God whose sovereignty is so much disputed is our God; a
glorious high throne for absolute dominion and sovereignty is the place of our
sanctuary. To Him whose sovereign grace is the hope of the undeserving we fly
for succour. Besides sovereignty, of course, His glorious high throne includes
power. A throne without power would be but the pageantry of vanity. There
should be power in the King who ruleth over all: and is there not? Who shall
stay His hand, or say unto Him, “What doest Thou?”
2. Forget not that the Lord reigns in exceeding glory. The excellence
of His dominion surpasses all other, for He is the blessed and only Potentate.
Every act of His empire exhibits His glorious character, His justice, His
goodness, His faithfulness, His holiness.
3. It says, “A glorious high throne from the beginning is the place
of our sanctuary.” It is a very blessed thing to come back to the fact that the
Lord has not newly assumed a throne, from which He has newly cast out some
former king. As His is the most potent of empires, so is it the most ancient.
God is never taken by surprise; He has foreseen all things, and worked them
into His grand plan. God is working evermore for a glorious purpose, which
shall one day make the universe and all eternity to sing with rapturous joy
that ever God determined to do what He is now doing.
4. When the prophet alludes to the place of our sanctuary, our mind
is naturally led to feel that there must be some kind of place where God
especially reveals Himself. The place where He mainly revealed Himself among
men was the temple, to which I have said Jeremiah somewhat alludes. Now, where
was the temple built? It was built upon that mountain whereon Abraham took his
son Isaac to offer him up as a sacrifice. A ram caught in the thicket was the
substitute for Isaac; but there was no substitute for Jesus, the Son of God. He
died, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God. But there, where the most
instructive of all types of the heavenly Father’s love was exhibited, there
must be the temple wherein God would converse with men and make for men a place
of sanctuary. The temple itself was built upon that site, and there it was that
God dwelt visibly between the wings of the cherubim, above the ark of the
covenant, over that golden lid which was called the mercy seat. What was that
ark of the covenant, but a type of our Lord Jesus Christ in a most instructive
way. The sacrifice of Isaac and the ark of the covenant were only types of that
greater sacrifice, when He who is the Wonderful, the Counsellor, the Mighty
God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, went up to the Cross, and on Calvary
“it pleased the Lord to bruise Him.” It is natural that the Lord should meet
with us in grace in the place where He put His Son to grief. There, where He
made His soul an offering for sin, the Lord becomes well pleased with us. Now,
then, the place where we worship is God Himself revealed in the person of His
dear Son. I pray you, never try to worship anywhere else. Christ is the one
altar, the one temple, the one sanctuary.
5. In addition, the Lord God is our refuge; for a sanctuary was a
place to which men fled in the hour of peril Is not Jesus our refuge from
present guilt and from the wrath to come?
II. I am to speak
concerning whose who depart from God. Alas, that there should be such!--men who
leave the river for the desert, the living for the dead! Who are they? The text
says, “All that forsake Thee,” and “they that depart from Me.” See, then, that
this text has a bearing upon us, because these people of whom we are now going
to speak were not an ignorant people who did not know God, or how could they be
said to forsake Him? At one time, evidently, these people had something to do
with the Lord, but after awhile they forsook Him. What did they do? They no
longer sought unto the Lord as once they did, but ceased to be fervent in their
service. At first they ceased to worship Him, they took no delight in His ways;
they tried to be neutral, they were lukewarm, careless, indifferent, they
forgot God. After thus declining in zeal, and refusing outward worship, they
went further; for he says they had departed from Him--they could not endure the
Lord, and therefore went into the far country. They said unto God, “Depart from
us; we desire not the knowledge of Thy ways.” They went into open sin; they
disowned their God and broke His commands: some of them even dared to blaspheme
Him. The course of sin is downhill. The man who once forgets his God soon
forgets himself; and then he throws the reins on the neck of his lusts and goes
from sin to sin, forgetting his God more and more. The most hardened of sinners
will one day be ashamed, saying, “I acted unprofitably to myself.” Such shame
will come over you forgetful ones one of these days. It may not come upon you
till you die, but it is very probable that it will assail you then. When in
your dying hours, what a dreadful thing it will be to be filled with shame at
the remembrance of the past, so as to be afraid to meet your God, ashamed to
think that you have lived a whole life without caring for Him! What will it be
to wake up in the next world and to see the glory of God around you--the glory
of the God whom you despised! Oh, the shame that will come over the ungodly in
judgment! “They shall wake up to shame and everlasting contempt.” Great men and
proud men will be small enough ere long; and careless and profane persons will
be miserable enough when that word shall be fulfilled--“All that forsake Thee
shall be ashamed.” And then it is added that they “shall be written in the
earth”; that is, if they turn away from God they may win a name for a while,
but it will be merely from the earth, and of the earth. O worldlings, you have
your riches in this poor country which is soon to be burned with fire. Your
pleasures and treasures will melt in the fervent heat of the last days. Your
life’s pursuits are a short business, ending in eternal misery. The text tells
us that there shall come something besides this: they that forsake God shall
one day be sore athirst even unto death, “because they have forsaken the Lord,
the fountain of living waters.” There is for the soul but one fountain of
water, flowing, cool, clear, ever refreshing. “All my springs are in Thee,”
said David; and so may we say, for our only source of supply is the Lord our
God. If a man turns away from God, then he forsakes the cool fountain, he goes
to broken cisterns that hold no water, and he will perish of thirst.
