Jeremiah 2:1-8

Three Shameful Possibilities In Human Life

Jer 2:6-8

The second chapter of Jeremiah sets forth Almighty God as earnestly expostulating with his people. They had forgotten his mercies; they had trimmed their way so as to tempt idolatrous nations into alliance; they had not heeded the chastisements which were intended to bring them to repentance; and therefore God offers a remonstrance as tender as the appeal of a father, and, in the event of that failing to subdue the stubborn heart, he threatens to reject the confidences and to hinder the prosperity of Israel. Such is a general outline of the chapter. But following the order of the text, we are arrested by three considerations:

I. The possibility of dishonouring the great memories of life. "Neither said they, Where is the Lord, that brought us up out of the land of Egypt?" An event like that would fix itself in the memory for ever. Who could forget the Egyptian bondage, the sufferings, the groans, the horrors of a lifetime? Who could forget the joy of deliverance, the rapture, the ungovernable ecstasy of triumph? Yet ancient Israel was as little humbled and stimulated by divine mercy as if Egypt had never plagued it with intolerable oppressions. The dark night was forgotten, and Israel did not know who had lifted upon it the brightness and hope of morning.

The great memories of life are dishonoured (1) when the vividness of their recollection fades; (2) when their moral purpose is overlooked or misunderstood; (3) when their strengthening and stimulating function is suspended.

What would human life be without its hallowed memories? Man must have facts as well as hopes, something to which he can go back with confidence; back to some place where he met God; to some bush that burned without being consumed; to some slaughtered lion, or overthrown giant of Gath; something about which he can say with confidence, God did this for me and it shall be holy to me for ever. There is, however, a possibility of forgetting sacred scenes, and of cheating the soul of reminiscences which ought to be a perpetual inspiration. The text says so; experience proves it. May we descend to every-day particulars? Let each man find the proofs in his own history: Sickness, Poverty, Danger, etc.

II. The possibility of under-estimating the interpositions of God. Look at the case in the text, through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and pits, through a land of drought and of the shadow of death, through a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt. Viewed prospectively, men shrink from such difficulties; viewed retrospectively, a good many of the terrors are forgotten. In this description of the wilderness nothing is wanting to complete the horror, deserts, pits, drought, solitude, shadow of death; yet through all God conducted them by the light of his mercy and the majesty of his power. That such an interposition could have been forgotten, or that the memory of it could have ceased to be operative for good in the soul, is a revolting illustration of human depravity. Granted that we have not the same outward difficulties, will any man deny that his moral pilgrimage is beset by many perils, and that the grave is constantly open at his feet? (Think of the training and defence of one human life, and multiply this by the number of lives in the world.)

Not only was the dark side of history forgotten, but the bright side was overlooked, "I brought you into a plentiful country, to eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof." What was the result? Were they who had been preserved in the desert glad when they were brought into the garden? Did they erect the altar, and bow in long-continued prayer, and unite in the loud, sweet psalm of thankfulness? Hear the answer: "Ye defiled my land, and made mine heritage an abomination."

If we try our own lives by these historical disclosures, shall we shame Israel by our purity and love? Have we not been conducted through dangerous places? Has the voice of the wild beast not shaken us with alarm? Have we not trembled on the edge of the pit, and been sad in awful loneliness? Remember the Deliverer! On the other hand, have we not been led into a garden of delights, into a land of which it may be said, "It is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven: a land which the Lord thy God careth for: the eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year"? Remember the Giver!

III. The possibility of the leading minds of the Church being darkened and perverted.

"The priests said not, Where is the Lord? and they that handle the law knew me not: the pastors also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after things that do not profit" ( Jer 2:8 ).

The most affecting of all subjects to contemplate is, God grieved, God complaining! Would he complain without reason? Would he startle the universe for some trifling cause? He says, "Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate;" and again, "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord hath spoken: I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me." It is as though he would take inanimate creation into his confidence, and replace his children by the works of his hands. It is the voice of lamentation; it is the lamentation of God! Hear him, moving as it were through the chambers of the worlds, and shaking the heavens by the utterances of his great grief, "Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid." Docs not the distracted parent often pace his chamber in the darkness of night, and mourn bitterly the revolt of his first-born, sobbing and groaning under the sting of a thousand recollections which throng upon the heart? God, abandoned by his children, grieved and wounded by those upon whom he has poured the resources of his love, calls upon the heavens to be astonished, and upon the works of his hands to be horribly afraid! It is as the cry of one whose heart is breaking; his great deliverances have been forgotten; his heritage has been defiled; his power has been despised, and his mercy been treated as an empty sentiment; what if the throb of his great sorrow should send a shudder of distress through the heavens and the earth! Look at Calvary for the full expression of all this divine emotion. The horrible darkness and the bursting rock show the sympathy of nature. All this agony was suffered by Jesus Christ in consequence of our sins; "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes are we healed."

Seeing that such pain was inflicted by sin, let us avoid it as the abominable thing which God hates.