"Go up and down the streets of Jerusalem. Look now and take note; search her squares. If you can find a single person, anyone who acts justly, anyone who seeks the truth, then I will forgive the city. Sermons
I. THE EXTENT OF CORRUPTION POSSIBLE IN HUMAN NATURE! The Jewish metropolis had been highly favored. The priesthood had its head-quarters there. The chief messages of the prophets had been delivered in its precincts. It was the center of influence, national spirit, and intelligence. Yet the effect of all this was morally and spiritually rotten. Worse even than Sodom and Gomorrah in actual spiritual condition, as certainly it would be far less tolerable for it than for them in the day of judgment. Ideally it was the city of the saints and of heavenly peace and order; actually its temple was a den of thieves, and its streets the scenes of universal dishonesty, godlessness, and corruption. As has been said of a certain metropolis of Christendom, it would appear to have been the case that "the more churches the less religion." Allowing it to be a rhetorical exaggeration, it was nevertheless a terrible statement to be able to make. But the great cities of the modern world have filled with a like despair the minds of the wisest thinkers. The measure of man's possible degeneration and depravity who can fix? II. THE IMPORTANCE OF INDIVIDUAL INFLUENCE IN SPIRITUAL THINGS! The spectacle of Abraham praying for the cities of the plain is most impressive. But may it not be paralleled by the unconscious influence of good men? Even accepting the statement as a challenge, was it not a great thing to say that one man by his holiness could have saved the city? Suppose there had been such a man. One can imagine what would have been his sorrow at the universal evil, and his feeling of helplessness and uselessness amid the prevalent irreligion. Yet would his presence there be no light matter, no vain thing. Though he knew it not, he would have been the savior of the people - immediately from the judgment of God, possibly in the future from the sin that was destroying it. The value, therefore, of individual influence in spiritual matters is incalculable; and no Christian can say that he is of no use. Godward the prayer of the faithful may soar in constant intercession and mediation; manward his character and works are a constant testimony to the unbeliever. III. THE INFINITENESS OF GOD'S LONG-SUFFERING LOVE. The presence of one good man in the wicked city would have been an appeal to God's justice that could not he despised. He could not "destroy the righteous with the wicked." But far more would it have been an appeal to his love. The hope of the future would have been wrapped up in that solitary saint. In him grace would find a secret sanctuary, and the forces of salvation a vantage-point from which to sally forth to the rescue of perishing souls and the work of national, yea, of world-wide, regeneration. The judgments of God are not inflicted arbitrarily or in haste. He has "no pleasure in the death of the wicked." Any reasonable excuse for merciful intervention or delay is welcome. Countless acts of mercy and forgiveness, countless opportunities for repentance, have occurred ere the uplifted axe has dealt its terrible stroke. Learn, then, from this that: 1. The life as the prayer of a righteous man availeth much with God. 2. That God will save us if we will only let him; and 3. He will begin his work of salvation from the least, and tarry it on even to the greatest. IV. THE REASONABLENESS AND RIGHTEOUSNESS OF VICARIOUS SUFFERING THROUGH CHRIST. - M.
Run ye...and see...if ye can find a man. Homilist. I. THE DIVINE IDEA OF A MAN. One "that executeth Judgment, that seeketh the truth." This involves —1. A righteous working out of the Divine will so far as it is apprehended. 2. An earnest endeavour for further knowledge of the Divine will. 3. How different is the Divine ideal of a man from that which popularly prevails. (1) (2) (3) (4) II. THE LAMENTABLE RARITY OF A MAN. 1. A sad revelation of the moral condition of Jerusalem in the days of the prophet. Such corruption amongst a people who had such religious privileges, and in the very scene where the temple stood, shows the wonderful forbearance of God and the terrible perversity of the human heart! 2. The condition of our own age. Verily, we are a fallen people. III. THE SOCIAL VALUE OF A MAN. "And I will pardon it." For the sake of a man, God promises to pardon Jerusalem. The value of a man to society, to the race, is everywhere represented in the Bible. 1. A man is a condition on which God favours the race. Sodom and Gomorrah. 2. A man is an agent by which God improves the condition of the race. He educates, purifies, saves man by man. (Homilist.) 