Jeremiah 9:1-26

Accusations and Penalties

Jeremiah 8-9

These chapters are full of accusation. The point is, that the accusation was not directed against heathen nations; it is hurled against the chosen of God. There is a certain kind of accusation in which there is comfort. Where the indictment is severe, it is evident that the expectation has been high, and God never expects much except where he has sown much. Therefore it may come to pass that the very gravity and poignancy of the accusation may be suggestive of real comfort, and may form a ground of hope, provided that the divine conditions of return be acknowledged and realised. The collapse was almost fatal:

"Why then is this people of Jerusalem slidden back by a perpetual backsliding? they hold fast deceit, they refuse to return" ( Jer 8:5 ).

We can hardly tell how much is expressed in the original terms, "a perpetual backsliding," that is to say, a multiplication of backsliding; one within another, and one beyond another, the whole proceeding as if by geometrical figure and arithmetical progression. It is not a slip that is indicated, a momentary lapse; it is a banqueting in evil, a licking of the lips after a savoury feast at the table of the devil. We cannot tell how it looked to heaven. This we know, that the language of the text would never have been employed if the circumstances had not been provocative of so complete an impeachment. But the accusation is not in general terms only; it is therefore detailed; instead of the solid sentence we have the sharp line; we have the iniquity item by item, each like a pointed instrument. Let us see:

"I hearkened and heard [Lit. I listened to hear], but they spake not aright" ( Jer 8:6 ).

The figure is a graphic and vivid one; it is that of the divine Being stooping from heaven, and with inclined ear listening critically yet hopefully to human speech, if mayhap there be but one bright word, one tone of music, one sigh of contrition. The Lord did not listen generally, promiscuously, as if listening to a confused noise of sound; but he listened specifically, he tried every word, he detained every syllable, if haply he could detect in it one sound or sign that he might construe hopefully. But it was in vain. Even divinest kindness could make nothing but black ingratitude of all the energetic speech: it was a torrent cf iniquity; it was a river black, foul; it was a rain of poison. God does not bring these charges against the human family lightly. What he would have said had there been one sign of penitence or reverence or desire after the true worship! He would have forgotten all the blackness if he had seen one point of light. It is his delight to magnify that which is excellent. If any one man had prayed aright, he would have forgiven the world on that one man's account. If ten men had turned their faces hopefully to heaven, he would have spared the universe a century longer; he would have disappointed gaping hell. But there was no encouragement. God can see flowers if there are any. He can see them before they open their mystery, and proclaim in fragrance their gospel; he knows where they are sown and planted. But he looked, and there was none; he expected, and was struck to the heart with disappointment; "no man repented him of his wickedness, saying, What have I done?" There was no self-cross-examination. When men cease to soliloquise they cease to pray. The hardest witness man undertakes to interrogate is his own soul. Yet philosophy has found out the advantages of self-inquest. The Pythagoreans asked themselves once a day, "What have I done?" The inquiry creates a space in the day for itself, makes one inch of piping-ground in the desert of the day's life. How few men dare probe themselves with that inquiry! It is a question double-edged. It is recorded of Cicero, in pressing one of his accusations against an adversary, that he told that adversary that if he had but put two words to himself he might have cooled his passion, controlled his desires, and turned his impulses to high utility. Said the orator, "If thou hadst said to thyself, Quid ego ? thou mightest have stopped thyself in this tremendous assault." That is, What have I done? What do I? What is my course? What are the facts of the case? A man has to fight the great battle for himself. It is useless to be holding great controversies outside whilst yet the heart itself is in tumult and rebellion and disorder of every kind. This is what Jesus Christ means when he says a man must hate his own life. The word that thus comes to point a climax might have been laid down as the foundation of an argument; for no man can hate his father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife until he first hates his own life puts it right within, gets hold of things by the right end, and governs all things by one dominant and solemn meaning. How stands the case now? Does any man put the question to himself once a day, What have I done? Every man should keep a diary not perhaps a written journal; that may be mechanical: but there should be a diurnal inquest into purpose, thought, desire, intention, what did it all mean? He who thus brings himself at dawn under discipline walks along a victor's path even until the sunset. But to have no right self-understanding, no grip of the soul itself, is to waste life, is to live a chance life, is to depend upon speculations and fortunes and accidents, and therefore to be stung by fatal disappointments.