III. Let us look at
the comers to God. Those who come to God--how do they come? They come away from
all the world. O soul, if thou wouldst have peace, come away to your God. Never
take your place with those who shall be written in the earth. How did believers
come to God of old? Jeremiah came sick and needing to be saved, for he cried,
“Heal me, O Jehovah, save me.” That is the way to come. But come to God with
faith. It was grand faith of Jeremiah which enabled him to say, “Heal me, and I
shall be healed.” Sick as I am, if Thou wilt act as physician to me I shall be
cured: if Thou save me, lost as I am, I shall be saved. Come along, poor
sinner. “Where, sir?” say you. To God in Christ Jesus. And come with this
acknowledgment on your tongue,--“For Thou art my praise.” We have a good God, a
loving God, a tender God, a gracious God, a God full of long-suffering and
mercy and faithfulness to us poor sinners. This is good argument in prayer--“I
have made my boast in Thee, O God, I pray Thee let not my glorying be stopped.
Be to me as I have declared Thou wilt be.” But suppose you cannot say so much
as that, then put it this way--“Heal me, O Lord; heal me this morning; save me,
O Lord; save me at once, and Thou shalt be my praise. Lord, I promise that I
will never rob Thee of the honour of my salvation; if Thou wilt but save me
Thou shalt have all the glory of it.” (C. H. Spurgeon.)
God our sanctuary
The godly soul has a sure
defence and aid in his living, loving Father and God. In every time of earthly
need and trouble this is his chief consolation, and the source of serene and
abiding joy
I. Thy necessity
of a divine refuge. Times come when the hardiest and most self-reliant is made
to feel that he is but feebleness, vanity, and dust. Protection, comfort, and
settledness for the soul can alone be found in God.
1. We are victims of moral evil.
2. Of mental and physical sorrows.
II. The nature of
the refuge afforded.
1. Lofty and glorious in position. There we may obtain--
2. All-sufficient in resources. Help for every circumstance, need,
age.
3. Perpetual and abiding in duration. (James Foster, B. A.)
Man’s refuge-A glorious
high throne
The word sanctuary at
first meant anything separated and set apart for a holy purpose; later it came
to designate a place used exclusively for sacred services; and then we find it
used to express one chief end of a sacred place--an asylum--a place of refuge
to which the guilty may fly and be safe.
