#JEHOVAH HAS SPOKEN—WILL YOU NOT HEAR?
"Hear you, and give ear; be not proud: for the Lord has spoken. Give glory to the Lord your God, before He causes darkness and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and while you look for light, He turns it into the shadow of death and makes it gross darkness. But if you will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride; and my eyes shall weep bitterly and run down with tears, because the Lord’s flock is carried away captive."
- Jeremiah 13:15-17
IN this chapter Jeremiah had proclaimed the judgment of God against His sinful people under two very striking figures. Israel had been to God what a sash is to a man. The people had been bound closely about Him in His great love and favor. But on account of their sin, the Lord would put them away and they should be hidden by the Euphrates till their beauty was marred, till, in fact, like a rotten sash, their whole state had become decayed. "Thus says the Lord, After this manner will I mar the pride of Judah, and the great pride of Jerusalem." Then He spoke to them by a second parable—"Every bottle shall be filled with wine"—and he showed how God’s wrath would come upon the people to fill them with a judicial drunkenness, so that they should become drunk, and in their delirium should strive one with another, to their mutual undoing. The Lord declared that thus He would "dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together." Thus under, two homely but exceedingly terrible figures, Jeremiah preached the law of God to the people, that they might be humbled under a sense of sin. Had they but felt the force of this teaching, they would have begun to mourn for their sin, and under dread of wrath, they would have cried for mercy. Taking it for granted that this might be the case, though, alas, it did not so happen, the Lord gave to His prophet an interval for proclaiming mercy. After those two great thunderclaps of judgment came a gracious shower of grace.
The prophet, in what we may venture to call an evangelistic style, exhorts the people and addresses to them the characteristic gospel precept—"Hear you, and give ear; for Jehovah has spoken." His words remind us of Isaiah’s exhortation—"Incline your ear and come unto Me: hear, and your soul shall live." And again—"Hearken diligently unto Me, and eat you that which is good." Under the gospel, "faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God"—and so Jeremiah does, as it were, in these verses preach the gospel to the backsliding house of Judah. This is always God’s design in threatening judgment. He desires to prepare the people for His grace. I would take up the prophet’s strain by the help of the Lord, praying to be a partaker of his earnest and tender Spirit. Oh, that today those who have never heard the voice of the Lord in the inward parts of their being may hear it and live! O Holy Spirit, work to that end!
I. We will enter upon our subject at once, for there is much to speak of. The first head will be this, listen, O my hearers, with deep attention, for THERE IS A REVELATION. Read the text—"Hear you, and give ear; be not proud: for the Lord has spoken." If the Lord had not spoken, the silence would have deepened and established your natural darkness, and if you had been inquiring after God your heart would have cried, "Oh, that He would break this dreadful silence!" How sad would have been our state if we had to seek after God if by chance we might find Him! Shall man, by searching, find God? Who among us could reason ourselves into the knowledge of the Lord? Or imagine the thoughts of His mind? But here you have the great source of comfort and instruction—"Jehovah has spoken." Is not this a just call for the attention of all His creatures?
The voice which we are bid to hear is a Divine voice. It is the voice of Him that made the heavens and the earth, whose creatures we are. Jehovah has spoken! If it were but the voice of prophets apart from their Master, it might be but a slight sin to refuse what they say. But since Jehovah has spoken, shall men dare to be deaf to Him? Shall they turn away from Him that speaks from heaven? He that spoke us into being has spoken to our being. He, by whose word the heavens stand, and at whose word both heaven and earth shall pass away, has spoken and His voice is to the sons of men. It is God who says, "I have written to him the great things of My law." The sacred Scriptures are the record of what God has spoken, receive them with the reverence which they deserve as coming from God only, and as being, therefore, pure truth, fixed certainty, and unerring right.
It is a word most clear and plain, for Jehovah has spoken. He might have taught us only by the works of His hands, in which the invisible things of God, even His eternal power and Godhead are clearly seen. What is all creation but a hieroglyphic scroll in which the Lord has written out His character as Creator and Provider? But since He knew that we were dim of sight and dull of comprehension, the Lord has gone beyond the symbols and hieroglyphs, and used articulate speech such as a man uses with his fellow. Jehovah has spoken! A man may act before us his mind in symbols, and we may fail to perceive his meaning. But when he speaks, we understand his communications by language, since such modes of expression are suitable to the human intellect. Speech is the fit manner of commerce between mind and mind, and it is, therefore, most delightful that the all-glorious Jehovah should stoop from writing in starry letters across the sky, and from mirroring His form in tempests on the sea, and speak with us as a man speaks with his friends. Jehovah is no dumb deity. He has spoken to us in sweet and chosen words by His Spirit. Oh, when there is a testimony so clear and plain that he who runs may read, well may the prophet exhort us, saying, "Hear you, and give ear; for Jehovah has spoken." Let it not be said of us, as of the sinners long ago, "I spoke unto you, rising up early and speaking, but you heard not; and I called you, but you answered not."
