Jeremiah 12:2 - Homiletics

(last clause)

God near to the mouth but far from the life.

I. IT IS POSSIBLE TO HAVE THE NAME OF GOD ON OUR LIPS WHILE THE THOUGHT OF GOD IS ABSENT FROM OUR MINDS . This is the case with mere formal worshippers, who use the language of devotion without realizing to themselves its meaning. The danger of it besets us all. Words come to be handled like coins, without any distinct recognition of what they represent. This applies especially to words which refer to God, since it requires a high act of abstraction to keep constantly before us the ideas of the unseen Object of such language. Understand that these empty words are worse than wasted breath; they are a mockery to God, a deception to men, and a source of self-delusion to the speaker of them.

II. IT IS POSSIBLE TO HAVE THE NAME OF GOD ON OUR LIPS WHILE THE LOVE OF GOD IS ABSENT FROM OUR HEARTS . We may not fall into the first mistake. The language may not be empty words. The thought of God may be present. Yet this may be a mere thought—a cold and barren idea, having no influence on our affections. This religion of words and notions is a vain thing. Indeed, it is not a religion at all; it is only a theology. Religion does not begin till the heart opens to receive God. It consists not in the intellectual recognition of God, but in the love of God ( Deuteronomy 10:12 ).

III. IT IS POSSIBLE TO HAVE THE NAME OF GOD ON OUR LIPS WHILE THE POWER OF GOD IS ABSENT FROM OUR CONSCIENCES . God may be spoken of, thought of, approached with a certain affection, though not the true love of our hearts, and yet be practically disregarded. His will may still be of no account to us. We may still not make our lives subservient to his Law. There is then no evidence of God in our conduct. Though our thought may be religious, our life is godless.

IV. IT IS POSSIBLE TO HAVE THE NAME OF GOD ON OUR LIPS WHILE THE SPIRIT OF GOD IS ABSENT FROM OUR SPIRITS . The deepest fact of religion is the indwelling of the Spirit of God—the real presence of God. God inhabits the soul as a temple. We may have much religiousness without this. The Name of God may be inscribed on the portals of the temple while the shrine is empty of his presence.

V. IT IS POSSIBLE TO HAVE THE NAME OF GOD UPON OUR LIPS AND TO BE VERY WICKED . If the Name be only on our lips, this is no sign of moral and spiritual goodness. The wicked contemporaries of Jeremiah were many of them religious precisionists; yet their moral guilt was nonetheless for all their language of devotion.

VI. IT IS POSSIBLE TO HAVE THE NAME OF GOD ON OUR LIPS AND TO SUFFER ULTIMATE RUIN . Formalism and hypocrisy may prosper for a time. Those men who had the Name of God on their lips were the wicked who prospered (Verse 1). Yet they were doomed to ultimate punishment. It is important to remember this constantly, since we are too ready to be deceived by professions and appearances.