Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1363
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, July 8, 1877
“Suddenly are my tents spoiled, and my curtains in a moment.” Jeremiah 4:20.
“And when you are spoiled, what will you do?” Jeremiah 4:30.
JEREMIAH was describing the havoc of war, a war which was devastating his country and bringing untold miseries upon the people. He says of it, “My soul, my soul! I am pained at my very heart; my heart makes a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace, because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war. Destruction upon destruction is cried; for the whole land is spoiled; suddenly are my tents spoiled, and my curtains in a moment. How long shall I see the standard, and hear the sound of the trumpet?”
How grateful we ought to be that war is not raging in our own land. We should read those terrible stories which come to us concerning the destruction of human life by the two armies in the East with the utmost regret. On whichever side the victory may turn, it is still to be daily lamented that men should slaughter men and glory in wholesale murder! How true it is neither the elements in their fury, nor wild beasts in their rage, have ever been such terrible enemies to man as men! We should thank God that we dwell apart and see our harvests ripening without the dread of their being reaped by invaders. We walk our streets without the fear of bursting shells and seek our chambers without the apprehension of being awakened in the dead of night by the shouts of advancing adversaries.
Blessed be the Lord who has given centuries of peace to the fertile hills and valleys of His chosen isle—
“O Britain, praise your mighty God, And make His honors known abroad! He bade the ocean round you flow; Not bars of brass could guard you so.” Let the name of Jehovah our God be praised, this morning, for giving peace in our borders and filling us with the finest of the wheat. There are, however, in this land, and in all lands, whether at war or peace, many calamities which come suddenly upon the sons of men concerning which they may bitterly lament, “How suddenly are my tents spoiled, and my curtains in a moment.” This world, at its best, is not our rest. There is nothing settled below the moon. We call this terra firma, but there is nothing firm about it—it is tossed to and fro like a troubled sea forevermore. We are never, for any long time, in one stay—change is perpetually operating.
Nothing is sure but that which is Divine. Nothing is abiding except that which comes down from Heaven. All things change as they pass before us and perish in the using. At this moment your ship lies becalmed—be not too secure, for within the next few minutes you may be driving before a hurricane with bare poles. Today your garden is planted with blooming flowers which are loading the air with their perfume—rejoice not too much in their sweetness, for within a short time nothing may remain—the spoiler may tear them up by the roots and your garden may become a desolation. There is nothing bright, beautiful, fair, lovely, or desirable beneath the sun which may not be speedily withered!
Even as a vision are all these things—they are, and lo, they are not! They flash upon us as the meteor which blazes in the midnight sky and then leaves the darkness to be blacker than before. “Boast not yourself of tomorrow,” yes, boast not yourself of today, lest haply on that morrow, or even in this very day, you may have to cry with Jeremiah, “How suddenly are my tents spoiled, and my curtains in a moment!”
This expression may be, without any straining, very readily applied to many matters and to three especially. First, to the sudden spoiling of all human righteousness. Secondly, to the sudden spoiling of all earthly comfort. And, thirdly—
and this is by no means an unusual thing—to the sudden spoiling of human life, itself. May the Holy Spirit bless our meditations upon the instability of all earth-born things so that we may despise the things which are seen and temporal, and follow after the things unseen and eternal!
I. A SUDDEN SPOILING HAPPENS TO HUMAN RIGHTEOUSNESS. Beloved, when I put those two words together—“human righteousness”—I inwardly smile. It sounds like a comedy or a satire, I scarcely know which! “What is man that he should be clean? And he that is born of a woman that he should be righteous?” Mere human nature and righteousness are two things not easily joined together—and when they are united for a time, they soon separate—for they agree no better than oil and water. There is a Divine righteousness, worked out by our dear Redeemer and imputed to all His believing people, which will remain—
“That glorious robe the same appears Then ruined nature sinks in years. No age can change its glorious hue, The robe of Christ is ever new.”
But the righteousness which comes of man is a dream—how suddenly does it vanish from our view! Lighter than the spider’s web, more subtle than the mist, more fleeting than the wind—the very name of it is vanity! Let us look at the history of human righteousness and begin in the garden of Eden and lament the Fall. Human righteousness existed in the bowers of Paradise and man was happy with his God. Adam was created sinless. His mind was upon an equal balance and without tendency to evil. He was placed in a garden of delights, with but one commandment to test him, and that a very simple one, costing but slight self-denial to obey.