Jeremiah 11:11-13 - Homiletics

Idolatry confounded.

I. TROUBLE IS A TOUCHSTONE FOR RELIGIOUS TRUTH . The idolatry that is played with in prosperity is found to be useless in adversity. The Jews had regarded mere stocks and stones as their gods. But in the season of real distress they turn from these and cry to the true God to arise and save them.

1. The ground of confidence which gives way in the hour of need is worse than useless ; it is treacherous and ruinous, and the discovery of its true character confounds those who have relied on it. A religion which will not stand the test of trouble is a mockery.

2. Trouble reveals the vanity of an insincere faith . In trouble we need the true, the real; all false religiousness, all playing at devotion, breaks down then. If our religion has been vain and ill founded, we are then discovered and made to be ashamed, "like a thief when he is found" ( Jeremiah 2:26 ).

3. There is a deep instinct which cries out for the true God in the hour of distress . Old memories then revive, scouted faiths reassert themselves, the first cry of the child to his Parent breaks out again involuntarily, and the godless man in his agony groans, "O my God!"

II. IF WE HAVE FORSAKEN GOD IN PROSPERITY WE HAVE NO RIGHT TO EXPECT HIM TO SAVE US IN ADVERSITY . The religion which we accept in our general life is that to which we should justly look in our hours of need. Here is the natural irony of religion. A man is punished by being left to the protection of the creed of his own choice. It must always be remembered, indeed, that whenever we truly repent and seek God spiritually he will receive and save us ( Hosea 6:1 ). But the mere cry for God's help in distress is not repentance, nor is it a spiritual return to God. It is a selfish utterance, and may be made while the heart is still far from God, and the sins which drove us from him still unrepented of. It would be neither just nor good for us that God should respond to so degraded and unspiritual a prayer.

III. ALL GROUNDS OF RELIGIOUS CONFIDENCE EXCEPT FAITH IN THE TRUE GOD PROVE FALSE AT THE TEST OF TROUBLE . This is the result of applying the touchstone of trouble; this is the lesson of bitter experience when men are left to cry to their false gods in the hour of need.

1. If there were any worth in these grounds of confidence it would be seen then.

2. Experience famishes the answer to these questions, and shows the certain failure of all the creeds of human invention. They must fail: