The challenge is very bold and striking. It proves how thoroughly the prophet, as taught by the Spirit, had read the national corruption. At the same time it furnishes a gauge of the long, suffering mercy of God, and the influence for good of one true man. Jerusalem, the chief city, is chosen as representing what is best and most influential in the nation; and its streets and lanes as the haunts of the multitude, the merchants, the artisans, and common people, who would represent the general public morality. It is as if he had said, "In practical life, amid the miscellaneous throng, seek for the just and honorable man." What light this throws upon -
I. THE EXTENT OF CORRUPTION POSSIBLE IN HUMAN NATURE! The Jewish metropolis had been highly favored. The priesthood had its head-quarters there. The chief messages of the prophets had been delivered in its precincts. It was the center of influence, national spirit, and intelligence. Yet the effect of all this was morally and spiritually rotten. Worse even than Sodom and Gomorrah in actual spiritual condition, as certainly it would be far less tolerable for it than for them in the day of judgment. Ideally it was the city of the saints and of heavenly peace and order; actually its temple was a den of thieves, and its streets the scenes of universal dishonesty, godlessness, and corruption. As has been said of a certain metropolis of Christendom, it would appear to have been the case that "the more churches the less religion." Allowing it to be a rhetorical exaggeration, it was nevertheless a terrible statement to be able to make. But the great cities of the modern world have filled with a like despair the minds of the wisest thinkers. The measure of man's possible degeneration and depravity who can fix?
II. THE IMPORTANCE OF INDIVIDUAL INFLUENCE IN SPIRITUAL THINGS! The spectacle of Abraham praying for the cities of the plain is most impressive. But may it not be paralleled by the unconscious influence of good men? Even accepting the statement as a challenge, was it not a great thing to say that one man by his holiness could have saved the city? Suppose there had been such a man. One can imagine what would have been his sorrow at the universal evil, and his feeling of helplessness and uselessness amid the prevalent irreligion. Yet would his presence there be no light matter, no vain thing. Though he knew it not, he would have been the savior of the people - immediately from the judgment of God, possibly in the future from the sin that was destroying it. The value, therefore, of individual influence in spiritual matters is incalculable; and no Christian can say that he is of no use. Godward the prayer of the faithful may soar in constant intercession and mediation; manward his character and works are a constant testimony to the unbeliever.
III. THE INFINITENESS OF GOD'S LONG-SUFFERING LOVE. The presence of one good man in the wicked city would have been an appeal to God's justice that could not he despised. He could not "destroy the righteous with the wicked." But far more would it have been an appeal to his love. The hope of the future would have been wrapped up in that solitary saint. In him grace would find a secret sanctuary, and the forces of salvation a vantage-point from which to sally forth to the rescue of perishing souls and the work of national, yea, of world-wide, regeneration. The judgments of God are not inflicted arbitrarily or in haste. He has "no pleasure in the death of the wicked." Any reasonable excuse for merciful intervention or delay is welcome. Countless acts of mercy and forgiveness, countless opportunities for repentance, have occurred ere the uplifted axe has dealt its terrible stroke. Learn, then, from this that:
1. The life as the prayer of a righteous man availeth much with God.
2. That God will save us if we will only let him; and
3. He will begin his work of salvation from the least, and tarry it on even to the greatest.
IV. THE REASONABLENESS AND RIGHTEOUSNESS OF VICARIOUS SUFFERING THROUGH CHRIST. - M.
When ye shall say, Wherefore doeth the Lord our God these things unto us?
I. ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF GOD AS THAT SUPREME RULER OF ALL FROM WHOSE HAND AFFLICTIONS COME. It is one great secret of that peace which passeth all understanding to mark the hand of God in all the changes and sorrows of this ever-varying scene of things; the want of this it is which so frequently leaves the men of the world a prey to vexation and despair. Secondary causes are but the links in the chain of providence; follow them by the light of God's Word and the guidance of a simple faith, and you will find that chain depending from the very throne of God Himself, held in His own hand; every part of it adjusted as He sees it best to permit, according to the counsel of His own will.
