Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and remove the foreskins of your hearts, O men of Judah and people of Jerusalem. Otherwise, My wrath will break out like fire and burn with no one to extinguish it, because of your evil deeds." Sermons
I. THE LIFE OF EVERY MAN IS A PROCESS OF SPIRITUAL HUSBANDRY. There is a true analogy between the soul of a man and the field in which a farmer sows his seed. In each case there are latent productive elements that may be turned either to good or evil according to the conditions of their development - capacities of indefinite improvement or of indefinite deterioration, of boundless fruitfulness or of boundless waste. The prolific virtue of the soil will nourish alike the germs of precious corn or of noisome weeds; and, whichever it be, the heavens above, by all the influences they shed down upon it, will promote the process. Thus will the faculties of our spiritual nature foster either the seeds of Divine excellence or of satanic corruption, and then all the laws to which our nature is subject, and all the associations of our life, will help to elaborate the issue, until we reap either a glad harvest of fruits that will endure forever, or one of shame and sorrow - thorns and weeds and briars fit only for the flames. "He that soweth to his flesh," etc. (Galatians 6:8). Hence the solemn necessity for some Divine power so to control and govern the secret dispositions and tendencies of our nature as that in our case the law shall be fulfilled in the nobler and better way. "Make the tree good," etc. (Matthew 12:33). II. In this husbandry of the soul, NEGLECT LEADS TO LOSS AND WASTE AND RUIN. "Fallow ground" is land untilled, uncultivated, which no plough turns up and into which no seed is cast. It may be purposely left to rest, that it may not exhaust itself, and that its internal resources may be all the richer afterwards. But the point of the analogy is this - that it naturally becomes encumbered with "thorns." In the spiritual husbandry, while fruitfulness is the result only of diligent labor, ruin follows from simple neglect. The land of the slothful husbandman will soon present the picture of weedy, thorny desolation. To be ruined, to sink into a state of utter poverty and barrenness and destitution of all satisfying good, the souls of men only need to be left alone. "While men sleep the enemy sows tares." "What shall it profit a man," etc.? (Mark 8:36). Our Lord speaks of the soul as being "lost" simply through being forgotten in the eager pursuit of a kind of good which can never of itself enrich and satisfy it. This implies that its native propensities are for the most part of a downward tendency. It bears within it the seeds of moral decay. The "fallow ground" spontaneously produces "thorns." III. IT IS VAIN TO SOW SEEDS OF TRUTH AND GOODNESS IN HEARTS PREOCCUPIED WITH OTHER AND INCONGRUOUS THINGS. How many there are whose religious career may well be described as a "sowing among thorns!" They have religious susceptibilities; they are familiar with religious influences; but their secret hearts are the home of mean ambitions, tainted with the "lust of the eye and the pride of life," or they are entangled with a network of worldly associations or bound by the chains of some bad habit, from which they have not the courage or the strength to set themselves free. And so their spiritual condition is a strange medley of good and evil. Every better affection and impulse within them has some form of moral weakness by its side that nullifies it. Strong as their heavenward aspirations may sometimes be, there is nothing like whole-heartedness in their pursuit of the nobler good. No wonder they are "barren and unfruitful in the knowledge of Christ." The ground must be cleared before a better result can be expected. How many a sower, going forth in the name of the Great Husbandman, is oppressed in spirit with the thought that much of the seed that he scatters falls "among thorns!" He has to contend with a thousand obstructive forces in men's hearts, and knows well that, unless some mightier force goes with his message to overbear all these, they will "choke the Word." Let the young especially watch and pray against the encroachment upon them of influences fatal to their higher life. It is a comparatively easy thing to overmaster the sins and follies of youth. Far otherwise when they have become the confirmed and cherished habits of the man. "Break up your fallow ground l" It is hard to do this. It involves much self-crucifixion. We all like to live at ease - to yield to the strongest influences of the passing hour, as the sluggard does, who allows himself to be overcome by the spell of sleep, and to dream away the hours and moments that ought to be spent in the wakeful activities of life. But this is not the way to reach the heights of heavenly glory and blessedness. It is the certain road to poverty and ruin, to despair and death. Not on grounds of self-interest alone is the appeal of the text to be urged. Consider what a loss to the world is involved in every barren, undeveloped human soul and life. It is a great calamity to a country to have large tracts of its territory lying waste and desolate, while many of its people, perhaps, are perishing for lack of bread, or compelled to flee to other lands to find a field and reward for their labor. How sad that, in a world of such overwhelming spiritual need and destitution as this, the powers of any human soul, that might exercise a redeeming influence upon it, should be left idle or allowed to run to waste! - W.
