The Pulpit Commentary — Jeremiah — Volume 1 — Section 97

that none but the infatuated could possibly disregard it. Now, it is the testimony of the Word of God that such blindness is judicial, is from God. God hardened Pharnoh'd heart. Onr Lord refers more often than to any other Old Testament Scripture, to that word of Isaiah's which tells of the Divine will, that "seeing, they [his enemies] may see and not perceive, and hearing, they may hear and not understand." Men who will not hear come at length to find they cannut, So with Judah and Jerusalem; they were at this time" given up to a strong delusion, that they should believe the lie "-that pence could be their lot in spite of what they were. We speak of gospel-hardened men, and, alas! we too often see such. And this is in keeping with God's law of habit -a law most beneficent to those who obey him, but terrible in its effects on the dis• obedient. For separate actions crystallize into habits, whereby such actions, no matter what their character, become easy to us,"and at last can be performed without any effort of our will. So that separate acts of obedience to God will at length become a blessed and holy habit of obedience, and separate acts of sin repeated again and auain will become a direful habit of sin, from which we cannot break away. And becaus~ all this is in accorda.nce with a Divine law, therefore God is said to harden men's hearts, to hinder their understanding of his Word, to give them over to strong delusions and, as here, to "deceive the people." II. THE CAUSE IS CLEAR. Ver. 18, "Thy way and thy doings have procured these things unto thee." It is from no decree of reprobation, from no predestination to sin, but from the inevitable action of the law of God which ordains that "ways" and "doings" such as Judah's were shall at length so utterly deceive those who are guilty of them that the most glaring falsehood is not too glaring for them to believe. III. lTs DOOM IS JUST. Is it unjust that a man shall be filled with the fruit of his own ways? that what a man soweth that he shall also reap? Holiness must become impossible if its opposite be not possible too. The same law necessitates both. It is no arbitrary infliction, but the natural outcome of what a man has been and of what he has persistently done. It is as natural as that the harvest should follow the sowing of its own seed. The most dreadful element in the sinner's doom-the worm that dieth not-will be the ever-present reflection that he. bas brought it all upon himself. He himself made the bed on which he has to lie. And if still the doom of these wicked men be objected to, as it is, we reply, remembering how it is ever the necessity of any moral condition to be seeking to assimilate its surroundings to itself, so that goodness seeks to make others good, and evil seeks to make others evil-remembering this we say, with the late Dr. Arnold, "It is better that the wicked should be destroyed a hundred times over than that they should tempt tliose who are yet innocent to join their company." And this is what they would be sure, from the very necessity which arises from what they are, to be ever seeking to accomplish. Therefore we say their doom is just. IV. THE AWAKENING AWFUL, (Ver. 9.) See the picture of dismay and despair which the prophet draws (cf. Rev. vi. 17). Self-deception, however hardened into habit by long years' use, cannot endure for ever. There will be an awakening. V. THE LESSON PLAIN. Break away at once from sin lest it coil round thee like a serpent, lest repeated transgression become links, and the links a chain which will bin,! thee so fast that thou canst not escape. Therefore break away now, turn to the Lord Jesus, invoke his aid, day by day look to him, and thou a.rt saved.-C. Ver. 14.-" 0 Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved." The loving charge of the Great Searcher of hearts. The text shows us- I. Goo INTENSELY DESIRING MAN'S SALVATION. 'l'his is evident from the pleading tone of the text. It is like the pathetic cry of the Saviour over the same Jerusalem, when her people rejected him. And this Divine distress over the sinner's rejection of salvation, or in any wise missing of it, is attested not by any one Scripture alone, but by mnny, and by a multitude of other witnesses beside. How many Divine utterances there arc which breathe the like loving concern to that well-known one which says," As I_ live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the w1ckc,l turn from his way and live" (Ezek. xxxiii. 11) I And the Divine words of love are confirmed by the supreme deed of love. "God so loved the world." Surely the remem- Lrauce of this Divine yearning for our eternal salvation should touch and sub<lue our «lH. 1v. 1-31.] THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET JEilE~lIAH. 93