II. A CONVICTION THAT WHEN GOD SENDS AFFLICTION HE HAS A REASON FOR WHAT HE DOES.
1. God often uses affliction for the purpose of correcting His children's faults, and bringing them to a sense of their guilt.
2. The promotion of our growth in grace is another reason of God's afflictive dispensations. Holy men are by trial weaned from a vain and evil world; are brought more and more to realise experimentally what religion is; and are enabled to enjoy in a peculiar manner the consolation of the Gospel of Christ.
III. A WISH TO KNOW WHAT THAT REASON IS. Not that we may be satisfied that God is just in what He does. But that understanding what the reason of His dispensation is, we may ask ourselves, have, then, those dispensations wrought in us the result designed? But how is he to ascertain it? I apprehend that we shall generally be guided to it when depending on the Holy Spirit for direction; we simply look at the nature of the trial, and the state of our own hearts.
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People
Jacob,
JeremiahPlaces
JerusalemTopics
FALSE, Falsehood, Falsely, Oaths, Surely, Swear, Swearing, Though, Truly, YetOutline
1. The judgments of God upon the people, for their perverseness;7. for their adultery;10. for their impiety;15. for their worship of idols;19. for their contempt of God;25. and for their great corruption in the civil state;30. and ecclesiastical.Dictionary of Bible Themes
Jeremiah 5:2 5440 perjury
8710 atheism
Jeremiah 5:1-2
8807 profanity
Library
A Question for the Beginning
'What will ye do in the end?'--JER. v. 31. I find that I preached to the young from this text just thirty years since--nearly a generation ago. How few of my then congregation are here to-night! how changed they and I are! and how much nearer the close we have drifted! How many of the young men and women of that evening have gone to meet the end, and how many of them have wrecked their lives because they would not face and answer this question! Ah, dear young friends, if I could bring some of the …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy ScriptureStorming the Battlements
Jerusalem had sinned against God; she had rebelled against the most High, had set up for herself false gods, and bowed before them; and when God threatened her with chastisement, she built around herself strong battlements and bastions. She said "I am safe and secure. What though Jehovah hath gone away, I will trust in the gods of nations. Though the Temple is cast down, yet we will rely upon these bulwarks and strong fortifications that we have erected." "Ah!" says God, "Jerusalem, I will punish …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 1: 1855
God's Barriers against Man's Sin
I am slowly rallying. My great struggle now is with weakness. I feel as if my frail bark had weathered a heavy storm which has made every timber creak. Do not attribute this illness to my having laboured too hard for my Master. For his dear sake, I would that I may yet be able to labour more. Such toils as might be hardly noticed in the ramp for the service of one's country, would excite astonishment in the church for the service of our God. And now, I entreat you for love's sake to continue in prayer …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 4: 1858
Tithing
"Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in Mine house, and prove Me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it" (Mal. 3:10). Down deep in the heart of every Christian there is undoubtedly the conviction that he ought to tithe. There is an uneasy feeling that this is a duty which has been neglected, or, if you prefer it, a privilege that has not been …
Arthur W. Pink—Tithing
How those who Fear Scourges and those who Contemn them are to be Admonished.
(Admonition 14.) Differently to be admonished are those who fear scourges, and on that account live innocently, and those who have grown so hard in wickedness as not to be corrected even by scourges. For those who fear scourges are to be told by no means to desire temporal goods as being of great account, seeing that bad men also have them, and by no means to shun present evils as intolerable, seeing they are not ignorant how for the most part good men also are touched by them. They are to be admonished …
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great
The Purpose in the Coming of Jesus.
God Spelling Himself out in Jesus: change in the original language--bother in spelling Jesus out--sticklers for the old forms--Jesus' new spelling of old words. Jesus is God following us up: God heart-broken--man's native air--bad choice affected man's will--the wrong lane--God following us up. The Early Eden Picture, Genesis 1:26-31. 2:7-25: unfallen man--like God--the breath of God in man--a spirit, infinite, eternal--love--holy--wise--sovereign over creation, Psalm 8:5-8--in his own will--summary--God's …
S. D. Gordon—Quiet Talks about Jesus
Purposes of God.