I. Man’s refuge.
No creature so much needs the shelter and defence of a safe hiding place as
man. His sources of danger are more than can be numbered. Beset with foes, he
is in constant need of shelter, and often cries out for deliverance. What so
welcome to him as a refuge! Physically regarded, as possessed of a body over
which disease and death reign, how often does he sigh for some asylum, which
may furnish a defence against these invaders of life! How is he to escape the
feeling of terrible desertion and unimaginable dangers, how help crying out for
some refuge from “the fightings without, the fears within,” and the foes on
every side? And, looking still deeper, when we see that he is the subject of a
disease deceitful above every other--a disease which pertains to his whole nature--an
“incurable wickedness,” and when we hear him cry out in anguish of soul, “O
wretched man that I am, who shall deliver into from this body of sin and
death,”--who does not rejoice at the very idea of refuge? How hard it is not to
complain against God, and to demand “wherefore He has made man in vain!” How
still harder to believe that there is a refuge for man which has been set up
from the beginning! But in all times of deepest trouble, when human helpers
fail and the hour of extremity comes, the strange thing is that the universal
instincts of man’s nature do lead him to look for help, and though he passes
away apparently unhelped, he does so looking for help. You may have stood among
a crowd, upon the shore, watching some vessel tossed on the tempestuous billows
which threatened to overwhelm her until at length a mighty wave washed over her
and swept her clean of every living soul. And as that sea overwhelmed her there
arose from the breast of everyone of the gazing crowd, “God help them!” Was
that prayer an unconscious self-delusion in that moment of agony, or is there
help for man in all times of his need? Or you may have listened to a judge
passing the awful sentence which doomed a fellow creature to death--and whilst
telling him there was no longer mercy or hope for him on earth, pointing to
heaven and assuring him of hope and help in God. Was that judge dishonouring
his judicial robes, and deceiving that poor wretch by this solemn mockery of
pretended mercy, or is there an open door of hope in heaven for the poor
outcasts from earth? And we have all read of the poor thief upon the Cross,
turning, whilst paying the last penalty of the law with his life, in penitence
to the Saviour and praying, “Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy
kingdom”; and we know the gracious answer he received, “This day thou shalt be
with Me in Paradise.” Was our Lord deceived in this promise, or did He
knowingly deceive the miserable victim of crime in the moment of his extremity?
Oh no--there is help for the helpless, help for the hell-deserving, shelter for
the defenceless, a refuge for the outcasts. “The just God,” who is also a
“Saviour”--oh, how I love that combination--hath said, “Look unto Me and be ye
saved, all ye ends of the earth; for I am God and there is none else.”
II. Man’s refuge is
a sanctuary. A place which is only a refuge furnishes but a temporary shelter.
To the shipwrecked, a naked rock jutting out of the sea would be a glad refuge
from the devouring waves; but it would not be a refuge long. But a refuge,
which is also a sanctuary, a Divine house, affords not only shelter, but rest,
repose, and satisfaction for all we need or can desire. The house of God may
well be a home for man. And he who enters such a refuge soon discovers that it
will be to him all his desire.
III. Man’s refuge is
not only sacred, but royal. “A glorious high throne is the place of our
sanctuary.” The house of God, “the dwelling place of the Most High” is also the
seat and source of all rule, authority, and power. “Under the shadow of the
Almighty,” man finds a sure defence for the whole breadth of his nature, in the
midst of every possible circumstance, throughout the whole course of his
history. The security and defence vouchsafed to him are of the highest
character, and inseparable from the nature of the throne, which has become his
refuge. The sanctuary-refuge-throne is holy, and the holiness of the throne is
its defence and security. The power of the throne is the defence of man’s
refuge. But the throne, which has become man’s refuge, is not merely a symbol
of power, but also of power surrounded with becoming glory. There is “the pomp
which surrounds a throne.” The throne gathers up and crowns every excellency.
IV. This
sanctuary-refuge-throne is spoken of as an exalted throne. It is high enough to
embrace not merely man’s individual nature, in all its integrity of body, soul,
and sprat, but the whole race--the earliest sons in all the height and might of
their experience, together with the latest born in the feebleness of beginning
life. And not merely the race of man, for, under its exalted height is gathered
together, in one unity of blessed life, all the elect, from the archangel
before the throne to the weakest and meanest of the sons of men.
V. This exalted
throne is glorious in the history of its exaltation. Its exaltation has not
been by might but by right. Righteousness has been pleased and the law
magnified throughout the holy pathway of ascent from a humble refuge to the
glorious high throne. In becoming a refuge for the destitute, the abandoned,
the lost, the throne has revealed the charms of the holy order and eternal
righteousness by which triumphant conquests are made over every form of
disorder and wickedness. Fugitives from the consequences of violated law, as they
enter the refuge become obedient to law; the wicked become righteous; the
sinful are made holy.
VI. It has been set
up from the beginning. The provision for the requirements of man’s fallen
nature was no afterthought but a forethought. The refuge was ever latent in the
unbroken depths of the throne, and, for the revelation of its fundamental
glory, needed to be opened up. The history of man unfolds the eternal purpose,
and will be no mean history when complete. It was the joy of the Eternal
Wisdom, whose “delights were with the sons of men” “ere ever the earth was”; it
will be His joy when the earth is no more. The discords of human history lie
between two harmonies, the one in which they have no place, the other in which
they have been resolved. In man’s nature is struck the keynote of those
pre-established harmonies, the melody of which is being written out in his
history as a fitting song with which to celebrate the close of his earthly
career, and the reconciliation of all things.
