How unstable you are, constantly changing your ways! You will be disappointed by Egypt just as you were by Assyria. Sermons
Why gaddest thou about so much to change thy way? etc. I. THIS IS A COMMON COURSE OF CONDUCT IN SINFUL MEN. II. THE REASONS FOR ADOPTING IT ARE OF VARIOUS KINDS. 1. Hope of larger gain. 2. Prospects of increased pleasure. 3. Disappointment with the way that has hitherto been tried. 4. Conscience will not be quiet in continuing the present way, etc. III. BUT IT IS ALL OF NO AVAIL. The same wretched result is reached whichever way is taken (vers. 36, 37). IV. GOD IN ALL THIS IS SAYING, "LET THE WICKED FORSAKE HIS WAY, AND THE UNRIGHTEOUS," ETC. (Isaiah 55.). - C. Why gaddest thou about so much to change thy way? I. THE IMPORTANCE OF HAVING AN OBJECT IN LIFE. There is a vast difference between the state of a man when running a race, and when sauntering about to kill time. There is an equal difference between the men who pass through this city on business, and those who come to the metropolis merely to see sights. Plant yourself upon London Bridge, the city side, about nine o'clock in the morning, and look into the faces of the men who are crossing that bridge. Go into the National Gallery, or into the British Museum, any day when these places are thronged, and look into the faces of the persons who are there. A very different state of thought and feeling you will find revealed by those faces. Now in this difference we see the importance of a well-defined and all-commanding object. An object in life sufficient for a man, brings him out, educates him. The prize calls out the school boy who contends for it; the honours of the university elicit the mind, and the scholarship of the man who wrangles for them — and any object has a similar effect, the pursuit of which fully calls out a man's powers. This is education. Instruction is not education. Education, as the very word implies, is the calling forth of what is within a man; and the objects and subjects of pursuit do more in our education than the mere reading and study of books. Desiring a particular end, and determining to obtain it, the man asks, What have I that I can use in order to reach this end? An object calls out a man. And an object keeps the man out. It calls him out, and maintains the manifestation and the development. He is not like the snail, but is like the bee, or as the ant. His powers are never withdrawn — in all working time they are outstretched. Neither is there incessant and useless change in his operations. He who gads about to change his way, having no fixed and definite object, but changing his object almost with the change from month to month, and from season to season, never lays hold of anything that is worth securing. But a man with a good object, with a commanding object, and a sufficient object, cannot afford to be unstable. Now, if a man's powers he called out, and kept out amid obstacles and conflicting circumstances, the education of the man is yet further advanced. He is opposed, say, in the pursuit of his object. Well, this opposition keeps the earnestness and the seriousness alive within him. It is a great advantage to be opposed in the pursuit of our object. If men will only take opposition with good temper, and be quiet, and of a meek and patient spirit, they will always be the better for it. Annoyances arise — he feels that if he yields to them he shall be unfitted for his pursuit. What does he? He keeps down his susceptibilities to fretfulness, and he learns quietness of heart. How soon the man learns this, who is in constant intercourse with the Saviour about all the objects of his pursuit, and who tells Him everything that dwells on his mind about everybody, and about every circumstance! He can see the invisible; he can assure his heart of what his hand does not now grasp — and thus he is educated by his object. II. WHILE IT IS IMPORTANT THAT EVERY MAN SHOULD HAVE SOME OBJECT, IT IS MORE IMPORTANT THAT THE OBJECT OF PURSUIT TO EVERY MAN SHOULD BE GOOD. Say that a man sets out with fame as his end. He means to be known; he means to get into every newspaper. Such a one does everything to be seen and to be spoken of. That which will not tell upon his reputation he will not do. He wishes the trumpet to call attention to everything which he executes; he wishes to be called the best scholar, or the noblest patriot, or the richest merchant, or the most devoted philanthropist of his day. He wishes to be called first; and he pursues that end. Now, such an end will make a man proud and vain. In all matters of morality and religion such a man will be most unsteady. Consider wealth a man's object. He plans and labours to get money — to get it for spending or for hoarding; and money is the man's goal. This will make him narrow-minded, and selfish in heart. Men will rise and fall in his estimation according to their possessions, and objects will be pursued as they secure to him money. Perhaps this was the goal of Judas; and see what effect it produced upon him. He lost his soul in running to it. Consider power a man's end. He lives and toils to subdue others to himself. This makes a man ungenerous, cruel, unjust, and often impious. Admit pleasure to be a man's object. This destroys the proportions of the human constitution, and throws out of their right and proper place the several parts of our human nature. Now, put in contrast with fame, money, power, as the chief end of man, the good of others. Say that men are living to effect some object in connection with the well-being of their fellows; then you have such a character as that of John Howard, Wilberforce, Elizabeth Fry, Buxton. Howard's object, as you know, was the release and the relief of the prisoner; and while John Howard's disposition led to the choice of this pursuit, that disposition to do good grew