Jeremiah 7:4 - Homiletics

The confidence of superstition.

I. CONFIDENT LANGUAGE IS NO GUARANTEE FOR A SECURE FOUNDATION OF TRUST . The Jews are vehement in exclamation; but their words are boastful without ground. Frequent repetition is no evidence of the truth of a saying. Yet, though against all reason, and by mere force of urgency, how many convictions have been thus forced on the belief of mankind! Trite sayings are commonly accepted for true sayings. We do not think to test the genuineness of the old worn coin so much as that of the new coin. We naturally believe that with which we are familiar. Indeed, we may persuade ourselves to believe almost anything by simply dwelling upon the idea of it till this becomes inseparable from our consciousness. And all this without the slightest reason!

II. THE SUPERSTITION OF RELIGION MAY BE FOUND IN MEN WHO HAVE LOST THE SPIRITUALITY OF IT . The Jews neglected the spiritual worship, which was all that was really valuable in the temple service, but they clung to the idea that there must be a sanctity about the very walls of the temple which would make it a place of safety for those who took shelter within them. Superstition is the disease of religion. When spiritual holiness is gone, a sanctity is ascribed to material things. They who have no faith in God may have strange faith in charms and spells, like the Jews who, perhaps, thought to work a charm by the threefold iteration of their cry, "The temple of the Lord," etc.

III. No REAL SECURITY CAN RE FOUND IN EXTERNAL THINGS . The temple building was no palladium to the bad men who sought refuge in it. It is vain to be near the Church if we are far from God. Religious ordinances, membership in a Church, official association with religion as priest, prophet, or minister, and the like outside affairs, contain no promise whatever of protection, and the man who shelters himself beneath the whole of them and does not seek spiritual shelter is as much exposed to the tempest of judgment as if he stood out in the open plain of bare infidelity.

IV. THE TRUE TEMPLE OF THE LORD IS THE HEART OF A GOOD MAN . God does not dwell in temples made with hands. Earthly temples of stone may represent his dwelling, but they cannot bring him nearer to men nor confine his presence within limits. But the soul of a good man is a real temple wherein God's Spirit truly abides and effectively operates ( 1 Corinthians 6:19 ). Such a temple is safe from all harm. Thus we must seek safety, not by entering a temple, but by becoming a temple—not by securing the external protection of holy things while the heart and life are unholy, but by receiving God within the heart and sanctifying the life to him.