I. THAT GODLY PARENTS SHOULD HAVE UNGODLY CHILDREN. We are accustomed to assent to the possibility and frequency of this as an unquestionable truth. But is it so? We would ask two questions with a view to a better understanding of the matter. 1. Is it meant that godly parents who have been both able and anxious to train their children for God may yet have ungodly children? (1) Some godly parents are not thus able. Probably Josiah was not. The might of evil, the fearful sweep and rush of its tide, was probably in those days, and in that court and city, too great for even the godly king to withstand, and it bore away his son before his eyes. For a prince in that age to be godly was almost a miracle. And that which we have suggested as perhaps and probably accounting for the ungodliness of Josiah's son may explain some similar cases now. (2) But more are not really anxious about it. If parents were as anxious about the godliness of their children as they are about their health, education, and start in life, and took as much pains to secure it, such cases as we are considering would be more rare than they are. (3) The children of believers ought not to need conversion. They should grow up in the kingdom of God in which their baptism declared them to be already members. But there is a deadly doctrine all too influential in thousands of Christian homes, that children must go into the far country first, and there live more or less prodigal-like, and then afterwards come to themselves, be converted, and return. And of course what is expected of such children happens, as far as the going away is concerned: not always the return. But why should they ever go into that far country? The elder son though, like Jonah and many a devout Jew (cf. Paul's "I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God," etc.), he was perplexed at the Father's gracious way of dealing with repentant sinners, was the elder Son still who had been ever obedient, and to whom the father said, "Son, thou art over with me, and all that I have is thine;" as much as to say, "Why do you complain of my treatment of your poor wretched brother? Yours is far the better lot; you are so much the happier that you assuredly ought not to complain." So did the lather "entreat him," and, no doubt, successfully. But from most mournful forgetfulness of the fact that there is no need that our children should go away, and that they ought not to go away, many parents let them go, or at least acquiesce in their going as something that is inevitable. Hence, as it is of no use to be anxious and guard against the inevitable, they take no such pains about their children's godliness as they do about those other more temporal matters which concern their welfare, and which they know do very largely depend upon the endeavors they, their parents, put forth. They cannot avoid desiring their children's highest good, and in family prayers and private ones it is remembered before God. But the energies of the will are never roused up to seek it as other and lesser things are sought. Would to God they were! Now, we say that if you have a case of real ungodliness in the children of the godly, it is to be accounted for by the fact that either the parents were not able or else not really anxious to train them for God. More often the latter is the sad truth. 2. But we ask, also - What is meant by ungodly? Do you mean those who for a while go astray, but afterwards come back? Of course, if the sin be like Manasseh's, very flagrant and long-continued, then, even though there may be the after coming back, as there was in his case, it must be allowed that such are ungodly. But that stern word should generally be reserved for a life wholly without God, and not be cast carelessly on those who, like so many of God's saints have done, may fall yet rise again; still less on children because of their natural thoughtlessness and incapacity of thinking seriously for a long time about anything. God forbid they should I But if the word "ungodly" Be confined, as it should be, to those whose lives are wholly or for the most part without God, then we affirm that such children do not spring from parents both able and really anxious to train them for God. To affirm that they are would be to contradict: (1) God's word; e.g. "Train up a child... and when he is old he shall not depart from it;" "Ask, and ye shall receive;" and the many promises to answer prayer. Now, we know that the godliness of our children must be in accordance with the Divine will, therefore all these promises must be set aside if, etc. And St. Paul bids parents train their children "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord;" and he never hints that such training may after all be thrown away. What was the constant baptism of households but an indication of the apostolic and primitive belief that, as a matter of course, in the faith of the father the children would share? The promise was to them and their children. (2) Analogies. If there be real pains to train children in a given manner educationally, socially, morally - as there is on the part of parents - success is gained nearly always. And so it would be in things spiritual. There is no slight done to the truth of the Holy Spirit's agency in this great matter, but all that is urged is that we obey the laws of the Spirit. (3) Facts. No instance can be shown where there has been real solicitude and opportunity on the part of the parents that their children should be godly, of such children having been permanently ungodly. There has not been permanent failure, though there may have been temporary. It would be horrible to believe that God had drawn forth the earnest yearning of the parent's heart for the salvation of their children - a yearning attested by all loving and consistent endeavor in the way of example, education, influence, direct and indirect - and yet, after all, such desire to be miserably and forever disappointed. We will not believe it. And, on the other hand, there are innumerable instances which show that it is the rule that godly parents should have godly children. Nearly all the godly today are the children of the godly. Instead of the fathers have risen up the children. Such is God's blessed order, and we should be slow to believe that he ever sets it aside. It is well for every father and mother to take it to heart that if their children turn out ungodly the fault is, in all probability, theirs. But now note the opposite case - II. THAT UNGODLY PARENTS SHOULD HAVE GODLY CHILDREN. We have referred above to such cases. And they frequently occur. The chaff nourishes the wheat in its bosom. The ungodly home nurtures godly children. How is this? 1. Sometimes it is because ungodly parents are more careful than even others about the companionships of their children. They try to gain a good for their children which they know they have not for themselves. Many a bad parent wishes his child to be good. 2. Sometimes the children, seeing how wretched sin makes their home, are led to seek "a more excellent way' for themselves. The ways of godliness seem like paradise to the victim of the ungodliness of many a home. How Sunday school children - many of them from terrible homes - love their school! 3. God willing to show them that there is nothing too hard for the Lord. Can a man bring forth a clean thing out of an unclean? Certainly not. But God can, and in these instances does. And the reasons for such gracious action may be: (1) Pity for the children. (2) Instruction to his Church. They are to despair of none. (3) The glory of his Name. Hence he snatches these, trophies as it were, from the very gates of hell; plucks them as brands from the burning. 4. Conclusion. Let us give God thanks that he does this. That Amens have Josiahs for children; Ahaz, Hezekiah; Henry VIII., Edward VI. That from such a court as that of the previous reigns our own beloved queen should have come. God be praised for this and every such instance! - C.
