Jeremiah 14:8














The prophet's words, as he intuitively places himself in the position of those who are about to be afflicted. Not, therefore, to be regarded as an ideal prayer, but a true representation of the spiritual state of those who are conscious of their sin and their need of salvation. They explain the lack of apparent answer to prayer, and truthfully interpret the spiritual condition of the awakened sinner.

I. PRAYER IS AN INDEX OF THE SPIRITUAL STATE. Here we have the oscillation between fear and hope, doubt and faith, vividly portrayed. There is a flitting to and fro of the soul between the extremes of dejection and of confidence. All real prayer ought thus faithfully to represent the mind of the petitioner. It is a laying bare of secret thoughts and moral convictions; an unconscious as well as a conscious confession. Whilst it may be said that a man's inner being is revealed in his prayer, he is not to be judged by it by his fellow men. It is only God who can truly understand the indications which it affords, and only he who has a right to interpret them. There is a rising, a falling, and a rising again in the course of the prayer. It is the Name of God which serves as a reminder and spiritual confirmation.

II. PRAYER IS A SPIRITUAL EXERCISE AND A MEANS OF GRACE. There is evident in this utterance a wrestling with unbelief. Memories of evil crowd upon the soul and seem to darken the horizon. The sinful nation confesses that in itself there is no hope, but as that conviction is arrived at, another asserts itself, namely, that God is the Hope of Israel, and that in his name or character there is the promise and potency of restoration. It is in spiritual transitions like these that the soul is lost and found again. Temptation is anticipated and overcome, sin is cast away, and God is throned in the heart, It is better to make such honest discovery of ourselves to God, even in our weakness and lack of faith, than that we should carry these into the conduct of life. It is in these transitions of despair and hope reaching to and resting in restored faith and settled purpose of righteousness, that the overcoming of the world is already accomplished.

III. THE PRAYER THAT SEEMS TO BE REJECTED NOW MAY YET PROVE A CONDITION OF ACCEPTANCE. Had Israel herself really adopted the words of this her representative mediator, she would have escaped the awful abyss that yawned before her, but she knew not the day of her opportunity. By slow stages of recovery, marked by many relapses, was she to climb to the great truth from which she had fallen, that the Name of God was her salvation and hope. So it is that many a prayer uttered without apparent answer supplies in itself a spiritual condition of ultimate blessing. Its answer is really begun in the change of attitude assumed, and the spiritual truth laid hold of. By-and-by irresolution and uncertainty will give place to faith, and the windows of heaven will be opened. - M.

O the Hope of Israel, the Saviour thereof in time of trouble.
Homilist.
I. WHAT GOD ALWAYS IS TO TROUBLED HUMANITY.

1. The Hope.

(1)The Inspirer of all true hope.

(2)The Sustainer.

(3)The Realiser.

2. The Saviour.

(1)The redemption system He has given to the world attests this.

(2)The experience of all who had attended to His directions testifies this. Every man that has adopted God's remedial scheme has been saved.

II. WHAT GOD SOMETIMES SEEMS TO TROUBLED HUMANITY. "A stranger," etc.

1. When Christlike enterprises are frustrated.

2. When the most useful men are cut down in the very zenith of their life.

3. when prosperity attends the wicked, and adversity the good.

4. When enormous outrages are rampant in society.

(Homilist.)

Why shouldest Thou be as a stranger in the land.
I. WHEN IT MAY BE SAID GOD WITHDRAWS AND BEHAVES AS A STRANGER TO HIS PEOPLE.

1. When He withholds His wonted acts of kindness to them.

2. When He threatens to remove from them the signs and symbols of His presence.

3. When, though continuing the ordinances and sacraments, He renders them profitless.

4. When the Divine providences are adverse.

5. When He denies them access to Himself.

II. WHY THE LORD DEALS THUS WITH HIS PEOPLE.

1. When they fall into gross sin and bring reproach on religion.

2. When they become earthly minded.

3. When they become slothful and formal in duty.

4. When they neglect or slight the Mediator, by whom we have access to God.

5. When they sin under or after great affliction.

6. When they do not cherish and entertain the influences of the Holy Spirit.

7. When they grow hardened and impenitent under provocation.

III. WHEN IT MAY BE SAID WE ARE PROPERLY EXERCISED UNDER SUCH A PAINFUL DISPENSATION.

1. When we are truly sensible of our loss, and that our sin is the cause of it.

2. When we place all our happiness in God's favour and presence.

3. When we engage all the powers of our souls to seek after God.

4. When we diligently embrace every opportunity for finding an absent God, and use every appointed means.

5. When we wrestle with Him in prayer to return.

6. When we are not satisfied with the best means, unless we find God in them.

IV. WHENCE IT IS THAT THE LORD, BEING AS A STRANGER TO HIS PEOPLE, OCCASIONS THEM SO MUCH CONCERN.

1. Because of the incomparable happiness arising from the enjoyment of His presence.

2. Because of the sad effects attending the loss of His presence.Infer:

1. There are but few true seekers of God among us.

2. The misery of these who are far from God now, and may be deprived of His presence forever.

3. The sad case of those whom God forsakes, never to return again.

(T. Hannam.)