What further occurred? The collapse was so complete that God asks this question,

"Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination?" ( Jer 8:12 )

"Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered" ( Jer 8:22 ).

This may be read in two ways as an inquiry charged with pity, or as an inquiry which shows that even Gilead itself is unable to touch such wounds as have been self-inflicted. "Is there no balm in Gilead?" is first of all a local reference. There was a balsam tree in Gilead, the juice of which was supposed to be able to heal all wounds. In an early translation of the Bible the word "balm" is rendered "triacle," whence we have the English "treacle," is there no balsam, no triacle, no treacle, in Gilead? So precious was it that it was only to be found in the gardens of the king. The balm did not grow elsewhere in Gilead. It was a king's plant, a royal treasure, a peculiar blessing. A very sensitive plant, too. It did not know iron; if so much as iron touched it, it shrank like a wounded thing and died like: that which is afflicted with despair. This tree must be incised with wood or bone or glass; and so efficacious was the balm against contusions and wounds, that it obtained a reputation as the: healing balsam; and the voice now rings out, "Is there no balm in Gilead?" is the disease too bad for Gilead's balsam? That is possible. It is possible to foster the disease, to increase its virulence, that no mineral, no vegetable, no balm made of either or of both, can touch its deadliness. Surely that is a state of extremity in which a man has so treated his flesh that all the remedies of science fall back and say, We cannot touch so awful a disease as that. The figure is that we may outdo the very love of God in sin. Blessed be God, that is in one sense impossible; but only impossible because of God, not because of ourselves. We are cunning artificers in evil. We have written down numerous things we could do without man knowing that they are being done. We are wits in evil; we are sharp in all moral invention that tends towards the soul's destruction; we have a genius of apostasy; we can always do something worse. Then comes this word: "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved" words that are often misunderstood. They mean that a time had been specially set for God's redemption and for providential deliverance, and the time prophesied had come and gone, and there was no sign from heaven. The words, however, are capable of a very tender moral application that may not be strictly grammatical and yet is strictly human and evangelical. It is possible to get through the summer without being saved.

It is possible so to trample underfoot the harvest as to have no bread in winter. The season comes like an offered gospel first a gospel of labour that should be profitable; then a gospel of result that should be hopeful, which soon will be realised for we must not reap or pluck too soon; then a gospel of fruition, abundance, a very harvest of realisation. The text may be so used as to represent a soul saying, I have had my seedtime chance, my summer opportunity, my harvest offers; I have let them all go by, and now I cannot eat the ice or drink the snow, or live upon the cold wind; it is gone, the opportunity is over: what can I do with the inhospitableness of winter?

Such being the accusation, what are the punishments?

"And death shall be chosen rather than life by all the residue of them that remain of this evil family, which remain in all the places whither I have driven them, saith the Lord of hosts" ( Jer 8:3 ).

Who can search the judgments of God? Who can set forth in order all the resources of penal justice? Better draw the curtain, better pray; for it is God's delight to chase away all such blackness, and to enthrone the sun in the meridian, and to give the earth all its dowry of light. Then again:

"Behold, I will send serpents, cockatrices, among you, which will not be charmed, and they shall bite you, saith the Lord" ( Jer 8:17 ).

"And they will deceive every one his neighbour, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity" ( Jer 9:5 ).

