Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1573
“O Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness that you may be saved. How long shall your vain thoughts lodge within you?” Jeremiah 4:14.
ONE notices, in reading such a chapter as this fourth of Jeremiah, that the change which God required in the Jewish people was a very deep and thorough one. It was not only the washing of their hands, nor the cleansing of their outward lives, but the washing of their hearts from wickedness—and the Lord did not only require of them that they should cease from wicked actions, but even from vain thoughts. The like demand He makes of us, for He says by the mouth of His servant James, “Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double minded.” This makes our holy religion a weighty and solemn business!
If it were wholly a matter of outward ordinances, we might take the child and sprinkle it, or might bring the adult and plunge him. Or we might admit all to a table where they should eat and drink such consecrated materials as should save them. This would all be easy enough and, therefore, men cling to a religion of ceremonies, for heart religion is troublesome and the ungodly cannot endure it! Ritualism is the most popular religion in the world because it is all, “Ho! Presto!” Done in a minute—nothing to think of, nothing to care about, nothing to sorrow over! It is all a mere matter of form which men leave to their priests—as they leave their deeds to be drawn up by their lawyers and their medicine to be prescribed by their doctors! The little that is needed of them can be done without thought and they can go on in their sins as pleasantly as ever.
Next to that in popularity is the religion of mere morality. “Yes, we know we do amiss. We will amend. Gross vices shall be lopped off as stray branches that run over a wall. We will at once purge ourselves from everything for which our fellow men would blame us. Is not that enough?” Many hope it is and live as if they felt sure it was! But the religion of the Word of God is not so. It is, “Rend your hearts and not your garments”—therefore ceremonies are not enough! “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength”—therefore outward actions are not enough! This is too hard a demand and as for repentance and faith, the ungodly cannot enter upon such spiritual duties for they have no mind to them.
The carnal mind hates the mention of spiritual things. This, I take it, while it makes the Christian religion so solemn, throws us back upon one of its great first principles—that salvation must be of Grace because if it is necessary that my heart must be changed, can I change it? I am bid to do so! I am told in such a text as this to wash my heart from wickedness! But how can I do it? Shall a fountain purge itself? It has sent forth bitter waters, bitter as Marah—can it, of itself, do the reverse? “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?” That would be a very simple business, for skin and spots are outside things—but how shall a man change his heart—his very nature?
Do you expect the crab tree to change itself into a sweet apple-bearing tree? Will you go and talk—to come back to the former metaphor—to the waters of Marah and expect them to change themselves into the sweet wells of Elim? No, this requires the finger of God! If ever this is done, God must do it. It is a rule that Nature can only rise as high as Nature. Put water where you please, it will rise up to where it started from and, unless under pressure, it will rise no higher. And you shall not find man rising above his fallen and depraved nature. “The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the Law of God, neither, indeed, can it be.”
Out of the grave there comes not life. Out of an unclean thing there comes not a clean thing. We must be born from above if we are ever born aright. We must be newly created by the Creator, Himself, and become new creatures in Christ Jesus or else we can never come up to the mark which God’s Law requires. “Wash your heart.” Oh, God, how can I wash my heart? Though I take to myself snow water and make myself seem outwardly ever so clean, yet what have I done with my heart? You bid me drive out my thoughts, but, O my God, my thoughts often come against my will and sometimes
with my will and I am tossed about by them as a poor sea shell by the restless waves of the sea! They compass me about like bees! Yes, they compass me about, these vain thoughts of mine, like bees which sting my good desires to death.
Like flies of summer, they buzz about my ears and fill my mind with corruption and they will not be driven away. I can no more resist them than Jannes and Jambres could withstand the Egyptian plague! Oh, how can I purge out vain thoughts? Where shall I turn for strength to perform this necessary duty? “By Grace are you saved, through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.” And what you cannot do, in that you are weak through the flesh, God can do for you and His Divine Spirit will sweetly enable you to perform all duties which He requires of you! If you are willing and obedient and yield yourselves up to the blessed Gospel of the Grace of God, He will make you clean—and your thoughts, too, shall be purged as with fire till they shall rise like a sweet incense unto Him! Let this word at the outset encourage any person who may be inclined to say before I have done, “It is a hard saying: who can bear it?”