Conscience dead.
Conscience is given us of God, to serve as a faithful sentry, warning of the approach of sin and summoning the energies of our souls to resist and reject the intruder. Or as a just judge to unhesitatingly condemn sin, let it be wrapped up in what specious disguise it may. It is the Ithuriel's spear which, the moment it touches any moral action, compels such action to reveal itself of what sort it is. Oh, the unspeakable blessing of an enlightened, healthful conscience that will not suffer sin, any sin, even the least, without prompt and powerful protest! God help us all diligently to guard, profoundly to reverence and faithfully to obey this inward monitor, this true bearer of "the light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." But these verses reveal a condition of things in which conscience is dead. It has lost all power of perception, its voice is hushed, or rather, what is worse, it sees and speaks falsely. It is a mockery of life, which would be grotesque were it not so profoundly sad. A caricature and parody of what it once was, its powers utterly perverted, bent, warped, so that they "call evil good, and good evil." Note—
I. THE FACT. How else can such a question as this of Jeremiah 16:10 be accounted for? Was not their sin clear as the sun at noonday? Had it not been for years crying aloud to God for vengeance? Had it not been condemned by all the servants of God, by the written Law of God, by all the voices of God in long succession? And yet these people are asking, "Wherefore hath the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us." It is as if the convicts in our prisons were to begin to ask why they were so treated, and to profess ignorance of their having done aught amiss. But in such ease we should say they were playing the hypocrite, pretending an innocence to which they well knew they had no claim. In this case, however, there is no hypocrisy. The question, monstrous as it seems to us, is asked in all good faith. The prophet of God is bidden to give it a serious answer, not to denounce those who ask it as a set of conscious hypocrites. Just as in Matthew 25:44, which is a portentous parallel indeed, the condemned there are heard asking when they had been guilty of the sins laid to their charge. It is evident in that case and in this, not that they were consciously liars, but that conscience was simply dead within them. The writer knew also of one who had cruelly defrauded a large number of people, who, believing him to be an eminently religious man, had entrusted to him their hard-earned savings, with all of which he had made away; but, when brought to justice, condemned, and imprisoned, he could not be got to confess that he had done wrong, but would keep quoting, in regard to himself, texts which tell of the afflictions of the righteous, and how "whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth."
II. THE CAUSE. Conscience is starved by neglect of that seeking of God's grace which is its nutriment and strength. And it is stunned by repeated acts of sin. Men can and do nibble, if we may so speak, at conscience, and gradually rid themselves of it. The clamor of sin drowns the still, small voice, and its protests, perpetually unheeded, are at last withdrawn. So that at length men find themselves able to do evil and think nothing of it; the little rift that sin first made has widened and widened until the whole torrent of waters bursts through, for the faithful dyke that held them back has been gradually destroyed, and so now the whole nature of the man is overwhelmed, submerged beneath the deluge of sin. And, what is most sad, the man feels, no more than do the sunken cities and towns that tie at the bottom of the Zuyder Zee, the rush of the waves that for centuries have rolled over them.
III. THE CURE. Thank God there is one. The sharp surgery of God's judgments arouse the deadened conscience. The rags, the hunger, the degradation of the prodigal woke up his conscience and brought him "to himself." And so it was with the Jewish people. God's judgments made them hate and abhor, as they have done ever since, the idolatries which brought those judgments upon them. It would be dreadful to think that God had no resources whereby, in full harmony with its freedom, he could bring into due subjection and order "the unruly wills of sinful men." Can we conceive of God having created a force greater than himself, which can forever defy him, and ever maintain, as Milton's Satan in hell, a rebellious though wretched rule? God knew how to convert Israel, Saul, the penitent thief, ourselves, and we may trust him to find means whereby at length to Jesus every knee shall be made to bow. Matthew 25:14 and Matthew 25:15 contemplate a converted Israel (cf. also Isaiah 30:18; Matthew 27:33-39). But let a man tremble at the thought of compelling God to deal with him thus. Let him beware how he wastes his conscience, lest it turn against him and suffer him to sin unrestrained.—C.
Great mercies the forerunners of greater still.
At first reading of these verses their truth is hardly apparent to the ordinary reader of the Bible. The deliverance from Egypt was so magnificent an event, accompanied by such manifestations of the Divine glory, that the quiet return of but a comparatively few of the exiles from Babylon pales into insignificance. Hence it is the latter event that seems not worthy to be spoken of in comparison with the former, and not the former in comparison with the latter. The second temple was so greatly inferior to the first that old men who had seen the first wept when they thought of those glories which to the second were quite unattainable; and so the return from Babylon seems to fall far short in glory of the redemption from Egypt. But these verses affirm that the glory of the return from Babylon was to be far the greater. Now, how could this be? It may be said:
1. That in this return there was a display of the moral power of God rather than his physical might. That which was needed to bring this about was the exercise of the Divine power on men's hearts rather than any material force. It was by mighty miracles that Israel was brought out of Egypt; it was by the action of God's Spirit on his people's hearts that those who returned from Babylon were induced so to do. For their lot was happy, prosperous, peaceful, so far as this world was concerned. The Books of Esther, Nehemiah, and Daniel show this. Hence it was a strong religious yearning that led to the return of those who returned. The mass of the nation were content to remain, and did remain, and formed "those of the Dispersion," of whom in so many ways we hear in after ages. Hence, as Zechariah says (Zechariah 4:6), it was "not by might, nor by power, but," etc.
2. Then, also, in this return there was a display of God's pardoning love. Israel was a forgiven people. They had received at the Lord's hand double for all their sins. But God is ever more glorified in the display of pardoning love than in any manifestations of mere power.
3. And there was in it such a fulfillment of prophecy, such a demonstration of the overruling power of God in and through all the movements of different nations and ages, as proclaimed God's glory more than power alone could ever do. For these reasons the return of the exiles was a more glorious event than the deliverance from Egypt.
4. And this will be seen yet more if we take the verses as pointing on to the ultimate restoration of Israel. Zechariah (Zechariah 13:1-9; Zechariah 14:1-21.) speaks of this, as do many other Scriptures. It was the "hope of Israel" of which Paul told, and he places it in connection with the second advent and the resurrection.
5. And still more if we understand by Israel the spiritual Israel, and regard all these promises as predicting the triumph of the Church. Thus regarded, the deliverance from Egypt was by comparison a very little thing. But when that great triumph comes, where shall we be? God grant that it be amongst those whom on that day he will confess before his Father and the holy angels. But this notable instance in which past mercies promise greater ones to come is only one out of many more. Apply the principle declared—
I. TO THE CHURCH AT LARGE. What mercies in the past, what deliverances, the Church has enjoyed: from persecutors, "grievous wolves" superstition, infidelity, etc.! But all these are to be regarded as pledges of yet greater ones when they shall be needed.
II. TO INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS OF THAT CHURCH. Who of us cannot recount, in the course of our lives, temporal deliverances: from sickness, poverty, perplexity, sorrow, death, etc.? We are to take them all as reasons to anticipate greater things still, more to follow. And especially spiritual deliverances: from living on in disregard of God, from the power of the world, temptation, sorrow. But there are greater ones still. The Church in its full redemption shall prove the truth of this, and so shall separate members of the Church. All shall confess that the Lord hath "kept the good wine until now."
CONCLUSION.
1. Be not dismayed at the troubles of the present; do not think God's grace is exhausted.
2. See to it that you share in the first deliverance—that from guilt and sin. Unless we have known the first, we cannot know the second and greater—that final deliverance from all guilt, all sin, all sorrow, all death, in the presence of God forever.—C.