Jeremiah 22:29 O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the LORD. I. The Gospel call may well be pressed with threefold emphasis, when we consider THE LIMITATION IT IMPLIES AS RESPECTS THE PARTIES ADDRESSED: it is addressed to men and not to angels — it is addressed to "earth" as contradistinguished from hell. Between these two worlds, behold the Bible, like the cloud between Israel and Egypt, with a side of brightness for the former and a side of darkness for the latter! It is surely a solemnly affecting and suggestive thought that, while the Sun of Righteousness is flinging His splendours over the earth, there is another fallen world very differently circumstanced. Do you not feel your soul, at the very thought, concentrating its energies on the inquiry, What is the Gospel message, and what are the terms it proclaims? Will not the sinking crew turn to the lifeboat that is making directly for them, and that all the more eagerly that they discern around them a foaming sea strown rough with wrecks? Will not the patient turn to the physician that proffers his aid, and grasp at the prepared medicine with all the greater eagerness that he is given to understand that no other physician is within reach, though pestilence stalks all around him? And shall we not ply the Gospel call with treble emphasis, and wilt not thou listen to it with treble interest, that it proclaims a Saviour for men, over the head of angels — that it names our "earth," but names not hell? II. Universal as my text is, it carries A LIMITATION AS RESPECTS TIME: it is addressed to men in time, not in eternity — to the earth as it is now, not as it shall be hereafter. 1. As respects the individual, God "limiteth a certain day, saying, Today, if ye will hear," etc. Each has his allotted time of probation, his day of grace. Now is that time, that golden day - the time of acceptance. Come, fellow sinner; come as you are; come now; touch the golden sceptre, and live forever. 2. God has also limited a certain time for our world as a whole. There is a certain hour known to God when He will address the commission to Jesus, "Thrust in Thy sickle," etc. Momentous harvest! The earth even now is rapidly ripening. All will be astir and in earnest then; but many, alas! will awake, not to touch mercy's sceptre, or the folds of her garment, but to catch the echo of her last farewell. III. This triple emphasis will be still further accounted for if we consider THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE GOSPEL CALL: it is addressed to the whole race, and not to part of it merely. All the seeming limitations in Scripture of the universal call are, in fact, the strongest proofs of its universality. Were I now to press the appeal in my text on different classes — the old, the young, the abandoned, the careless, or the anxious, — every candid man would understand that my specifying one class implied no exclusion of others, but was merely intended to give point and pungency to my appeal by breaking down the universal call into its particular applications, and thus "rightly dividing the word of truth." On this obvious principle are we to explain such descriptive phrases as "hungry," "thirsty," "weary," "heavy-laden," which some have regarded as denoting incipient spiritual attainments, or subjective qualifying prerequisites, which the sinner must have before he is entitled to believe the Gospel. Far from it. They express not our holiness but our misery, not our riches but our poverty, whether we have caught a glimpse of Christ's fulness or not. "Wide as the reach of Satan's rage, doth His salvation flow." Let us share in our Saviour's spirit. Let the universality of the Gospel provision lead us increasingly to realise the wants and woes and claims of the unnumbered myriads of mankind. It is here that the fire of missionary and evangelistic zeal is to be kindled. IV. We shall cease to wonder at the threefold emphasis here imparted to the Gospel call when we reflect on THE FACTS IT PRESUPPOSES AS TO THE CONDITION OF THE WORLD. 1. It supposes the world to be in a state of danger, for a threefold call to the earth, so pointed and energetic, implies that no ordinary catastrophe impends over the world. It is precisely such an impassioned appeal as would be given forth on the outbreak of some public danger, such as fire, or flood, or hostile invasion. 2. But, further, and as a frightful aggravation of the danger, the world is, to a lamentable extent, in a state of insensibility to it. This, too, is implied in the appeal of our text. It represents the world as asleep: hence the call "O earth"; and because that sleep is profound, the call is redoubled, "O earth, earth"; and because the world sleeps on, wrapped in a slumber deep as death, a third time peals the call, each louder than before. Some years ago, two or three men were seen floating asleep in a boat on the river Niagara, and were already among the rapids. Loud and long were the calls addressed to them by the spectators on the river side; but the unhappy men awoke only to utter a wild shriek of despair as they were borne over the tremendous verge. This, by no means an isolated case, aptly illustrates the sinner's danger as he floats down the stream of time, his insensibility thereto, and the loud warnings addressed to him, both by God and man, to shake off the slumberous spell, and turn while he may to the matte of safety. Say not, "If I am asleep, I am not responsible." You are not in this sense asleep. You are responsible; for you are an agent rational, intelligent, moral, voluntary, unfettered and free. You are responsible; for, if you believe man, you can believe God; you can give that attention to the Bible which you lavish on the things of time; you can think upon your soul's salvation with the same faculties that you exert on your business or pleasures; and if you are reluctant to do so, this is not your misfortune, remember, but your crime. V. The Gospel call may well be urged with threefold emphasis when we consider THE QUARTER WHENCE IT COMES: it is not of earth, but from heaven — it is not the word of man, but "the word of the Lord." The King of heaven gives forth an utterance from His everlasting throne, but the worms of His footstool will not deign to give Him audience. Louder and louder speaks the voice which at first spake us into being — and could at any moment revoke that being, — but men sleep on; they will not consider; they say, "Who is the Lord that He should reign over us? Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of Thy ways." Disbelieve man if you will, spurn authority, trample on the tenderest of human ties, but oh, address not yourself to a sin that towers in solitary magnitude far above all these — venture not on the supreme blasphemy of making the God of truth and love a liar. VI. The Gospel call may well be plied with treble emphasis if we consider THE PRECIOUS IMPORT OF THE MESSAGE IT PROCLAIMS: it is a word of Gospel, or good news, and not of authority merely — when it might have been a word of wrath. Ah, this deepens the dye still further, of the sin of unbelief — a perpetration of which earth, and earth alone, is the theatre. The light of God's love in "the glorious Gospel" makes the darkness of human rebellion the more appallingly visible; and the thought that such mercy is within reach, and yet such wrath is in reserve — that man's destination, if not high heaven must be some nethermost abyss: ah, this, considering the magnitude of the interests involved, may well make us to intensify, redouble, and treble the call, "O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord!" ( T. Guthrie, D.D.) Parallel Verses KJV: O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the LORD. |
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