2. Idolatry. Strange to see how madly this people ran after the lying vanities of the Gentiles, after they had received such manifold and undeniable proofs of the power, wisdom, and goodness of a living God, who was present with them; after so many laws enacted against idolatry, so many signal judgments inflicted on them for falling into this sin, such a hedge set about them to keep them from mingling with other nations, lest they should learn their ways. 3. Adulteries and fornications. This was a crime of a high nature, a complication of sins, and productive of so many sad consequences that death was the just punishment allotted to it. 4. Their shameful prevaricating with God's Word, and torturing it to make it speak contrary to its genuine meaning. To this end they encouraged false prophets, who would prophesy smooth things, etc. 5. They were very unthankful to God, and insensible of His blessings conferred upon them. 6. They were very fraudulent in their dealings one with another, both in word and deed. 7. That which portended the extirpation of these Jews was, that not only all the fore cited iniquities were notorious in practice, but were moreover approved of, as it were, and settled among them by common consent. 8. This is enough to prove that it was fit for nothing but the fire, and it hath received that just recompense of reward. And the history of it is recorded for the instruction of all other cities who have the sacred Scriptures to instruct them. They may hear Jerusalem warning them, saying, "Look upon me, and learn to fear God. Will ye steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, and sacrifice to the idols of your own imagination, and hope to escape the wrath of God better than I have done? Let my calamities conduce to your salvation, and put away those sins from among you which have laid me in ruinous heaps, and turned me into a monument of the Divine fury. Look upon me, and learn to fear God." 9. Those who are enemies to religion, and help to banish the fear of God out of the world, by denying the authority of His Word, or by putting a wrong sense and construction upon it, are as bad members as can be found in any society of men, because they do what they can to subvert the very foundations of truth, and deprive us of the last remedy which is left to repair the breaches of piety and virtue in a sinful world. (W. Reading, M. A.) I. The first test, whether we are worthy to be called men, is THE RIGHTNESS OF OUR ACTIONS, THE INTEGRITY OR JUSTICE OF OUR DOINGS. What is our conduct in life? Are we conforming ourselves to the Divine standard? Let us look at detail in right-doing in the different positions which we are called to fill. A deal of our lives is spent in our homes. There, if anywhere, we are genuine. We cannot seem to be what we are not before those who know us best, and who can read us through and through. How often there we fail to be men! The man who does justly is eminently tender, willing to enter into the feelings of others, to deal justly with them, to extend to them the sympathy of his strong nature. He is also helpful. The very presence of some men is helpful; you may not ask their advice, but to know they are near you is in itself a strength; and in the home relationships is it not the special province of the father, the husband, the son, the brother, to be helpful, to lift burdens, to smooth difficulties, to unravel the knots of this tangled existence? Do you not know homes where they who should be helpful only hinder the family life, where they are burdens and disgraces, taxing not only the family love, but wasting means all too narrow, and depriving their own kindred of their due share of life's blessings? Such are not men, still less are they men who presume on others' weakness. Many a husband shelters himself under his wife's love from the penalties of his neglect, if not of worse treatment. Many a lad, who, above all, wants to be thought manly, takes advantage of his parents' fondness, and wastes their hard-earned money in riotous living, while they believe it is being usefully spent on his education or advancement in life. Such men will never save a State, will never rise to such a height of nobility that they can leaven with the true spirit of goodness and righteousness the mass around them. II. The second test of manhood is SEEKING TRUTH. Truth is, in the Old Testament, not only mental but moral, is not only intellectual knowledge, but the knowledge of God and of His will. We need in this present day men equally ready to seek truth in all spheres of knowledge — in science, in philosophy, in politics, in religion. We cannot be too earnest in seeking all light, wherever it comes from. We should remember the words of the poet: "Truth is the strong thing; let man's life be true," and we should pursue our search in humility, in