Jeremiah 9:11
"And I will make Jerusalem a heap of rubble, a haunt for jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant."
Sermons
The Terrible Threatenings of LoveS. Conway Jeremiah 9:10-22














There are few more awful passages of Scripture than this. The doom denounced on the guilty people is indeed dreadful. Nevertheless that doom had not yet descended. There was a merciful pause, during which space was given for repentance. Meanwhile the prophet was bidden to utter these threatenings. Notice -

I. How TERRIBLE THEY ARE.

1. In themselves. The fertile hills and pastures of their country shall be laid waste, so that no living creature can find food (Ver. 10). Jerusalem is to be utterly destroyed and desolate (Ver. 11). The deep anguish of the people-their very meat to be as "wormwood," and their drink as" water of gall ' (Ver. 15). They shall be carried captive and scattered among the heathen, and even then shall not escape the sword (Ver. 16). They shall be overwhelmed with sorrow, their eyes shall gush out with tears (Vers. 17-19). Death shall reign everywhere (Ver. 21); and shall be accompanied with deepest degradation (Ver. 22). It is not possible to conceive of more hopeless misery than is portrayed in these vivid descriptions of the wrath that was to come.

2. Because of their righteousness. Unrighteous suffering can be borne, and those who bear it are bidden by the Lord to count themselves as "blessed" because of it (Matthew 5:11, 12). And sorrows that come to us in the course of God's providence, and the reason of which we do not know, these we can bear sustained by the faith of the Father's love. But when sore suffering is sent to us as the direct punishment of sin, and the righteous because so deserved anger of Cod is evident, then those consolations which are open to us under other sufferings are closed to us under these. The bitter reflection, "It was all our own fault; it might, it ought to have been avoided," makes the pain we endure, and the calamities that overtake us, more terrible than otherwise they could possibly be. We take refuge from man's anger and from ordinary sorrows in God's love, but sin that has brought down God's righteous judgment has also closed against us that most blessed shelter and every shelter, and we are left without defense. And another element in their terribleness is:

3. The certainty of their fulfillment, "God is not mocked: whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." The threatenings of God are not, as are many of the threatenings of men, mere empty vaporings, great swelling words, never designed to be fulfilled. Let the records of all human history, of all human lives, Whether told of within or without the pages of the Bible, attest the absolute certainty of fulfillment which evermore characterizes the threatenings of God. When and where has be ever threatened and failed to fulfill his threat? Let the Fall, the Flood, the destruction of Sodom, the plagues on Egypt, the deaths of the generation of unbelievers in the wilderness, and ten thousand instances more, all prove the steadfastness of God to his word. And it is this fact of the absolute certainty of his threatenings being fulfilled that adds to them a yet further terribleness. There is no chance of escape, no hope of God's relenting; as certain as the fixed laws of nature are these awful denunciations of God to him who persists in brining them upon himself.

II. BUT THEY ARE THE THREATENINGS OF LOVE.

1. He who utters them is the God who in his very nature and essence is love. How manifold are the proofs of this in creation, in providence, in grace! He, therefore, has no pleasure in the death of the wicked; judgment is his "strange work."

2. Those against whom they are uttered are the objects of his love. His love for them is deeper than his anger against them. Hence it is that the contrite sinner never fails to gain the pardon he seeks. "Fathers of our flesh" may "chasten after their own pleasure, but he for our profit" (cf. Ver. 7).

3. His purpose in these threatenings is a loving purpose. He would compel by the scourge of fear his rebellious children to abandon their evil ways.

4. And if at length he is compelled to execute his threatenings, it is out of love that he does so. For the love of God is towards his children, not to any one particular child, and the welfare of the family is the chief consideration. Salus populi suprema lex. If consistently with that the transgressor can be restored, he will be, but not else. Hence, as an earthly father would not permit one of his children, ill with terrible and contagious disease, to mingle with the other children; or, as in the far more sad case of utter moral wickedness, intercourse with the rest would be forbidden; so, for the sake of the rest of his children, God will separate them from the wicked and the wicked from them. But it is love which constrains to this, and hence it is that the seeming contradiction is true, that he who is the God of love is also "a consuming fire." The very fatherhood of God is the most fearful fact of all others against the persistently rebellious and ungodly soul. Hence -

III. Such THREATENINGS ARE EVER THE MOST TERRIBLE OF ALL, Cf. the threatenings of our Savior. The most awful utterances to be found in the whole Bible proceeded from his lips-the lips whose words were wont to be so "gracious" that the people "wondered" at them. It is his sayings which have lit up the lurid glare of the fires unquenchable of hell, and it is he who has made our souls shudder at the sight of" the worm that dieth not," and of the "outer darkness" where there is "weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth." See, too, the Revelation of St. John. That apostle, whose great theme is the love of God, whose soul was more attuned to the music of love than that of any other, wrote that awful book, which is full throughout of "mourning, lamentation, and woe;" and which almost reeks with the Mood and fire and smoke of torments of which it tells. These facts can only be accounted for - and there are more like them - on the ground that the threatenings of love are ever the most terrible of all. And they are so, for such reasons as these:

1. Love so hates what tends to the harm of those it loves. Hence it brands with its deepest curse that sin which harms God's children most of all. One chief argument with many minds for the retention of capital punishments is that only so can a government or nation mark its sense of the supreme wickedness of the crime it so punishes. Punish it as other crimes are punished, and it will come to be regarded as no worse than they. And in like manner God would inspire us with a holy abhorrence of sin by the awful condemnation that he has pronounced against it.

2. Love so yearns to rescue those it loves. The rope may cut and wound the hands of the drowning sailor to whom we have thrown it, but we do not mind that if thereby he be drawn safe to shore. The knife of the surgeon may cut deep and cause fearful pain, but if it saves the imperiled life we are thankful notwithstanding. So God sends forth these stern, rough, and terrible threatenings, that souls under the spell of sin may be awakened, alarmed, made to tremble, and to "seek the Lord while he may be found." No gentler means will avail; therefore these, so love resolves, shall not be left untried. It will shrink from nothing to accomplish its compassionate purpose of rescuing from the murderous sin the soul it loves.

3. And there is no wickedness so deep as that of outraging love. Men will never see sin in all its hatefulness until they see it as outrage done to love. Whilst they are taught only that it is disobedience to sovereign rule rather than despite and shameful wrong done to a Father's heart, they will not look upon it as they should, nor repent of it as they must. Even in human esteem, outrage done to a loving heart adds intensity to the condemnation with which we view and sentence disobedience done to law. We all recognize that such wickedness is the worst of all. We cannot wonder, then, that the threatenings against wrong persistently done to the love of God are terrible as they are, and the most terrible of all. CONCLUSION.

1. Beware of bringing upon yourselves such threatenings as these. Those which are fulminated forth by hatred, or by pride, or by sovereignty, or by law, these, though they may be terrible, are not to be compared with those that we have been considering. "The wrath of the Lamb" is the most awful of all.

2. Beware of despising them. So far from believing what has now been shown, men argue in directly opposite way, and, because the threatenings are those of love, they conclude that they may safely be disregarded, they will never be carried out. But what has now been shown proves that this is the very last thing we can venture to do.

3. Beware of concealing them. It is to be feared that, in these soft, easy days on which we have fallen, the Lord's watchmen do very often fail to "blow the trumpet and give warning." From blood-guiltiness such as that let us pray to be delivered. For are there not many now whom nothing but the startling peal of the trumpet of God's threatened judgments will ever arouse or alarm? Assuredly there are. Therefore, in view of the doom of the ungodly, as well as by the love of Christ, let us "beseech men to be reconciled to God." - C.