Though thou rentest thy face with painting, in vain shalt thou make thyself fair. This renting of the face is, literally, enlarging of the eyes through kohl or antimony — a trick of artificial beauty. And the poor creature has taken out her best clothes, painted herself with the fairest colours, done all she could from the outside, and behold the issue is: "Thy lovers will despise but after all is over men feel that this is unreal, untrue, utterly rotten at the core; they say this is "a goodly apple rotten at the heart." Let us understand the, that whether we be discovered now or then, we shall be discovered. The hollow man shall be sounded, and shall be pronounced void. Thou art weighed in the balances, and found wanting; and thou, poor fool, hast covered up the hectic flush of consumption with indigo that will wash off, or with some other colour that can be cleansed away; thou hast made thyself look otherwise than as thou art: but all that is external shall be taken from thee, and thou shalt be seen in thy naked hideousness and ghastliness. This is right! The revelation will be awful; but it ought to be made, or heaven itself will be insecure. Oh, what disclosures then! The canting hypocrite without his cloak; the skilful mocker who has lost his power of jesting; the knave who always said a grace he had committed to memory before he cut the bread he had stolen; the preacher who knew the right, and yet the wrong pursued; the fair speaker, who knew the very subtlety of music as to persuasion, and yet decoyed souls down the way at the end of which is hell. Then the other revelation will also be made. There may be men of rough manners who shall prove to have been all the while animated by a gentle spirit; there may be those who have been regarded as Philistines who are God's gentlemen; there may be those who have been thought as unworthy of courtesy who shall be set high among the angels.(J. Parker, D. D.). People Dan, JeremiahPlaces Dan, Jerusalem, Mount Ephraim, ZionTopics Able, Aside, Break, Burn, Burned, Burning, Circumcise, Circumcised, Circumcision, Deeds, Doings, Evil, Fire, Foreskin, Foreskins, Forth, Fury, Heart, Hearts, Inhabitants, Jerusalem, Judah, Lest, None, O, Quench, Quenching, Remove, Turn, Undergo, Wrath, YourselvesOutline 1. God calls Israel by his promise3. He exhorts Judah to repentance by fearful judgments 19. A grievous lamentation for Judah Dictionary of Bible Themes Jeremiah 4:4 5017 heart, renewal Library The Wailing of RiscaYou all know the story; it scarce needs that I should tell it to you. Last Saturday week some two hundred or more miners descended in health and strength to their usual work in the bowels of the earth. They had not been working long, their wives and their children had risen, and their little ones had gone to their schools, when suddenly there was heard a noise at the mouth of the pit;--it was an explosion,--all knew what it meant. Men's hearts failed them, for well they prophesied the horror which … Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 7: 1861 How those are to be Admonished who Sin from Sudden Impulse and those who Sin Deliberately. Prevailing Prayer. How to Make Use of Christ for Cleansing of us from Our Daily Spots. "For they that are after the Flesh do Mind the Things of the Flesh,", "Who Walk not after the Flesh, but after the Spirit. For they that are after the Flesh," "If So be that the Spirit of God Dwell in You. Now if any Man have not the Spirit of Christ, He is None of His. " The Acceptable Sacrifice; Original Sin Repentance Directions to Awakened Sinners. The Quotation in Matt. Ii. 6. Jesus Attends the First Passover of his Ministry. Jeremiah Links Jeremiah 4:4 NIVJeremiah 4:4 NLT Jeremiah 4:4 ESV Jeremiah 4:4 NASB Jeremiah 4:4 KJV Jeremiah 4:4 Bible Apps Jeremiah 4:4 Parallel Jeremiah 4:4 Biblia Paralela Jeremiah 4:4 Chinese Bible Jeremiah 4:4 French Bible Jeremiah 4:4 German Bible Jeremiah 4:4 Commentaries Bible Hub |
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