Submission.
I. THE GRIEF CONTEMPLATED. It is told of in Jeremiah 10:17, etc. And it wan indeed great; the "wound was grievous;" for;
1. It was universal. It affected all classes and in all ways, in mind, body, and estate.
2. So severe. It was not a "light affliction," but "the iron entered into their souls."
3. And it was self-caused. The fangs of remorse were fastened in them by the consciousness they could not escape, that they had brought all their sorrows upon themselves.
4. And they drew down so many others, and innocent ones, in their own doom. This is ever one of the most fearful torments to the soul of the guilty. "I have ruined, not myself only, but my wife, children, parents, friends." The dart, if it be plunged first into the heart of those we love, will rankle in our own all the more terribly when it pierces us.
5. And the fight of God's countenance was gone. With that we can bear anything. Paul and Silas sang praises in the dungeon at Philippi. But withdrawn, driven away by cur sin, then is the soul sad indeed.
6. And it was irreparable. The wrath of God had arisen, and there "was no remedy" (cf. Verse 20). But note—
II. THE SPIRIT IN WHICH IT WAS BORNE. "But I said, Truly this is a grief, and I must bear it." Now, these words might be used to express a spirit of sullen hardihood. Some have so understood them. But we rather regard them as the language of pious submission, It is the true Israelite who speaks; not the godless, idol-loving multitude, but the chosen of God who were mingled among them. And that this is so is shown:
1. By the check the speaker puts upon his lament. He was about seemingly to launch out in great complainings when he arrests his speech by recollections of a different kind: "But I said," etc. He would not allow himself in any more complaint; he replies to all such thoughts by the considerations he now brings forward. He recognizes the cause of all these sorrows (Verse 21). It was their failure to "seek the Lord," the pastors becoming " brutish"—their grievous sin. Mere sullenness would never make such a confession as this.
3. And the spirit of Verses 23-25, so lowly, devout, and filled with sacred desire,—all these show that we are to understand Verse 19 as the utterance, not of defiant hardihood or any other evil spirit, but as that of submission. Parallels, therefore, are to be found in the submission of Aaron at the death of his sons (cf. also Lamentations 3:18-21, Lamentations 3:39, Lamentations 3:40; Micah 7:9; Psalms 77:10; Psalms 39:9, etc.).
III. This SPIRIT GREATLY TO BE COMMENDED.
1. For its nature. It is not the spirit of a stoic, of one who sets his teeth firm, and resolves to endure, come what may; but it is tender, gentle, and keenly susceptible of pain. Nor is it silent. Its voice is heard in prayers, confessions, praises, and it is ever desiring more of God's presence and grace. Nor is it slothful. It will be open-eyed to see and alert to act if aught can be done to minister relief or gain deliverance. Thus it does not violate any good instinct or dictate either of nature or conscience, as it would do were it characterized by either of the undesirable qualities named. They each have some sort of semblance of submission, but are far away removed from being identical with it or necessary to it. But submission consists in that calm composure of our whole nature, that meek acquiescence in the will of God, however painful that will may be. And therefore this spirit is commendable:
2. For its comeliness. How morally beautiful and lovely it is! We never tire of it, never do anything but in our hearts admire and praise it, and long to make it our own. How our hearts go out towards those that have eminently manifested it! As Aaron (cf. supra); Job saying," The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away," etc.; Moses; and above all, our Savior. Notwithstanding all his present and most deserved glory as our risen Lord, it is to him on the cross, crowned with thorns, in all the glory of his meek submission—to him the heart of humanity ever turns with adoring love and trust.
3. For its self-conquest. Under the smart and distress of great loss and disaster, how ready the understanding is to think hard thoughts and to utterly resent what God has done! And the will, how sullenly it frowns upon God, and with lowering brow refuses to submit! And the passions, how they rage in torrents of tears and wild wailing cries of angry agony! And the lips, what hard speeches they are prompt to utter (cf. "I said in my haste, All men are liars")! And the hands, how eager to take revenge upon any who have been the means and instruments of our affliction! But the spirit of submission holds all these hot, eager forces in, as with bit and bridle, and bids them all be still. They are, as were the lions before Daniel, awed and subdued by his calm, hallowed presence. Blessed is he who can thus conquer himself. None else shall conquer him, and least of 'all any of the mere circumstances of life (cf. Proverbs 16:32).
