Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2178
“Then Zedekiah the king said, Behold, he is in your hands: for the king is not he that can do anything against you.” Jeremiah 38:5.
“PUT not your trust in princes.” Zedekiah professed to be a friend to Jeremiah, but when the princes sought permission to put the Prophet to death, Zedekiah’s friendship was not worth much. He said, “He is in your hands: for the king is not he that can do anything against you.” Instead of protecting his friend and adviser, he gave him over at once and left him as a lamb at the mercy of wolves. It seems very natural for men to trust in men and yet the Scripture warns us that, “Cursed is the man that trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm.” He that makes a mortal man his confidence will find that his anchor has no grip. Even good men are but broken reeds and cannot bear the strain of the day of trouble— while the bad are like sharp spears that prick the man who dares to lean upon them.
But, if we cannot trust in men, we think that surely we may trust in princes. If honor were banished from all the rest of the world, it ought to find a home in the breasts of kings! Great men, noble men, men of renown, men of high standing—may we not trust in them? Brethren, “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes,” for princes are but men, and sometimes hardly that. Princes are not always the truest of men—they are seldom the best of men to trust. Many have had to say at the end of life what Wolsey is represented as saying to Sir William Kingston, “Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my king, He would not in my age have left me naked to my enemies.” If “uneasy lies the head that wears the crown,” certainly uneasy is the heart which rests on the wearer of a diadem!
Trust in God and you have trusted in the true King, “the King immortal, invisible.” Trust in the Christ of God and you have trusted in the only Prince who can never falter, fail, or forget. I think that is clearly a lesson of the text. We all know someone who, to us, is as a prince—let us not rest too much on a wealthy uncle, or a generous friend, or a capable patron—but let our trust be in the Lord, alone. Had Jeremiah been trusting in Zedekiah, he would have been sorrowfully deceived. Yet this is not the lesson that I am going to teach at this time.
Zedekiah was a gentleman of a sort wonderfully common nowadays. A good-natured, easy man. His nobles could get anything they liked from him. He would not act amiss of his own self, but he would follow the lead of others, wherever that might lead him. He had a great respect for the Prophet—he liked to visit him and know what message he had received from God. He did not wish to have it known that he consulted him, but still he liked to steal away in private and have a talk with the man of God. He much respected the man so sorrowful and yet so heroic. But when the princes came round him, though he was an autocratic king and could have snuffed out those gentlemen at once, yet half-a-dozen of them, all very glib of speech, most easily persuaded him.
He did not want to have any bother—he would do anything for a quiet life. “The king is not he that can do anything against you.” As much as to say—“I cannot say, ‘No,’ to you, if you wish it. I am sorry—I think you are wrong, but I will not insist upon my own idea. If you wish it, although I am a king and perhaps ought not to be so yielding, yet I so much wish to please everybody that I cannot refuse you anything. You may take the Prophet and, if you like, you may put him into a dungeon where he will die. I think you are too hard on a good man, for whom I have a great respect, but at the same time, gentlemen, I am not a man that can stand out against you—so take him and do as you please.”
This is that king, Zedekiah—he does not rule, but is ruled by the princes whom he ought to command. “Oh,” says one, “you do not mean to insinuate that we have any Zedekiahs about now?” I shall not insinuate anything, but boldly
declare that these soft, molluscous beings make up a large proportion of the population, and I think it is highly probable that some of them are here now! I shall be very glad if what I say should make them feel much ashamed and should cause them to cry to God to give them new hearts and right spirits!
It shall not be my fault if they do not feel their seat grow hard and the house grow warm. I would gladly make them pray to God to put some kind of moral backbone into them so that, when they know the right, they may stand up for it and may not weakly yield to the persuasions of those who tempt them. May the Holy Spirit be here to convict men of sin in this matter!
I. I am going, first of all, to DESCRIBE THE LIKES OF THIS MAN ZEDEKIAH that I may deal plainly with such. This softness of character takes different shapes, but it is the same base metal, the same worthless dross in every case. In some it takes the form of enquiring into what religion is fashionable when they settle down in a district. They have a pretty good idea of what the Truth of God is. They were taught it by their parents. They have read it in God’s Word. They have made up their minds with some distinctness as to what is the correct thing according to Holy Scripture—but they waive their judgment and prepare to compromise.