Jeremiah 10:23-25 O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walks to direct his steps. From what foul soil do the fairest flowers spring! Beautiful as they are, they are rooted in that which is altogether unbeautiful. The sweet perfume of many woods, seeds, flowers, will not be given forth until they are gashed with the axe, or bruised, or crushed, or otherwise seemingly maltreated. We could not have the many-hued arch of the exquisitely tinted rainbow were it not for the drear, dark clouds and the descending rain. The most precious of the psalms were wrung out of the heart of David when that heart was well-nigh borne down with grief. And here, in these verses, it is the chastened spirit of Judah, personified in the prophet who speaks, that utters itself in the lowly confession of the twenty-third verse, the holy submission of the prayer of the twenty-fourth verse, and the settled hatred of them who hate God which burns in the twenty-fifth. Consider, then, these fruits, and may God make them to abound in ourselves. I. THE CONFESSION. Ver. 23, "O Lord, I know," etc. Now, this is a confession: 1. Of humble dependence upon God. It is an acknowledgment that, however much man may propose, God will dispose; that man's goings are of the Lord. The life of each is, as God told Cyrus (Isaiah 44.), guided, governed by him. Illustrations are everywhere: the cruelty of Joseph's brethren; the oppression of Israel in Egypt; the crucifixion of our Lord (cf. Acts 2:23); the persecution of the Church (Acts 8:3); Paul's early life; etc. All these are instances in which, whilst men did exactly as they liked, acting with choice as unfettered as it was evil, they were nevertheless made to subserve the Divine plans, and their evil was compelled to work out good. Man may have power to "walk," but whither his steps will lead he cannot "direct." "The way of man is not in himself." He is free to choose his way, and for his choice he is responsible; but he is not allowed to determine all that shall come of that choice or what its issues and results shall be. Every time that men find their plans turn out altogether differently from what they expected or designed, proves the truth of the prophet's word. God has planned the life of each one of us. He intends certain results to be secured by our lives. "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will." And our wisdom is to see and confess and conform ourselves to the Divine plan - happy they who do so - and not to thwart or hinder it, as so many are bent upon doing, and hence, in the manifold sorrows of their lives, find it "hard to kick against the pricks." Our wisdom is daily to pray, "Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; make plain my path before my face." 2. Of their own folly and sin. There are many teachers who will instruct us in this truth of our own incompetence to order our ways; all that is needed is that we be willing to learn. Such teachers are: (1) Reason. It is reasonable that, as we are the creatures of God, he should have the control of our lives. (2) Scripture. We have cited some instances already. (3) Observation. The world is strewn with the wrecks of men who have disregarded the chart given them of God, and have run upon the rocks in consequence. (4) But the most strenuous and resistless teacher of all is Experience. He will make a man learn, almost whether the man will or no. And it was this teacher who had been instructing, in his emphatic manner, Judah and her people. By the miserable mess they had made of their lives, and the frightful calamities which now were close at their doors (Ver. 22), they had at length come to see and confess their own wretched ordering of their way. Hence now the confession, "O Lord, I know that," etc. It is a blessed fruit for folly and fault to bear. It is not the natural fruit, but one of God's gracious grafts. Peter's folly of boasting bore such fruit when "be went out and wept bitterly." Let our prayer be that the faults and follies, the sins and sorrows, with which our lives are scattered over may make us see and own, "O Lord, I know that," etc. 3. Of their trust, nevertheless, in God's infinite love. For not improbably this confession has not only an upward look to God as the Director of men's ways, and an inward look upon their own sin, but also an outward look upon those dread foes who were hastening to destroy them. And this was their comfort that, after all, these enemies of theirs were in God's hands. No doubt they designed fearful things against God's people (cf. Ver. 25). But then, "the way of man is not," etc. Hence even these fierce, relentless foes might be held in and turned about by the bit and bridle of God. Had not God, in the days of the good King Hezekiah, proved this in regard to the King of Assyria and his army? Had he not, as Isaiah said, "put a hook in his nose.., and turned him back by the way by which he came?" And this confession breathes this hope and trust that God would do the like by their enemies now about to fall upon them. It is a real comfort to know that all our enemies, whether human or spiritual, are under the control of God. Even the apparently omnipotent prince of evil has but a limited power. He, too, cannot direct his own way. "The Lord, he is the true God, the living God, the everlasting King" (Ver. 10). II. THE PRAYER. Ver. 24, "O Lord, correct me, but," etc. 1. This is a model prayer. For: (1) It confesses wrong. It owns the need of correction. The man is no longer right in his own eyes. He is seen, like the publican, "standing afar off," etc. (2) It desires to be put right (cf. Psalm 51.). As there, so here, there is the longing for renewal, the clean heart, the right spirit. (3) It deprecates, not the correction, but the wrath of God. The man has a clear view of that wrath - its crushing, destroying power. It is good to have this. Without it there is the danger of our looking lightly upon our sin. 2. It is a most instructive prayer. It teaches us: (1) That all the corrections we have received have been fatherly ones - "in judgment," not "in anger." For had they been in anger we had not been here at all. (2) That we are alive and in God's presence proves that the love of God, and not his anger, is ours still. For his anger would have "brought us to nothing." (3) That there are corrections in anger. There have been such. Where are Egypt, Nineveh, Babylon, Rome? God brought them "to nothing." And there will be for all who harden themselves against God. (4) That, seeing all need correction and will therefore receive it, either "in judgment" or "in anger," our wisdom is to make this prayer our own. One or other of these corrections we must have. Which shall it be? This prayer was answered for Israel. They have not been brought to nothing, and they were corrected. That sin of idolatry which brought on them God's correction they have, ever since that correction, utterly abandoned. Then let us make this prayer our own. III. HOLY ANGER AGAINST THE ENEMIES OF GOD. We can readily see that Vers. 23 and 24 are the fruits of a chastened spirit, but this fierce utterance of Ver. 25 seems of another kind. But it is not. No doubt it has somewhat of the fierceness which belonged to that stern age, but it is nonetheless a real fruit of a right spirit. We ought to be very doubtful of our own spirit, however meek and contrite it is, if it be not accompanied with an intense detestation of evil. "Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? And am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee?" Such sentiment is a true note of the Spirit of God, and a religious life that lacks it is sure to be lacking in vigor, strength, and reliability. It is not personal hatred that finds utterance here, so much as a deep sense of the wrong done to God and the hindrance that is placed in the way of his will. The seventy-ninth psalm is an expression of this petition. Our age, and the temperament that so soft an age induces, are apt to make us be too easy with sin and sinners. We are so bred up in the idea of the "Gentle Jesus, meek and mild," that we forget how anything but gentle and mild he was to the hopelessly bad who were, in regard to the spiritual well-being of his people, doing as is here said, "eating up Jacob, devouring him," etc. What awful words poured forth from the Savior's lips towards such! Let us suspect a meekness that makes us mild towards such. A man may make the confession of Ver. 23, and offer the prayer of Ver. 24, and fall and fall again; but if he have the stem spirit of Ver. 25, that deep, intense hatred of evil, sin is far less likely to have dominion over him for the future; he will be "strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might." Therefore, whilst we crave that fruit of the Spirit which is seen in Vers. 23, 24, let us crave that also which we have here in Ver. 25. It is the result of our being "strengthened with might by the Spirit of God in the inner man," and leads on, in blessed, successive steps, to our being "filled with all the fullness of God." - C. Parallel Verses KJV: O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps. |
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