reverence, and in faith — above all, in regard to Divine things. That is a duty laid upon us all — to seek God, who is truth; to cleave to Him at all costs; to do His will, whatever it be. We may be mistaken as to what His will is; we may be troubled by doubts and difficulties, moral or intellectual; but we must remember that if we try to do justly we shall know the doctrine whether it be of God. III. In doing justly, in seeking truth, you will be men because you will be FOLLOWERS OF THE MAN CHRIST JESUS. When we think of Christ as man we too often think only of His sorrow, of His persecution, of His death. True man He was in all these points, and nothing soothes us more in our time of trouble than that blessed knowledge. But I wish you to realise Him as man not only in the weakness but in the strength of humanity. I wish you to recognise in Him the ideal man, who did justly and sought truth. Think of His life, of His tenderness to His mother, of His helpfulness to His friends. Think of the ideal which He set before men. "Is not the life more than meat, and the body more than raiment?" is His counsel to the multitude eager for the outward. "Lay not up treasure upon earth" is His warning to the rich and over-careful. "One thing is needful" is His reply to the cumbered housewife. Read these Gospels, and tell me if there ever breathed a purer, more righteous, more unselfish spirit. (J. R. Mitford Mitchell, D. D.) "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.) We are to set before us an ideal of manly character and life, and practically to seek its realisation. Of the elements of true manhood, let us specify the following: —I. INTEGRITY. There are statesmen who tell us that morals have no place in politics. But the true statesman makes a conscience of politics. Again, there is perhaps a higher moral sentiment developing in business; yet one still hears of an undue advantage being taken of profiting by a man's ignorance or necessities, and that even by religious tradesmen. II. PURITY. Some men boast of foul passions as the marks of manhood. It is effeminate to be pure. Initiation into vice is the baptism of manhood. But moral determination is altering that. A total abstainer is no longer jeered at. III. RELIGION. I do not mean the religion of monks, or of ecclesiastics, or of sentimentalists, but the religion of Jesus Christ, a reverent recognition of God, of holiness, of human life. Can anything be more noble than fidelity to the noblest things we know T Has the world any nobleness like the nobleness of holy character? (H. Allon, D. D.) I. IN THE ESTIMATION OF GOD THE TRUE EXCELLENCE OF MAN IS MORAL AND RELIGIOUS.1. A strict obedience to the Divine will as far as it is known. 2. An earnest endeavour to attain an accurate acquaintance with the Divine Word. II. THERE ARE STATES OF SOCIETY IN WHICH MEN OF THIS DESCRIPTION ARE EXCEEDINGLY RARE. 1. They may be removed by death. 2. They may be withdrawn into concealment. 3. They may be reduced in numbers by the progress of degeneracy. III. IN THE WORST STATES OF SOCIETY SUCH MEN ARE VERY VALUABLE. 1. They avert Divine judgments 2. Draw down Divine blessings. 3. Promote the work of reformation. (G. Brooks.) Philosophers in all ages have complained that human creatures are plentiful, but men are scarce. But philosophers made their ideal too high, their conception of what man ought to be too lofty. I have no sympathy with the cynic of whom history informs us, that, being ordered to summon the good men of the city before the Roman censor, proceeded immediately to the graveyard, called to the dead below, saying he knew not where to find a good man alive; or that gloomy sage, that prince of grumblers, Thomas Carlyle, who described the population of his country as consisting of so many millions, "mostly fools," and who could speak in praise of no one but himself and Mrs. Carlyle, the latter deserving all the praise she got for enduring him. When anyone complains, as Diogenes did, that he has to hunt the streets with candles at noonday to find an honest man, we are apt to think that his nearest neighbour would have quite as much difficulty as himself in making the discovery. If you think there is not a ,true man living, you had better, for appearance, put off saying it until you are dead yourself. In looking for a man, look for a man with a conscience — a man who, like Longfellow's honest blacksmith, can "look the whole world in the face, and fear not any man." Look for a being that has a heart. A warm, loving nature is true manliness. In looking for a man, look for a magnanimous man; a broad mind, that not only observes what passes in the limited range of its own sphere, but is not afraid to look abroad; is far-sighted and not afraid of excellence in others. In your search for "a man," look for a being that has a soul — the capability of solemn thought. Thousands today worship Bacchus and Venus. Their hearts are set on "having a good time." Others apply themselves so intensely to their business that they find pleasure only in worshipping the mighty dollar. The man who so inordinately loves money for its own sake, and becomes insensible to all refined enjoyments, after a while ceases to be a man. Faith in Jesus Christ makes manly men. He is our model — a model containing all the elements of true manhood; a model of sympathy and love; a model of purity and uprightness. Christ-men are wanted.