Moreover, I gather from the expression in the text that the revelation made to us by the Lord is an unchangeable and abiding word. It is not today that Jehovah is speaking, but Jehovah has spoken. His voice by the prophets and apostles is silent now, for He has revealed all truth which is necessary for salvation. The Lord might fitly say to us this day, "What I have written I have written." He changes not His word, but though heaven and earth pass away, His word abides. We are not living in a period of gradual revelation, as some imagine. Jehovah has spoken, and He opens not His mouth a second time. He has closed the canon of Scripture with a curse upon him that shall add to or take from the words of the book of this prophecy. Jehovah has spoken! You have not to go on making discoveries of new truth outside of Scripture. Your duty lies in diligently receiving the completed testimony of the Lord God, for the word of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. He has fully told you your relation to your God, and the way by which you may be reconciled to Him, and be at peace. "Add not unto His words, lest He reprove you, and you be found a liar." Jehovah has spoken, and it is written in His law, "You shall not add unto the word which I command you."
Beloved, this revelation is pre-eminently a condescending and cheering word. The Lord might have trodden us down to destruction without a word when we sinned against Him. He might have left us to that natural testimony which is borne upon the face of creation, and which is also reflected in the conscience of all men, and when we rejected these testimonies He might have allowed us to travel on in tenfold night. But instead thereof, in the plenitude of His grace, Jehovah has spoken, and always remembering that while of old He spoke in sundry times and different manners by the prophets, He has in these last times spoken unto us by His Son. The very fact that the great God speaks to us by His Son indicates that mercy, tenderness, love, hope, grace, are the burden of His utterance. His Son Jesus is full of grace and truth, and therefore that which He now speaks to us is not only truth, but grace. It is truthful grace and gracious truth which God speaks to us by Jesus Christ. Oh, the richness of that message, the height and depth of love which it contains! Who can refuse to listen to the heavenly music of mercy? The Lord’s voice on the first day of creation said, "Let there be light," and there was light. And now this second voice, this voice to the spiritual world, gives us light, and life, and love, and every necessary, conceivable, desirable gift. The words of God, as they are recorded in this Book, have unfathomable fullness about them, they are spirit and life. In Christ, by whom He speaks, there is hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. The prophet asked no more than was perfectly reasonable when he said, "Hear, and give ear; for Jehovah has spoken." When the kings who dwell at the utmost ends of the earth hear that Jehovah has spoken, they would do well to quit their thrones and make a journey, like the Queen of Sheba, to hear of the divine wisdom. If all workmen should throw down their tools and say, "We will hear what God the Lord shall speak," and if merchants should close their shops and countinghouses for a while, and come together without delay crying, "Everything must stop till we have heard what the Lord has spoken," would it be any more than right reason would suggest to thoughtful and right-minded men? O sirs, if God has spoken, every ear should surrender itself to attention, for surely never could the sense of hearing be more honorably and profitably employed. Jehovah has spoken and His word is true, "The grass withers and the flower thereof falls away: but the word of the Lord endures forever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you." There is a way of salvation arranged and determined by the Lord. It is not to be guessed at, but we are to learn it from infallible wisdom. Jehovah has spoken. There is an atonement prepared, provided, designated, and set forth. We have not to search for it, or add to it. Jehovah has spoken. There is no point of necessity, or even of real interest to the heart of man, but what Jehovah has spoken to it, and if there is any truth upon which He has not spoken, it is because it is to His glory to conceal the thing, and for our profit that we do not pry into it. Upon all that is essential to our full preparation for our eternal destination, Jehovah has spoken. He has said it and here it is recorded, in the volume of the Book it is written, and blessed are they that read and keep the words of the Book of this prophecy.