VII. The personality
of this refuge. An impersonal refuge could never afford shelter and defence for
man against his personal foes. Moreover, the impersonal could never afford rest
to, nor become a home for man. Man needs man, a human security, a human joy, a
human home, a warm maternal bosom on which to rest; not even God as God, but
God as man. Is there such a person? One who is a refuge for man and a sanctuary
for God? One who is also a throne, a throne exalted by a glorious history, and
yet set up from the beginning? Oh joy of all joys, that God has revealed to us
One possessed of all these attributes! We make our first acquaintance with
Christ as a refuge. We seek in Him deliverance, shelter, and safety. Having
made the experience of Him as a refuge, we begin to find He is more than a
refuge, that He is a Divine house, a blessed home, a home in the house of God.
Then, as we enlarge our acquaintance with our home, we find it a house of many
mansions, opening up out of each other height above height, until a very throne
is displayed to us--the throne of God, rising out of the refuge for man--and
that the refuge is lost in the throne. And then as we gaze upon the throne
which has hidden the refuge in its glory, the humanity in the Divinity, we
begin to discover the refuge again in its deeper depth, something human in the
depths of the Divine, and that it gives its own lustre to the central glory of
the throne. And we perceive that this eternal humanity in the depths of Deity
which gives a lustre to the eternal glory is the humanity which is the Alpha
and Omega of man’s earthly history. And seeing this we refuse to it all dates
and proclaim it to have been ever from of old, and that it “became” the eternal
Son in the bosom of the Father, nay, “behoved Him to be in all things made like
unto His brethren that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in
things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people”;
nay, more, that it “must needs have been” that He might “enter into His glory”!
Hallelujah! God has made Himself one with us in our necessities that we may
partake of His glory. (J. Pulsford, D. D.)
Adoring exclamations of a
soul gazing on God
I. A wonderful
vision of what God is. There are three clauses. They all seem to have reference
to the temple in Jerusalem, which is taken by a very natural figure of speech
as a kind of suggestive description of Him who is worshipped there. “The
Sublime Porte” is properly the name of a lofty gateway which belonged to the
palace in Constantinople, and so has come to mean the Turkish Government--if
government it can be called. So we talk of “the Papal see.” Or, again, the
decision of “the Chair” in the House of Commons. So the prophet takes outward
facts of the temple building as symbolising great and blessed spiritual thoughts
of the God that filled the temple with His own lustre.
1. “A glorious throne”--that is grand, but that is not what Jeremiah
means--“A throne of glory” is the true rendering. In the Old Testament, where
“glory” is ascribed to God, the word has a very specific meaning, namely, the
light which was afterwards called the “Shekinah,” that dwelt between the
cherubim, and was the symbol of the Divine presence, and the assurance that
that presence would be self-revealing, and would manifest Himself to His people.
The throned glory, the glory that reigns and rules as King in Israel, is the
idea of the words before us. It is the same throne that a later writer in the
New Testament speaks of when he says, “Let us come boldly to the throne of
grace.” We all can draw near, through the rent veil, and walk rejoicingly in
the light of the Lord; this glory is grace; this grace is glory. This, then, is
the first of Jeremiah’s great thoughts of God, and it means--“The Lord God
omnipotent reigneth,” there is none else but He, and His will runs
authoritative and supreme into all corners of the universe.
2. “High from the beginning.” It was a piece of the patriotic
exaggeration of Israel’s prophets and psalmists that they made much of the
little hill upon which the temple was set. Jeremiah felt it to be a material
type, both of the elevation, and of the stable duration, of the God whom he
would commend to Israel’s and to all men’s trust. “High from the beginning,”
separated from all creatural limitation and lowness, He whose name is the Most
High, and on whose level no other being can stand, towers above the lowness of
the loftiest creature, and from that inaccessible height He sends down His
voice, like the trumpet from amidst the darkness of Sinai, proclaiming, I am
God and there is none besides Me. Yet while thus “holy”--that is, separate from
creatures--He makes communion with Himself possible to us, and draws near to us
in Christ, that we in Christ may be made nigh to Him.