(M. C. Peters.) Two things, according to this text, are needed to make a man: practice and principle — principle sought out with a view to practice, practice conform to principle, and both according to what is right and true; both are morally, mutually helpful, both are necessary. You may be as strong as a lion, fleet as a deer, brave as a bulldog, beautiful as a gazelle, clever as Satan, but unless you seek the truth, and do the right first and foremost in the face of day, you have not yet come up to the mark of a man. Is that what the world says and thinks? Oh no. Its heroes, perhaps yours, are too often not the morally good, but daring adventurers, successful soldiers, lithe athletes, quick-witted speculators, fortune-making merchants, subtle-tongued declaimers, gifted writers, skilful artists, politic statesmen, wearers of titles, and so on. These are the men that too often the world takes its praises and its prizes to, heedless of character and principles, pleading its own large-mindedness in putting truthful and righteous men behind and below mere physical and intellectual power and agility. These are the favourites that the base and meaner sort go gaping after and copying, and thus it is that it often happens that real men are comparatively rare and hard to find.(J. S. Drummond.) What have men and women to look to for the defence and prosperity of nations? Astute diplomatists, enlarged navies and armies, and forts and guns, scientific discoveries, commercial treaties, cultivation of art, legislative enactments? Think of these what you please. I tell you that these are not, any nor all of them, the true shields and saviours of nations; these do not form the backbone and centre of a strong body politic. It is not for these that God is sending upon us any blessing; not the providing of such that will lead Him to say, "I will pardon Jerusalem and scatter the swollen storm clouds" What was it then? It was a man. Goethe says no greater good can happen to a town than for several educated men thinking in the same way about what is good and true living in it. But Goethe's standard is insufficient; it falls short of the Divine. The defenders and the benefactors of nations and of their fellow men are the morally and religiously good in them; men whose lives are regulated by the teachings of God; men who seek to act as Christ did are the men that are worthy, and that are looked upon by God as blessings to the nations. Ay, and even one such is a mighty pillar, and on occasion even one such may be the saviour and mainstay of the State.(J. S. Drummond.) When President Garfield was a boy, and was asked what he would be, his reply was: "Well, first of all, I must make myself a man; for, if I do not succeed in that, I shall not succeed in anything."One of the greatest services which a man can render society is to believe the truths of God sincerely, and maintain them steadfastly. It is the happiest state for a community when there exists within it a vigorous Christianity — a phalanx of strong minds, fully persuaded as to the revealings and requirements of the Most High. Like the willows by the water courses which are not only green, but whose roots, penetrating and interlacing in the soft and spongy soil, prevent it from being swept away by the rushing torrent, these men of gentle manners, but profound convictions, are the living network, the rampart of roots unnoticed and unthanked, who keep society from crumbling piecemeal into the gulf of licentiousness and atheism and crime, which is forever surging and foaming past it Like the metallic clamps and rivets, the bands and girders, which, in a region of earthquake, keep the precarious houses from tumbling to pieces, law and police magistracy are a mere mud masonry, and but for the binding power of such consciences, but for the fastening force of their convictions who believe in God, in the upheavings of man's passions, in the volcanic throes of his lust and violence, the framework of society would soon be shaken all to pieces. Like the fragments of iron in a mass of stone, which draw it towards the magnet, it is the "faith which He finds in the earth," which at any period draws the earth towards its Maker, or makes a community "a people near to God."