II. Secondly—and I have already anticipated it—since there is a revelation, IT SHOULD BE SUITABLY RECEIVED. If Jehovah has spoken, then all attention should be given. Yes, double attention, even as the text has it, "Hear you, and give ear." Hear and hear again, incline your ear; listen diligently, surrender your soul to the teaching of the Lord God, and be not satisfied till you have heard His teaching, have heard it with your whole being, and have felt the force of its every truth. "Hear you," because the word comes with power, and "give ear," because you willingly receive it. Oh, brothers and sisters, I fear that we give far more attention to the distracting voices of the world than to the soul-satisfying voice of the God of all grace. How eager men are after the treasure which melts before their eyes—how they will drink in every syllable by which they may learn how to be rich. But when God speaks, who will bring in both His hands eternal and abiding riches, men are deaf as the adder, careless as the beasts of the field. He says, "I have called and you refused; I have stretched out My hand and no man regarded." Is this right or wise? Surely, if Jehovah speaks, we are bound by all that is just, and good, and grateful to wait in reverent silence till we know His mind. Let a general hush go through the universe, and let all ears with solemn reverence await the sound of the voice of the Lord.
Then it is added, as if by way of directing us how suitably to hear this revelation—"Give glory to Jehovah your God." There ought to be in hearing and reading the revelation of God a constant giving of glory to the Lord. His speaking is a manifestation of His glory, as when the sun rises his light is spread abroad. You and I are to reflect that light even as the valleys rejoice in his brightness of the noontide. Let us stand, as it were, this morning to be shone upon by the Lord, ready each one of us, to reflect that light which comes from on high. Give glory to God at once by worthily hearing His gospel. How is that to be done?
Stand still, and hear the word of the Lord. Glorify the Lord by accepting whatever He says to you as being infallibly true. Believe in the Lord your God, so shall you be established; believe His prophets, so shall you prosper. Know what the Lord has said, and let it stand to you as sure and steadfast truth. Seek for no further reasons to sustain your faith, but let, "Thus says the Lord" stand to you in the place of all arguments. To me a sentence of Scripture is the essence of logic, the proof positive, and the word which may not be questioned. Eyes and ears may be doubted, but not the written word, inspired of the Holy Spirit. Blessed are those who sit at Jesus’ feet and receive His words. It is our wisdom to know nothing of ourselves, but to be taught of the Holy Spirit, and to think nothing of ourselves, but to have the mind of God, and think after Him whose thoughts are as high above our thoughts as the heavens are above the earth. We give glory to God in reference to revelation when we receive it, every jot and tittle of it, and bow our minds before it. In these days this virtue is lightly esteemed, for the Savior’s words are still true—"He that loves Me not keeps not My sayings." In all its length and breadth, whatever the Lord says we believe, and we desire to know neither less nor more than He has spoken.
We must receive the word, however, in a hearty and honest manner so as to act upon it. We must therefore repent of the sin which the Lord condemns, and turn from the way which He abhors. We must loathe the vice which He forbids us, and seek after the virtue which He commands. We give glory to God when we penitently confess that we have broken His holy law, and grieve because we have done so. Did not Joshua bid Achan give glory to God by confession of his sin? And so must we. By confession we glorify God’s justice, omniscience and truth, and yet further we glorify His mercy when, confessing sin, we ask for pardon through Jesus Christ our Lord. Thus every human being should receive the revelation of God bringing forth fruits necessary for repentance. Your light has shone upon me, O my God, and therefore I see my darkness! O, remove it! You have lit a candle, and by its light I discover my spots and stains. I acknowledge them in Your sight—"Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight: that You might be justified when You speak, and be clear when You judge." Thus humbling ourselves on account of sin, we receive the word of God aright, and give God glory.