3. He is “the place of our sanctuary.” That is, as though the prophet
would point as the wonderful climax of all, to the fact that He of whom the
former things were true should yet be accessible to our worship; that, if I
might so say, our feet could tread the courts of that great temple; and we draw
near to Him who is so far above the loftiest, and separate from all the
magnificences which Himself has made, and who yet is “our sanctuary,” and
accessible to our worship. Ay! and more than that--“Lord! Thou hast been our
dwelling place in all generations.” In old days the temple was more than a
place of worship. It was a place where a man coming, had, according to ancient
custom, guest rights with God. God Himself, like some ancestral dwelling place
in which generation after Generation of fathers find children have abode,
whence they have been carried, and where their children still live, is to all
generations their home and their fortress.
II. The soul rapt
in meditation of this vision of God. To me, this long-drawn-out series of
linked clauses without grammatical connection, this succession of adorning
exclamations of rapture, wonder, and praise, is very striking. It suggests the
manner in which we should vivify all our thoughts of God, by turning them into
material for devout reverence; awestruck, considering meditation. We should be
like ruminant animals who first crop the grass--which being interpreted means,
get Scripture truth into our heads--and then chew the cud, which being
interpreted is, then put these truths through a second process by meditation on
them that may turn into nourishment and make flesh.
III. The meditative
soul going out to grasp God thus revealed, as its portion and hope. “O Lord!
the hope of Israel.” I must cast myself upon Him by faith as my only hope; and
turn away from all other confidences which are vain and impotent. So we are
back upon that familiar Christian ground, that the bond which knits a man to
God, and by which all that God is becomes that man’s personal property, and
available for the security and the shaping of his life, is the simple flinging
of himself into God’s arms, in sure and certain trust. Then, every one of these
characteristics of which I have been speaking will contribute its own special
part to the serenity, the security, the Godlikeness, the blessedness, the
righteousness, the strength of the man who thus trusts. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
All that forsake Thee shall be ashamed.
A backslider ashamed of
his conduct
A London City missionary
writes: “One Sunday afternoon, when out visiting, I noticed a soldier. He was
in a great hurry, but I soon caught him up, gave him a tract, and, walking with
him, spoke to him about his soul. In reply he said, ‘I only wish I was the same
as I used to be. For four and a half years I was a Christian. I worked for
Christ with all my heart, and was never so happy as when so engaged. I made up
my mind to enlist. I thought I should get on all right, but when my companions
knew I was a Christian, they made it so hot for me I could not stand it, and
gave in.’ ‘But,’ said I, ‘what would your country think of you if you were a
coward in the face of an enemy? And should you fear to face the foes of Jesus
Christ? When the greatest danger surrounds you, then it is your duty to be most
faithful, not only to King Edward, but to King Jesus.’ The young soldier was
deeply moved, and said, ‘I do thank God for meeting you. I will give my heart
to Jesus again, and by God’s help I will be true to Him. I will not be a coward
again, but will confess Him tonight in the barrack room.’”
Shall be written in the earth.--
Where is our name being
written
Prudentius rightly saith,
that their names that are written in red letters of blood in the Church’s
calendar, are written in golden letters in Christ’s register in the book of
life; as on the contrary, these idolaters whose sin was with an iron pen
engraven on tables of their hearts (verse 1) are justly written in the earth. (John
Trapp.)
Verse 14
Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be
saved.
The Lord’s healing
I. The prophet’s
cry. Sin is the sickness of the soul. It has seized upon all its powers. Not
one single faculty has escaped; all are polluted, all diseased. Its very vitals
are affected by sin. The understanding is darkness (1 Corinthians 2:14). The will is
stubborn; the conscience is impure (Titus 1:15). The very memory is impure.
But the chief seat and residence of sin is the heart (Jeremiah 4:18). Oh, how little do we know
its deep defilement (1 Kings 8:38). The leprosy of the
law was a type of it. It is poison (Psalms 140:3). It is the “mire” in which
the sow wallows, the “vomit” of dog (2 Peter 2:22). One sin has in it all
enmity, rebellion, distance from God, all deceitfulness, hardness; and yet, how
slight are our deepest views; how poor and feeble our most heartfelt
repentance; how unfeeling our most touching sorrow. Sin is by all human skill
and human power incurable (Jeremiah 2:22).
II. Is this so?
Then no one but Jesus the Lord can heal our spiritual diseases.
1. It requires omniscience to know them. There is in all sin, in
every one sin, a depth which human wisdom can never fathom--a depth of
baseness, ingratitude, contempt (Psalms 19:12).
2. It requires omnipotence to subdue them. It requires the same
putting forth of Divine omnipotence to bring light into the darkened soul as to
bring light into this darkened world (2 Corinthians 4:6).