(James Hamilton, D. D.) Great Thoughts. What is it to be a "hero"? A "hero" is simply the English form of the Greek "heros," which primarily meant a "man," a real man, a separate and unmistakable man, as distinct from "anthropos," or mankind in general. By a recognition of this very truth, that a man's distinctness as a man among men works and measures his exceptional character and capabilities, the Greeks came to call a grand man, or a great or preeminent man, a hero, as another way of saying that he was "distinguished" man. "Dost thou know what a hero is?" asks Longfellow and then gives answer, "Why, a hero is as much as one should say — a hero." A hero is a man. There is heroism in all real manliness. A real man is a real hero. This it is which gives force to Carlyle's question, "If hero means sincere man, why may not every one of us be a hero?" The answer is, that it requires character, exceptional character, to make one willing to be a man. Most men are afraid to be themselves. They shrink from being "distinguished." Their preference is to conform themselves to the common standard of their sphere — to be like others, rather than to be like themselves alone. Where this feeling prevails, heroism is an impossibility. One acting on this preference cannot be distinguished. He who is unwilling to exercise and assert his character, in spite of all the world, cannot be recognised as the possessor of character. He cannot be measured apart from the common standard to which he, of choice, conforms himself.(Great Thoughts.) Ask a young woman what quality in a man she admires most, and the answer you are sure to get is manliness. The answer is highly creditable to the feminine taste. God also puts a great value on true manhood.I. TRUE MANHOOD. Many spurious standards of manhood are met with in the world. By many young men, unfortunately, it is thought manly to be a proficient in swearing, in gambling, in drinking, in forbidden pleasure Not to "toe the line" in these evil customs is to be pronounced no man at all According to this breed of youth, piety is held at a considerable discount; it is not a thing for men, however it may suit parsons, Sunday school children, and old women of both sexes. Now look at the type of manhood spoken of in our text. According to our text a man is one who doeth righteousness and seeketh after the truth. Not the man of great muscularity and great physical power. Not the man who has seen much of the world, so called, which too often means a man who has worked for the wages of sin, which is death; neither of these is the true type of manhood according to Scripture. Let no one, misled by a popular confusion of ideas, dislike our text because it brings a man's own imperfect righteousness before our attention. It is most true that no measure of human righteousness can ever avail the sinner as a substitute for the righteousness of Christ by faith. A sinner's heart resembles Lady Macbeth's hands, stained beyond all human cleansing. We cannot and we need not by our own efforts establish a righteousness able to justify and make reconciliation for the ungodly. Yet that does not mean that we may be callous about the sovereign claims of God's eternal laws of righteousness. It is of the essence of Christian duty and Christian manhood to love righteousness and hate wickedness. The true man is he that executeth judgment, that seeketh the truth. See where the true man should be found, in the broad places, in the streets, in the thoroughfares, the market places; the spot where the struggle of daffy life is fought out. In other words, the true man is contemplated under the character of a man right in the whirl of the stream — a merchant, a craftsman, a trader. And as every varied situation in life has its own special temptations and virtues — as the virtue of the soldier is courage and his temptation faint-heartedness. There are graces and virtues that belong to the home, domestic virtues, cloister graces — gentleness, forbearance, devoutness; and these, too, form part of a true man's outfit in life. But the virtue of the marketplace is right dealing and integrity, and he who in the competition of the marketplace, in its barterings and changes, keeps his hands clean, his name honourable, his character honest, is, according to the verdict of Scripture, a true man. From these words it would appear that such men were scarce in Jeremiah's day. Are they more plentiful now? Yes, I believe they are. A dreadful state of society. Multitudes of males, but not one mare Multitudes of gentlemen, but not one honest man. Yes, surely we are better today, thank God. Yes, we all know men who would rather empty their pockets of shillings than fill their mouths with