But we must go further than repentance and the acceptance of truth as truth, we must further reverence the gracious voice of God when He bids us believe on Christ and live. He has couched that message of love in so blessed a form that he who does not accept it must be wantonly malicious against God and against his own soul. For the Lord does not demand, that by penances and acts of mortification, and feelings of misery and despair, we are to purge ourselves from sin, but He has graciously declared—"He that believes on Him is not condemned." "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved." If Jehovah has spoken in such a manner, if the sum and substance of what He has spoken is that "God has set forth His Son Jesus Christ to be propitiation through faith in His blood," then we must and will listen to Him. He says, "Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool." If this is the heavenly word, how can we refuse to hear it with our whole hearts? Give glory to the Lord by answering, "Lord, I joyfully obey Your call. I am glad of a Savior, glad of the atoning blood, glad to cast myself at those dear feet that were nailed to the cross for me, and to find in the Lord Jesus my salvation and my all." This is the way in which we ought to receive this revelation, and we ought to go on to complete obedience. We should humbly inquire, "Lord, what further would You have me know, what further would You have me do? Is there still left in me a part of my nature unsubdued, I would humble myself under Your mighty hand. Is there in me anything unrenewed, of pride revolting, or of the flesh rebelling, then conquer it in me, for I desire Your word to be my rule, my law, my guide. O that my ways were directed to keep Your statutes! I wish in all things to be obedient to Your gracious will." There is no part of God’s Word at which the human mind should kick. If our hearts were in a right state we would fling open all the doors of our mind, and say, "Come in, O sacred truth, come in! You are welcome to my heart of hearts since you come from my God." If Jehovah speaks ought we not instead of quibbling, and questioning, and disputing, and raising difficulties, just say, "Speak, Lord, for Your servant hears"? When the Lord says to us, "Seek you My face," our heart should at once reply," Your face, Lord, will I seek." I think that point is clear. There is a revelation and that revelation ought to be suitably received.
III. But thirdly, PRIDE IN THE HUMAN HEART PREVENTS SUCH A RECEPTION. The text runs, "Hear you, and give ear; be not proud: for the Lord has spoken." And further on the prophet says—"If you will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride." The prophet here puts his finger upon the blot. Why is it, my dear hearers, that there are any among you this day who have heard God’s Word year after year and yet have not received it? The secret reason is your pride. Perhaps pride prompts you indignantly to deny the accusation.
In some it is the pride of intellect. They do not wish to be treated like children, they are not content to receive the kingdom of God as a little child, and so when Jesus says, "Except you are converted and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven," they reply that they intend to think out a gospel for themselves. To lay the inventiveness of thought on one side, and simply to believe what Jesus teaches, is not to their mind, they will not humble themselves to a fact so little self-exalting. Well, sirs, if you shut the door of the kingdom against yourselves because you are too wise to enter, be this known to you, that the poor have the gospel preached to them, and that they receive it, and that God has hid these things from the wise and prudent, and has revealed them unto babes. God has chosen things that are despised, and things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are that no flesh may glory in His presence. If your wisdom is greater than the wisdom of God, it is better for you to be foolish. If you will destroy yourself to indulge your own conceit, well, so it must be, but the day shall come in which your regret shall know neither measure nor end. Oh, let none of us be so proud as to lift up ourselves in opposition to that which Jehovah has spoken!
In some others it is the pride of self-esteem. "No," they say, "this gospel which we have heard so often is too simple—we are capable of something more elaborate. It humbles us; it represents us as fallen, as depraved. It says that we can do nothing, it lays us in the very dust, it makes nothing of us, it excludes all hope of boasting and glorying, we cannot stoop so low. Salvation by grace, is it? Then free grace, sovereign grace is not to our mind. We care not to be saved like paupers. We care not to be freely forgiven as those who have nothing to pay. That no composition will be accepted, not even a farthing in the pound of our own merit—it is a doctrine too lowering to our dignity." They set the gospel on one side because it sets them on one side. They are too great to be saved. O sirs, if you must be proud, at least do not throw away your souls to indulge that propensity. Surely, something less costly may suffice for a sacrifice to the demon of vain glory. It is a dreadful thing that men should think it better to go to hell in a dignified way than to go to heaven by the narrow road of a child-like faith in the Redeemer. Those who will not stoop even to receive Christ Himself and the blessings of eternal life, deserve to perish. God save us from such folly. It may well make us weep to think that any man should be so far gone astray from right reason as to throw away eternal bliss in order to walk with haughty steps through this poor life. Some have a pride of self-righteousness. They are good; they have kept the commandments from their youth up. They have attended to religion, they have seen to it that all rites and ceremonies have been duly performed upon them, and they thank God that they are not as other men are. This righteousness of theirs is a garment respectable enough for them to wear, and therefore they reject the righteousness of God. O you proud, I would to God you knew that you are naked, and poor, and miserable. I would to God you understood that your fig-leaf righteousness will never cover your nakedness in the sight of God, for if you knew this, you would seek after the perfect righteousness of Christ, and be robed and adorned with it. While sin ruins many in the outside world, I fear self-righteousness ruins more among those who attend places of worship. They say, "We see," and therefore their eyes are not opened. They cry, "We are clean," and therefore they are not washed from their iniquity. Oh that they would cease from this vanity and give glory to the Lord their God instead of taking glory themselves. How can they believe while they seek honor, one from another?