4. For its wisdom. "There are few things in the world so totally and entirely bad but some advantage may be made of them by a dexterous management; and it is certainly a man's wisdom to make the best of a bad condition, there being a certain kind of pious and prudential husbandry by which a man may so improve a calamity as to make the endurance of it the performance of a duty, and by his behavior under it to procure a release from it. We should, with Isaac, take the wood upon our shoulders, though we ourselves are designed for the sacrifice; and who knows but, as in his case, so in ours also, a patient resignation of ourselves to the knife may be the sure and direct way to rescue us from it?" (South).
"He always wins who sides with thee;
To him no chance is lost;
Thy will is sweetest to him when
It triumphs at his cost.
"Ill that thou blessest turns to good,
And unblest good to ill;
And all is right that seems most wrong,
If it be thy sweet will."
5. For its acceptableness to God. The Lord Jesus Christ was the "my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," because of it; because his meat and his drink was ever to do the will of the Father who sent him. "Blessed are the meek." "Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that," etc.
IV. NOT EASY, BUT NEVERTHELESS FULLY POSSIBLE, OF ATTAINMENT. Not easy, Because all our instincts under the smart of pain and loss (cf. supra) protest against it. Because also the maxims of the world are directly contrary to it. But attainable by practice. "Let him train himself whilst young to lesser self-denials and mortifications; let him learn to put up with and pass by a slight undervaluing word, and in time he shall find himself strong enough to conquer and digest an injurious action; let him learn to overlook his neighbor's incivility, and in time he shall be able with patience and firmness of mind to endure his insolence and cruelty, and that without being discomposed by any instigations to revenge; and let him accustom himself to do this often, and at length he shall be able to do it always" (South). And yet more by communion and intercourse with the Lord Jesus Christ. We catch the tones and habits and thoughts of those with whom we most associate. Live in close companionship with Christ, and the spirit of him who "when he was reviled, reviled not again," shall be formed in us, and more and more shall we '" know how "blessed are the meek, and how surely God "will exalt us in due time" (cf. Philippians 2:5-11).—C.
The ruin wrought by the prayerless pastor.
I. CONSIDER THE SCENE PORTRAYED BY THE PROPHET. Consider it both before and after that dread invasion of which he was ever warning his countrymen.
1. Before that invasion, whilst Judah was at peace, there might often have been witnessed over the wide downs and pasture-lands of Palestine the shepherds' encampment; for Palestine was an eminently pastoral country, as the psalms of David and the teachings of our Lord plainly show. And hence up and down the land might have been seen the shepherds' tents, whole camps of them, dotting the plains or valleys with their slender poles, their broad curtains and strong cords holding them erect and securing them firmly to the ground on which they stood. The swarthy children would be running in and out, and at even-time the greater portion of the whole inhabitants of these tabernacles would be gathered around or within them. And in the immediate neighborhood, carefully watched by their shepherds, would be the flocks quietly grazing, in which consisted their whole wealth. It was a pastoral scene the peacefulness and beauty of which were as manifest as the commonness of it in the happier days of Palestine and her people.
2. But after the invasion, in the unhappy days which, when Jeremiah spoke, were drawing so terribly near, when the land should be overrun by the armies of Babylon, there would be as often seen the actual circumstances portrayed in our text. The tent thrown down, its cords cut, its curtains a shapeless heap upon the ground, left to decay and rot by those who had wrought its ruin. And all would be silent and still; no merry prattle of children heard, or the coming and going of the men and women who once had made that tent their home. A few blackened ashes alone telling where the camp-fire had been. The flocks all scattered; those that the foe had not destroyed driven off and wandering in the wilderness, none knew where. It is a picture of utter and most mournful desolation.
