Jeremiah 4:20 Destruction on destruction is cried; for the whole land is spoiled: suddenly are my tents spoiled, and my curtains in a moment. This is a mystery, and yet nothing is more palpable and provable. How easily we learn to go down to hell! What a toil it is in all life to climb, until we get into the meaning of it, and become real mountaineers; then we say, Let us go upward, for we feed upon the very wind, we grow strong by the very exercise; we pant to stand upon the highest pinnacles of nature. But how easy it is not to obey! how easy not to go to church! How delightfully easy to throw off the yoke and to terminate the discipline of life! Employers of labour know this; labourers themselves are well acquainted with it; all schoolmasters and trainers of the young would assent to the proposition instantly and without reserve, and every living man would say, That is true. If that is true, the whole point is yielded. Why should it be true? The direct contrary ought to be the case: it ought to be hard to be crooked and rough and foolish and vain and worldly. It ought to be almost impossible for a man made in the image and likeness of God to drink himself to death, to rob his neighbour, to play the fool, to sleep with the devil. Given creation at the beginning, and it never could occur to the finite intellect as a possibility that man should think one ignoble thought, utter one untrue word, commit himself to one dishonourable policy; the exclamation would be, It is impossible! But we have done it I We have broken all the ten commandments one by one; we have shattered them in their totality; we have run away from God. We have done miracles which have astounded the heavens. (J. Parker, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Destruction upon destruction is cried; for the whole land is spoiled: suddenly are my tents spoiled, and my curtains in a moment. |
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