Jeremiah 22:21 I spoke to you in your prosperity; but you said, I will not hear. This has been your manner from your youth… I. THE EXACTNESS WITH WHICH GOD OBSERVES ALL THAT RELATES TO HUMAN CHARACTER AND CONDUCT. 1. All our relative circumstances are immediately before His eye; and He notices with tender and faithful scrutiny the various effects which His merciful dispensations have upon the mind. 2. The circumstances of human life, however produced, are undoubtedly under the guidance of providence, and therefore subservient to a wise and perfect design. Each man's history is arranged and adapted with utmost precision to the growth of permanent character. II. THE TENDENCY OF UNSANCTIFIED PROSPERITY TO RENDER US INSENSIBLE TO THE CLAIMS OF RELIGION AND SEPARATE US STILL FURTHER FROM GOD. 1. Uninterrupted comfort tends to lessen our confidence in God: to form in the mind a feeling of self-confidence: a security nothing can shake: so much so that religion can make no entrance into the mind. 2. It hardens the heart. God would have every temporal blessing raise the inquiry, "Lord, what is man?" But wicked and irreligious men are only concerned for enjoyment, and for scope for their ambition. They feed and grovel like swine beneath the oak, without looking up to the boughs that bore the fruit, or the hand that shakes it down. 3. Then comes pride. Nebuchadnezzar. God is forgotten, prayer neglected. 4. Leaves a dulness and lethargy of mind. All Divine threatenings, warnings, promises unheeded. III. VARIOUS WAYS IN WHICH GOD REBUKES THIS TENDENCY AND HUMBLES MEN. God speaks to men in various ways, and He distinctly marks the various impressions produced upon the mind by His communications. He speaks to us by His Word and ordinances, by the instructions we receive in religious education, by the various dispensations of His providence, by affliction, by mercies. (S. Thodey.) Parallel Verses KJV: I spake unto thee in thy prosperity; but thou saidst, I will not hear. This hath been thy manner from thy youth, that thou obeyedst not my voice. |
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