With the burial of an ass. Jehoiakim was king, and yet not one word of thanks do we find, nor one word of love, nor one word of regret expressed concerning his fate. We should learn from this how possible it is to pass through the world without leaving behind us one sacred or loving memory. He that seeketh his life shall lose it. A man that sacrifices daily to his own ambition, and never sets before himself a higher ideal than his own gratification, may appear to have much whilst he actually has nothing, may even appear to be winning great victories, when he is really undergoing disastrous defeats. What is a grand house if there be not in it a loving heart? What are walls but for the pictures that adorn them? What is life but for the trust which knits it into sympathetic unity? What is the night but for the stars that glitter in its darkness? There is an awful process of retrogression continually operating in life. Experienced men will tell us that the issue of life is one of two things: either advancement, or deterioration; continual improvement, or continual depreciation: we cannot remain just where we are, adding nothing, subtracting nothing, but realising a permanence of estate and faculty. The powers we do not use will fall into desuetude, and the abilities which might have made life easy may be so neglected as to become burdens too heavy to be carried. It lies within a man's power so to live that he may be buried with the burial of an ass: no mourners may surround his grave; no beneficiaries may recall his charities; no hidden hearts may conceal the tender story of his sympathy and helpfulness. A bitter sarcasm this, that a man should be buried like an ass!(J. Parker, D. D.) I. There is the romance of FRAUD. The heroes of this country are fast getting to be those who have most skill in swallowing "trust funds," banks, stocks, and moneyed institutions. I thank God when fortunes thus gathered go to smash. They are plague struck, and blast a nation. I like to have them made loathsome and an insufferable stench, so that honest young men may take warning. II. Next, I speak of the romance of LIBERTINISM. Society has severest retribution for the impurity that lurks about the cellars and alleys of the city. It cries out against it. It hurls the indignation of the law at it. But society becomes more lenient as impurity rises towards affluence and high social position, until, finally, it is silent, or disposed to palliate. Where is the judge, or the sheriff, or the police, who dare arraign for indecency the wealthy villain? Would God that the romance which flings its fascinations over the bestialities of high life might be gone! Whether it has canopied couch of eiderdown, or sleep amid the putridity of the low tenement house, four families in a room, God's consuming vengeance is after it. III. Next,. I speak of. the romance of ASSASSINATION. God gives life, and He only has a right to take it away; and that man who assumes this Divine prerogative has touched the last depth of crime. Society is alert for certain forms of murder. For garroting, or the beating out of life with a club, or axe, or slung shot, the law has a quick spring and a heavy stroke. But let a man come to wealth or social pretension, and then attempt to avenge his wrongs by aiming a pistol at the header heart of another, and immediately there are sympathies aroused. If capital punishment be right, then let the life of the polished murderer go with the life of the ignorant and vulgar assassin. Let there be no partiality of hemp, no aristocracy of the gallows. (T. De Witt Talmage.) (T. Thain Davidson, D. D.) Our Richard II, for his exactions to maintain a great court and favourites, lost his kingdom, was starved to death at Pomfret Castle, and scarce afforded common burial. King Stephen was interred in Faversham monastery; but afterwards his body, for the gain of the lead wherein it was coffined, was cast into the river.(John Trapp.) People Babylonians, Coniah, David, Jehoiachin, Jehoiakim, Jeremiah, Josiah, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadrezzar, ShallumPlaces Abarim, Babylon, Bashan, Gilead, Jerusalem, LebanonTopics Abarim, Ab'arim, Allies, Bashan, Crushed, Cry, Crying, Destroyed, Destruction, Forth, Heights, Lebanon, Lift, Loud, Lovers, Loving, Passages, VoiceOutline 1. He exhorts to repentance, with promises and threats.10. The judgment of Shallum; 13. of Jehoiakim; 20. and of Coniah. Dictionary of Bible Themes Jeremiah 22:20-21Library The Life of Mr. James Mitchel. Mr. James Mitchel[152] was educated at the university of Edinburgh, and was, with some other of his fellow-students, made master of arts anno 1656. Mr. Robert Leighton (afterwards bishop Leighton), being then principal of that college, before the degree was conferred upon them, tendered to them the national and solemn league and covenant; which covenants, upon mature deliberation, he took, finding nothing in them but a short compend of the moral law, binding to our duty towards God and towards … John Howie—Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) Columban. "Hear the Word of the Lord, Ye Rulers of Sodom, Give Ear unto the Law of Our God, Ye People of Gomorrah," "If we Say that we have Fellowship with Him, and Walk in Darkness, we Lie," Joy The Two Classes. A Discourse of the House and Forest of Lebanon "To what Purpose is the Multitude of Your Sacrifices unto Me? Saith the Lord," Jewish Homes Jeremiah Links Jeremiah 22:20 NIVJeremiah 22:20 NLT Jeremiah 22:20 ESV Jeremiah 22:20 NASB Jeremiah 22:20 KJV Jeremiah 22:20 Bible Apps Jeremiah 22:20 Parallel Jeremiah 22:20 Biblia Paralela Jeremiah 22:20 Chinese Bible Jeremiah 22:20 French Bible Jeremiah 22:20 German Bible Jeremiah 22:20 Commentaries Bible Hub |