Lamentations 2:14

"Handfuls of Purpose"

For All Gleaners

"Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee: and they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity; but have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment." Lam 2:14

The prophets had degenerated into professional flatterers. Prophets soon come to understand what the people want for their own gratification, and soon come to understand whether the people are in quest of God's truth or the satisfaction of their own taste. When this discovery is made the prophet must be a strong man if he does not fall into the temptation to please the people rather than to obey God. People being pleased will return flattery for flattery, and probably the prophet will find his immediate compensation in the gifts and applause of the populace, rather than the testimony of a good conscience. The action between prophet and people is reciprocal: where the prophet is in dead earnest the people will be compelled to listen to his prophecies; where the people are more earnest than the prophet the man of God will be tempted to turn aside that he may gratify rather than instruct or correct. The charge made in this passage is the most serious accusation that can be urged against any trustee or steward or minister. Prophets have perverted their function; they have seen what they have looked for; they have gone in quest of things to please rather than of things to profit and educate, and in their delusion they have seen what will delight or amuse the people whom they ought to have instructed. One sign of a degenerate race of prophets is to be found in the turning aside of the prophetic mind from the deep consideration of moral subjects. Who is not tempted to give himself up to intellectual delights rather than to the study and application of moral discipline? Surely it is human to accept the suggestion that the mind should wander in courses where delights grow abundantly rather than turn into directions where the rod and the sword meet the eye on every hand? God complains that the prophets have not discovered the iniquity of Zion, or told her plainly to her face that she owes her punishment to her sin. "A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land; the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means," but this is not the whole explanation: not the prophets alone are to be blamed: the explanation is given in the words which immediately follow, "and my people love to have it so." Thus there was a process of buying and selling as between the prophets and the people: the people wanted pleasure, and the prophets sold it; the people wished to be flattered, and flattery was to be had for money; men asked for restful speeches, such as should calm their fever-stricken life, such as should bring back sleep to their throbbing brains, and the prophets hearkened to this moaning cry, and instead of delivering the rousing messages of God they lulled with opiates of human invention the life which they ought to have chastised and humbled. The great want of every age is a succession of faithful prophets. The prophets themselves may not reach their own ideal, may indeed expose themselves to much reproachful and condemnatory criticism; yet it is necessary that the age should hear great words, listen to grand appeals, and be continually reminded that there is more than the bodily eye has yet seen, and infinitely more than the mere reason has yet comprehended. Whilst we need intellectual prophets to stir up our highest nature, we especially need moral prophets who will recite in our hearing the commandments of God, and urge upon us in our dilatoriness and self-considerateness our duty as subjects of the great King. Exhortation to moral obedience ought never to be regarded as a mere commonplace. Unless we put ourselves strictly on our guard, this word "commonplace" will become a danger and a stumbling-block to us. Men say they know the commandments, and they declare they are well aware of their duties, and they show signs of impatience under the teaching that would incite them to a closer following of the letter of the divine law: they crave for excitement, for originality, for a kind of stimulus that brings no strength; all this craving is not to be set down to the credit of the age, but is rather to be looked upon with suspicion and positive dislike. Woe unto the foolish prophets that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing; woe also unto those who have sought the priest's office for a morsel of bread: blessings be upon those heroic and noble souls who, without reference to their own promotion or comfort, declare the word of the Lord with a noble voice, not the less noble because it is in many tones restrained by a consciousness of self-defect.