Jeremiah 2:31-37 O generation, see you the word of the LORD. Have I been a wilderness to Israel? a land of darkness? why say my people, We are lords… The people were required to answer two questions: "Have I been a wilderness unto Israel? have I been a land of darkness unto Israel?" Speak out. If you have an impeachment to bring even against God, do not fear to bring it. He asks for it. A wondrous tenderness inspires the inquiry. It seems, indeed, to bring its own answer with it. So the father might plead with his child, "Have I been a wilderness unto thee, or a land of darkness? have I been deaf to entreaty? have I been without sympathy in the time of affliction? have I but half-opened the door when you have sought to return to my love and my confidence?" The very inquiry is a defence; the very method of the inquiry means, It is impossible to answer this but in one way. Having answered a question respecting God, they have next to answer a question respecting themselves: "Wherefore say My people, We are lords; we will come no more unto Thee?" Literally, Why do My people say, We will rove at will? That is licence, not liberty. They have lost the centre, and are plunging evermore in chaos, without being able to give an account of themselves or to use what benefit might lie within their power. Why this new cry, namely, We will do as we like? Why this so-called free thought? why this progress which means running round and round and never advancing by one measurable inch? How very early men begin to be free-thinkers! How soon sin says to a man, Rove at will; do what you like: you are a man! Then the poor fool thinks he is a man, and begins to "play fantastic tricks before high heaven." He forgets that we have only, liberty to obey. Then the Lord seems to adopt a kind of taunting tone: "Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire?" When did either of them forget a pin, a jewel, a toy, a feather? What, a memory for little things, for dressing, for adornment, for outgoing, for public excitement! What a recollection for dates, when the date is filled up with an amusement, a new sensation! But no memory for sacrifice, for prayer, for holy sacrament, for consecrated day, for revelations from heaven, — a memory that will hold all the fiction that ever was written, but a memory like a sieve in respect of everything that is written in the Bible! What a voice is the Lord's! How strident, how mocking! how tender, beseeching, importunate, full of lamentation! "My people have forgotten Me days without number." Could the complaint have been stated more pensively? The very voice in which it is uttered adds to the poignancy of the distress. Who likes to be forgotten? Who likes to be the one member of the family for whom no flower is brought, for whose birthday no provision is made, for whose little wants, or great, no one cares? Now the voice changes, and the element of accusation enters into it very sharply (ver. 33): "Why trimmest thou thy way to seek love? "— why this continual invention in incidental reforms? why not go to the root of the matter? A corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit. It is useless to paint the branches, or hang bird cages upon them, or tie to them fruit gathered from other orchards. Down with the tree, up with the roots, burn them, and in its place let there be a tree of the Lord's right-hand planting. But all this trimming and adaptation and partial reform indicates a species of ingenuity and cleverness — "therefore hast thou also taught the wicked ones thy ways." The substantive is feminine — "therefore hast thou also taught wicked women thy ways": you have been inventive, you have issued new programmes of evil; you have said in effect: See how clever we are: here is a new method of profanity, here a novelty in blasphemy, here a cloak that baffles scrutiny, here an impervious garment — waterproof and fireproof, deluge and lightning cannot get through this covering. No doubt there is a great deal of ingenuity in wickedness. Bad men have wonderful sagacity in some cases, great mental penetration, and quite a striking method of doing their own work in their own way; they are inventive, mentally fertile; as to their fecundity in the way of devising evil methods and evil practices, it is immeasurable. But God knows it, and founds a charge upon it. Mark the hardening process of sin in the thirty-fourth verse: "Also in thy skirts is found the blood of the souls of the poor innocents: I have not found it by secret search, but upon all these." The blood of the prophets was found in the skirts of those who had slain the good men. But "in thy skirts," — is not that a term which indicates concealment? God says, I have not found out this blood, or the sin with which it is connected, by secret search — by digging down and finding a hole in the wall, as the prophet Ezekiel found a hole in the wall and entered into the chamber of imagery; this is not a cellarful of blood; this sin is not confined to the basement of the life house: you have advanced beyond that. Cain, who introduced social sin into the world, performed his murder in secret, wiped his lips, and stood before God as an innocent man. We have made advances upon that infantile crime. Now our crime is public. The sin which you are half afraid of today, you will make a boon companion of before very long. The words you now use with blushing and trembling of voice, you will use familiarly by continued practice. We cannot rest at a certain point, saying, I will go no farther than this. Such may be our intention at the time being, but we subtly and imperceptibly advance until we become adept in evil. "Why gaddest thou about so much to change thy way? thou also shalt be ashamed of Egypt, as thou wast ashamed of Assyria" (ver. 36). Literally, Why all these shifting policies? why all these new alliances? why be performing a kind of moral conjuring? Are there not many people who are all things by turns and nothing long — men who are wanting in conviction and thorough persuasion of soul, incapable of enthusiasm, driven about by every wind of doctrine; men who have called at all the hovels of heresy, and have, never settled in the sanctuary of truth? We need not alter the terms; they are simple as our best-known mother tongue, and they will stand for the purposes of scrutiny all the while, not needing change or modification. Be something. Belong to somebody. Do not mistake roving at will for a safe dwelling at home. What was the result of this trimming and gadding about, this changing between Assyria and Egypt? "Yea, thou shalt go forth from him, and thine hands upon thine head," etc. (ver. 37). Observe the expression, "Thine hands upon thine head." It was the Oriental sign of dejection and despair. Seeing a man in that attitude, the meaning was: He has no more hope; his spirit is full of chagrin; he has been utterly disappointed, and his soul is dead within him; and his confidences are all battered down; the day of prosperity, even nominal and superficial, is gone forever. There are many confidences, and they look well. What can look better from the outside than golden wealth: the foundations silver, the gates made of precious stones, the front of the house gleaming white marble, the roof of the house one sheet of gold; and behind horses and chariots, and man servants and maid servants, and a retinue endless? What can look better as a confidence than health — rude health, rosy-cheeked health, bright-eyed health: the voice as sound as a bell, the arm as strong as iron, a strength that never knew what it was to be weary — real genuine health of blood and bone and sinew and skin; a man whom death dare not touch? Or the confidence of invention — that fertility of mind which always has a new shift, which can always see a back door out of every difficulty? Or pleasure — sunny, merry, dancing pleasure, with a tune for every hour of the day, and as happy in the night season as in the daytime; bells ringing the whole four-and-twenty hours round; and as for laughter and joke and all kinds of mirthfulness, why here they are? "The Lord hath rejected thy confidences." One bolt of lightning, and the whole gold house has gone down. One chill some damp night, and the health house is ruined from attic to basement. One touch by the invisible hand, and the brain that had in it a thousand inventions trembles, and cannot remember. One keen disappointment, and pleasure is struck dead; its face is an annoyance, its rattle is an insult, its invitations are blasphemies, in face of a woe so terrible. There is but one abiding confidence — "Rock of Ages, cleft for me." There is but one refuge from the storm — "Jesus, refuge of my soul," (J. Parker, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: O generation, see ye the word of the LORD. Have I been a wilderness unto Israel? a land of darkness? wherefore say my people, We are lords; we will come no more unto thee? |
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