In discussing this subject I shall endeavor to show, I. What I understand by the purposes of God. Purposes, in this discussion, I shall use as synonymous with design, intention. The purposes of God must be ultimate and proximate. That is, God has and must have an ultimate end. He must purpose to accomplish something by his works and providence, which he regards as a good in itself, or as valuable to himself, and to being in general. This I call his ultimate end. That God has such an end or purpose, …
Charles Grandison Finney—Systematic Theology
"And Hereby we do Know that we Know Him, if we Keep his Commandments. "
1 John ii. 3.--"And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments." This age pretends to much knowledge beyond former ages, knowledge, I say, not only in other natural arts and sciences, but especially in religion. Whether there be any great advancement in other knowledge, and improvement of that which was, to a further extent and clearness, I cannot judge, but I believe there is not much of it in this nation, nor do we so much pretend to it. But, we talk of the enlargements of …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning
Covenanting According to the Purposes of God.
Since every revealed purpose of God, implying that obedience to his law will be given, is a demand of that obedience, the announcement of his Covenant, as in his sovereignty decreed, claims, not less effectively than an explicit law, the fulfilment of its duties. A representation of a system of things pre-determined in order that the obligations of the Covenant might be discharged; various exhibitions of the Covenant as ordained; and a description of the children of the Covenant as predestinated …
John Cunningham—The Ordinance of Covenanting
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
"If So be that the Spirit of God Dwell in You. Now if any Man have not the Spirit of Christ, He is None of His. "
Rom. viii. 9.--"If so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." "But will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth?" 2 Chron. vi. 18. It was the wonder of one of the wisest of men, and indeed, considering his infinite highness above the height of heavens, his immense and incomprehensible greatness, that the heaven of heavens cannot contain him, and then the baseness, emptiness, and worthlessness of man, it may be a wonder to the …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning
Covenanting Enforced by the Grant of Covenant Signs and Seals.
To declare emphatically that the people of God are a covenant people, various signs were in sovereignty vouchsafed. The lights in the firmament of heaven were appointed to be for signs, affording direction to the mariner, the husbandman, and others. Miracles wrought on memorable occasions, were constituted signs or tokens of God's universal government. The gracious grant of covenant signs was made in order to proclaim the truth of the existence of God's covenant with his people, to urge the performance …
John Cunningham—The Ordinance of Covenanting
The Acceptable Sacrifice;
OR, THE EXCELLENCY OF A BROKEN HEART: SHOWING THE NATURE, SIGNS, AND PROPER EFFECTS OF A CONTRITE SPIRIT. BEING THE LAST WORKS OF THAT EMINENT PREACHER AND FAITHFUL MINISTER OF JESUS CHRIST, MR. JOHN BUNYAN, OF BEDFORD. WITH A PREFACE PREFIXED THEREUNTO BY AN EMINENT MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL IN LONDON. London: Sold by George Larkin, at the Two Swans without Bishopgates, 1692. ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. The very excellent preface to this treatise, written by George Cokayn, will inform the reader of …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3
Of the Nature of Regeneration, and Particularly of the Change it Produces in Men's Apprehensions.
2 COR. v. 17. 2 COR. v. 17. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away, behold all things are become new. THE knowledge of our true state in religion, is at once a matter of so great importance, and so great difficulty that, in order to obtain it, it is necessary we should have line upon line and precept upon precept. The plain discourse, which you before heard, was intended to lead you into it; and I question not but I then said enough to convince many, that they were …
Philip Doddridge—Practical Discourses on Regeneration
Jeremiah
The interest of the book of Jeremiah is unique. On the one hand, it is our most reliable and elaborate source for the long period of history which it covers; on the other, it presents us with prophecy in its most intensely human phase, manifesting itself through a strangely attractive personality that was subject to like doubts and passions with ourselves. At his call, in 626 B.C., he was young and inexperienced, i. 6, so that he cannot have been born earlier than 650. The political and religious …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament
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