marvellously under the training influence of his object. Wilberforce was naturally sympathetic, but his efforts for the slave marvellously enlarged his heart. Buxton would have been a noble man anywhere, but his pursuit of the extinction of slavery made him grow like the palm tree, and flourish like the cedar in Lebanon. Many a female culprit would confess their obligations to Mrs. Fry; but Newgate was a school of grace to the prisoners' friend and teacher: and if she could hear us talking of her now, she would say to us, "Speak not of anything I did, but rather tell what all this did for me. It was far more blessed for me to communicate, and to give, and to strive in that prison to do good, than it ever was simply to receive." () The illustration by which this prophet of tears deplores the vacillation of the nation to whom he wrote, is a homely one. Now they wanted alliance with Egypt, and now with Assyria, and now with Babylon, and now they did not know what they wanted, and the behaviour of the nation reminded the prophet of a man or woman who, not satisfied with borne life, goes from place to place gadding about, as we say, never settled anywhere or in anything, and he cries out to them: "Why gaddest thou about so much to change thy way?" Well, the world has now as many gadabouts as it had in Bible times. Gadabouts among occupations, among religious theories, among churches, among neighbour. hoods, and one of the greatest wants of the Church and the world is more steadfastness and more fixedness of purpose. It was no small question that Pharaoh put to Jacob and his sons when he asked, "What is your occupation?" Getting into the right occupation not only decides your temporal welfare, but may decide your eternal destiny. Last summer a man of great genius died. He had the talents of twenty men in surgical directions, but he did not like surgery, and he wanted to be a preacher. He could not preach. I told him so. He tried it on both sides of the sea, but he failed, because he turned his back on that magnificent profession of surgery, which has in our time made such wonderful achievement that it now heals a broken neck, and by the X-ray explores the temple of the human body, as if it were a lighted room. For forty years he was gadding about among the professions. Do not imitate him. Ask God what you ought to be, and He will tell you. It may not be as elegant a style of work as you would prefer. It may be callous and begrime your hands, and put you in suffocating atmosphere, and stand you shoulder to shoulder with the unrefined, but remember that if God calls you to do one thing you will never be happy in doing something else. All the great successes have been gained through opposition and struggle. "Hard pounding," said Wellington at Waterloo, — "hard pounding, gentlemen; but we will see who can pound the longest." Yes, my friends, that is the secret, not flight from obstacles in the way, but "who can pound the longest." The gadabouts are failures for this life, to say nothing of the next. There are many who exhibit this frailty in matters of religion. They are not sure about anything that pertains to their soul or their eternal destiny. Now they are Unitarians, and now they are Universalists, and now they are Methodists, and now they are Presbyterians, and now they are nothing at all. They are not quite sure that the Bible was inspired, or, if inspired, whether the words or the ideas were inspired, or whether only part of the book was inspired. Gadding about among religious theories, and never satisfied. All the evidence is put before them, and why do they not render a verdict? If they cannot make up their mind with all the data put before them they never will. If it is a good book, your eternal happiness depends upon the adoption of its teachings. Once and forever make up your mind whether it is the book of God or the book of villainous pretenders. So, also, many are unfixed in regard to their spiritual condition, and day after day, and year after year go gadding about among hopes and fears and anxieties. Why do you not find out whether you are His or not? There are all the broad invitations of the Gospel. Accept them. There are all the assurances. Apply them. This moment you have all the information pointing to the road that terminates at the gate of the Golden City, and the voyage that anchors in the haven of eternal rest. Why go on guessing when you have all the facts before you? My text also addresses those who in search of happiness are going hither and yonder looking for that which they find not. Let all the gadabouts for happiness know that in kindness and usefulness and self-abnegation are to be found a satisfaction which all the gaieties of the world aggregated cannot afford. Among the race of gadabouts are those who neglect their homes in order that they may attend to institutions that are really excellent, and do not so much ask for help as demand it. One bad habit these gadabouts, masculine or feminine, are sure to get, and that is of scandal distribution. Such gadabouts have little prospect of heaven. If they got there they would try to create jealousy among the different ranks of celestials. Therefore let us resolve that we will concentrate upon what is right thought and right behaviour, and waste no time in vacillations and indecisions and uncertainties, running about in places where we have no business to be. Life is so short, we have no time to play with it the spendthrift. () People Gad, Jacob, Jeremiah, Kedar, Kittim, KittitesPlaces Assyria, Cyprus, Egypt, Euphrates River, Jerusalem, Kedar, Memphis, Nile River, TahpanhesTopics Account, Ashamed, Asshur, Assyria, Change, Changing, Cheapen, Disappointed, Egypt, Gad, Gaddest, Greatly, Hast, Lightly, Purpose, Repeat, Shame, Shamed, Thyself, Vile, WastOutline 1. God having shown his former kindness,
