Expositions of Holy Scripture: Isaiah and Jeremiah Part 50

who are ashamed to be caught praying. One may observe, in mitigation, that the worship which is of the heart is naturally more sensitive to surrounding distractions than that which is a matter of posturing and repet.i.tion by rote. But there still remains substance enough in the contrast to point a sharp arrow of rebuke.

And there is no denying that in these 'heathen' religions, religion is intertwined with every act of life in a fashion which may well put to shame many of us. Remember how Paul had to deal at length with the duty of the Corinthians in view of the way in which every meal was a sacrifice to some G.o.d, and how the same permeation of life with religion is found in all these 'false faiths.' The octopus has coiled its tentacles round the whole body of its victim. Bad and sad and mad as idolatry is, it reads a rebuke to many of us, who keep life and religion quite apart, and lock up our Christianity in our pews with our prayer-books and hymnaries.

Think of the material sacrifices made by idolaters, in costly offerings, in painful self-tortures, and in many other ways, and the n.i.g.g.ardliness and self-indulgence of so many so-called Christians.

III. The contrast suggests the greatness of the power which can overcome even such obstinate adherence to idols.

There is one, and only one, solvent for that rock-like obstinacy--the Gospel. The other religions have seldom attempted to encroach on each other's territory, and where they have, their instrument of conversion has generally been the sword. The Gospel has met and mastered them all.

It, and it only, has had power to draw men to itself out of every faith. The ancient G.o.ds who bewitched Israel, the G.o.ds of Greece, the G.o.ds of our own ancestors, the G.o.ds of the islands of the South Seas, lie huddled together, in undistinguished heaps, like corpses on a battlefield, and the deities of India and the East are wounded and slowly bleeding out their lives. 'Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth, the idols are upon the beasts,' all packed up, as it were, and ready to be carried off.

The rate of progress in dethroning them varies with the varying national conditions. It is easier to cut a tunnel through chalk than through quartz.

IV. That contrast carries with it a call for Christian effort to spread the conquering Gospel.

FOUNTAIN AND CISTERNS

'They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water'--JER. ii. 13.

The proclivity of the Jews to idolatry is an outstanding fact all through their history. That persistent national tendency surely compels us to recognise a divine inspiration as the source of the prophetic teaching and of the lofty spiritual theology of the Old Testament, which were in sharpest unlikeness and opposition to the whole trend of the people's thoughts.

It is this apostasy which is referred to here. The false G.o.ds made by men are the broken cisterns. But the text embodies a general truth.

I. The irksomeness of a G.o.dless life.

The contrast is between the springing fountain, there in the desert, with the lush green herbage round about, where a man has only to stoop and drink, and the painful hewing of cisterns.

This emblem of the fountain beautifully suggests the great thought of G.o.d's own loving will as the self-originated impulse by which He pours out all good. Apart from all our efforts, the precious gift is provided for us. Our relation is only that of receivers.

We have the contrast with this in the laborious toils to which they condemn themselves who seek for created sources of good. 'Hewn out cisterns'--think of a man who, with a fountain springing in his courtyard, should leave it and go to dig in the arid desert, or to hew the live rock in hopes to gain water. It was already springing and sparkling before him. The conduct of men, when they leave G.o.d and seek for other delights, is like digging a ca.n.a.l alongside a navigable river. They condemn themselves to a laborious and quite superfluous task. The true way to get is to take.

Ill.u.s.trations in religion. Think of the toil and pains spent in idolatry and in corrupt forms of Christianity.

Ill.u.s.trations in common life. Your toils--aye, and even your pleasures--how much of them is laboriously digging for the water which all the while is flowing at your side.

II. The hopelessness of a G.o.dless life.

The contrast further is between living waters and broken cisterns. G.o.d is the fountain of living waters; in other words, in fellowship with G.o.d there is full satisfaction for all the capacities and desires of the soul; heart--conscience--will--understanding--hope and fear.

The contrast of the empty cisterns. What a deep thought that with all their work men only make 'cisterns,' _i.e._ they only provide circ.u.mstances which _could hold_ delights, but cannot secure that water should be in them! The men-made cisterns must be G.o.d-filled, if filled at all. The true joys from earthly things belong to him who has made G.o.d his portion.

