Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 862
Delivered on Thursday Evening, JANUARY 17, 1867, by, the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
“What is the chaff to the wheat? says the Lord.”- Jeremiah 23:28.
IT is remarkable that God has traced so much of the misery of the children of Israel in the period of their degradation to the unfaithfulness of those governors, priests and prophets who ruled over them. The crying evil of a nation’s crimes lay at the door of these foolish shepherds. At first it would seem that the main stress of calamity rested on the common people—and the time-serving rulers enjoyed ease and affluence as the fruit of their own corruption. But when the Most High arises to judgment, He begins with those “pastors” who have foully betrayed their sacred trust. As one who has seen their way with His watchful eyes and heard their lies with His ever-listening ears, He denounces them with terrible threats.
While, on the other hand, He looks with compassion on the unhappy victims of strange delusion and cruel oppression—and compares them to a flock hard driven and mercilessly scattered. No, more, He claims this people as His own flock, whose wrongs He will avenge, whose rights He will restore, whose fears He will relieve and whose prosperity He will secure. The sin of those false prophets is exposed in terms which leave them no shadow of excuse. It was a profanity that dared to invoke the Divine name for their horrible wickedness. It was a folly that perverted every kind of truth—and it was a mischief that made the land mourn and dried up all its pleasant places. Therefore the anger of the Lord went forth like a whirlwind in its fury, yet like arrows shot from His bow it singled out the head of the wicked and executed vengeance on the real offenders.
Here, then, in this chapter, we have some of God’s most withering threats and some of His most gracious promises. The abettors of sin are made a prey and the victims of sin are delivered. Is not this according to the manner of God? Whenever God’s Word deals with things truthful, be they material objects or living persons, however weak and feeble they are, it always speaks of them tenderly and handles them gently. God Himself has an eye of respect for everything that is real and veritable. Notwithstanding a delicacy of texture or an infirmity of constitution, He considers the things that are in their own order with generous condescension. His care is lenient and His mercy very tender—He does not quench the smoking flax, nor will He break the bruised reed.
But God hates every false thing. He scorns the hypocrite and the dissembler. The words of Jehovah are keen and cutting, sometimes even sarcastic, as He withers the specious with a laugh of ridicule. There is a sacred bitterness in the tone with which the Prophets and the Apostles—and far above them, the Lord and Master of Apostles and Prophets— speak of everything that is false and feigned, hollow and equivocal. You find no sparing in the rod of His hand, nor any gentleness in the rod of His mouth. What words could be more terrible than such denunciations as these—“O generation of vipers, who has warned you to escape from the wrath to come”? “Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you compass sea and land to make one proselyte and when he is made you make him twofold more the child of Hell than yourselves”?
The Savior cannot endure specious guile, however fair its show. True image of the invisible God, Himself, He hates the cursed trailing serpent. He speaks right—but when beneath that which seems to be honest and of good report, treachery lurks unseen—He conceals not such a holy detestation as becomes One whose eyes are too pure and holy to look upon iniquity or countenance a fraud. Let me beg you to notice the peculiar sharpness and biting severity of the text—“What is the chaff to the wheat? says the Lord.” Like the edge of a razor it cuts. As a saber flashing over one’s head—a sword gleaming to the very point, a fire lurid with coals of juniper—we are appalled as we glance at it! It strikes with implacable resentment.
There is no word of mercy towards the chaff—not a thought of clemency or forbearance. He blows at it as though it were a worthless thing, not to be accounted of, a nothing that vanishes with a puff. The wheat He gathers and stores up. He houses it in His garner, for there will be many a plowing of the fields and many a sowing of the seed and many a harvest-time to follow for the precious grain. But as for the chaff, He has nothing to say of it—He scatters it with the blast—“What is the chaff to the wheat?” Let this apprehension of the severity of God towards everything that is fictitious, counterfeit and false, move us to enquire scrupulously into those matters concerning which our truthfulness must be brought into judgment.
I. IN APPLICATION TO ALL MINISTRIES of God’s Word, let us, first of all, face the question, “What is the chaff to the wheat?” It is quite certain that there always have been some faithful ministries—weighty, powerful, full of thought and emotion—ministries ordained of God, by which the Spirit of God works and through which the saints are gathered together, edified, sanctified and perfected. On the other hand, in all ages of the Church’s history there have been ministries which, with much appearance of well-doing—much glitter of oratory, much garnish of eloquence—have yet never been serviceable to the Church of God!