Jeremiah 3:21-25 A voice was heard on the high places, weeping and supplications of the children of Israel: for they have perverted their way… I. WHAT IT IS TO BACKSLIDE. In Scripture the word "backslide" means a turning away from God altogether. It is usually, if not always, the sin of idolatry; it is the wife departing from her husband, as in this chapter (vers. 1, 2, 8; Proverbs 14:14). There may be in a spiritual sense a real though not apparent departing from God. There may be an unfaithfulness, not an act only, but a state. There may be half-heartedness for a time. The once tender conscience may become hardened; the once lowly spirit may become lifted up. With some it shows itself in worldly entanglements, seeking increase of business. In the midst of all this there may be no grossness, but specious arguments for exculpation. But there is woeful neglect of secret transactions with God. Prayer is not wholly omitted, but not conscientiously followed up. Perhaps there may be a lightness of spirit in prayer; perhaps there may be hardness. There may be an expressed value for the doctrines of grace; but they are as opiates to lull to sleep, not as stimulants to rouse to action. But, irrespective of all false notions with respect to the truth, there is oft much backsliding. The comforts of life have acted, it may be, as drags upon the wheels. Perhaps the very trials of life, instead of drawing us as magnets, have acted as repellants, and driven us away from God. Perhaps very weariness of body and exhaustion of mind have led to secret neglectings of God, and what was occasional at last became habitual. It is by the small edge of the wedge the whole wedge is at last inserted. When a river bursts through its embankment, one little spadeful of earth might have stopped the flood. He that despiseth small things shall fall by little and little. But the point is this — there may be fearful backsliding in heart, and not a speck of grossness in the life; and satisfied am I, that if we do not feel this, we shall, if we are God's children, be taught it, it may be with many stripes. II. THE TENDER EXPOSTULATION. "Return." Here were idolaters in the grossest sense, and yet were they called to return. Before any symptom of amendment, any humblings of soul, yet "Return." So "Hearken unto Me," not ye broken-hearted only that walk, or are beginning to walk, righteously, but "ye stout-hearted that are far from righteousness." What an aspect of tenderness! and what losers are they that see not this! The first overture was from God. The outstretched hand to an idolater, to a rebel. Oh, how clearly does it show us that if there were no election, there would be no salvation. Nature will reject all providences, all mercies, all overtures, even the outstretched hand of God. III. THE ANSWER. "Behold, we come unto Thee, for Thou art the Lord our God." See the overcoming power of love. There was reproof of their departures, expostulation with them for their sin, there was displeasure for their iniquities, but there was the most winning display of love in them all, and it was this which overcame. Force may compel, fear may deter, reason may persuade, and the Holy Spirit may use them all, but the great principle that moves the human heart is love. (J. H. Evans, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: A voice was heard upon the high places, weeping and supplications of the children of Israel: for they have perverted their way, and they have forgotten the LORD their God. |
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