Oh that my head were waters.
There is a solemn beauty in Jeremiah's devotion to the welfare of his fellow countrymen. Blinded as they were by sin, they could not appreciate his anxiety, and when his loving devotion broke into the tenderest words of warning, they regarded him in the light of an enemy instead of a sincere friend. The depth of his feeling, the tenderness of his words, remind us strongly of another scene which took place more than five hundred years after these events: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets," etc. The most beautiful sight on earth is unselfish devotion to the social, mental, moral and spiritual interests of humanity. While the less thoughtful may be dazzled by the great military achievements of conquering heroes, the more thoughtful are rather charmed by that self-sacrificing devotion which, losing sight of worldly applause and worldly honour, has thought of nothing but the opportunity of doing good. As the prodigal son, in his ingratitude, profligacy, and sinful wanderings, did not check the pulsations of his father's heart, but rather intensified them and brought to light the richness of his father's love, so the unbelief, idolatry, and sinful lives of the Jewish people only served to reveal the strength, the sweetness and richness of the prophet's nature. The history of the Christian Church is history of men and women who have not counted their lives dear unto themselves, but who have bestowed their warmest affections and divinest endeavours upon those who seemed the least likely to respond to such manifestations of interest and of love. The history of Jewish backslidings, of vows solemnly taken and as readily broken, reminds us in a vivid manner of scenes which have transpired from time to time in the Christian dispensation. For the progress of the Christian Church toward a larger benevolence, a broader charity, a purer morality, and a more intelligent piety has neither been rapid nor uniform. Seasons of great revival have been followed by periods of marked decline. Into the midst of torrid heat comes a wave of arctic cold. A narrow denominationalism has often thrown its dark shadow across the pathway of Christian catholicity. Creeds, catechisms, formulas, confessions of faith have often outweighed sobriety, virtue, benevolence, and all the other graces which adorn the Christian character, while practical unbelief, clothed in the formulas of an accepted dogma, has passed for genuine Christianity without even the semblance of a challenge. As each period of Jewish history was favoured with some that were true and brave — whose words of instruction, reproof, and warning were spoken above the din of the busy multitudes — so each period of the Christian dispensation has been honoured with some John the Baptist, whose earnest words have resounded from valley to valley, from peak to peak, and from land to land, echoing the Gospel of the blessed Lord, and summoning men to self-sacrifice, to holiness, and to purity. Our interest in the human race will depend largely upon our faith in human possibilities. If we see in man simply the possibilities of an animal, possibilities, to be sure, greater than belong to any other earthly creature, but possibilities determined by material conditions, limited to threescore years and ten, possibilities that have no relation to a future world — if we see in man nothing but the ability to trace in the sands of time a few illegible characters, then our interest in his welfare and prosperity can neither be deep nor abiding. But if, on the other hand, we see in man a creature made in the Divine image, with feeling, with thought, with spirituality, with volition, with freedom, with immortal properties, created for a higher sphere and for a better world, capable of companionship with angels, capable of communion with the omnipotent Author of his existence, endowed with power to love and serve the mighty Ruler of the universe, with unlimited capacity for growth and development — if we see in him an intelligent, moral, responsible, and immortal being, then we have an object worthy of our broadest sympathies, our warmest affections and our divinest endeavours.

(Ezra Tinker, B. D.)

Homilist.
I. GENUINE PHILANTHROPY MELTING WITH EARNESTNESS.

1. Heart intensely earnest concerning the temporal condition of men. Chaldean army among them, etc. Weeps as patriot.

2. Heart intensely earnest concerning the moral condition of men. Their carnalities, idolatries, and crimes affect his pious spirit more than physical sufferings and political disasters. Think of the soul —(1) In relation to its capacity of suffering and happiness.(2) In relation to the influences for good or evil it is capable of exerting.(3) In relation to its power of being a delight or a grief to the heart of infinite Love.

II. GENUINE PHILANTHROPY SIGHING FOR ISOLATION.

1. The sigh of a spiritually vexed soul.

2. The sigh of disappointed love. Nothing is more saddening to generous souls than the discovery of indifference, ingratitude, and growing vice in the very men they seek to bless.Conclusion —

1. The vicariousness of genuine philanthropy. It inspires the possessor with the spirit that will prompt him to sacrifice his very being for the good of others.

2. The abuse of genuine philanthropy. The greatest sin in the universe is sin against love.

3. The imperfection of genuine philanthropy. Like the best of everything human, love is not perfect here. Disheartened, Jeremiah sought isolation.

(Homilist.)

Sometimes tears are base things; the offspring of a cowardly spirit. Some men weep when they should knit their brows, and many a woman weepeth when she should resign herself to the will of God. But ofttimes tears are the noblest things in the world. The tears of penitents are precious: cup of them were worth a king's ransom. He that loveth much, must weep much; much love and much sorrow must go together in this vale of tears. Jeremiah was not weak in his weeping; the strength of his mind and the strength of his love were the parents of his sorrow. It would seem as if some men had been sent into this world for the very purpose of being the world's weepers. Men have their sorrows; they must have their weepers; they must have men of sorrows who have it for their avocation to be ever weeping, not so much for themselves as for the woes of others.

I. To begin, then, with ACTUAL MURDER AND REAL BLOODSHED.

II. But I have now a greater reason for your sorrow — a more disregarded, and yet more dreadful, source of woe. "Oh, that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night," FOR THE MORALLY SLAIN of the daughter of my people. The old adage is still true, One half of the world knows nothing about how the other half lives. Oh, how many of our sons and daughters, of our friends and relatives, are slain by sin! Ye weep over battlefields, ye shed tears on me plains of Balaklava; there are worse battlefields than there, and worse deaths than those inflicted by the sword. Ah, weep ye for the drunkenness of this land! How many thousands of our race reel from our gin palaces into perdition! But there are other crimes too. Alas, for that crime of debauchery! What scenes hath the moon seen every night! Are these the only demons that are devouring our people? Ah, would to God it were so. Behold, throughout this land, how are men falling by every sin, disguised as it is under the shape of pleasure. O members of churches, ye may well take up the wary of Jeremiah when ye remember what multitudes of these you have in your midst men who have a name to live and are dead: and others, who though they profess not to be Christians, are almost persuaded to obey their Lord and Master, but are yea not partakers of the Divine life of God. But now I want, I can, to press this pathetic subject a little further upon our minds. In the day when Jeremiah wept this lamentation with an exceeding loud and bitter cry, Jerusalem was in all her mirth and merriment. Jeremiah was a sad man in the midst of a multitude of merry makers; he told them that Jerusalem should be destroyed, that their temple should become a heap, and Nebuchadnezzar should lay it with the ground. They laughed him to scorn; they mocked him. Still the viol and dance were only to be seen. And now, today, here are many of you merry makers in this ball of life; ye are here merry and glad today, and ye marvel that I should talk of you as persons for whom we ought to weep. "Weep ye for No!" you say; "I am in health, I am in riches, I am enjoying life; why weep me? I need none of your sentimental weeping!" Ah, but we weep because foresee the future. Oh, if today some strong archangel could unbolt the gates hell, and for a solitary second permit the voice of wailing and weeping to come to our ears: oh, how should we grieve! Remember, again, O Christian, that those for whom we ask you to weep this day are persons who have had great; privileges, and consequently, if lost, must expect greater punishment.

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

Evangelical Preacher.
I. BECAUSE THEY ARE INFINITE BLESSINGS.

1. There are many present blessings men lose by rebellion against God. There is a "peace that passeth all understanding," and a "joy" unspeakable and full of glory, attending belief in, and devotion to, His service. The having one's passions in subjection gives serenity of mind. But enjoying of God's favour, and the light of His countenance, is the source of richest blessings mortals possess on earth. But what peace is there for the cursed?

2. But the eternal blessings they lose are beyond imagination.

3. And not these things matters of just lamentation? How must we pity him who, when there is a rest prepared, and a supper spread for him, in heaven, provokes God to swear that he "shall not enter in," nor even taste of that supper.

II. BECAUSE OF THE INFLUENCE WOES THEY ENTAIL ON THEMSELVES.

1. How inexpressibly dreadful are the torments which the wicked will endure in hell.

2. And can we view sinners hastening to that place of torment and not weep over them?

III. BECAUSE OF THE AGGRAVATED GUILT UNDER WHICH THEY PERISH. Every offer of salvation aggravates the guilt of those who reject it; and every increase of guilt is followed by increase of misery. Infer —

1. How little true charity is there in the world. Charity to the soul is the soul of charity.

2. How earnest should men be in seeking the salvation of their own souls.

(Evangelical Preacher.)

There is an anecdote told of a careless Sabbath breaker who stumbled into Mr. Sherman's chapel one Sunday evening when he was engaged in prayer. He took his stand in the aisle, and, seeing the tears rolling down the minister's cheeks and falling on the book as he was pleading for the conversion of sinners, he was aroused, and said to himself: "This man is evidently in earnest; there must be something in the condition of sinners that I do not understand." He remained, was instructed and converted, and became a useful and steady member of the congregation.

This concern was incessant with the apostle. "I have continual sorrow in my heart." The pain was unceasing. His interest in sinners was not spasmodic; it had become blessedly chronic. There are some of us who every now and then get a passing qualm of conscience and a consequent spurt in the matter, but how long does it last? It is a mere emotion, a transient feeling, a spasm that scarcely suffices to stir us for so much as a single Sabbath. Oh, that there were in the pastor's heart, and in the hearts of all his people, a breaking, a yearning that cannot be satisfied, for the salvation of London, and of all who know not Jesus! I find myself weeping, but I weep because I weep so little. I confess myself this morning grieving, but I fear my greatest grief is that I do not grieve as I should. Well, that is a hopeful beginning. Let us all get to this at least, and we shall reach the other by and by.

