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I. THERE ARE SOME MEN WHOM THE GOSPEL DOES NOT BLESS.

1. It stagnates in them: they hear in vain; learn, but do not practise; feel, but do not decide; resolve, but do not perform.

2. It mingles with their corruptions, as clear water with the mire of the marshes.

3. It becomes food for their sins, even as rank, sour grass is produced by the stagnant waters of "miry places."

4. It makes them worse and worse. The more rain, the more mire.

II. SOME OF THESE WE HAVE KNOWN.

1. The talkative man, who lives in sin, flooded with knowledge, but destitute of love.

2. Those critics who note only the faults of Christians, and are quick to dwell on them; but are false themselves.

3. Those who receive orthodox truth, and yet love the world.

4. Those who feel impressed and moved, but never obey the Word.

5. Those who are mere officials, and attend to religion in a mechanical manner.

III. SUCH PERSONS ARE IN A TERRIBLE PLIGHT.

1. Because they are not aware of it: they think it is well with them.

2. Because the ordinary means of blessing men have failed in their case.

3. In some instances the very best means have failed. A special river of gracious opportunity has flowed down to them, but its streams have visited them in vain.

4. No known means now remain.

5. Their ruin appears certain.

6. Their ruin is as terrible as it is sure.

IV. FROM THESE WE MAY LEARN —

1. A lesson of warning, lest we ourselves be visibly visited by grace streams, and yet never profit thereby.

2. A lesson of arousing, lest we rest in ordinances.

3. A lesson of gratitude, if we are indeed healed by the life river, let us bless the effectual grace of God.

4. A lesson of quickening to ministers and other workers, that they may look well to the results of their labour, and not be making marshes where they wish to create fields rich with harvest.

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

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KJV: But the miry places thereof and the marishes thereof shall not be healed; they shall be given to salt.

WEB: But the miry places of it, and its marshes, shall not be healed; they shall be given up to salt.