Jeremiah 10:23-25 - Homilies By S. Conway

Fruits of a chastened spirit.

From what foul soil do the fairest flowers spring! Beautiful as they are, they are rooted in that which is altogether unbeautiful. The sweet perfume of many woods, seeds, flowers, will not be given forth until they are gashed with the axe, or bruised, or crushed, or otherwise seemingly maltreated. We could not have the many-hued arch of the exquisitely tinted rainbow were it not for the drear, dark clouds and the descending rain. The most precious of the psalms were wrung out of the heart of David when that heart was well-nigh borne down with grief. And here, in these verses, it is the chastened spirit of Judah, personified in the prophet who speaks, that utters itself in the lowly confession of the twenty-third verse, the holy submission of the prayer of the twenty-fourth verse, and the settled hatred of them who hate God which burns in the twenty-fifth. Consider, then, these fruits, and may God make them to abound in ourselves.

I. THE CONFESSION . Jeremiah 10:23 , "O Lord, I know," etc. Now, this is a confession:

1. Of humble dependence upon God . It is an acknowledgment that, however much man may propose, God will dispose; that man's goings are of the Lord. The life of each is, as God told Cyrus ( Isaiah 44:1-28 .), guided, governed by him. Illustrations are everywhere: the cruelty of Joseph's brethren; the oppression of Israel in Egypt; the crucifixion of our Lord (cf. Acts 2:23 ); the persecution of the Church ( Acts 8:3 ); Paul's early life; etc. All these are instances in which, whilst men did exactly as they liked, acting with choice as unfettered as it was evil, they were nevertheless made to subserve the Divine plans, and their evil was compelled to work out good. Man may have power to "walk," but whither his steps will lead he cannot "direct." "The way of man is not in himself." He is free to choose his way, and for his choice he is responsible; but he is not allowed to determine all that shall come of that choice or what its issues and results shall be. Every time that men find their plans turn out altogether differently from what they expected or designed, proves the truth of the prophet's word. God has planned the life of each one of us. He intends certain results to be secured by our lives.

"There's a divinity that shapes our ends,

Rough-hew them how we will."

And our wisdom is to see and confess and conform ourselves to the Divine plan—happy they who do so—and not to thwart or hinder it, as so many are bent upon doing, and hence, in the manifold sorrows of their lives, find it "hard to kick against the pricks." Our wisdom is daily to pray, "Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; make plain my path before my face."

2. Of their own folly and sin . There are many teachers who will instruct us in this truth of our own incompetence to order our ways; all that is needed is that we be willing to learn. Such teachers are:

3. Of their trust , nevertheless , in God's infinite love . For not improbably this confession has not only an upward look to God as the Director of men's ways, and an inward look upon their own sin, but also an outward look upon those dread foes who were hastening to destroy them. And this was their comfort that, after all, these enemies of theirs were in God's hands. No doubt they designed fearful things against God's people (cf. Jeremiah 10:25 ). But then, "the way of man is not," etc. Hence even these fierce, relentless foes might be held in and turned about by the bit and bridle of God. Had not God, in the days of the good King Hezekiah, proved this in regard to the King of Assyria and his army? Had he not, as Isaiah said, "put a hook in his nose.; and turned him back by the way by which he came?" And this confession breathes this hope and trust that God would do the like by their enemies now about to fall upon them. It is a real comfort to know that all our enemies, whether human or spiritual, are under the control of God. Even the apparently omnipotent prince of evil has but a limited power. He , too , cannot direct his own way. "The Lord, he is the true God, the living God, the everlasting King" (Verse 10).

II. THE PRAYER . Verse 24, "O Lord, correct me, but," etc.

1. This is a model prayer . For:

2. It is a most instructive prayer . It teaches us:

III. HOLY ANGER AGAINST THE ENEMIES OF GOD . We can readily see that Verses 23 and 24 are the fruits of a chastened spirit, but this fierce utterance of Verse 25 seems of another kind. But it is not. No doubt it has somewhat of the fierceness which belonged to that stern age, but it is nonetheless a real fruit of a right spirit. We ought to be very doubtful of our own spirit, however meek and contrite it is, if it be not accompanied with an intense detestation of evil. "Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? And am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee?" Such sentiment is a true note of the Spirit of God, and a religious life that lacks it is sure to be lacking in vigor, strength, and reliability. It is not personal hatred that finds utterance here, so much as a deep sense of the wrong done to God and the hindrance that is placed in the way of his will. The seventy-ninth psalm is an expression of this petition. Our age, and the temperament that so soft an age induces, are apt to make us be too easy with sin and sinners. We are so bred up in the idea of the "Gentle Jesus, meek and mild," that we forget how anything but gentle and mild he was to the hopelessly bad who were, in regard to the spiritual well-being of his people, doing as is here said, "eating up Jacob, devouring him," etc. What awful words poured forth from the Savior's lips towards such! Let us suspect a meekness that makes us mild towards such. A man may make the confession of Verse 23, and offer the prayer of Verse 24, and fall and fall again; but if he have the stem spirit of Verse 25, that deep, intense hatred of evil, sin is far less likely to have dominion over him for the future; he will be "strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might." Therefore, whilst we crave that fruit of the Spirit which is seen in Verses 23, 24, let us crave that also which we have here in Verse 25. It is the result of our being "strengthened with might by the Spirit of God in the inner man," and leads on, in blessed, successive steps, to our being "filled with all the fullness of God."—C.