Further, they are 'broken cisterns,' and all have in them some flaw or crack out of which the water runs. That is a vivid metaphor for the fragmentary satisfaction which all earthly good gives, leaving a deep yearning unstilled. And it is temporary as well as partial. 'He that drinketh of this water shall thirst again'--nay, even as with those who indulge in intoxicating drinks, the appet.i.te increases while the power of the draught to satisfy it diminishes. But the crack in the cistern points further to the uncertain tenure of all earthly goods and the certain leaving of them all.

All G.o.dless life is a grand mistake.

III. The crime of a G.o.dless life.

It is right to seek for happiness. It is sin to go away from G.o.d. You are thereby not merely flinging away your chances, but are transgressing against your sacredest obligations. Our text is not only a remonstrance on the grounds of prudence, showing G.o.d-neglecting men that they are foolish, but it is an appeal to conscience, convincing them that they are sinful. G.o.d loves us and cares for us. We are bound to Him by ties which do not depend on our own volition. And so there is punishment for the sin, and the evils experienced in a G.o.dless life are penal as well as natural.

We recall the New Testament modification of this metaphor, 'The water that I shall give him shall be _in_ him a fountain of water.' Arabs in desert round dried--up springs. Hagar. Shipwrecked sailors on a reef.

Christ opens 'rivers in the wilderness and streams in the desert.'

FORSAKING JEHOVAH

'Know therefore, and see, that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy G.o.d, and that My fear is not in thee, saith the Lord G.o.d of hosts.'--JER. ii. 19.

Of course the original reference is to national apostasy, which was aggravated by the national covenant, and avenged by national disasters, which are interpreted and urged by the prophet as G.o.d's merciful pleading with men. But the text is true in reference to individuals.

I. The universal indictment.

This is not so much a charge of isolated overt acts, as of departure from G.o.d. That departure, itself a sin, is the fountain of all other sins. Every act which is morally wrong is religiously a departure from G.o.d; it could not be done, unless heart and will had moved away from their allegiance to Him. So the solemn mystery of right and wrong becomes yet more solemn, when our personal relation to the personal G.o.d is brought in.

Then--consider what this forsaking is-at bottom aversion of will, or rather of the whole nature, from Him.

How strange and awful is that power which a creature possesses of closing his heart against G.o.d, and setting up a quasi-independence!

How universal it is-appeal to each man's own consciousness.

II. The special aggravation.

'_Thy G.o.d_ '---the original reference is to Israel, whom G.o.d had taken for His and to whom He had given Himself as theirs, by His choice from of old, by redemption from Egypt, by covenant, and by centuries of blessings. But the designation is true in regard to G.o.d and each of us.

It points to the personal relation which we each sustain to Him, and so is a pathetic appeal to affection and grat.i.tude.

III. The bitter fruit.

6 Evil' may express rather the moral character of forsaking G.o.d, while 'bitter' expresses rather the consequences of it, which are sorrows.

So the prophet appeals to experience. As the Psalmist confidently invites to 'taste and see that G.o.d is good,' so Jeremiah boldly bids the apostates know and see that departing is bitter.

It is so, for it leaves the soul unsatisfied.

It leads to remorse.

It drags after it manifold bitter fruits. 'The wages of sin is death.'

Sin without consequent sorrow is an impossibility if there is a G.o.d.

IV. The loving appeal.

The text is not denunciation, but tender, though indignant, pleading, in hope of winning back the wanderers. The prophet has just been pointing to the sorrowful results which necessarily follow on the nation's apostasy, and tells Israel that its own wickedness shall correct it, and then, in the text, he beseeches them not to be blind to the meaning of their miseries, but to let these teach them how sinful and how sorrowful their apostasy is. Men's sorrows are a mystery, but that sinners should not have sorrows were a sadder mystery still. And G.o.d pleads with us all not to lose the good of our experiences of the bitterness of sin by our levity or our blindness to their meaning. By His providences, by His Spirit working on us, by the plain teachings and loving pleadings of His word, He is ever striving to open our eyes that we may see Good and Evil, and recognise that all Good is bound up for us with cleaving to G.o.d, and all Evil with departing from Him. When we turn our backs on Him we are full front with the deformed figure of Evil; when we turn away from it, we are face to face with Him, and in Him, with all Good.