Jeremiah 5:1-9 Run you to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if you can find a man… "It is difficult," says a great historian, "to conceive any situation more painful than that of a great man condemned to watch the lingering agony of an exhausted country, to tend it during the alternate fits of stupefaction and raving which precede its dissolution; and to see the symptoms of vitality disappear, one by one, until nothing is left but coldness, darkness, and corruption." Such was the fate of Jeremiah. His writings are among the saddest in Scripture. He was no Elijah, no Isaiah, no John the Baptist, no Savonarola, not a man of mighty thunderings, whose strong spirit can face corrupted nations and never quail. There are some men whose courage seems to rise in proportion as they have to face insensate fury of opposition. Such was the spirit of Phocion. "Have I said anything wrong then?" he exclaimed, when the Athenians cheered his speech. Such was the spirit of Coriolanus. Such was the spirit of the great Scipio. Christians who believe that Christ really did mean something when He said, "Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you," — Christians, a few of them, have also believed that there is a beatitude of insolence and of malediction. "Heavens! what mistake have I made!" was the answer of a strong governor when told that he was beginning to get popular. But Jeremiah was not naturally a man of this strong fibre. Timid, shrinking, sensitive, he was yet placed by God in the forefront of a forlorn hope, in which he was, as it were, predestined to failure and to martyrdom. In this chapter Jeremiah is striving to bring home to his people that things are not as they should be. Diogenes, in Athens, searched the streets with a lantern at noonday to find a man; Jeremiah, in Jerusalem, says that neither in its streets, nor in its broad places, can he find one man, one just, strong servant of the Lord. He thought, perhaps, that had there been such, God might pardon Jerusalem as He had once pardoned Sodom. But he could not find them. He found profession, but not sincerity; chastisement, but not amendment; remorse, but not repentance. Then he thought, "I have been too much among the multitude, who are ignorant and foolish; I will go to the upper strata of society; I will get me to the great men, to the priests, the statesmen, the men of culture; they surely have had leisure to learn the way of the Lord and the judgment of their God." But the prophet was utterly disappointed; the upper thousands were worse and more helpless than the lower myriads; they had altogether broken the yoke and burst the bands, and so he adds — "Wherefore a lion out of the forest shall slay them, a wolf of the evening shall spoil them, a leopard shall watch over their cities." What was the exact idea of the threatened punishment we do not know. The general meaning is clear; the days were evil alike among high and low; there were carelessness, unbelief, self-seeking, insincerity, and, amid all, men were completely at their ease; they were quite secure that no evil could happen to them. Jeremiah thought differently; he knew that greed, falsity, unreality, corruption, cannot last. God cannot forever bear with them; men cannot forever endure their burden; they may be long-lived, but doomsday comes to them in the end. Has it not always been so? The great world empires of idolatry — what could once have seemed more secure than they were in cruel strength? Where are they now? In any age, whenever any true prophet has spoken, the world has always been thrown into violent antagonism; it denies him every quality he possesses; he may be the humblest of men, but he will assuredly be charged with pride, Whom makest thou thyself? If he be hopeful, he will be called Utopian and unpractical; if he be despondent, he will be called maudlin; if he feels strongly, he is excited and an enthusiast; if he speaks strongly, he is gushing and hysterical; in the one case he is a Samaritan, and in the other "he has a devil." A sneer has been made on the very name of the prophet of whom we are speaking, and the world thinks it has effectually depreciated any warning about present evil or future peril, when it has called it a Jeremiad. Neither the world nor the Church can tolerate a prophet until they have killed him: kings cannot away with him. Ahab imprisons Micaiah, Joash kills Zechariah, Herod slays John in prison, Eudoxia banishes , Sigismund burns Huss. Priests hate him with still more perfect hatred; the priests of Jerusalem ridicule Isaiah; the priest Pashur put Jeremiah into the stocks; the priest Amaziah expels Amos; the priests Annas and Caiaphas slew the Lord of glory; the priest Ananias bid them smite Paul over the mouth. The true prophet, if God ever give us one again, must face all this. He, like St. Paul, must be weak and despised for Christ's sake. But, besides this, he will especially have to bear the one charge which has always been brought against all prophets since the world began — that what he says is exaggerated, and that what he says is uncharitable. Doubtless, the impatient Amaziahs and the Pashurs of Jeremiah's day said, "What business has this man to bring such sweeping accusations? Look at our priests, how active they are, how many services they have, how careful they are to burn exactly the two kidneys with the fat; look at the scribes, how accurate they are in counting the very letters of Scripture; look at all the eminently respectable persons who go to church and pay their tithes of mint and of anise and of cumin. And as for danger, that is all hysterical nonsense. This is not the Lord's messenger; evil shall not come upon us." Yes, but it did come before Jeremiah was hurried to his death; it came as with a deluge; it came as with a thunder crash; it came as with a hurricane. On these conventional priests, on these careless aristocrats, on these money-making middle classes, on these immoral multitudes the flash fell, and the glory and freedom of Israel were hurled forever into the dust. Thousands who are not prophets might draw a very flattering picture of this age, which might be represented as nearly all that could be wished; they could point to its placid comfort, its domestic virtues, its slightly expanded egotism, and say there never was an age so respectable; they would point to all the threepenny pieces, and even to all the shillings in the plate, and say there never was an age so charitable; they would point to the endless multiplication of sermons and services, and say there never was an age so deeply religious they would point to the mushroom growth of fussy organisations, and say that the Church never was so vigorously, zealous. I fear that the truth would force the prophet to speak; he would point out the great gulf fixed between true religion and sentimental formalism; he would say that the sums that the nation dribbles in charity are in relation to its wealth no proof of our magnanimity, but the measure of our indifference; he might say that in spite of all our organisation, all the religious machinery in London is put into play on Hospital Sunday with the result of collecting some £20,000, which you will see perhaps in the paper the next day has been given in a two days' sale for china and bric-a-brac. He might say that sermons and services, day after day, may perhaps only be treading into deader callosity the self-satisfaction of Pharisaic hearts; he might say that the praise of our languid virtues was the best opiate to lull our souls into indifference and let them rot asleep into the grave. (Dean Farrar.) Parallel Verses KJV: Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if ye can find a man, if there be any that executeth judgment, that seeketh the truth; and I will pardon it. |
    |