In ancient fable one man rebukes another for building a house upon the ground rather than upon wheels; for, said he, suppose the time should ever come when you should distrust your neighbour, how can you get away from him if your house be rooted in the ground? whereas, had your house been erected upon wheels, you might have moved away from the circuit of his influence. The time will come when every one will deceive his own neighbour, play tricks with the man next door, cheat his own flesh and bone. We read of the Italians having a peculiar pocket-stone bow, which can be covered with a cloak, and behind it a man can be darting needles into the body of his adversary that should wound the. vitals and yet scarcely leave a distinguishable mark on the flesh. What is that but a common, vulgar species of murder or assassination compared with this: "They will deceive every one his neighbour, and will not speak the truth"? They will tell lies to their brethren, they will shoot out these deadly needles into the souls of men, and all the while look complacent, fraternal, benignant. Terrific is the power of human iniquity. "They have taught their tongue to speak lies;" they have become rhetoricians in falsehood; they have said, Speak this lie trippingly on the tongue. They know when to whisper their evil message, and when to thunder their false declarations, and when by over-positiveness to make their lie the more obvious. There are skilled tongues; there is a cultured eloquence of falsehood.

What is the punishment?

"Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink. I will scatter them also among the heathen, whom neither they nor their fathers have known: and I will send a sword after them, till I have consumed them" ( Jer 9:15-16 ).

If there is to be challenge which God forbid heaven will not decline the combat. What can he do who fights a fire with straw? What can an arm of flesh do against heaven's artillery? Is the Church as wicked now? Who dare answer that question? Are punishments as numerous and solemn? Certainly. Is our harvest past, is our summer ended? No. We are in the very middle of our opportunities: "Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation;" "If ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, as in the day of temptation in the wilderness." May men pray this very moment? Yes. Is it needful to pray long? No. What prayer will do? This: "God be merciful to me a sinner." Is that enough? Quite: but only enough when spoken with the heart, when spoken at the Cross, when sobbed rather than articulated. Is the punishment now done? No:

"For death is come up into our windows, and is entered into our palaces, to cut off the children from without, and the young men from the streets"( Jer 9:21 ).

How graphic is this picture! We have bolted the doors so that death cannot enter; we have opened the windows so that we may not be without fresh air; and, behold, death is climbing towards the open casement. "Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished." God knows all our arrangements, and accommodates his penal visitations to them. Oh that men were wise, that they understood these things!

We might treat all this as ancient history, if we did not feet its modern application if we did not know that nothing can be changed here except it be the mere metaphor, the mere clothing of words. The inner meaning is the same. The accusation of shortcoming or falsehood, of hardness of heart, abides, and takes the expression of the language of every country as sufficient to indicate the gravity and completeness of the impeachment. The punishment is signified by Hebrew figures and local circumstances, but the punishment itself is not changed. There is still a cockatrice in the conscience; there is still a bite as of iron teeth through the very centre of the heart; there is still that spectre by the bedside at midnight which opens its armoury of teeth and says nothing, but looks looks looks! There is still that most terrible shadow that comes across the feast, so that the choicest mouthful is full of sickness and every enjoyment becomes a surfeit, and the banquet ends in satiety; there is still that dislike of solitude, because when we sit alone a black figure comes and sits by our side, and says nothing, but looks looks looks! There is that dead face, that broken heart, that lie half a century old, that fraud, so successful that we banked ten thousand pounds through it five-and-twenty years ago. The air is full of damnation. Fools are they who change the word and make a quarrel about adjectives and qualifying terms, when they are called upon to deal with the inner and unchangeable reality. God shall judge, thou whited sepulchre!

But does the whole speech end in accusation? It God has piled accusation heaven-high, it is that he may come over it as over a mountain to preach a gospel to us. Though your sins be as scarlet, though they be as crimson, though they be as blackest night sevenfold, they can be treated, they can be met; you can be born again, a little child, and taken by Christ into his arms, and kissed and blessed, and set down again to go about life's business with a new heart and a new hope. "Fly abroad, thou mighty gospel!"