In some, too, it is the pride of self-love. They cannot deny their lusts. To cut off right-hand sins, and pluck out right-eye iniquities, cannot be endured by them. Their hearts are set upon a certain evil pleasure, and they cannot give it up. The gospel of Jesus Christ, demands of those who receive it, that they shall be saved not in their sins, but from their sins. It comes to give us renewal as well as rest, purity as well as pardon, sanctity as well as safety, and there are many who, because of their foolish selfindulgence, cannot deny themselves any seeming joy, but must fill themselves with the poisoned sweets which delight the flesh. O friend, I wish that this pride were taken from you, and that it seemed wisdom to you to deny yourself life itself for the present, rather than miss the hope of eternal life. The pride of self-will also works its share of ruin among men. "Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice?" is the cry of many beside Pharaoh. The unrenewed heart virtually says—"I shall not mind these commands. Why should I be tied hand and foot, and ruled, and governed? I intend to be a free thinker and a free liver, and I will not submit myself." Just so, and you are free to lose all hope of heaven, my friend, free to destroy yourself. If this is your choice, then who is to hinder you in it? I know that I cannot. Oh, that the Lord will lead you to a better mind. Would God the Lord, that, He would change your will, and renew your heart. But if you are so proud that you reject the testimony of God against yourself, then who is to blame when you fall into eternal destruction? Who is to blame but yourself? So I pass from mournfully considering this great evil which prevents the revelation of God from being properly received.
IV. Fourthly, THERE COMES AN EARNEST WARNING. The Prophet has put it—"Give glory to the Lord your God, before He cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains." I desire to explain this with deep humiliation of spirit on my own part, and with much trembling lest anyone of you should ever by experience, know the truth of these words. Listen, my friend, you who have rejected God and His Christ till now. You are already out of the way, among the dark mountains. There is a King’s highway of faith, and you have refused it. You have turned aside to the right hand or to the left, according to your own imagination. Being out of the way of safety, you are in the path of danger even now. Though the sunlight shines about you, and the flowers spring up profusely under your feet, yet you are in danger, for there is no safety off the King’s road. If you will walk according to His bidding, you shall be quiet from fear of danger, for no lion shall be there, but inasmuch as you are now your own keeper and your own law, and you follow in your own ways, you are in great peril. The unbeliever is condemned already, because he has not believed on the Son of God. Escape, I pray you, while you may, and enter upon that one road which is strait and narrow, but leads to eternal life —the way of faith in Jesus.
If you will still pursue your headlong career, and choose a path for yourself, I pray you remember that darkness is hovering around you. The day is far spent! Around your soul there are already hanging mists and glooms already, and these will thicken into the night-damps of bewilderment. Thinking but not believing, you will soon think yourself into a horror of great darkness. Refusing to hear what Jehovah has spoken, you will follow other voices, which shall allure you into an Egyptian night of confusion. You will go on meditating and carefully thinking, or criticizing and trifling, till you are enveloped in a cloud of doubts, wrapped as in a dense smoke of speculation, and well nigh smothered in exhalations of unbelief. You shall not know what to do, or what to think, or what to say, or what to do with yourself, for you will have renounced your guide and quenched your torch. At the same time, it may be there will come upon you a darkness of distress, you will be sick and sorry, you will be faint and weary, you will be tried and troubled, and your soul will see no help or deliverance. To which of the saints will you turn? Upon who will you call in the day of your calamity, and who will help you? Then your thoughts will dissolve into vanity, and your spirit shall melt into dismay. "Thus says the Lord, Behold, I will make you a terror to yourself, and to all your friends." You shall grope after comfort as blind men grope for the wall, and because you have rejected the Lord and His truth, He also will reject you and leave you to your own devices.
Meanwhile, there shall cloud over you darkness bred of your own sin and willfulness. You shall lose the brightness of your intellect. The sharp clearness of your thought shall depart from you. Professing yourself to be wise, you shall become a fool. You shall no longer be able to boast of yourself because of the clearness of your judgment, but you shall find your conceptions thrown into confusion. You shall ask of others, but they shall know no more than yourself, or if they know you shall not understand what they tell you. You shall be in an all-surrounding, penetrating blackness. Hence comes the solemnity of this warning, "Give glory to the Lord your God, before He cause darkness." While as yet you have not absolutely turned away from the truth and rejected God’s Word, accept it in your heart by a living faith, and give Him glory, lest by continuing a procrastinator and a halter between two opinions, you are gradually made to slide little by little away from the brightness of the truth, till you are shut up in a sevenfold night, out of which there shall be no escape.
