Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 608
Delivered on Sunday Morning, January 8th, 1865, by C. H. Spurgeon, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
“Behold the voice of the cry of the daughter of My people because of them that dwell in a far country, Is not the Lord in Zion? Is not her King in her? Why have they provoked Me to anger with their graven images and with strange vanities? The harvest is past, the summer is ended and we are not saved.” Jeremiah 8:19,20.
THESE words, as they stand in the book of Jeremiah, were probably meant to set forth the sin of Israel. The Prophet’s heart is very full of sadness—he can hear the shrieks and cries of the people in the streets of Jerusalem. They are moaning for sorrow because of the oppression of the Chaldeans—the nation that dwelt afar off. And in the midst of their bitterness and woe they remember the God whom they had forgotten in their prosperity—but this remembrance is not a gracious one. They do not remember Him to humble themselves before Him, but to bring accusations against Him!
They enquire, “Is not the Lord in Zion? Is not her king in her?” As if they felt, “The people of the Lord, the people of the Lord are we, and therefore He is bound to send us a deliverance.” They question the faithfulness of Jehovah because He justly suffers them to be downtrodden for their sins. Then the Lord, speaking by the Prophet, tells them the reason why, although present among them, He did not help them—“Why have they provoked Me to anger with their graven images and with strange vanities?”
If they believed Him to be present, why did they set up false gods? If they considered Him to be their God, why did they turn aside to the vanities of the heathen? His Presence among them had been the occasion of greater provocation since they had mocked Him to His face and set up idols in His own temple! In the twentieth verse the Prophet represents the people as breaking forth into another dolorous and lamentable cry, “We thought that God would help us in the days of harvest—but the harvest is past. We dreamed that He would chase away our enemies when the summer months had come—but the summer is ended and still Chaldea has her foot upon Judea’s neck—still we drink the wormwood and the gall and our enemies open their mouths at us. The harvest is past and the summer is ended and we are not saved.”
We find in the New Testament that sometimes the Apostles used the language of the Prophets in other than the original sense. Finding the Prophetic words to be expressive of a sense which they themselves wished to convey to the people, they did, as it were, take the horses and chariot of the Prophet and drive them in another direction. So I intend to do this morning. It strikes me that there is no text in Scripture more applicable to our present condition than this. “Behold the voice of the cry of the daughter of My people because of them that dwell in a far country.”
We have been crying and pleading with God for the multitude of far-off sinners who know nothing of Him. We will begin, therefore, by dwelling upon the cry. Then comes a question, a question much requiring earnest thought at pre-sent—“Is not the Lord in Zion? Is not her king in her?” Then we have another question which may cause searching of heart both among saints and sinners—“Why have they provoked Me to anger with their graven images and with strange vanities?” And our text concludes with another cry, not the cry of gracious souls for others, but the cry of graceless sinners for themselves, “The harvest is past, the summer is ended and we are not saved.”
I. At the outset we have in the text A CRY. Observe the word, “Behold.” I have told you many times that wherever the word, “behold,” occurs in Scripture, it is a sort of signpost to show that there is good entertainment within. God puts this, “N.B.,” in the margin that we may observe well what it is that He is saying to us. The “behold” here is the mark of astonishment. We are to “Behold the voice of the cry of the daughter of My people” as an unusual thing. So seldom does Israel cry unto the Lord—she is so negligent of prayer, she is so silent when she ought to be incessant in her petitions—that when at last she does cry, her voice is a wonder in God’s ears!
I have felt, this week, in the state of mind which is indicated by that interjection, “Behold!” When I sat on this platform on Monday night and marked your sobs and tears and heard the suppressed sighs and groans of the great multitude then assembled, I could not but say, “Behold!” And yet it ought not to be a wonder, it ought not to be a strange thing for God’s people to be in earnest, or for sinners to feel brokenness of heart! If prayer is the Christian’s breath, why then, to see a multitude breathing should never be a spectacle! If to pray unto God is the Christian’s daily privilege, then to approach the Throne of God with prevalent earnestness should never be looked upon with astonishment!