(Thomas Spurgeon.)

People
Jeremiah
Places
Ammon, Edom, Egypt, Gilead, Jerusalem, Moab, Zion
Topics
Broken, Cities, Den, Desolate, Desolation, Dragons, Dwelling, Dwelling-place, Habitation, Haunt, Heap, Heaps, Inhabitant, Jackals, Jerusalem, Judah, Lair, Lay, Living-place, Mass, Ruins, Stones, Towns, Waste
Outline
1. Jeremiah laments the people for their manifold sins;
9. and for their judgment.
12. Disobedience is the cause of their bitter calamity.
17. He exhorts to mourn for their destruction;
23. and to trust not in themselves, but in God.
25. He threatens both Jews and Gentiles.

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Jeremiah 9:11

     5508   ruins

Library
India's Ills and England's Sorrows
It would seem as if some men had been sent into this world for the very purpose of being the world's weepers. God's great house is thoroughly furnished with everything, everything that can express the thoughts and the emotions of the inhabitant, God hath made. I find in nature, plants to be everlasting weepers. There by the lonely brook, where the maiden cast away her life, the willow weeps for ever; and there in the grave yard where men lie slumbering till the trumpet of the archangel shall awaken
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 3: 1857

"Boast not Thyself of To-Morrow, for Thou Knowest not what a Day May Bring Forth. "
Prov. xxvii. 1.--"Boast not thyself of to-morrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth." There are some peculiar gifts that God hath given to man in his first creation, and endued his nature with, beyond other living creatures, which being rightly ordered and improved towards the right objects, do advance the soul of man to a wonderful height of happiness, that no other sublunary creature is capable of. But by reason of man's fall into sin, these are quite disordered and turned out of
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Characters and Names of Messiah
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. S uch was the triumphant exultation of the Old Testament Church! Their noblest hopes were founded upon the promise of MESSIAH; their most sublime songs were derived from the prospect of His Advent. By faith, which is the substance of things hoped for, they considered the gracious declarations
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 1

How the Simple and the Crafty are to be Admonished.
(Admonition 12.) Differently to be admonished are the simple and the insincere. The simple are to be praised for studying never to say what is false, but to be admonished to know how sometimes to be silent about what is true. For, as falsehood has always harmed him that speaks it, so sometimes the hearing of truth has done harm to some. Wherefore the Lord before His disciples, tempering His speech with silence, says, I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now (Joh. xvi. 12).
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

Original Sin
Q-16: DID ALL MANKIND FALL IN ADAM'S FIRST TRANSGRESSION? A: The covenant being made with Adam, not only for himself, but for his posterity, all mankind descending from him, by ordinary generation, sinned in him, and fell with him in his first transgression. 'By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin,' &c. Rom 5:12. Adam being a representative person, while he stood, we stood; when he fell, we fell, We sinned in Adam; so it is in the text, In whom all have sinned.' Adam was the head
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

A Sermon on Isaiah xxvi. By John Knox.
[In the Prospectus of our Publication it was stated, that one discourse, at least, would be given in each number. A strict adherence to this arrangement, however, it is found, would exclude from our pages some of the most talented discourses of our early Divines; and it is therefore deemed expedient to depart from it as occasion may require. The following Sermon will occupy two numbers, and we hope, that from its intrinsic value, its historical interest, and the illustrious name of its author, it
John Knox—The Pulpit Of The Reformation, Nos. 1, 2 and 3.

Thoughts Upon Worldly-Riches. Sect. Ii.
TIMOTHY after his Conversion to the Christian Faith, being found to be a Man of great Parts, Learning, and Piety, and so every way qualified for the work of the Ministry, St. Paul who had planted a Church at Ephesus the Metropolis or chief City of all Asia, left him to dress and propagate it, after his departure from it, giving him Power to ordain Elders or Priests, and to visit and exercise Jurisdiction over them, to see they did not teach false Doctrines, 1 Tim. i. 3. That they be unblameable in
William Beveridge—Private Thoughts Upon a Christian Life

The Knowledge of God
'The Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed.' I Sam 2:2. Glorious things are spoken of God; he transcends our thoughts, and the praises of angels. God's glory lies chiefly in his attributes, which are the several beams by which the divine nature shines forth. Among other of his orient excellencies, this is not the least, The Lord is a God of knowledge; or as the Hebrew word is, A God of knowledges.' Through the bright mirror of his own essence, he has a full idea and cognisance
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

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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