For after that darkness there comes a stumbling, as says the text, "before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains." He who is going to think out his own way apart from revelation, will meet with mysteries which he cannot surmount. There are mysteries in revelation, but these rise before us like hills of light, while to those who trifle with the word of the Lord there shall arise mountains of gloom. I care not what philosophy you take, whether it is old or new, openly profane or faintly sprinkled with Christianity, you will never get rid of mystery—it is essential to the limited capacity of the human mind confronted by boundless truth. There must be difficulties in every man’s way, even if it is a way of his own devising. But to the man who will not accept the light of God, these difficulties must necessarily be dark mountains with sheer abysses, pathless crags, and impenetrable ravines. He has refused the path which wisdom has cast up, and he is justly doomed to stumble where there is no way. Beware of encountering mysteries without guidance and faith, for you will stumble either into folly or superstition, and only rise to stumble again. Those who stumble at Christ’s cross are likely to stumble into hell.
There are also dark mountains of another kind which will block the way of the wanderer— mountains of dismay, of remorse, of despair. Woe to that man who finds himself traveling at midnight, without a guide, without a road, amid tremendous mountains, impassable to human feet. Ah, when a man comes into the land of doubt, which is a land of darkness, as darkness itself, and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness—how terrible his case! I say no more— thank God, my hearers, you are not there yet! Therefore listen to Jehovah’s voice, and give glory to God before He sends a thick darkness over your soul, even darkness that may be felt, and your feet stumble, never to rise again.
After that stumbling there will come bitter disappointment. The man finding that he cannot discover his way, sits down awhile and says to himself, "I will wait till the moon rises, or the day dawns. Many before me have come to a pause, no doubt light will come." He looks and looks and looks again, but all in vain, for thus says the prophet, "While you look for light, He turns it into the shadow of death." Dread word—death! Terrible shade which death casts over men’s minds! That shadow is coming on the man as years advance, and he has no light with which to dispel it. The physician cannot remove the death shadow—the disease is incurable. The sinner’s face is pale with anguish, and his heart melts like wax in the midst of his insides, for the shadow now upon him chills him to the marrow of his bones! What will he do now that the arrow is rankling in his heart? What will he do now that eternal night is descending? He cowers down and waits, but nothing comes except the thickening of the death shadows amid the weeping of those whom he must leave. He is anticipating the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, which are to be his endless portion. And now a paralyzing despair seizes him, for God makes the darkness to be, "gross darkness," black, tangible, as it were a solid thing. The man is shut up, and he cannot come forth. The darkness is within the chambers of his soul, it is in his brain, it is in his heart, he is drowning in a black sea. This is a just ending this for one who hated the light! Oh, I pray you, before any of you pass into that state, give glory to God, and receive His word. I beseech you believe before your doubt has utterly destroyed you. Accept the witness of God before you become hardened in skepticism.
I do not know what may ever happen to me in this life, perhaps it shall come to pass that I may be visited with severe physical infirmities, and possibly these may cause me mental depression and anguish. But this one thing I know, I have committed my mind, my heart, my whole intellectual nature to His keeping who has promised to preserve His own. I desire to believe nothing but what He tells me, to do nothing but what He bids me, and to yield myself to no influence but that which He ordains for my direction. And therefore, it seems to me that having done this for many a day, I can with unstaggering confidence say at the last, "Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit." I think I may confidently hope to cast anchor forever in that haven which is no new refuge to me, but the daily harbor of my soul. Can a man be safer as to his soul’s condition than when he has ceased from depending upon himself and has taken the great Lord to be the Shepherd at whose heels he follows? What shield can so well protect you as the divine faithfulness? Under what rock can you find such shelter as under the truthfulness of God? I am at a pass with all new ideas in religion; I will have none of them. If that grand old Book fails me, I am content to fail, if the Lord shall desert me, I resign myself to be deserted. If God lies, then there is an end of all things, and we all alike flounder in chaos. We tolerate no such fears. Believing in God I am not fearful of the future. Neither dark mountains nor dark death can cause the believer to stumble, for he cries, "I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day." But oh, if God is true, what will become of you who will not hear Him? If the Bible is true, what must be your portion who pretends to be wiser than the Holy Spirit? You must assuredly wander into that endless captivity from which there can be no redemption.
