Jeremiah 10:7-24

Jeremiah's Study of Providence

Jer 10:7-24

The prophet is now in the midst of a review of the whole situation of which he himself constituted a living part; he is looking round and making notes; we have the advantage of reading his journal. It is an advantage to read what a man of such large mental capacity had to say respecting the religion and politics and the general civilisation of his day. We are accustomed to speak of the tears of Jeremiah; sometimes his tears were sparks of fire. He did more than weep. There was no sharper critic of the day. Few men could take in more horizon than Jeremiah when he fairly looked things in the face. It may be profitable to follow him, therefore, in his review, to see where human nature was long ago, and to compare its ancient condition with its immediate circumstances and purposes. The prophets were always wrathful when they came in presence of idols clay, wooden, metallic gods. They then writhed with splendid scorn; their satire was inspired; the gods withered away before their intelligent and holy sarcasm. They spat upon the gods, lifted them up, set them down, walked around them, defied them; but never for the sake of doing so; always for the purpose of bringing in a clear revelation of the true God. Here is the function of satire. We are not called upon merely to mock one another. It was not enough for the prophet that he should mock the worshippers of Baal: he must reveal the true God. All mockery, all sarcasm, all jibing and sneering at other men's religion, how much soever they may be mistaken, should lead up to positive instruction, direct revelation, a very vision of heaven and God. So it is in the great prophets of the Old Testament. They scorned magnificently, or they revealed lucidly and tenderly, and exhorted with poignant and experimental eloquence.

This chapter opens with a desperate attack upon the customs of the people that is to say, upon the religious ceremonies and rites of the nation; and then the prophet exclaims, "Who would not fear thee, O King of nations?" Even suppose this were: a poetical image, it is full of the finest suggestiveness. The image is that of a man who has been going up and down the idol temples to see if he could find a god, and having failed to find what lay upon his heart with all the tenderness of kinship and appealed to his intelligence with all the vigour of omniscience, he lifted up his eyes and said, There must be something better than all this. He must needs in his imagining make a King of nations, rather than be without one. This makes plain a good deal of the theology of the ages. Men did not create it merely for the sake of showing mechanical or literary cleverness, but for the sake of expressing the only possible satisfaction to certain moral and spiritual instincts and deep religious necessities. We, therefore, should respect all honest broad-minded theologians. They were pioneers in the higher civilisation; they began to build and were not able to finish: but every age is not called to build a separate temple; enough it one age builds partly, then ceases, making room for another generation; all the while the living temple, often invisible and mystic, is rising solidly and eternally to the skies. We may, therefore, not mock our forerunners even in theology. We have profited by their mistakes: if they blundered they suffered part of the penalty, and if we have seized the advantages they secured we should forget a good many of the mistakes into which they fell. They prayed bravely; by the very tone of their prayers they surpassed many of their theological conceptions. They were always ahead of their intelligence by the fervour of their moral nature. That is the true test of orthodoxy. As to what we may think, what does the universe care? We do not know what we thought six months ago; we cannot tell what we may think six months hence: but this we know, that love never changes but by increase, that devotion is never in any other attitude than on its knees, that the soul lives by homage, and disciplines itself by obedience. Along that line, radiant yet stern, we make our best progress. As for opinions, we ventilate them, we exchange them, we modify them; and by this very transition from opinion to opinion we purify our thinking and gain a little, it may be a very little, in an upward intellectual ascent.