lies. And what are they? They are men. They are the saviours of society, they are the salt of the earth. But unrighteousness is still, as it ever has been, man's chiefest sin. II. THE VALUE OF TRUE MANHOOD. The value of true manhood is seen, not in its scarceness, but in the splendour of its reward. What is true manhood's reward? God does a wonderful thing, all because a true man or two are found in the wicked city. What is that? He forgives the wickedness of the corrupt and unfaithful city (Jeremiah 5:7-9, 23-31). Could it be easy for God to overlook the errors Of such a people? You think so? Easy for God Almighty, though not for us. Well, perhaps you are right. If so, why stand aloof from such a forgiving and merciful God? Let us not fail to see that here in Jeremiah's time God expresses Himself willing to pardon the wicked for the sake of the righteous few, as He undertook to do in the time of the patriarch Abraham (Genesis 18:23). See, then, the nature of true manhood's rewards. God does not promise that when the true man is found He will honour and reward him. Surely in being a true man he has honours and rewards that cannot be exceeded. Jerusalem is to enjoy the reward. She is to be spared for his sake. Something like this happens in the experience of our great military heroes, our Wellingtons, our Wolseleys, our Robertses. No doubt some of these splendid captains have, at duty's call, covered the battlefield with their men and scored brilliant fighting victories that had very little meaning or importance to us as a nation But putting aside these cases — take the case of wars in which both great heroism has been shown and the cause has been worth fighting for when the great captain comes home, what does he find awaiting him: stars and stripes, treasure and titles? Ay, all that, but more than that. Not only has his heroism won all these more or less precious honours for himself, but what is better, because it concerns more people than himself, he has secured for his country a standing, a place, a position, which it may be she never enjoyed before. And that to a true man is reward more sweet and satisfying than all the poor personal honours that can be put upon his head. The worst calamity to a people is not when its trade and commerce decline, but when its supply of true men fails. Our thoughts, when we think of truest manhood, cannot help turning to the Lord Jesus Christ, that man who is our" hiding place from the wind and a covert from the tempest." For the sake of this one Man, all our sins are freely pardoned. (H. F. Henderson, M. A.) People Jacob, JeremiahPlaces JerusalemTopics Broad, Broadways, Consider, Deals, Executeth, Faith, Fidelity, Forgive, Forgiveness, Forth, Fro, Honestly, Jerusalem, Judgment, Justice, Justly, Keeps, Note, Open, Pardon, Places, Propitious, Quickly, Roam, Run, Search, Seek, Seeketh, Seeking, Seeks, Squares, Stedfastness, Streets, Thereof, Truth, Upright, WideOutline 1. The judgments of God upon the people, for their perverseness;7. for their adultery; 10. for their impiety; 15. for their worship of idols; 19. for their contempt of God; 25. and for their great corruption in the civil state; 30. and ecclesiastical. Dictionary of Bible Themes Jeremiah 5:1 1461 truth, nature of Library A Question for the Beginning'What will ye do in the end?'--JER. v. 31. I find that I preached to the young from this text just thirty years since--nearly a generation ago. How few of my then congregation are here to-night! how changed they and I are! and how much nearer the close we have drifted! How many of the young men and women of that evening have gone to meet the end, and how many of them have wrecked their lives because they would not face and answer this question! Ah, dear young friends, if I could bring some of the … Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture Storming the Battlements God's Barriers against Man's Sin Tithing How those who Fear Scourges and those who Contemn them are to be Admonished. The Purpose in the Coming of Jesus. Purposes of God. "And Hereby we do Know that we Know Him, if we Keep his Commandments. " Covenanting According to the Purposes of God. The Medes and the Second Chaldaean Empire "If So be that the Spirit of God Dwell in You. Now if any Man have not the Spirit of Christ, He is None of His. " Covenanting Enforced by the Grant of Covenant Signs and Seals. The Acceptable Sacrifice; Of the Nature of Regeneration, and Particularly of the Change it Produces in Men's Apprehensions. Jeremiah Links Jeremiah 5:1 NIVJeremiah 5:1 NLT Jeremiah 5:1 ESV Jeremiah 5:1 NASB Jeremiah 5:1 KJV Jeremiah 5:1 Bible Apps Jeremiah 5:1 Parallel Jeremiah 5:1 Biblia Paralela Jeremiah 5:1 Chinese Bible Jeremiah 5:1 French Bible Jeremiah 5:1 German Bible Jeremiah 5:1 Commentaries Bible Hub |
    |