3. It requires infinite patience to bear with these soul-diseases.
4. It requires an infinite sympathy, and a boundless love.
III. His healing.
1. The means whereby He heals are various. Indeed, there is not a
single circumstance which He does not employ for this very end. By things
pleasant, things painful; comforts and crosses; by what He gives, by what He
takes away; by friends, by foes; by saints, by sinners; by the Church, by the
world; by sickness, by health; by life and by death; He heals the sin-sick
soul.
2. The character of His healing.
Conclusion--
1. Our wisdom is to be willing to have our spiritual maladies
discovered, yea, thoroughly searched.
2. Our wisdom is to be willing to have them thoroughly cured,
honestly to wish this, cost what it may, “Heal me.”
3. To expect no cure but what is promised.
4. To put ourselves fairly into His hands.
5. Above all, to trust not only in Him, but in the blessed confidence
of a simple faith that He is able to heal, and will heal, to come to Him with
the prophet’s cry, “Heal Thou me.” (J. H. Evans, M. A.)
A cry for healing and saving grace
I. Sin is the
disease of the soul and is so felt.
1. Loss of rest.
2. Deprivation of taste.
3. Loss of sight.
4. Loss of hearing.
II. Christ is the
only Physician.
1. The infinite efficacy of Christ’s atonement, as showing God’s
readiness as well as ability to pardon.
2. Since God requires forgiveness without bounds of us, will not He
extend the same to sinners?
3. The direct statements of Scripture.
4. Great instances of mercy.
III. Prayer is our
only refuge. The appointed means. Has never failed.
IV. Praise should
be our truest delight. (S. Thodey.)
A prayer for salvation
1. These words express a deep concern about salvation, and an earnest
desire to obtain it.
2. A firm persuasion that God alone can save.
3. A heartfelt application to God for salvation through the medium of
prayer.
4. An unwavering confidence that the salvation which God bestows in
answer to prayer will be a salvation suited to the wants of fallen man. (G.
Brooks.)
The penitent’s prayer
I. As expressing a
deep concern about salvation and an earnest desire to obtain it. He not only
cherishes a lively aversion to all that stings him with remorse, or that fills
him with alarm; he mourns also the loss of those positive blessings of which
his apostasy has deprived him, and thirsts for their recovery.
II. The true
penitent being thus awakened to a sense of his need of salvation, and to
unfeigned and anxious concern about obtaining it, he applies for it to Almighty
God. “Save me, O Lord.” The nature and exigency of his situation compel him to
have recourse to God as alone able to deliver him. The Divine mercy exhibited
in the Gospel encourages him to put his confidence in God, as perfectly willing
to bestow the deliverance he is so anxious to attain. Every new proof that he
discovers of God’s kindness gives him a more forcible impression of the
heinousness of his guilt and of the folly of his conduct, and shows him still
more clearly how much he must lose by remaining in a state of alienation and
impenitence, and thus adds a fresh and double impulse to the anxiety that he
feels, and the desire that he cherishes, for pardon and reconciliation.
III. The true
penitent applies to God for salvation through the medium of prayer. “Save me, O
Lord.” The moment that the sinner feels the real burden of his transgressions,
and is made fully sensible of his need of Divine mercy, that moment he as
naturally, and as necessarily, cries to God, for the requisite communications,
as the hungry child craves bread from its bountiful parent, or as the condemned
criminal supplicates pardon from his compassionate sovereign. And the penitent
transgressor not only feels his heart naturally lifted up to God in prayer,
when convinced that it is He from whom cometh his aid, he also applies in that
way, in conformity to the Divine institution. He knows that prayer is the
appointed method of seeking for and of obtaining the blessings of salvation.
IV. The confidence
which the true penitent feels, that if the salvation which he asks be granted,
it will be altogether such as his circumstances require, and such as will more
than gratify his utmost wishes. It is as if the penitent said to God whom he is
addressing, “Were any other being to undertake my salvation, I should not be
saved. There would be some imperfection in the achievement. It would be an
attempt, but not attended with success. But if Thou Thyself save me, I shall be
saved indeed. There will be no feebleness in the purpose; no inadequacy in the
power; no deficiency in the means; no failure in the result. The perfection of
Thy nature must reign in all Thy works; and that provides a security that
nothing can occur to frustrate or to impair the work of my salvation.” (A.
Thomson, D. D.)