A bold title is this to give to the living God namely, "King of nations." There should be no other king but God. All kings are mistakes. Israel never wanted a king until Israel forgot to pray. The king was granted, for God does answer some imperfect and almost vicious prayers. He has no other way of teaching us. To give us a little of our own way is to make us feel quite a change of climate; is to bring us back again to loyalty and homage. As education advances kings will go down; the Son of man will come, the glorious Humanity. Meanwhile, even kings may serve great purposes, but only so far as they are great men. Every man now stands on good behaviour. The inefficient man, though he may be amiable, must go. We are taught that lesson first in commerce. Heads of firms do not increase the salary of amiability, but of efficiency. They never say that an employe is so amiable, and obliging, and civil, and modest, and unobtrusive, that they will double his income. What, then, is honoured? Intelligence, energy, capacity; the man who can do the work, and yet sustain the character; that man shall stand before kings, and sometimes get beyond them. There are kings the world would not willingly part with, monarchs that could ill be spared, so wise, so beneficent, so gracious, so altogether comely that the world says they must live on: would they could live for ever! What riots they spare, what difficulties they prevent, of what healing are they the conscious or unconscious ministers! And what is true of kings is only true of them because it is true of all men. Even preachers must go down if they cannot preach. That is very hard! Surely an exception ought to be made of them; but the public will make no exception; and the public therein affirms a right principle. Kings are only good, and all men are only to be tolerated and to be honoured, in proportion as they are higher than their office, better and more than their function in proportion as they live capably for the good of others. Nothing is to be hurried in any direction. We gain rather by growth than by violence. He puts his watch right instantly who puts it right by the hands; but he is much mistaken if he thinks the whole process is over and done by that manipulation. There is an interior work to be done. So with all civilisation, and all its functions and offices. We do nothing by merely smiting, striking; but we do everything by concession, by conciliation, by generous trust, by large education, by magnanimous hopefulness of one another. Sometimes we do everything by doing nothing. There is a time to stand still as to all outward demonstrativeness; but whilst standing still in that sense we may be advancing very steadily and surely, though without noise or ostentation. The ages move towards brotherhood, towards the kingliness of humanity; yea the ages move towards the supersession of all mere office. The time will come when the preacher and teacher will not be needed; no man shall say to his brother, Know the Lord: for every man shall know him, from the least even unto the greatest. Then will come the time of worship, of adoration, of singing, of that broader service of sympathy that is now almost impossible to forecast and to express in words.

The prophet acquires the greater confidence in God in proportion as he sees the utter weakness and worthlessness of all the gods which men have made. Thus by experience men. are brought to the true religion. Let men shed their gods, as they shed some infantile disease. Do not hurry them in this matter. Let them really have time to know how little their gods are. If you make too much haste in detaching men from their idols, they may have a lingering suspicion that if they had tarried longer they would have been better satisfied. Let them have large experience; let them know exactly what their man-made or hand-made gods can do, in winter, in night, in affliction, in the churchyard; and when they have tested them so thoroughly as to take them into their hands and dash them to the ground as worthless and intrusive, they are one step nearer the true altar.

The prophet, having seen what the gods could do, turned with a new cry and with a profounder adoration to the King of kings, the King of nations. A beautiful expression is that, "King of nations," an expression which takes up the whole nation as if it were a unit, as if it were one line, and that blesses the national life. There is an ideality in that conception which is worthy of the finest imagination. Why should there not be a national unit as well as an individual unit? We speak of the national debt, the national health, the national character, the national standing; therein we recognise the unity of the nation, the singularity and solidarity of the whole people: there is no man that liveth unto himself; we are not isolations, but parts of a great commonwealth. So when we pray for one another we should pray also for the whole nation. Then we extend the idea until we see what is known as a concert of nations, an international amity or comity; then beyond that conception we have a still larger one namely, the conception of the unity of the whole earth. Our geography should never make us enemies. Friendship should never end at a red line or a blue definition of territory: these lines and boundaries are useful and convenient, and within certain limits are indispensable for present purposes, so that there may be no confusion amongst the peoples, but they should be so laid down as never to interfere with the full vision which nation should have of nation, and the full recognition which one country should have of the excellences of another. Christianity alone can take the sting out of geography, and make the whole human family one in sympathy and trust and love. If ever Christianity has appeared to do the contrary, it was by travesty and blasphemy, not by fair honest enlightened interpretation of principle and duty.

Jeremiah turns once more to the worthless gods, and from Jer 10:11-15 he shows the relation of the false to the true, and the true to the false:

"Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens. He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion. When he uttereth his voice, there is a multitude of waters in the heavens, and he causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth; he maketh lightnings with rain, and bringeth forth the wind out of his treasures. Every man is brutish in his knowledge: every founder is confounded by the graven image: for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them. They are vanity, and the work of errors: in the time of their visitation they shall perish."

This being the case, is man to turn to himself? Ashamed of the gods, is man to take up with the idea of self-idolatry or self-instruction? The prophet replies to that inquiry:

"O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps" ( Jer 10:23 ).

This is a very apt interposition, for whilst the prophet was denouncing the hand-made gods, who did not think of turning to himself as a refuge and a defence? It was well, therefore, to say something about man himself. What can man do when thrown upon his own resources, when he is called upon to tackle the great problems and the solemn questions of life and destiny?