When the messenger of Mercy was travelling through the world, he asked himself at what inn he should alight and spend the night. Lions and eagles were not to his mind, and he passed by houses wearing such warlike names; so too he passed by places known by the sign of "The Waving Plume," and the "Conquering Hero," for he knew that there was no room for him in these inns. He hastened by many a hostelry and tarried not, till at last he came to a little inn which bore the sign of "The Broken Heart." Here," said Mercy's messenger, "I would fain tarry, for I know by experience that I shall be welcome here"

The greatest marvel of all creation is that the Son of God should come to redeem; and next to that is this, that having come, He should be neglected and rejected by those who had so long looked for Him. Here is the greatest wonder in all history: a nation neglecting the realisation of its own dream. Search your histories and see if you can find a parallel case. The old Jewish theocracy aspired to pretensions that Rome, Greece, Persia, and Egypt never dared to dream, to bestow to the world one universal king. And what is that land of Palestine, and what are these Jews who aspire to such pretensions as this?...It has no deep thought like India; no genius of stability like China; no sense of beauty like Greece, no high culture like Egypt, no powerful arms like Rome, and yet there is the fact; they speak concerning the kingdom their king should establish. "The Gentiles shall come to Thy light, and kings to the brightness of Thy rising." Yet, marvellous to relate, when she had given her King to the world she refused to crown Him. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not (the hope of Israel — a stranger in the land). George Mac Donald tells in one of his stories of a born-blind lamplighter who illuminated the city at night, but had no sense of what he was doing. Thus the Jews closed their eyes to the great light which they gave to the world.

(Geo. Matheson, D. D.)

People
Jeremiah
Places
Jerusalem, Zion
Topics
Aside, Distress, Foreigner, Hope, Lodge, O, Pitched, Putting, Savior, Saviour, Shouldest, Shouldst, Sojourner, Stay, Stays, Strange, Stranger, Tarry, Tent, Thereof, Traveler, Traveller, Trouble, Turneth, Turns, Wayfarer, Wayfaring, Way-faring, Wilt
Outline
1. The grievous famine,
7. causes Jeremiah to pray.
10. The Lord will not be entreated for the people.
13. false prophets are no excuse for them.
17. Jeremiah is moved to complain for them.

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Jeremiah 14:8

     1513   Trinity, mission of
     9613   hope, as confidence
     9615   hope, results of

Jeremiah 14:8-9

     1205   God, titles of

Library
Triumphant Prayer
'O Lord, though our iniquities testify against us, do Thou it for Thy name's sake: for our backslidings are many; we have sinned against Thee. 8. O the hope of Israel, the saviour thereof in time of trouble, why shouldest Thou be as a stranger in the land, and as a wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry for a night? 9. Why shouldest Thou be as a man astonied, as a mighty man that cannot save? yet Thou, O Lord, art in the midst of us, and we are called by Thy name; leave us not.'--JER. xiv. 7-9.
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

How Christ is the Way in General, "I am the Way. "
We come now to speak more particularly to the words; and, first, Of his being a way. Our design being to point at the way of use-making of Christ in all our necessities, straits, and difficulties which are in our way to heaven; and particularly to point out the way how believers should make use of Christ in all their particular exigencies; and so live by faith in him, walk in him, grow up in him, advance and march forward toward glory in him. It will not be amiss to speak of this fulness of Christ
John Brown (of Wamphray)—Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life

The First Commandment
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.' Exod 20: 3. Why is the commandment in the second person singular, Thou? Why does not God say, You shall have no other gods? Because the commandment concerns every one, and God would have each one take it as spoken to him by name. Though we are forward to take privileges to ourselves, yet we are apt to shift off duties from ourselves to others; therefore the commandment is in the second person, Thou and Thou, that every one may know that it is spoken to him,
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments

Question of the Contemplative Life
I. Is the Contemplative Life wholly confined to the Intellect, or does the Will enter into it? S. Thomas, On the Beatific Vision, I., xii. 7 ad 3m II. Do the Moral Virtues pertain to the Contemplative Life? S. Augustine, Of the City of God, xix. 19 III. Does the Contemplative Life comprise many Acts? S. Augustine, Of the Perfection of Human Righteousness, viii. 18 " Ep., cxxx. ad probam IV. Does the Contemplative Life consist solely in the Contemplation of God, or in the Consideration
St. Thomas Aquinas—On Prayer and The Contemplative Life

A Message from the Crowned Christ
(Revelation, Chapters ii and iii) "The glory of love is brightest when the glory of self is dim, And they have the most compelled me who most have pointed to Him. They have held me, stirred me, swayed me,--I have hung on their every word, Till I fain would arise and follow, not them, not them,--but their Lord!"[64] Patmos Spells Patience. Patience is strength at its strongest, using all its strength in holding back from doing something. Patience is love at flood pleading with strength to hold steady
by S. D. Gordon—Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation

Jeremiah
The interest of the book of Jeremiah is unique. On the one hand, it is our most reliable and elaborate source for the long period of history which it covers; on the other, it presents us with prophecy in its most intensely human phase, manifesting itself through a strangely attractive personality that was subject to like doubts and passions with ourselves. At his call, in 626 B.C., he was young and inexperienced, i. 6, so that he cannot have been born earlier than 650. The political and religious
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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