Prayer for healing and salvation
These are great biblical words: “heal” and “save.” We all know
what it is to get a wound healed. The man with the gift of healing is sent for,
and he binds up the wound and anoints it with the ointment. But God’s healing
goes far deeper than bodily wounds. Each heart is here its own interpreter. And
then, “save.” That means more than heal. We shall have to wait till the
hereafter to know all that is meant by that great word. Now the prayer implies
a helpless condition, in which we can only cry to God for healing and
salvation. There is a place sometimes called “the back o’ beyond,” another name
for it being “wit’s end” (Psalms 107:1-43). With regard to the
soul, it is well to find ourselves there, and the sooner the better; for it is
not a hopeless place by any means. The Help of the helpless is ready there at
the call of distress. He can do little for us indeed till we thus learn that
really there is no other help but He. The Earl of Aberdeen tells how on one
occasion, going up the Nile in his yacht, he saw a little steamer coming
puffing rapidly down. He was told it was Gordon’s steamer, who was Governor of
the Soudan at the time. On hearing that, he was anxious to speak with Gordon,
if possible; but the question was how to accomplish it, for in a few minutes
the steamer would be past. Suddenly a brilliant idea struck the earl. He gave
orders to his men to hang out signals of distress. He was sure Gordon was not
the man to pass by heedless a signal of distress. The ruse proved successful.
The steamer began at once to veer round, and in a very short time was alongside
the yacht. Now we all know that the helpful spirit was very characteristic of
Gordon, but where was it he learned it? Just by sitting at Jesus’ feet. And we
may be sure that the disciple is not greater than the Master in that readiness
to heed and help at the call of need, and that what Jesus was in the days of His
flesh, He is now and ever will be. One thing more is implied in the text--the
assurance that the help will be all-sufficient. The prophet is sure that God
will perfect His work of healing and saving. And that is a great matter, to
know that it is something that lasts. Our soul shall be restored and shall
bless the Lord who healeth all its diseases. Yea, and so will the world in the
good time coming, when all lands shall be healed, and God’s saving health shall
be known among all nations. (J. S. Mayer, M. A.)
Thou art my praise.
God the believer’s praise
I. The nature of
true effectual healing.
1. Spiritual healing is a gradual and progressive thing. It begins
with a sinner’s principles, for if the principle of our actions be not a part
of God’s holy teaching, and grafted by the Spirit of Christ into those who are
the children of His adoption, it is one of the unsanctified impulses of nature.
It is the soul’s worst enemy, a wandering, faithless state, that will never
lead us to Bethlehem, and as the seed of the bond woman must be utterly cast
out. When this terribly diseased principle is healed, the Spirit’s work is in
operation; and we begin to apprehend what that unearthly life is, which leads
every other life that is worth possessing after it. From the principle the work
of healing is carried forwards to the various actions that branch from it; the
wild grape is no longer the curse of the vineyard. When the husbandman takes
the plant itself in hand, it yields naturally to the superior excellency of the
graft, and partakes of its very character and condition. We cannot now indulge
the senses as we did; we were once their slaves, they are now our handmaids,
and enter freely with us into the liberty of the Gospel.
2. It is free and unpurchaseable by any creature who has the heart
and disposition of a sinner. There is no buying the skill and medicines of our
Physician. When He heals, it is “without money and without price.” Nay, He was
Himself compelled to purchase at the hands of justice, the power of stopping the
ravages of corruption, and drawing a line, beyond which the sin of leprosy
should not spread. No one, neither man nor angel, will ever be capable, I say
not of estimating, but of imagining, the greatness of that purchase.
3. It is an effectual and everlasting healing. Christ’s balm goes
down to the very depth of the diseased places; He sifts, and tries, and
searches the wound before He closes it.