Jeremiah ventured an opinion upon this. Is it a true one? "O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps." Now, that is either true, or it is not true; and we ought to be in a position to say whether it is the one or the other. It is most true; for we have tried to direct our way, and we have failed, we have made more mistakes than we have ever confessed; sometimes with a modesty that is difficult to distinguish from self-conceit, we have owned that we have fallen into occasional error; but who has ever taken out the tablet of his heart, held it up within reading distance, that others might peruse the record of miscarriage, misadventure, and mistake? On the other hand, how many are. there who would hesitate to stand forth and say, In proportion to trustfulness, docility, obedience, has real prosperity come? How many are there who would confess that they had been stronger after prayer than they were before it, readier to deal with rough life after they have had long communion with God? These are experimental matters; we do not call fancy to our aid in these discussions. Here is the hold which Christ has upon us. We are called upon to say what we were before we saw him, what we were after he wrought the mystery of grace within us; and the change is so complete and definite and absolute that there can be no mistaking it: it is the change from death to life. Who ever mistook summer for winter? Who is there that knows not the eloquence of the sun, the persuasiveness of light, the allurement of all heaven's singing ministry? On experience we stand. Experience is our argument. If Christianity were a question of grammar against grammar, interpretation against interpretation, who could maintain that he alone was right? The moment we leave our conflicting interpretations and come into a common experience, we feel that, explain it as we may, there is now a daily inspiration of the individual life. Sometimes we are surprised by its action, and we exclaim, That was an inspiration! How did we come to do so? Our purpose lay in another direction, but suddenly we changed the whole plan, pursued another policy, and on the road we have met angels, and opening heavens, and welcoming hospitalities. If any man lack wisdom let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally and begrudgeth not, upbraideth not. Christians should be more definite in their statements upon these matters. They should not hesitate to use such words as "inspired by God," "guided by Heaven," directed by the loving Father of creation. Were we more frank, definite, and fearless about these matters, we should make a deeper impression upon the age in which we live.

The prophet recognises the need of another ministry which for the present is never joyous, but grievous:

"O Lord, correct me, but with judgment; not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing" ( Jer 10:24 ).

He would have judgment with measure; he would have chastisement apportioned to him, not indiscriminately inflicted upon him. Indiscriminateness of justice often becomes injustice. Penalty becomes instructive and even hopeful in proportion to its being critically measured, so that there should not be one stroke too many. It is well to have an odd number of stripes, for they need the more careful counting. The law says, "forty stripes, save one." It is not, Shall be smitten, scourged, leaving the number of strokes to the smiter; the law was made before it was broken, and the law was made before the penalty was thought of. Before the offender had committed trespass, punishment was meted out to the offence. Here we have philosophy, forethought, the economy of strength, the wise outlay of ministerial and penal activity. But who prays to be corrected? Who prays to be judged? We should get great advantage if we could begin at that point. If we could ask for the penalty, we should take out of it a good deal of its sting. It is resistance to penalty that makes the punishment the heavier. If we could invite the stroke, we must kiss the hand that deals it. We should say, We deserve thy wrath; if we do not suffer from its smart, we should lose much instruction, yea, and much spiritual strength, Lord, we have come this day to be smitten; we have not come with outstretched hands to seize heavenly treasures, but we have come with bowed heads that thy lash may be laid upon our back. Correction that is prayed for becomes a means of grace; it is received in the right spirit because asked for in the right spirit; but to accept it dumbly, sullenly, or in the spirit of fatefulness, is to lose the advantage of chastisement. He holds all things wisely and profitably who holds them loosely that is, who holds them only at God's bidding. The man who says, "I am but a tenant-at-will," holds his house, his body, on the right conditions. He says: "I may be dismissed tomorrow, I cannot tell, I am not the freeholder; I am but a tenant-at-will; I am ready to go, because the universe is so governed that an obedient soul is never called away from a house until he is called to some larger habitation; but to leave this poor little house I am perfectly willing, I shall be clothed upon with the house from heaven; you should congratulate me when I tell you that the Lord Jesus hath showed me that I must shortly put off this tabernacle; we should have a feast to-night, yea a banquet, and music, and singing all round, for tomorrow I am to be liberated." But we are, meanwhile, the victims of the body; we are the prisoners of time; we are scourged by the very limitations we sometimes scorn. It is a strange life, it is a tragic comedy; we laugh and cry in the same breath; we worship and blaspheme within the same hour. Yet all the while, as we have just seen, there is what is called the law of tendency, and amid all the laughter and crying, praying and blaspheming, the shout of triumph and the groan of defeat, there is steady progress. Men cannot see it. We cannot see it ourselves. But we are made conscious of it now and again, and in those moments of high consciousness we claim to have been under the inspiration of God, and to be in very deed his children, in the sense of having been created by his power, redeemed by his grace, and directed by his Spirit.