5. expostulates with the people on their causeless and unexampled revolt
14. They are the causes of their own calamities
18. The sins and idolatries of Judah
35. Her confidence is rejected.
Dictionary of Bible Themes Jeremiah 2:36 5835 disappointment Library Stiff-Necked Idolaters and Pliable Christians
'Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but My people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit.'--JER. ii. 11. The obstinacy of the adherents of idolatry is in striking contrast with Israel's continual tendency to forsake Jehovah. It reads a scarcely less forcible lesson to many nominal and even to some real Christians. I. That contrast carries with it a disclosure of the respective origins of the two kinds of Religion. The strangeness of the contrasted conduct is …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy ScriptureForsaking Jehovah
'Know therefore, and see, that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God, and that My fear is not in thee, saith the Lord God of hosts.'--JER. ii. 19. Of course the original reference is to national apostasy, which was aggravated by the national covenant, and avenged by national disasters, which are interpreted and urged by the prophet as God's merciful pleading with men. But the text is true in reference to individuals. I. The universal indictment. This is not so …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture Balak's Inquiries Relative to the Service of God, and Balaam's Answer, Briefly Considered.
"Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with, thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my first born for my transgression; the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?--He hath shewed thee, 0 man, what is good: And what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" As mankind are …
Andrew Lee et al—Sermons on Various Important Subjects "He is the Rock, his Work is Perfect, for all his Ways are Judgment, a God of Truth, and Without Iniquity, Just and Right is He.
Deut. xxxii. 4, 5.--"He is the Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are judgment, a God of truth, and without iniquity, just and right is he. They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of his children," &c. There are none can behold their own vileness as it is, but in the sight of God's glorious holiness. Sin is darkness, and neither sees itself, nor any thing else, therefore must his light shine to discover this darkness. If we abide within ourselves, and men like ourselves, …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning That it is not Lawful for the Well Affected Subjects to Concur in Such an Engagement in War, and Associate with the Malignant Party.
That It Is Not Lawful For The Well Affected Subjects To Concur In Such An Engagement In War, And Associate With The Malignant Party. Some convinced of the unlawfulness of the public resolutions and proceedings, in reference to the employing of the malignant party, yet do not find such clearness and satisfaction in their own consciences as to forbid the subjects to concur in this war, and associate with the army so constituted. Therefore it is needful to speak something to this point, That it is …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning A Book for Boys and Girls Or, Temporal Things Spritualized.