II. ITS MEANING. Its intent is to represent what was about to happen in regard to the Church and people of Judah. The temple should be overthrown and burnt with fire; her holy places profaned, her altars broken down, her sacred services all brought to an end, the solemn feast-day no more observed. Her children—they who ministered at her altars and sang the high praises of the Lord—should have gone forth from her and be as though they were not, and all the congregation of the people, the flock of the Lord, should be scattered. And all this came to pass, as we well know, violently and as in a moment, like as a stone is suddenly hurled forth from the sling (Verse 18). But the prophet's picture has a yet wider application; for it tells of the terrible desolation which may come upon any Church, whether in a nation, or a community, or in any given district. Under the vivid imagery which Jeremiah employs we may see represented the deplorable disaster of a Church's desolation, and whence and how it comes. Therefore let us look at:
1. The overthrown tent. By it we may see represented the destruction of the whole organization of the Church. How beautiful is the spectacle presented to the outward eye by a Church that enjoys the blessing of God! Behold her sanctuaries. Look upon them, from the stately cathedral down to the humblest house of God in the land. Here, with dome and towers and spires piercing the sky, pointing upwards, heavenwards, and breaking the dull level of men's common habitations, and of the buildings which they have reared for their dwellings, their labor, their trade. And out in the country, on the hillside, scattered over the wide plains and along many a quiet valley, in hamlet, village, and town, we behold the sanctuaries built for God, and the stream, larger or smaller, of worshippers that continually go up to them to worship. Each one of these sanctuaries a center of light and warmth, of energy and holy toil, blessing and being blessed, And think of the sabbaths of the Church—those blessed days of rest, when the weary round of toil is made to hush its noise, and for the time to cease. The plough stands still in the furrow, the horses roam in the meadow or gladly rest in the stall; but the ploughman is gone home, that he may, if he will, give heed to the husbandry of the soul and to the preparation for the harvest of heaven. Nor, in this survey, may we pass by the Church's worship. What myriads of jubilant anthems and glad psalms and triumphant hymns go up heavenwards, with a merry noise! What help for all who desire it is won by those who give heed to the holy truth that is at such times proclaimed! Ah! if spiritual thought and feeling could, by some Divine chemistry, be made visible, what a glorious scene would be witnessed! Like unto the rainbow which was round about the throne, beautiful to behold, would the worship of the Church be seen, even as it is seen by him to whom and for whom and by whom it is all rendered. Think, too, of the work of the Church. The ships that bear her messengers, charged to proclaim the glad tidings of the gospel to all mankind, speed their way through all seas, across all oceans, and enter every harbor. Ah! yes; Christ's Church on earth, faulty, imperfect, unfaithful, as she so often and so largely is,—where would the world be without her? and where would the wretched and the lost find their truest friends, if not in her? But all this outward organization, this visible tabernacle of the Church, is contemplated, nut as in her happy ideal, but in the very reverse. The prophet's picture portrays the tabernacle thrown down, and desolation everywhere. Hence her sanctuaries forsaken, profaned, or left to decay and ruin; her services abandoned or turned into mere performances of worn-oat ceremonies; her sabbaths no longer days of guarded rest, but like all other days; her work paralyzed and dropped more and more, and all her external framework and organization overthrown. Try and realize what that would be. And this is not all.
2. Her children are represented as having gone forth from her. When all is well with a Church, it is our joy to see the children taking the fathers' place, coming forward to uphold the standard which the aged hands of the seniors are compelled to let go. How delightful such a scene is we need hardly say. But there is nothing of this kind contemplated here, but, on the contrary, those to whom the Church would naturally look to carry on her work are seen borne away captive by the foes of the Church, and as slaves to the world.
3. And the last feature in this sad picture is the scattering of the flock. The people at large, for whose interests the Church was bidden to care, turning from her with disgust, scouting her claims, running riot in sin, unchecked, unhindered, unwarned; sinking clown into awful depths of wickedness and spiritual ignorance, living "without God and without hope in the world." Such is the scattering of the flock, the alienation of her children, and the spoiling of her tabernacle, from all which may God evermore keep and defend us. But that we may be thus defended, let us—
III. INQUIRE THE CAUSE OF SUCH DISASTER. It is clearly stated in Verse 21, "The pastors have become brutish, and have not sought the Lord."
1. Who are these pastors? It would be a mistake to suppose that only ministers are meant. Jeremiah did not mean these only, but all to whom the flock of God were entrusted—kings, rulers, judges, parents, and teachers, heads of families, and all to whom, by virtue of their position, the charge and responsibility of watching over the souls of others was given.