V. So now I have to close, but not till I have delivered my burdened heart once more. If the people would not submit to God, the prophet determined what he would do. THERE REMAINS FOR THE FRIENDS OF THE IMPENITENT BUT ONE RESORT. The loving prophet cries, "If you will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride, and my eyes shall weep bitterly, and run down with tears, because the Lord’s flock is carried away captive." He cannot do anything more. He has no other message to deliver. He cannot hope that God will stand for their insults and invent another way of saving them. He has told them the truth, and if they refuse it he will lay no flattering anointing to their souls. He will deliver the word of the Lord once more, and if they again refuse, he will go home to mourn for them even as Samuel mourned for Saul when the Lord had put him away. Observe that he does not say in the first clause, "my eyes shall weep," but "my soul shall weep." Bitter tears make red the eyes, but what must be the brine of those tears which are wept by the soul itself—a soul in anguish over willful men who persist in destroying themselves!
Those soul-sorrows showed themselves in floods of tears which drenched the prophet’s cheeks, for he loved the people, and could not bear to look upon the ruin which was coming upon them. Like our Lord in later times, the prophet beheld the city and wept over it, he could do no less; he could do no more. Alas, his sorrow would be unavailing, his grief was hopeless. He could not help those who would not be helped by God. If they refused to hear, he does not speak to them of a "larger hope" yet to be revealed, another season of probation, or a future revelation which would override the present word. Ah no, he loved men too well to invent for them fools’ paradises. He dared not imitate the old serpent in the garden by insinuating—"You shall not surely die." I fear that the garments of many modern divines are steeped in the blood of souls whom they are deluding with their "larger hope," which is but a larger snare of Satan. Jeremiah had a brave, though tender heart, he did not bow to men, and sing pretty ditties to them, as preachers nowadays are prone to do, but he told them they would stumble in the darkness, and that nothing remained for him but to sigh out his soul over their ruin. Let us each one learn to sympathize with this holy man—
"Arise, my tender thoughts, arise,
Though torrents melt my streaming eyes!
And you, my heart, with anguish feel
Those evils which you cannot heal!
See human nature sunk in shame—
See scandals poured on Jesus’ name!
The Father wounded through the Son;
The world abused and souls undone!
See the short course of vain delight
Closing in everlasting night
In flames that no abatement know,
Though briny tears forever flow."
Observe that the prophet did not expect to obtain sympathy in this sorrow of his. He says, "My soul shall weep in secret places for your pride." He would get quite alone, hide himself away, and become a recluse. Alas, that so few even now, care for the souls of men! Many ignore their danger, forgetting or else denying it, and few mourn over the ungodly and seek—
"With cries, entreaties, tears to save,
To snatch them from the fiery wave."
Hearts are hardened, pride is flattered, falsehoods are cried up, and what can the faithful do but seek their God alone, and weep in secret places? Solitude and weeping are a poor solace, and yet there is no other.
This also puts a pungent salt into the tears of the godly, that the weeping can do no good, since the people refuse the one and only remedy. Jehovah has spoken, and if they will not hear Him they must die in their sins. O sirs, if you will not have Christ, if all the saints in the world prayed for you, yes, all the saints that ever lived, or ever shall live—if they all prayed for you, and if in one great river the tears of the whole church flowed on forever, they could not help you nor bring you hope of salvation. You must have Christ or die; you must believe in the Lamb of God or perish everlastingly. Does it stand so according to the Scriptures? Then none can change it Do not dash yourselves against this rock! Fall not upon this stone!
What a burden it is that so many should cause us this unnecessary sorrow, for if men turned to God our joy would exceed all bounds. O my hearers, why will you distress me? Turn you; turn you, why will you die? What excuse can you urge for your folly in choosing to perish? What motive can be strong enough to make you leap into the fire when Christ is waiting to be gracious to you? We have labor enough in preparing and delivering our weighty messages, without the added grief of seeing you reject them to your own destruction. Our throes of heart are sometimes, grievous enough before we preach a sermon lest we should not preach aright, why must we be driven to this further misery? We exhaust ourselves while pleading with you. Why should we have to sit down in sorrow because you will not believe our report? O, blessed Spirit of God, touch all hearts this day, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON—JEREMIAH 8:1-17, JOHN 1:1-18.
HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"—92 (PART 1), 100, 97.