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I. First, consider that MAN IS A VERY DEPENDENT CREATURE. He is, in some respects, the most dependent creature that God has made; for the range of his wants is very wide, and at a thousand points he is dependent upon something outside of himself.

1. Man, as a living creature, is peculiarly dependent upon God as to temporals. On what a feeble thread hangs human life! Water, though it be itself unstable, is needful to the establishment of human life, and without it man expires. Many an animal can bear thirst better than man. Other creatures carry their own garments with them; but we must be indebted to a plant, or to a sheep, for the covering of our nakedness. Many other creatures are endowed with sufficient physical force to win their food in fight; but we must produce our own food from the soil. We cannot produce food from the earth without the dew and the rain. However cleverly you have prepared your soil, however carefully you have selected your seed, all will fail without the rain of heaven. Even though your corn should spring up, yet will it refuse to come to the ear if the heavens be dry. Nor can you of yourself produce a single shower, or even a drop of dew. If God withholdeth the rain, what can the husbandman do? Yes, and life itself would vanish as the food of life ceased. It would be an instructive calculation if it could be accurately wrought out — to estimate how much bread food there is at any time laid up upon the surface of the earth. If all harvests were to fail from this date; if there were no harvests in Australia during our winter, no harvests early in the year in India and the warm regions, if there were no harvests in America and in Europe, I have been informed that, by the time of our own harvest months, there would be upon the face of the earth no more food than would last us for six weeks. God does, indeed, give us bread as we need it; even as, in the wilderness, He gave the manna; but we are every hour dependent upon His generous care.

2. In spiritual things this dependence is most evident. The priceless blessings of pardon and grace: how can we procure them apart from God in Christ Jesus? So is it with the life and the power of the Spirit of God, by which we are able to receive and enjoy the blessings of the covenant; the Holy Spirit, like the wind, bloweth where He listeth, and the order of His working is with the Lord alone. The new life whereby we receive the Lord Jesus: how can it come to us but from the living God Himself?

3. Here is the pity of it: against God, upon whom we are so dependent, we have sinned, and do sin. We are dependent upon Him, and yet rebellious against Him. If pardoned, it must be by the exercise of the sovereign prerogative which is vested in Jehovah, the Lord of all, who doeth as seemeth good in His sight. Provided it can be done justly, sovereignty may step in and rescue the guilty from his doom; but this is a matter which depends upon the will of the Lord alone. If you are executed, the condemnation is so well deserved, that not a word can be said against the severity which shall carry out the sentence.

II. MEN MAY BE REDUCED TO DIRE DISTRESS. Men, being dependent upon God, may be reduced to dire distress if they disobey Him, and incur His just displeasure.

1. To proceed a little in detail with the words of my text: when the Lord causes sinners to feel the spiritual drought, pride is humbled. "Their nobles have sent their little ones to the waters." The philosopher grows into a little child, and gladly accepts the cup which aforetime he sneered at.

2. But you observe that when humbled and made thirsty, these people went to secondary causes: they came to the pits, or reservoirs. Thus souls, when they are awakened, go to fifty things before they come to God. It is sad that, in superstition, or in scepticism, they look for living streams. They try reformation of manners — I have nothing to say against it; but apart from God reformation always ends in disappointment.

3. If you read on, you will find that when they went to these secondary supplies, they were disappointed: "They came to the pits, and found no water." They thirsted to drink; but not a drop was found to cool their tongues. It is an awful thing to come home from sermon with the vessels empty; to rise from the communion table, having found no living water, and return with vessels empty. To close the Bible, and sigh, "I find no comfort here, I must return with my vessel empty." When the ordinances, and the Word yield us no grace, things have come to an awful pass with us. Do you know what this disappointment means?

4. Now upon this disappointment, there followed great confusion of mind; they became distracted; "they were ashamed and confounded." Thus have I met with many who, after going to many confidences, have been disappointed in all, and seem ready to lie down in despair, and put forth no more effort. They fear that God will never bless them, and they will never enter into life eternal; and so they sign their own death warrants. Shall I confess that I have been better pleased to see them in this condition than to hear their jovial songs at other times? It is by the gate of self-despair that men arrive at the Divine hope.

5. At last, when these people came to despair, it is very remarkable how everything about them seemed to be in unison with their misery. Listen to the third verse: "They covered their heads." Did you hear the last words of the fourth verse? They were the very same: "They covered their heads." Surely the second is the echo of the first. It is even so: earth has sympathy with man. Nature without reflects our inward feelings.

III. MAN'S ONLY SURE RESORT IS HIS GOD. "God is a refuge for us."

1. There is no help anywhere else. The very best of duties that you and I can perform, if we put our trust in them, are only false confidences, refuges of lies, and they can yield us no help.

2. Nay, look; according to the text there is no help for us even in the usual means of grace if we forget the Lord. O tried and anxious soul, the sacraments are all in vain, though they be ordained of heaven; and preaching and reading, liturgy and song, are all in vain to bring the refreshing dew of grace. Thou art lost, lost, lost if a stronger arm than man's be not stretched out to help thee!

3. But with God is all power. He is the Creator, making all things out of nothing; and He can create in thee at once the tender heart, the loving spirit, the believing mind, the sanctified nature.

4. Well, then, what follows from this? If God hath all this power, our wisdom is to wait upon Him, since He alone can help. We draw this inference: "Therefore we will wait upon Thee."

5. Do I hear somebody say, "How I would like to pray"? Yes, that is the way to come to God. Come to Him by prayer in the name of Jesus.

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

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KJV: The word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah concerning the dearth.

WEB: The word of Yahweh that came to Jeremiah concerning the drought.