Jeremiah 3:24-25 - Homiletics

Shame.

I. SHAME IS A NATURAL ACCOMPANIMENT OF GUILT .

1. Distinguish shame from modesty . Modesty is the fear of shame. Modesty shrinks from doing the thing which when done will result, or ought to result, in shame. Thus modesty pertains to innocence, shame to guilt.

2. Distinguish natural shame from guilty shame . Natural shame results from the exposure of what should be kept private but is pure in itself—this applies to spiritual as well as bodily delicacy; guilty shame is associated with that which, whether revealed or not, is morally bad.

3. Distinguish false from true shame . The blush of innocence when falsely accused, the shrinking from the disapproval by others of conduct which we feel conscientiously bound to pursue, and similar feelings, are instances of the former. They simply result from weakness. Such shame is a needless pain, but it is only culpable when it leads to weak subserviency to what we know is not right—the fear of man which bringeth a snare. True shame is not simply the distressing consciousness of the disapproval of others, but the consciousness that this is well deserved.

II. REPENTANCE LEADS US TO REGARD SIN WITH SHAME . Israel then names Baal, the god of her former worship, "Shame." To the penitent "all things are new." The sins in which he gloried are now objects of the deepest shame.

1. Men must see sin in a true light to regard it with shame. The Israelites are here represented as confessing sin; they feel it is their Own act: "We have sinned;" they feel that their fathers' sin does not extenuate the guilt of the new sin of the children, but, on the contrary, adds to the cumulative guilt of the nation.

2. When sin is thus regarded, the shame is overpowering and overwhelming : overpowering, for Israel says, Let us lie down in our shame," there is no resisting the influence of it, it crushes to the dust in humiliation; and it is overwhelming, "let our confusion cover us;" such shame is no superficial and transient emotion. It is all-absorbing.

III. THE SHAME FOR SIN IS A WHOLESOME CORRECTIVE . Nothing is more painful. Self-love, self-conceit, and self-respect are all cruelly wounded. Yet the bitter medicine is a true antidote to the sweet poison of sin.

1. It opens our eyes to the fatal consequences of wickedness. In regarding Baal as "shame," the people seem to discover for the first time that he had "devoured the labor of their fathers from their youth." The passion of sin throws a false glamour about it and its effects which shame dissolves.

2. It serves as a strong deferrer from future sin . It makes our old ways look horrible, disgusting, contemptible. We wonder how we could have loved them, and so long as the shame lasts nothing could induce us to return to them. Unfortunately, shame soon dies away, and if disregarded leaves men harder than before. Therefore it should not be trusted in by itself, but used as a means to lead us to the enduring security against sin in Christ ( Romans 8:1-5 ).