by John Bunyan, Licensed and entered according to order. London: Printed for, and sold by, R. Tookey, at his Printing House in St. Christopher's Court, in Threadneedle Street, behind the Royal Exchange, 1701. Advertisement by the Editor. Some degree of mystery hangs over these Divine Emblems for children, and many years' diligent researches have not enabled me completely to solve it. That they were written by Bunyan, there cannot be the slightest doubt. 'Manner and matter, too, are all his own.'[1] …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3 'The God of the Amen'
'He who blesseth himself in the earth shall bless himself in the God of truth; and he that sweareth in the earth shall swear by the God of truth.'--ISAIAH lxv. 16. The full beauty and significance of these remarkable words are only reached when we attend to the literal rendering of a part of them which is obscured in our version. As they stand in the original they have, in both cases, instead of the vague expression, 'The God of truth,' the singularly picturesque one, 'The God of the Amen.' I. Note …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture The Harbinger
The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD , make straight in the desert a high-way for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain. And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it. T he general style of the prophecies is poetical. The inimitable simplicity which characterizes every …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 1 "All Our Righteousnesses are as Filthy Rags, and we all do Fade as a Leaf, and Our Iniquities, Like the Wind, have Taken us Away. "
Isaiah lxiv. 6, 7.--"All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and we all do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away." Not only are the direct breaches of the command uncleanness, and men originally and actually unclean, but even our holy actions, our commanded duties. Take a man's civility, religion, and all his universal inherent righteousness,--all are filthy rags. And here the church confesseth nothing but what God accuseth her of, Isa. lxvi. 8, and chap. i. ver. …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning How Christ is the Way in General, "I am the Way. "
We come now to speak more particularly to the words; and, first, Of his being a way. Our design being to point at the way of use-making of Christ in all our necessities, straits, and difficulties which are in our way to heaven; and particularly to point out the way how believers should make use of Christ in all their particular exigencies; and so live by faith in him, walk in him, grow up in him, advance and march forward toward glory in him. It will not be amiss to speak of this fulness of Christ …
John Brown (of Wamphray)—Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life All Mankind Guilty; Or, Every Man Knows More than He Practises.
ROMANS i. 24.--"When they knew God, they glorified him not as God." The idea of God is the most important and comprehensive of all the ideas of which the human mind is possessed. It is the foundation of religion; of all right doctrine, and all right conduct. A correct intuition of it leads to correct religious theories and practice; while any erroneous or defective view of the Supreme Being will pervade the whole province of religion, and exert a most pernicious influence upon the entire character …
William G.T. Shedd—Sermons to the Natural Man A Short and Easy Method of Prayer
CHAPTER I The Universal Call to Prayer What a dreadful delusion hath prevailed over the greater part of mankind, in supposing that they are not called to a state of prayer! whereas all are capable of prayer, and are called thereto, as all are called to and are capable of salvation. Prayer is the application of the heart to God, and the internal exercise of love. S. Paul hath enjoined us to "pray without ceasing" (1 Thess. v 17), and our Lord saith, "I say unto you all, watch and pray" (Mark xiii. …
Madame Guyon—A Short and Easy Method of Prayer All are Commanded to Pray --Prayer the Great Means of Salvation
CHAPTER I. ALL ARE COMMANDED TO PRAY--PRAYER THE GREAT MEANS OF SALVATION, AND POSSIBLE AT ALL TIMES BY THE MOST SIMPLE. Prayer is nothing else but the application of the heart to God, and the interior exercise of love. St Paul commands us to "pray without ceasing" (1 Thess. v. 17). Our Lord says: "Take ye heed, watch and pray." "And what I say unto you, I say unto all" (Mark xiii. 33, 37). All, then, are capable of prayer, and it is the duty of all to engage in it. But I do not think that all are …
Jeanne Marie Bouvières—A Short Method Of Prayer And Spiritual Torrents What are Consequences of Backsliding in Heart.
The text says, that "the backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways." 1. He shall be filled with his own works. But these are dead works, they are not works of faith and love, which are acceptable to God, but are the filthy rags of his own righteousness. If they are performed as religious services, they are but loathsome hypocrisy, and an abomination to God; there is no heart in them. To such a person God says: "Who hath required this at your hand?" (Isaiah 1:12). "Ye are they which justify …
Charles G. Finney—The Backslider in Heart Backsliding.
"I will heal their backsliding; I will love them freely: for Mine anger is turned away."--Hosea xiv. 4. There are two kinds of backsliders. Some have never been converted: they have gone through the form of joining a Christian community and claim to be backsliders; but they never have, if I may use the expression, "slid forward." They may talk of backsliding; but they have never really been born again. They need to be treated differently from real back-sliders--those who have been born of the incorruptible …
Dwight L. Moody—The Way to God and How to Find It The Medes and the Second Chaldaean Empire
THE FALL OF NINEVEH AND THE RISE OF THE CHALDAEAN AND MEDIAN EMPIRES--THE XXVIth EGYPTIAN DYNASTY: CYAXARES, ALYATTES, AND NEBUCHADREZZAR. The legendary history of the kings of Media and the first contact of the Medes with the Assyrians: the alleged Iranian migrations of the Avesta--Media-proper, its fauna and flora; Phraortes and the beginning of the Median empire--Persia proper and the Persians; conquest of Persia by the Medes--The last monuments of Assur-bani-pal: the library of Kouyunjik--Phraortes …
G. Maspero—History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, V 8 That the Unskilful Venture not to Approach an Office of Authority.
