Jeremiah 12:5 If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied you, then how can you contend with horses? and if in the land of peace… I. TO THOSE WHO ARE DISCOURAGED BY TRIFLING DIFFICULTIES, IN THE SERVICE OF GOD. To renounce Christian service because of its difficulties, is to faint among the footmen, and ultimately to contend with the horses. For how will it be when awakened conscience, with its multiplied rebukes, assails thee? How wilt thou assuage the mourning over lost opportunities, and the deep remorse called up by the retrospect of a wasted life? II. TO THOSE WHO SUCCUMB TO BUT FEEBLE TEMPTATIONS. Take the case of one who has recently fallen into the commission of sin — open, known sin. The inducements to commit the great transgression were not powerful in themselves, but the unhappy victim was ensnared almost without resistance; perhaps from want of vigilance, or it may have been through desperate carelessness. The circumstances may even have proved favourable for a triumph over the powers of darkness. A few urgent cries for deliverance would have been successful, escape was close at hand, but the effort, alas! was not made, or feebly made; and now the memory of that sin haunts the conscience, destroys the peace, and embitters all the joys of life. Falling thus easily into the wiles of Satan, what will become of you when he cometh in like a flood? How will you endure when resistance must be unto blood striving against sin? In that hour, unless the heart be established by grace, you will be driven like chaff from the threshing floor. Or, take the case of the young man who, while yet in his father's house, surrounded by all the amenities of domestic love, and sheltered by the sanctions of a Christian home, has fallen, nevertheless, into sinful habits. What will become of him when all these restraints are removed? III. TO THOSE WHO SINK UNDER LIGHT AFFLICTIONS. It is not insensibility which is required of us, because there can be no courage in bearing what we do not feel; nor are we to sink into despair in the hour of suffering, because that would sacrifice the virtue of the trial. The happy medium is prescribed (Hebrews 12:5). It is, however, a very narrow pathway this, between too much and too little feeling of Divine chastisement. There is too much sensibility when we are rendered incapable of the worship of God, or are thrown out of sympathy with our fellow men, or when we are utterly absorbed in sorrow to the neglect of all the pressing claims of duty. There is too little feeling of Divine chastisement when we are not, by its agency brought to faithful heart searching, and to anxious inquiry respecting the purpose of our Heavenly Father in the correction. Let us look at all our trials as opportunities of personal advantage. The exercise of patience is of itself a grand moral lesson. To be joyous in tribulation is greater grace than to be zealous in the time of strength. It may help us in the season of depression and suffering to compare our condition with that of others. The most accumulated of distresses, the strangest combination of griefs, will not make us the worst off in the world. Least of all can we count our sorrows against His "who gave Himself an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour." We can also in the midst of all afflictions anticipate the rapidly approaching hour of deliverance. We shall presently cast off all earth's calamities as the drops of a summer shower that have scarcely penetrated through our garments. IV. TO THOSE WHO ARE NOT PROFITING BY FAVOURABLE PROVIDENCES. One of the later Latin poets has an apologue on the missing of opportunity worthy of our attention. A visitor to the studio of Phidias having inspected the statues of the different deities, inquired the name of one unknown object. It had winged feet, — to show how swiftly it flies; its features were covered with hair, — because, when approaching the spectator, it is rarely identified; it was bald behind, — because when once gone none can seize upon it; — closely following at its heels was a slavish form. The first is Opportunity, — the last Repentance. Men miss the goddess Opportunity, and fall into the arms of Repentance. "So are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them." (W. G. Lewis.) Parallel Verses KJV: If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? and if in the land of peace, wherein thou trustedst, they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan? |
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