II. The distinction
between healing and salvation. Both of these blessings are the precious and
enduring treasures of redemption; though one of them is but a mean to an end;
if I am not healed I cannot be saved; my earthly heart must not only be emptied
of its enmity and rebellion, and deceivableness of unrighteousness, but of
whatever hinders it, on its way to glory. Yea, and it must be refilled, with
that measure of Divine love which will spur it forward, and strengthen and
advance it on its journey towards Zion. When I am healed, my bosom glows with
delight that I shall not go down in my natural uncleanness to the grave: my
self-interest has quite wrapped itself up in the sweet security of the
blessing; the depths of a wounded spirit are fathomed by the only hand that can
get to the bottom of them. I have lost the distress, and pain, and poignancy of
guilt; the scars are indeed mercifully left upon me, to be my remembrancers of
what a gracious and loving Jesus has done for my sick soul, but the killing
sickness is gone, and I seem to apprehend the wonderful reality of my being
plucked as a brand out of the burning. The act of healing may, perhaps, with
more propriety belong to the office of the Holy Spirit, than to the incarnate
Son,--but salvation is that chariot of fire which exclusively holds the
triumphs, the royalties, the priceless riches of Christ. We identify salvation
with conquests and suffering, and a vesture stained with blood; it calls us, in
special language, to draw near, and kiss the Son, and to support our everyday
trials, by giving our thoughts to that surpassingly severe trial which He
passed through as a Conqueror upon the Cross.
III. In what way the
Lord is glorified as the believer’s praise. It is no question of conjecture in
this place, whether God, under every one of His providences, in dark and
clouded clays, as well as in clear bright sunshine, is worthy to be praised;
for that will admit of no discussion, if we believe that He is the perfection
of wisdom, and goodness, and love; but this is a matter for individual,
experimental inquiry, and so is limited to a narrower space. Have you, and have
I the right apprehension of our God as a Father? and of ourselves as His
children? to be able to go down deep into the spirit of the text, and to say,
“Thou art my praise”?
1. If the Lord is your praise, your hearts will be full of desire to
honour Him in every act of your lives; and your continual longing will be to
plead with Him, that every fresh song you sing to His glory may savour of this
unselfish spirit.
2. If God be our praise we shall labour to be conformed to His
likeness.
3. If God be our praise, all the heart springs must be so full of it
as to throw the precious living water into the life. (F. G. Crossman.)
Be not a terror unto me: Thou art my hope in the day of evil.
Divine wrath an object of fear
I. The petition.
1. God’s majesty is in itself an object of fear and dread (Hebrews 12:21; Isaiah 6:5; Habakkuk 3:16; Hosea 3:5).
2. Divine chastisements are to be feared (Jeremiah 10:24; Psalms 6:1; Job 9:34).
3. God’s wrath is still more dreadful.
4. The prophet prays for support and comfort in the time of trial.
II. The expression
of confidence.
1. The grace exercised is hope.
2. The time when this grace is exercised. “Day of evil.”
Learn--
1. That hopes and fears are blended together in the experience of the
godly (Psalms 147:11).
2. If God is sometimes a terror to His own people, how much more to
the wicked? (B. Beddome, M. A.)
Verse
19
Whereby the kings of Judah
come in.
Courage and fearlessness
before kings
When King Don Pedro was
unexpectedly brought into the hall in Chicago in which Moody was speaking on
“Accepting Christ,” the obsequious usher, after showing the king to a seat on
the platform, whispered to Moody, “King Don Pedro is on the platform.” Moody
took no notice, but at the end of his powerful appeal turned to the king and
said, “And that is a question that kings cannot postpone, for on their decision
depends what God will do with the king.” The king afterwards spoke of him as “a
man to be heard and believed.” (G. Campbell Morgan.)
Preaching before the
greatest King
Latimer, while preaching
one day before Henry VIII, stood up in the pulpit, and, seeing the king,
addressed himself in a kind of soliloquy, thus, “Latimer, Latimer, take care
what you say, for the great King Henry VIII is here.” Then he paused, and proceeded,
“Latimer, Latimer, take care what you say, for the great King of kings is
here.”
Verse 22
But hallow ye the Sabbath day.
Cheating God out of Sunday
An old Christian, living at Salem, was much annoyed by the conduct
of some of his neighbours who persisted in working on the Sabbath. One Sabbath,
as he was going to Church, his Sabbath breaking neighbours called out to him
sneeringly from the hayfield, “Well, father, we have cheated the Lord out of
two Sundays anyway!” “I don’t know that,” replied the old gentleman, “I don’t
know; the account is not yet settled.”
The design of the Sabbath
The true spirit of the Sabbath appointment is, not that we should
condense the religion of the week into the Sabbath, but that we should carry
forth from the Sabbath its hallowed impulses and feelings into the other days
of the week, to elevate and sustain us amid its wearisome secularities and
depressing cares. The Lord has given us the Sabbath, not to relieve us of out
religion, but so to revive our religion on that day as to impel its healthy
tide into the remotest nook and corner of everyday duty. (Andrew Thomson.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》