2. Now, these pastors had "become brutish." By which is meant, first of all, unintelligent, stupid, blind to the meaning of facts, and incapable of perceiving what needed to be done; with no quick apprehension, if any at all, of their responsibility, their duty, or the peril that threatened both their flock and themselves; settled clown into the stolid apathy and indifference of ignorance, of dulled perception, and of blindness of heart. Brutish, too, because unspiritual, materialized, worldly, earth-bound; having little or no regard for anything beyond what this life can give or take away; caring more for the fleece of the flock than for its faith and fidelity. And brutish, it may be, in a yet lower sense, because sensual; like those of whom Paul tells with bitter tears. "Whose god," he says, "is their belly, who glory in their shame, who mind earthly things."
3. "The pastors have become brutish." What an awful association of ideas! Can any condition be conceived of more horrible than this? No wonder such disastrous results followed. Think how dreadful such a fact must be for the honor of Christ. How his Name must be blasphemed! How such must crucify the Son of God afresh, and once more put him to open shame! How again the Lord Jesus, pointing to the wounds in his sacred hands and feet and side, must declare, "These are the wounds with which I was wounded in the house of my friends!" Blessed Savior, keep us from such sin as this. And how dreadful for the Church of Christ, which he has purchased with his own blood l How such men discourage the Church l how they chill its ardor! how they stagger its faith! how they weaken its strength! how they imperil its very life! And how dreadful for the world! "Woe unto the world," said our Savior, "because of offenses!" This he said in pity for the world, hindered, made to stumble and fall by those who should only have helped it on its way to God. How many will be hardened in wickedness, encouraged to despise all religion, furnished with fresh subject for impious mockery and new arguments for sin; by such as they of whom our text tells! And how dreadful for these brutish ones themselves! "But woe," said Jesus, "unto them by whom that offence cometh!" "Who shall abide the day of the Lord's coming "to execute his wrath on them? Who, indeed! God, in his infinite mercy, save us from ever knowing what that wrath is.
4. But how came this awful fall? What brought down these pastors to this dreadful condition? And the answer to this question is plainly given. They did act seek the Lord; they were prayerless pastors: and that explains all. Now, this did not mean that there was no worship, no praise, no prayer, ever offered. We know there was. The temple service went on and the sacrifices were presented as usual. But there was no true, heartfelt prayer. They did not really seek the Lord. And so with ourselves, there may be, and there probably will be, the keeping up of pious customs, the daily prayers, the ordinary worship; but for such seeking of the Lord as is here told of, and the neglect of which worked such ruin, there must be far more than this. There must be that full application of the heart and mind, that lifting up of the soul to God, that drawing out of the affections after him, that cleaving of the desires to him, that ardor and yet that patience, that humility and yet that boldness which time cannot measure, which make long prayers seem short to him who offers them, and short prayers, if of necessity they must be short, count as long prayers with him who, for Christ's sake, mercifully receives the soul who follows hard after him. This is the kind of prayer which can alone be our safeguard from the abyss into which the pastors here told of fell. Would we escape it, we must seek the Lord so; all else is as seeking him not at all. It is no holiday task, but one demanding all the energies of the soul. How many, how mighty, how manifold, how subtle, are the difficulties in the way! There is the earth-bound heart, that ever clogs our souls with its clinging- clay; that makes them like the bird with the lime of the bird-snarer on its feathers, unable either to fly or go: when it would soar aloft it is powerless to spread its wings, and so is as if chained to the ground. And incessant occupations clamor for attention, and are ever telling us we have no time. And indolence and sloth keep suggesting thoughts of ease and self-sparing. And want of practice in this, as in everything else, makes real prayer very difficult. And Satan, when he sees the soul threatening to escape him by means of such prayer-as by such means it ever will escape him—bends all his energies to thwart and hinder, to baffle and beat down, such prayer. All this is so, but yet we must thus pray. And let us not be disheartened. All these difficulties have been overcome by ten thousand of the saints of God, and shall be by us. And, for our help, remember our Lord's intercession. Join all our prayers—poor, weak things as at their best they are—on to his almighty, all-prevailing intercession, and in this also we shall come off "more than conquerors through Christ who hath loved us." So shall we be kept from being one of those wretched pastors who have become brutish, and have, therefore, only scattered the Lord's flock; yea, we shall be made and be confessed, now and hereafter in our Lord's presence, as one of the pastors after his own heart.—C.