Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1658
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, May 7, 1882
“They have healed the hurt of the daughter of My people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.” Jeremiah 8:11.
“Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for You are my praise.” Jeremiah 17:14.
THE people among whom Jeremiah dwelt had received a grievous hurt and they felt it, for they were invaded by cruel enemies. Their goods were plundered, their children were slain and their cities burned. Jeremiah, with true love to his nation, warned them that the cause of all their trouble was that they had forsaken their God. They had turned aside from the living God and had made gods of the idols of the nations round about them, and so had provoked Jehovah to jealousy. Therefore He chastened them sorely and plagued them again and again, even as He had threatened them from of old. He took up the quarrel of His Covenant and He made them smart, indeed.
Jeremiah tried to show them that the only way to be healed of their hurt was to be healed of their sin—that if they would give up their idolatry and all the infamous wickedness that grew out of it—and turn to the true God and obey His Commandments, then brighter days would come. Their conscience must have told them that all this was true but, alas, Jeremiah preached to them in vain! As the old classic prophetess Cassandra was doomed forever to speak the truth and never to be believed, so was Jeremiah—the people heard him, but they regarded him not. Meanwhile, certain pretenders to prophecy opposed Jeremiah and sought to win the confidence of the nation. They came with, “Thus says the Lord,” upon their lips, blasphemously pretending to be speaking in the name of Jehovah when Jehovah had not sent them. Nor did they seek His Glory.
These suggested to the people easier remedies than repentance—they should make an alliance with Egypt and in that way beat off the Assyrians. They should send a certain amount of tribute to the great king and thus buy off his armies. They buoyed up the people’s hopes with vain confidences and took them away from repenting and returning to God. No good came of their teachings—they did but film the wound of the nation and left the deadly venom still within. The hopes which they excited lasted but for a little time and then died out in blank despair. They had not touched the root which bore the wormwood. They had made light of the national sin. They had healed the hurt of Judah slightly, saying, “Peace, peace,” when there was no peace.
God’s servants, today, who are the true successors of the Prophets, have a task before them sterner, even, than that of the ancient Seers! It is not ours to point to smoking ruins and the carcasses of the unburied dead—plain evidences of a grievous hurt—but our work is to deal with spiritual sickness and to come among a people who confess no hurt. Great multitudes of our hearers do not welcome the news of a heavenly remedy because they are not aware that they are sick! They are not only sound in wind and limb, but in head and heart. From the crown of their head to the sole of their feet they have scarcely a blemish on them! Or if they have some little spot here and there, yet they are much superior to the general run of mankind and need no special spiritual surgery.
A physician who has to commence his practice by convincing his neighbors that they are sick has not a very hopeful sphere before him. Such is our work—we have, first of all, to declare in the name of the God, the Truth that man is fallen; that his heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; that he is a sinner doomed to die—and such a sinner that there is no reclaiming him unless the Ethiopian can change his skin and the leopard his spots! Truths so hu-
miliating to human pride are by no means popular! Men prefer to hear the smooth periods of those who parade the dignity of human nature. The very phrase grates on my ears—talk of the dignity of a dunghill and you are as near the mark!
Man, viewed as fallen, descends below the level of the beast which perishes, for the beast has not offended its Creator. Look how Adam’s proud descendants rage against this Truth of God! To persuade them of it is a work so hard as to be utterly hopeless unless the Spirit of God, Himself, shall undertake it! It is a divinely wise arrangement that He has undertaken it—as it is written, “When He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He shall convince the world of sin.” When that great labor is accomplished, we have yet another, remaining, namely, to excite in men a desire to seek healing! Many there are who confess their disease, but the disease of sin has worked in them a spiritual lethargy so that they find a horrible rest in their lost estate! They have no longing to rise to spiritual health, of which, indeed, they know nothing. They are guilty and willing to remain guilty—inclined to evil and content with the inclination!