No one presumes to teach an art till he has first, with intent meditation, learnt it. What rashness is it, then, for the unskilful to assume pastoral authority, since the government of souls is the art of arts! For who can be ignorant that the sores of the thoughts of men are more occult than the sores of the bowels? And yet how often do men who have no knowledge whatever of spiritual precepts fearlessly profess themselves physicians of the heart, though those who are ignorant of the effect of …
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great "So Then they that are in the Flesh Cannot Please God. "
Rom. viii. 8.--"So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God." It is a kind of happiness to men, to please them upon whom they depend, and upon whose favour their well-being hangs. It is the servant's happiness to please his master, the courtier's to please his prince; and so generally, whosoever they be that are joined in mutual relations, and depend one upon another; that which makes all pleasant, is this, to please one another. Now, certainly, all the dependencies of creatures one upon …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning The Section Chap. I. -iii.
The question which here above all engages our attention, and requires to be answered, is this: Whether that which is reported in these chapters did, or did not, actually and outwardly take place. The history of the inquiries connected with this question is found most fully in Marckius's "Diatribe de uxore fornicationum," Leyden, 1696, reprinted in the Commentary on the Minor Prophets by the same author. The various views may be divided into three classes. 1. It is maintained by very many interpreters, …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners Or, a Brief Relation of the Exceeding Mercy of God in Christ, to his Poor Servant, John Bunyan
In this my relation of the merciful working of God upon my soul, it will not be amiss, if in the first place, I do in a few words give you a hint of my pedigree, and manner of bringing up; that thereby the goodness and bounty of God towards me, may be the more advanced and magnified before the sons of men. 2. For my descent then, it was, as is well known by many, of a low and inconsiderable generation; my father's house being of that rank that is meanest, and most despised of all the families in …
John Bunyan—Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners "He is the Rock, his Work is Perfect. For all his Ways are Judgment. A God of Truth, and Without Iniquity, Just and Right is He.
Deut. xxxii. 4, 5.--"He is the rock, his work is perfect. For all his ways are judgment. A God of truth, and without iniquity, just and right is he. They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of his children. They are a perverse and crooked generation." "All his ways are judgment," both the ways of his commandments and the ways of his providence, both his word which he hath given as a lantern to men's paths, and his works among men. And this were the blessedness of men, to be found …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning 1 to Pray Does not Imply that Without Prayer God Would not Give us Anything...
1. To pray does not imply that without prayer God would not give us anything or that He would be unaware of our needs, but it has this great advantage, that in the attitude of prayer the soul is best fitted to receive the Giver of blessing as well as those blessings He desires to bestow. Thus it was that the fullness of the Spirit was not poured out upon the Apostles on the first day, but after ten days of special preparation. If a blessing were conferred upon one without a special readiness for …
Sadhu Sundar Singh—At The Master's Feet John Bunyan on the Terms of Communion and Fellowship of Christians at the Table of the Lord;
COMPRISING I. HIS CONFESSION OF FAITH, AND REASON OF HIS PRACTICE; II. DIFFERENCES ABOUT WATER BAPTISM NO BAR TO COMMUNION; AND III. PEACEABLE PRINCIPLES AND TRUE[1] ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. Reader, these are extraordinary productions that will well repay an attentive perusal. It is the confession of faith of a Christian who had suffered nearly twelve years' imprisonment, under persecution for conscience sake. Shut up with his Bible, you have here the result of a prayerful study of those holy …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3 The River of Egypt, Rhinocorura. The Lake of Sirbon.
Pliny writes, "From Pelusium are the intrenchments of Chabrias: mount Casius: the temple of Jupiter Casius: the tomb of Pompey the Great: Ostracine: Arabia is bounded sixty-five miles from Pelusium: soon after begins Idumea and Palestine from the rising up of the Sirbon lake." Either my eyes deceive me, while I read these things,--or mount Casius lies nearer Pelusium, than the lake of Sirbon. The maps have ill placed the Sirbon between mount Casius and Pelusium. Sirbon implies burning; the name of …
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica Links Jeremiah 2:36 NIV
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